[ Page 1161 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Community Involvement Program. Mr. Barnes –– 1161

Government Advertising Campaign. Mr. Hanson –– 1162

University and College Financing. Mr. Nicolson –– 1162

Development bond eligibility. Hon. Mr. Brummet replies –– 1163

Budget debate

Hon. Mr. Phillips –– 1163

Education (Interim) Finance Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill 6). Second reading.

Mr. Mitchell –– 1165

Mr. Howard –– 1166

Mr. Skelly –– 1170

Mr. Lauk –– 1174

Mr. Barnes –– 1179

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1983

The House met at 2:07 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, visiting the precincts right now are 44 senior citizens from the Prince George and District Association for Senior Citizens and with them is their very able tour director, and a senior citizen emeritus in Prince George, Mr. Al Holdner. I would ask all the Members of the Legislative Assembly to bid these people welcome.

HON. MR. CHABOT: I am pleased to introduce Mr. Gary Johnston, coach of the British Columbia junior rugby team, and Mr. Les Underwood, the team manager, both of Victoria. Yesterday the junior national team of Wales, which is perennially one of the top three rugby teams in the world, came to Victoria. The Welsh team, one of their strongest in years, capped an undefeated season by beating England, Scotland, Ireland and France, and winning the Five Nations Cup this year. Last night Team B.C., coached by Gary and Les, outplayed the Welsh junior national rugby team, scored two tries and won 16-13. This is the first time in Canadian rugby history that any Canadian team has beaten a Welsh national team.

We also have in the gallery John A. Stothart from sport and recreation in my ministry, who is chef de mission for the winning team in western Canada, Team B.C. '83, in Calgary recently. I would like the House to welcome him.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce to the House today a gentleman whom I fully expect to be our next member for Nanaimo, Mr. Graham Alce.

MR. R. FRASER: In your gallery today, Mr. Speaker, is a young man who sees the future of B.C. coming on strong and who is working toward it. Not only has he worked in the great riding of Vancouver South in the past couple of weeks, but he is the president of the Young Socreds. Would the House please welcome Mr. Franco Trasolini.

MR. MOWAT: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery this afternoon we have three children of one of our research staff, Zonzabell Sather: Marni, Jodi and Ryan. Would the House welcome them, please.

Oral Questions

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT PROGRAM

MR. BARNES: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Human Resources. Pardon me, I don't have my glasses and I do have trouble seeing. I broke them and can't afford to get a new set.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. BARNES: It's really the truth.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You should use more discretion in where you spend your money.

MR. BARNES: I'll deal with you later.

The minister must now be aware of the pain and hurt she has caused by cancelling the community involvement program, striking a serious blow against disabled people in the community. Is the minister now prepared to listen to members of this House and members of the community who have urged the government to reinstate funding for this valuable and necessary program?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, may I say — and not to take away from the seriousness of the question at all — that I didn't think the members in the House needed glasses to ask a question.

[2:15]

Responding to the question, the community involvement program has been a subject of great concern to all members of this House. It covers 2,500 people in the province who receive $50 extra above and beyond their income assistance. Of those 2,500, I am told that approximately 1,500 are handicapped — not all of them are in the designation of handicapped. I want to make that clear so that those members in this House would not portray incorrect information in this regard. Many of those in the program — as was stated last week — will be continued on the program until their agreements expire. The program does expire on today's date for all of those who are not covered by an agreement that is being extended.

The government is very concerned about every person in the province who requires extra help, Mr. Speaker. We have been listening. We will continue to listen to those people who have a genuine concern. All I can say to the member is that because of the problems we have had in the province trying to retain the core programs of our ministry — assistance to the infant development program, the retention of Pharmacare, keeping of most of the family and children's services and the SAFER program, and keeping intact all of the help for those who come to us in need of income assistance — we have had to diminish a few of the most recent services of our ministry.

However, our ministry is looking at it. We are receiving information from all members of the House, and I can in all sincerity assure the member who has asked the question that we are very conscious of the concerns expressed. I thank you for bringing them to our attention. I pledge to you it will be my first priority to restore when the opportunity and the dollars make that possible.

MR. BARNES: I appreciate the quite long explanation of why the minister is recognizing the needs in this field for the community involvement program. I won't use notes this time. I'd just like to ask the minister: has she responded to any of the requests on behalf of the people in the community involvement programs to discuss the impact it is having on them, and is she prepared to consider reinstating that program and apologizing to those people for having caused them serious inconvenience and anxiety as a result of her rather precipitous, unilateral decision to withdraw the program without planning, consultation or any attempt to find out the dire consequences of this act?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I won't respond to the argumentative portion of the question, but the answer to the first part is yes.

[ Page 1162 ]

GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN

MR. HANSON: I'd like to direct a question to the Provincial Secretary regarding the fireside chats to be aired on television at taxpayers' expense. A week ago I asked the Provincial Secretary to advise the House of the details on the Premier's advertising blitz that he announced two weeks ago. The Provincial Secretary declined knowledge of that and took it as notice. Since that time he has been making statements outside this Legislature to the press confirming that a program is in place and that production is to take place with Jem Productions. I'd like to ask the Provincial Secretary: what are the details of this program, which is the real top priority of this government — advertising itself at taxpayers' expense?

HON. MR. CHABOT: First, I might say that recently we had a by-election in Mission–Port Moody. The NDP campaigned against our restraint program and were defeated, which suggests to me that we have strong support for our restraint programs here in British Columbia. Under the circumstances, because of the strong endorsation we have from the people of British Columbia, maybe we should review the need for an advertising campaign.

MR. HANSON: I have a supplementary. If the endorsement is so strong in that minister's mind, clearly you don't have a mandate to spend taxpayers' money on that campaign. As a minister of the Crown, the minister has an obligation to be forthright with this House. If you hold this House in contempt....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, this is question period. I expect a question now.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, this minister has an obligation to provide this House with the details of the program that he is so willing to advertise outside this House. Will the provincial government spend taxpayers' money employing David Brown of Jem Productions to produce television ads to be shown on the major networks in the ad campaign? It's a very simple and straightforward question.

HON. MR. CHABOT: I take exception to being lectured by that junior member for Victoria. I want to say that the information that he suggested I related outside this chamber to the media is erroneous. At no time have I ever suggested that Jem Productions had been engaged for an advertising campaign, for fireside chats or chats of any other description. And I want to recommend to that junior member that he look at the estimates of this House. Look at the budget that's been presented in this House and look at the estimates that are contained within the Provincial Secretary and Ministry of Government Services votes, and you'll see whether we have a mandate or not to expend money for advertising.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, on a supplementary to the same minister, last week we addressed a question to the president of Treasury Board. He indicated that no allocation of or proposal for the expenditure of funds had come before Treasury Board. However, if it were to come before....

HON. MR. WATERLAND: On a point of order, I understand that we are engaged in question period. I'm getting a little bit sick of sitting here listening to that member make mini-speeches rather than ask questions of the members of this government.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. The Chair will undertake to have the rules of question period adhered to. The first member for Victoria, and the question is?

MR. HANSON: My question is: how many taxpayers' dollars are going to be spent on this advertising campaign to be developed by Doug Heal, who works for the Provincial Secretary? How many taxpayers' dollars are going to be expended, and what are the guidelines on that project?

HON. MR. CHABOT: Just look at the estimates of the Ministry of the Provincial Secretary and Government Services. I think there is a vote there that relates to the specific question that he's now asking, and if he'll look at it he'll get some answers. He won't get an answer vis-à-vis this particular program. That part of the question I'm prepared to take as notice.

You recognize that this House allocates certain funds to different government ministries to expend. You'll have ample opportunity to ask questions in that regard in due course. If you don't continue to delay the House, as you people have for the last two months, maybe we'll get to the estimates, at which time you'll have an opportunity to examine in detail every proposed expenditure of government in this fiscal year.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, is the Provincial Secretary telling this House that Doug Heal has the authority to spend $18 million to prop up the sagging image of this government around the budget and legislative programs? Is that what you're telling this House?

HON. MR. CHABOT: Well, the answer is no. I think the image of this government has been propped up by recent events in Mission–Port Moody.

MR. HANSON: On a final supplementary to the minister, will the minister advise this House whether McKim Advertising has been appointed as the agent of record to coordinate the booking of time on this particular project?

HON. MR. CHABOT: I'll take that question as notice.

UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE FINANCING

MR. NICOLSON: I have a question for the Minister of Education. Since college and university loans officers are unable to advise students about their eligibility for student assistance because of cutbacks in government support for the program and also because of changes in regulations, has the minister decided to end the uncertainty and reconsider the decisions he has made since the last election to slash, cut and redefine the program?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The answer is no.

MR. NICOLSON: Then why has the government and the minister decided that fully qualified students of demonstrated need will be denied access to student assistance?

[ Page 1163 ]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: If the member is prepared to deliver to me the facts on the particular case to which he has referred, I'd be quite prepared to assist him.

MR. NICOLSON: That's very nice to hear. We'll make him the super loans official of the province.

I'd also like to ask him why it is that students who are awaiting a ruling from the education bureaucracy on their eligibility are forced to borrow while waiting for decisions to be made. Decisions would normally have been made by the end of July, and now most students won't know about their eligibility until the middle of October. Can the minister confirm that a student who borrows more than $600 from his parents to survive this waiting period will by that act of borrowing be ruled ineligible for student assistance?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I cannot specifically answer that question, but it seems to me that the first portion of the loan, up to around $3,300, is available from the federal government. With respect to the other portion, the grant portion, I'd be prepared to look into that particular matter that the member has raised. But it seems to me that moneys up to $3,300 are available for the first portion of the program.

MR. NICOLSON: Can the minister also confirm that a student who has transferred ownership of his motor vehicle to his parent becomes eligible for less assistance, but if he receives a motor vehicle from his parents he becomes eligible for more assistance under the minister's new program?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: It seems to me that student aid is just that — aid to those who require some assistance. If somebody is driving a machine worth $8,000 to $12,000, which is more often the case than not, and somebody is prepared to make a gift of a car, then I can understand. If the member will give me a specific set of facts, I would be quite prepared to lend some assistance.

DEVELOPMENT BOND ELIGIBILITY

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to a question. On July 27 the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) asked concerning the people who received layoff notice in the Ministry of Environment effective July 31: whether that date would affect their eligibility to receive the development bond that had been negotiated. I am able to confirm that it does not affect their eligibility; they will remain eligible.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: I ask leave to proceed to resolutions Mr. Speaker.

MR. HOWARD: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The point I want to make, particularly in light of the exhortation of the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot) a moment ago dealing with the budget, is that the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations is not, I submit, entitled to ask the House for leave to go to any other business of the House; he must deal with Committee of Supply. I draw Your Honour's attention to a decision this House made on July 6, a House order, a special order that I submit overrides the other provisions of the rules, which says that the House will take into account the question of committee to consider the supply to be granted to Her Majesty, and that this order will have precedence over all other business except interim supply and introduction of bills until disposed of. For the minister to keep attempting to put Committee of Supply or resumption of the budget debate into the background, particularly inasmuch as that's a preliminary to getting into the estimates.... I submit that he's completely out of order in doing that, and that the only thing he's entitled to call is a resumption of the debate on the budget.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, had that been....

HON. MR. GARDOM: That's just a lot of words and no facts, Mr. Speaker.

I ask for leave to proceed to resolutions.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, first of all, on the point of order raised by the member for Skeena (Mr. Howard), the Chair rules that the government may indeed ask for leave, as has been the case in many instances in this House, and certainly during the last 20-odd days known to the Chair. While hon. members may wish it differently, the Chair must go by the rules that bind us.

Shall leave be granted?

Leave not granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I call Committee of Supply.

ON THE BUDGET

(continued debate)

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Speaker, I move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS –– 31

NAYS — 20

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

[ Page 1164 ]

MR. SPEAKER: On another point of order, the member for Skeena.

MR. HOWARD: My point of order relates to the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) and standing order 8. I point out to you that the Minister of Finance came in for the division but was absent all through question period, deliberately staying out of the House because he wanted to refuse the opportunity....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, when the Chair repeatedly calls for order, it is only right for the member speaking to cease speaking and take his place.

On the point of order raised by the member, the Chair has no power whatsoever to call members into this House. It has been ruled on numerous occasions that that is the case. Members from both sides of the House repeatedly try to take their place in debate by abusing the rules of the House and using section 8 for purposes other than those for which it was intended. I would ask all members to bear in mind that the rules bind us all. On that note, the order of business....

The member for Skeena seeks the floor again.

MR. HOWARD: With the leave of the House, could I move that it be entered in the Journals that the Minister of Finance ducked...

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. HOWARD: ...question period deliberately? If I could have leave I would move that motion.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, as you know, at this stage a member cannot even seek leave to make a motion, let alone.... I'm sure that upon reflection the member will realize that he has erred in making that assumption.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, I understand that there is a provision in the standing orders that requires members to attend a vote in the House. I point out that the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) did attend during question period but absented himself during the division that was held.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, may we return to the business of the day?

HON. MR. GARDOM: With the hope that we can, Mr. Speaker, I would like to call Resolution 29.

MR. LAUK: On a point of order, the resolution of this House was clear and unopposed: that the resolution to be debated and taking precedence over all other business before the House is that the Speaker leave the Chair, and that we consider the budget speech. That has not been completed. It is now August 31.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. Clearly the Chair has just disposed of that very same matter.

MR. LAUK: All right. That's not the point. I'm leading up to the point — I hope without some interruption — that this precedence motion, having been adjourned to the next sitting of the House by the last vote taken, leaves the House no alternative but to adjourn the House until the next sitting when that precedence motion can then be debated.

HON. MR. GARDOM: You want the day off! You've got a golf game.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, clearly at this point the member is stretching the credibility of his position by bringing such a point of order before the House.

MR. LAUK: Then what does a precedence motion mean, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, the Chair listens very carefully to points of order in the hope that they will at least have some semblance of credibility. The Chair finds no such semblance in the point raised.

MR. LAUK: Well, I respectfully disagree with the Chair. I'm raising a serious precedence motion.

MR. SPEAKER: You're entitled to disagree, hon. member, but the rule of the House will be that the Chairman or the Speaker will conduct this meeting.

MR. LAUK: The second point of my point of order, Mr. Speaker, is that Wednesdays are private members' days. The hon. House Leader, after having adjourned the precedence motion, must now proceed to private bills. Public bills and orders only follow private bills on Wednesdays. Either we're going to have order according to the standing orders, or we're not. Let's make up our minds.

MR. SPEAKER: On the same point of order, the government House Leader.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Oh, yes, Mr. Speaker, I'm more than delighted to ask leave of the House, which I'm sure will be given, to proceed to Resolution 29 to appoint a committee to do a job.

MR. LAUK: That's not my point of order.

MR. BARRETT: Why don't you let the Whips know what's going on?

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, if only we would have had some kind of communication through the normal channels instead...

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order!

MR. HOWARD: ...of a destruction of those normal channels.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, I would hope that at this time we do not engage in a discussion on the organization, which is clearly not the business of the House, but must be conveyed elsewhere.

[ Page 1165 ]

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I think Your Honour clearly sees that because the government has destroyed the normal communicating mechanism....

Interjections.

MR. HOWARD: You see the difficulty that Your Honour and the House finds itself in. All I'm trying to suggest is that if the normal communication would have been open and there had been some advice as to what was required, it could have been dealt with very expeditiously.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, hon. members. That is not the business of the House. The member for Nelson-Creston seeks the floor.

MR. NICOLSON: On the point of order raised by my colleague from Vancouver Centre, Mr. Speaker, have we had a ruling as to whether...? Is today not Wednesday?

MR. SPEAKER: I so ruled.

MR. NICOLSON: All right. I see there is some basis for agreement in this House now, Mr. Speaker. There is one point upon which we can be agreed: that being Wednesday.

On page 7, under standing order 25, it is a private members' day. If it isn't, I would refer you to standing order 9, which says: "Mr. Speaker shall preserve order and decorum and shall decide questions of order, subject to an appeal to the House without debate. In explaining a point of order or practice, he shall state the standing order or authority applicable in the case." The member for Vancouver Centre has brought to your attention that today is private members' day. If that is not the case, I would request under standing order 9 that some citation be given for the guidance of this House.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the motion before the House at this time is clearly for leave to go to Motion 29, and that leave not being given, we then go to the next....

[2:45]

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, Hon. members, before us at this time is the question of leave to proceed to Motion 29.

MR. HOWARD: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated earlier, if only the normal communication had been available we wouldn't have had to go through this, and the minister would have obtained leave without any difficulty.

MR. SPEAKER: Shall leave be granted?

Leave not granted.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, we cannot argue on the one hand about something that we must try to execute outside this House in the way of arrangements for the smooth operation of business if on the other hand members of one particular side of the House are not prepared to cooperate, nor would the other. We can't have it both ways.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, the reason for my concern is that it's August 31, 1983, and still this province does not have a budget. This government is delaying its own business.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The hon. member has made his position clear by voicing a no.

I now go back to the House Leader.

HON. MR. GARDOM: He's not the only member of the official opposition to practise obstruction throughout this whole session, I want to tell you that right now.

Interjections.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 6, Mr. Speaker.

MR. HOWARD: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, in the hubbub of that moment we did not hear what bill the government House Leader said was being called.

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 6, hon. members.

EDUCATION (INTERIM) FINANCE
AMENDMENT ACT, 1993

(continued)

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, I seek the floor to speak on Bill 6.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, I believe you have already so done.

MR. LEA: Did I not adjourn?

MR. SPEAKER: A good question.

The member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew adjourned the debate on Bill 6.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to thank you for saving me from my own members who are trying to push me out of my rightful place.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

It's important that we get on to a bill like education, on which I spoke in generalities in a previous debate. We should get back to where this particular bill fits into the budget speech. I know the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot) will agree that we have tried to bring some order into this House. We have tried to bring some ordinary parliamentary reasoning so that we can debate according to traditions set up by past parliaments and legislatures in this building. I think it's disgraceful. Again I say, not only to you, Mr. Speaker, but also to those in the galleries — to whom I know I can't refer — who come here and expect to see the people whom they have elected debate the bills before this House.

This bill is part of the budget package that was brought into the House on the day the budget came down. We haven't had a chance to complete the budget debate, to vote on the budget or study the estimates that precede this bill. This bill we are debating today — Bill 6 — is part and parcel of the Minister of Education's (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) estimates. We should have an opportunity to question what direction that

[ Page 1166 ]

minister is going to take; he's not even in the House today and we are debating a bill that is going to affect his ministry. The House will not bring any reason, procedure or point of discussion....

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: On a point or order, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that you bring the member to order and ask him to speak to the legislation presently before the House and not on the breakdown in communication between Whips, for which the NDP is responsible.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That point of order is well taken. The member has just three minutes remaining in his speech, and I will ask him to speak to the bill and not to other matters — Bill 6, the Education (Interim) Finance Amendment Act, 1983.

MR. MITCHELL: In summing up my concerns on this bill, I think that we should look at what the principle of the bill does. The principle of the bill is part of the principle of parliament, and this parliament, this Legislature, is attempting by this bill to take away from those who were elected in their school districts — by my constituents and your constituents, who have chosen people from all walks of life to set up and regulate the type of schooling, courses and direction their particular communities need.... This government, with their heavy-handed centralization.... That's all I can call it, Mr. Speaker; it's their desire to completely centralize everything in Victoria — the debate on and the direction of the programs elected school districts are trying to establish for their communities. In speaking against this particular bill, I find it completely disgusting — and that's the only thing I can say, as one who was chosen by my constituents to represent them in this parliament — that even when we're discussing a bill of this importance the Minister of Education has not had the decency to tee up with the House Leader that he would be here to listen to our concerns, to the particular issues and points of order we have brought up, to why we are opposing this bill and why we in the opposition do not believe that this government has the total right to centralize everything in Victoria. We don't want this to be the year 1984, in which all the decisions will come out of a computer located in this area. This is what the Minister of Education has said when he has spoken: that the budgets from every school district will be put into the computer.

I see that my red light is on, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to thank you for saving me and giving me my last few minutes in this debate.

MR. HOWARD: To close the debate, Mr. Speaker, I....

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Chair recognizes the member for Skeena on Bill 6. Another minister could close debate on it, but I presume the member wants to speak.

MR. HOWARD: I heard the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom) saying he'd gladly close any opportunity. He closed off communication between the Whips.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member will come to order immediately. Does the member wish to speak to the bill?

MR. HOWARD: That's why I'm standing, Mr. Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please proceed on Bill 6.

MR. HOWARD: I was going to, when I had the interruption from the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations. I will submit, with all due respect, Your Honour, that the first comment of the Chair should have been about the interruption of the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations. He knows the rules as well as I do — in fact, better than anybody in this House, although he doesn't exhibit that very often.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: To the bill, please.

MR. HOWARD: Now, with respect to the bill, it's improperly named. It's founded upon....

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD: Gee, you missed your chance to close the debate, Jack. If you hadn't been absent.... If only the Minister of Education had been here.

This bill seeks to amend a statute called the Education (Interim) Finance Act, which was assented to a little over a year ago. When the bill was introduced more than a year ago, prior to the election, the then minister — and I know that cabinet solidarity means that when a minister speaks, he speaks on behalf of the cabinet; a subsequent minister can't absolve himself from those declarations and those intents — affirmed clearly in this House that it was an interim measure. It was just for a short period of time to get over what the government identified then as a difficult situation.

Members in the House probably quite honestly believed that the minister was stating for all time that yes, it was a temporary and an interim measure. Now we see before us an amendment which removes the interim aspect, the temporary aspect of the act itself. In fact, the explanatory note to section 2 is very simple and uncomplicated — a four-word statement that says it repeals the sunset provision. The sunset provision found, I believe, in section 61 of the act, says: "This act is repealed on December 31, 1984." That was the interim commitment, or the commitment of an interim nature made about an interim piece of legislation that this House, prior to its dissolution, prior to the calling of the election, took as gospel. School boards in my own constituency took it as such. I'm sure anybody in the House who has been a member of a school board and active therein, and thereby who still might have communication with current school boards, took as gospel that it was an interim piece of legislation, and that school boards and school budgets were going to be impacted upon by the government for only a very short period of time.

[3:00]

That very short period of time was to have expired on December 31, 1984. Even though a year ago some school districts complained — and legitimately so — about the intrusion into their basic rights, as elected representatives of people, to manage school districts, they accepted it on the basis that the commitment from the government was such that they had to live with it for only a short period of time. Now we find that this was a false statement made in this House; that

[ Page 1167 ]

the commitment by the government of the day and the minister of the day has subsequently proven to be nothing more than hot air or puffery. It is gone. This is no longer an interim finance measure. It's a permanent finance measure even though the word "interim" is contained in the title.

I submit that the word "interim" is retained in the title because it reflects the general attitude of this government — a government which always seeks to deceive; a government, not a minister, which seeks to deceive the general public into believing something is so when it is not in fact so. The mere maintenance of the word "interim" indicates that this is still an interim measure, yet within the body of the bill there is no reference whatever to its being any more interim or temporary than any other piece of legislation. Having maintained the misleading reference "interim" in the title of the bill, the government could have altered the provisions of section 61 of the act. Instead of repealing it completely, they could have put in another date — maybe December 31, 1985. If they concluded after examination that 1984 was not really an appropriate date to have the act collapse and die — or be repealed, as the act said — and they had come in with some other date, then they would have been fully justified in maintaining the word "interim" in the title. But I submit that without that, the word "interim" has no business being in there, except for propaganda and misleading purposes.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would remind the hon. member that the innuendos are becoming unparliamentary, and they could apply to another hon. member of this House. Further, ample time will be given during the committee stage of a bill to discuss the title of a bill, and I am sure the hon. member is aware of that.

MR. HOWARD: I'm discussing the principle of the bill, Mr. Speaker. I am not, through directness, indirectness or innuendo, seeking to cast any aspersions against any member of the government. I'm talking about the whole government as a total entity.

I maintain that the word "interim" retained in the bill is contrary to the principle of the bill, because the principle encompasses permanency and foreverness within it for an indeterminate period of time. It's an indefinite sentence levied against school boards. And yes, if we ever get to the committee stage of the bill, we may have an opportunity to deal in more detail with that word "interim." But I maintain that putting the word "interim" in the title of the bill is completely contrary to one of the principles of the bill, which is permanency.

The bill also seeks to control — although there's a euphemism in there — school boards in their activities and to lay the heavy, centralized, authoritarian hand of government on every school board in this province. It says to every school board: "You will do what you are told — or else!"

We can't discuss this bill in the context of the control it seeks over school boards without reference to something else which is before this House. That is that in addition to this the government wants to have the authority to put school board members in jail if they don't do what they're told by this government — not through an order-in-council but by a directive. A directive can simply be a telephone call from the minister, or maybe the deputy minister. A directive can simply be a letter ordering a school board to do something, and if the school board in its conscience and its commitment to its contractual obligations finds that it's in a catch-22 situation — damned if it does and damned if it doesn't; no matter what they do it's wrong — then they are subjected by another desire on the part of this government to being fined $2,000. If they don't pay the fine, they're liable to end up in jail.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, there is no reference whatsoever in Bill 6 to any of the elements to which the member has referred. That is the piece of legislation which is before the House at this time. I think the hon. member is referring to another bill.

If we're talking about the principle of the bill before the House, I would respectfully suggest that the comments ought to adhere to that bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point of order raised by the Minister of Education is quite valid. The member for Skeena has now referred to another bill. Clearly this offends the rule of anticipation.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, if the minister had been listening to what I said, instead of star gazing or whatever he's doing, he would have heard from the outset that that's what I mentioned. One of the principles in this bill is authoritarian, centralized, Victoria-based control over school boards. I was seeking to draw a comparison with additional controls which the government wants to impose upon duly elected school board members who are responsible to the people who elect them. That principle is wrong, whether it is in this bill or any of the other bills that the government brought forth on budget day or since budget day. All contain the same principle that the great father in Victoria knows best, regardless of what responsible, democratically elected school board members feel is their responsibility.

I can imagine the howl that would go up on the part of this government if the federal government, another level of government, had the temerity even to suggest that it had the right to control what a duly elected legislature does.

I would be one of those to decry that as well, if that occurred, even though there is provision in the constitution. I think it is an offensive provision, and I didn't see this government during the constitutional debate seek to take that out; they went along with it. Even though that provision is in there I think this Legislature would rise up unanimously and object to an intrusion into our jurisdiction if the federal government sought to do that.

This government sees no problem in exerting that same kind of interference and intrusion with respect to school boards. That's the element of control that is involved.

When the Attorney-General was the Minister of Education he made a commitment to this Legislature that the School Act — and this bill deals with the School Act in an indirect way — would be the subject of a major revision presented to the Legislature within a year. Now the Attorney-General was not Minister of Education very long, but he was reflecting government policy to overhaul and revise and modernize the School Act and bring it before this Legislature.

That hasn't happened. That assurance, that commitment has been washed aside in this present government's insane desire to run everything in this province from Victoria and in its desire to be the big bully with respect to democratically elected bodies like municipalities, like hospital boards, voluntary organizations of that nature, and like school boards. The bill is offensive in that regard.

[ Page 1168 ]

Earlier I had mentioned that there is a euphemism used by the government — not "interim," which we have dealt with at some length. For some reason or other it shows up again that the government says one thing when in fact it seeks to do something else. Reference has been made in this chamber from time to time, not only during this session but in previous sessions and in previous parliaments and under previous premiers, to the thoughts expressed by people in other parts of the world who espouse the political ideal of fascism. One of the underlying facts about the fascist movement throughout the world, and one of the identifying features of it, is that it says one thing couched in acceptable "motherhood type of language," when in fact it seeks to do something else. That is what "interim" does. "Interim" is one of those nice words, suggesting it is only temporary, when in fact the ideal is to have this as permanent.

The same provision and same thought applies with respect to "control" and "supervise." The explanatory note to the bill says: "One of the other principles of the bill is to give the minister powers to supervise budgets and expenditures by school districts." " Supervise" and " control," " supervise" and "domination," "supervise" and "centralized power" have different meanings. What the minister is seeking with this bill is an absolute, authoritarian control over school boards and their budgets.

"Supervise" is a baloney word, just put in there as a sop to the writers or to be able to drag it out and say: "Oh, no, we only want to supervise things. We just want to make sure it is going in a proper direction" — when, in fact, it seeks to control.

[3:15]

I think section 1 of the Education (Interim) Finance Amendment Act is worth looking at, because this bill is affected by that particular section. The bill seeks to control school boards with respect to their budgets, or any portion of them. It seeks to make it a permanent feature of government activities. It seeks, therefore, on a permanent basis — forever — to declare that certain sections of the School Act have no force and effect. It seeks to go further than what the few words in this bill say. This bill seeks to make permanent that sections 181 to 183 of the School Act have no effect; that they are null and void; that whatever powers and authorities existed under those provisions — sections 181, 182 and 183 — are no longer valid; that they are repealed, wiped out, gone. It seeks to make that a permanent feature of the law of this province.

This bill seeks, indirectly, to amend the School Act. If the provision — and I mentioned this earlier — of section 2, which repeals the interim feature of the interim School Act had another date in it, one might have an argument to say: "Well, it's still interim." But when that is repealed, when that's gone, when this is a forever piece of legislation, also forever sections 181, 182 and 183 of the School Act are null and void and have no effect. They are gone.

Section 185 of the School Act is gone, no longer in effect, invalid, repealed, wiped out, cancelled — whatever word one wants to use. They are gone forever. Section 186 is gone. Section 187 is gone. Section 188 is gone; 189, gone; 190, gone; 193, gone forever as well. Section 194 is wiped out and gone forever under the provisions of this bill before us. Section 196 — that is gone forever, has no effect. Section 197 also has no effect — forever. Section 198 likewise is gone completely from the School Act.

I submit to you that if the minister and this government wanted to make amendments to the School Act, then they should have brought in a bill to that effect. They should have been upfront about it. They should have fully disclosed their intentions and not have been Machiavellian, manipulative and manoeuvring about their intentions.

Section 198 is also gone. Section 199 is gone forever. I'm reciting these one after the other to try to make the point that the government is seeking — indirectly and without public disclosure, really, of what it's doing, because it doesn't say anything about this in the bill, although that's the effect of it — to amend, or to repeal and declare as having no validity and no effect, section after section after section of the School Act. Section 200 as well — that no longer has an effect, on a permanent basis. Section 201 has no effect any longer — on a permanent, forever basis. Section 202 no longer has any effect on a permanent basis, forever. Section 203 — that too has been wiped out by the simplicity of this bill before us that says one of the principles of the bill is to give "the minister powers to supervise budgets." That, Mr. Speaker, is an explanatory note. If one were to describe that explanatory note accurately, every rule book in the House would be brought forward to declare the identification as being unparliamentary. But that's precisely what it does. It has a subtlety, or a subterfuge, in it. They are not powers to supervise or powers to control, but they are also seeking....

Where did I stop — section 203? They're also seeking to wipe out section 204 of the School Act on a permanent basis; and section 205 on a permanent basis; and section 206 forever, on a permanent basis. Is that an interim piece of legislation? Section 207 and, finally, in that grouping, section 208 as well are gone; in addition to that, sections 210 and 211. I haven't counted them up, but you can see that there are quite a number of provisions of the School Act that have now been declared permanently invalid. School boards no longer have the legislative authority to operate under any of those sections. When the act was brought into this House a year ago by the previous minister, a great commitment was made that it was only interim, that it was only necessary to push these sections of the School Act to one side for a short period of time. Now they're pushed aside forever. It's the minister's desire to not only control the activities of school boards but also deny — by the back door — the historic rights and opportunities that school boards have had under certain provisions of the School Act. That should not be permitted, Mr. Speaker, in a legislative chamber which prides itself...and from a government that says it is an open government, that it discloses to the people everything it intends to do.

When the minister made his opening remarks he didn't say anything at all about the sections I enumerated being repealed and having no more effect. He hid that information from public view — or maybe he lost his notes. Maybe he had a note about it and, with his usual ability, wasn't able to find the note to see what, in fact, it was that he was doing or what was being done.

Let me say a word about the minister's comments, now that I've referred to his opening remarks on this particular bill. On page 627 of Hansard, he said: In 1976" — he's talking about the cost of education — "the total bill was in the order of about $910 million." That's a large amount of money. "In 1983 the total budget is approximately $1.9 billion. That's a staggering increase over a period of seven

[ Page 1169 ]

fiscal years. We have only have to examine one uncomplicated aspect of fiscal life in this province that is that the Social Credit government was the government of this province continuously over that seven-fiscal-year period. The minister sought to editorialize and to give an exaggerated aspect to those figures that, I submit, is not there. I don't say that unkindly, Mr. Speaker, but the use of the word.... I'll read that sentence again: "That's a staggering increase...." I submit that the use of the word "staggering" was designed for editorializing purposes. It was not an objective analysis of the movement in costs of education. That turns out to be an average increase over the seven-year period of 7 percent per year — seven years, a 48 percent alteration; a little under 7 percent per year.

In those years the rate of inflation was consistently above that. The rate of public spending on matters other than education increased at a fabulous rate. Take the first two years the Ministry of Finance was held by the present minister — that was only four years ago. He brought budget increases into this House which totalled 40 percent. If, as the minister said, there is a staggering increase in expenditures — as the minister said with respect to education — how would he classify the government squandering and spending binge that went on over that two-year period when the present Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) increased expenditures by 40 percent? How would he classify the percentage increase in public spending when...? Ever since this Minister of Finance has been the Minister of Finance — this is his fourth budget from the time of his first budget until the introduction of the budget that has now been put in limbo.... This government and this Minister of Education took part in it in the inner meetings of cabinet and endorsed the whole thing. In that four-year period this Minister of Finance has increased public spending, and has reached into the taxpayer's pocket and yarded out hundreds of millions of dollars, resulting in increased government expenditure of more than 85 percent, which is more than 21 percent per year. But the minister says that an average increase of 7 percent in educational finance is "staggering." I submit to you that that word was tossed in there without the minister's knowing the full intent of it. It also shows that education has been starved in this province in order that a real staggering increase, namely that 85 percent increase in government spending over the last four years — in order that the funds acquired by excessive taxation could go somewhere other than into education. Education has been the poor boy in budgetary activities. Education has been denied proper funding — for some other purposes. What other purposes? Perhaps the Minister of Education could point out to the House how he, who earlier was Minister of Municipal Affairs and Minister of Labour, could participate in a cabinet that saw such a staggering — and I use the word in its real sense — increase in government squandering of public funds over a four-year period, and can now sit quietly by and decry the fact that the increase has only been 7 percent per year since 1976.

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I hear mutterings, which I think it would probably be best to ignore.

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD: They've come awake, these silent, sleeping back-benchers who don't want to get into the debate and talk about anything. They just want to chatter from their seats and interrupt people. They're not interested in truthful declarations. Can you see them shake their heads, Mr. Speaker?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The House will come to order, please.

MR. HOWARD: Please protect me from these people, Mr. Speaker

One other quotation from the Minister of Education....

Interjection.

[3:30]

MR. HOWARD: Now he's interrupting again.

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD: Well, figures don't lie, Mr. Minister. You know the reverse of that statement, and you're adept at it as well.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I ask the minister to come to order. He'll have ample opportunity to reply. The member will address the bill and please stay in order himself.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, you will notice that no reference was made as to whether or not I was in order until back-benchers and government members started chattering. We're getting to them. The truth of this matter is getting to them.

On page 628, in his introductory remarks to this bill, the minister talked about taxation and budgetary increases. Listen to this carefully. I don't know whether the minister was misquoted or he picked up the wrong note or got the wrong figure or somebody gave him incorrect and false information which he unwittingly relayed to the House. He said: "It seems to me, with a budget in the area of a 7 percent increase in what we have introduced...." Where did that 7 percent increase come from? Even the Minister of Finance, who made a most conservative and confined estimate of the realities, said in his budget speech that the increase is 12.3 percent. Yet the minister said: "It seems to me, with a budget" — I assume he's talking about the budget introduced on May 7 — "in the area of a 7 percent increase in what we have introduced, it has worked reasonably well." He talks about a whole bunch of other things: they don't want to take funds away from education. Does he mean a 7 percent increase in the total budget? The Minister of Finance said it is 12.3 percent. The Minister of Finance is wrong, because he fudged the figures; he restated the figures from 1982-83 and put those restated figures in the current budget — and it says so in the budget — to show a fictitious 12.3 percent increase, when in reality the budget increase this year over last year — compare both budgets — was 16.7 percent. So what's this 7 percent the minister is talking about? Is it a 7 percent increase in the budget of the Ministry of Education? Is that what he's saying?

Interjection.

[ Page 1170 ]

MR. HOWARD: He has said "right."

If he was referring to the Ministry of Education — and a lawyer would know this; the minister is, I know, a learned gentleman — then the statement should have been qualified to say a 7 percent increase in the education budget. But that is not what he said. Take a 7 percent increase in the education budget, compared with a 12.3 percent increase in the total budget as announced by the minister, and — using the Minister of Finance's figures, which I say are erroneous; I don't want to exaggerate the point — you find a 7 percent increase this year in the education budget, and a 12.3 percent increase in other things. How is it possible then that the Minister of Education can be in this House with pleasantness and accept that kind of authority? Doesn't he fight for education in the confines of the cabinet room? Doesn't he stand up to other people in this cabinet who are getting the lion's share of taxpayers' money? Doesn't the minister declare his own interest in education? Is he intent on starving education in this province? It seems that this is the case.

In any event, he will have an opportunity. He would have had an opportunity earlier to close the debate, but I looked around and he wasn't here. I don't know where he was.

AN HON. MEMBER: He's here now. Why don't you sit down?

MR. HOWARD: You see? There they are, not interested in getting into the debate themselves, just yapping away like hyenas in the background. Mr. Speaker, please draw the government back-benchers to order. They're intruding upon the ordinary flow of my comments in this particular debate.

I have one other thought to express about this particular bill before my time expires, and it relates to a provision which school trustees find, generally speaking, rather offensive. That is the provision which says the minister can control the budget or a portion of the budget. I'm sure government members had an opportunity to meet with the representatives of the B.C. School Trustees' Association.

I see that my time has expired, Mr. Speaker, and on that I'm sure I'll get applause from hon. members opposite who don't want to listen to the truth. Thank you for your attention, for your interruptions, your inanities and support for a piece of legislation which is centralizing and authoritarian, and which is misleading all the way across. You've got lots of support among your back-benchers.

MR. SKELLY: I'd like to congratulate the first person who spoke on this bill and did a very good job. As the Speaker will probably know, the opposition intends to vote against this bill, which we feel dangerously centralizes authority over school districts and education financing in our province into the hands of one minister. While we're fairly sympathetic with this minister, he may not be the Minister of Education for all time. In fact, he will probably not be the Minister of Education for very long, and it could be centralized into the hands of some other minister. That's the danger of this type of legislation. It doesn't simply give power to the good people, to the people who are able to make competent decisions about restraint, but gives power to anyone who may occupy the position, someone who may not have the sympathy for the public school system that this minister may have; in fact, someone who may do some damage to the public education system, as Social Credit ministers have done in the past. In fact, as a result of the principle of the bill, we're concerned about the past attitude of the Social Credit government toward public education. What we really question is the government's intent, in part by what it is doing in presenting this bill, toward the public education system.

First of all, the events of the last two years lead us to believe that the government is trying to keep the school districts, the parents and the students of this province in a constant state of uncertainty and confusion. This concerns us, because if there's one thing that a public education system must rely on it is a system of continuity and the belief that the system will be here from one day to the next. That type of certainty and confidence is built in to the system and reflected in the confidence of students, trustees and parents. Confidence that the system is going to carry on is what we really require in this province to give us a quality system of education. It's something we can build on in order to create the future and establish the basis of economic recovery for this province. As long as that public school system is in a constant state of change, confusion and uncertainty, it means that our students, teachers, administrators and trustees do not really know where the system is going. They don't know where they can best invest their money and effort in order to guarantee that this province will have the best students to address the issues which are going to face this province in the future, and especially those economic issues which threaten our economic recovery.

In deference to my friend for Skeena (Mr. Howard), I think "interim" is actually a good word for describing this bill. "Interim" is a good word to describe the whole attitude of this government and this minister to education, because nothing this minister or this government does with respect to public education has any element of certainty or continuity about it at all. Nobody can have confidence, Mr. Speaker, with the way this government treats the public education system in the province of British Columbia.

MRS. JOHNSTON: The voters have confidence.

MR. SKELLY: Well, there's the protégé of the former Minister of Education, who voted himself out of office. He had so little confidence in himself that he went back to potting plants. Unfortunately, he left a few protégés to run for office in Surrey, and now we're being victimized by the fact that these members will be with us in the House for another four years.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is quite unparliamentary to refer to a member's ability to be seated in the House, and I would remind the member of that.

MR. SKELLY: There is no question of the member's ability to be seated. I counted the votes in Surrey, Mr. Speaker, and I'm sure the members for Surrey counted those votes — on both hands. We both arrived at the same conclusion.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: To the bill, please.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Speaker, I hope that you will direct those members to listen quietly. I would like to make a promise to both members for Surrey (Mrs. Johnston and Mr.

[ Page 1171 ]

Reid). Clearly they have something to say, and when and if they have the courage to stand in this House and speak on this bill, then I undertake and promise to sit quietly and listen to anything they may have to say about Bill 6 and the problems of public education in British Columbia.

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY: I don't think anybody other than me was speaking in order. Do you, Mr. Speaker?

Maybe I should go over some of the points I was making just before I was so rudely interrupted, and then some of the members who may have been concerned or may have misinterpreted what I was saying will get it straight this time.

We are concerned about the government's treatment of the public education system in this province and the confusion, uncertainty and problems they've generated in the minds of trustees, administrators, teachers, students, parents and the general community. That's why, with deference, I disagree with the member for Skeena about the term "interim" in the bill. Everything this government does with respect to the public education system in the province is "interim." It's always changing and in a state of confusion. Maybe it would be better if the act was entitled the "Education Permanent Interim Finance Act," or maybe the "Education Interim Permanent Finance Act," or some equally confusing term which is suggestive of the confusion in the government's mind with respect to the whole area of policy around public education.

[3:45]

Last year the government changed the financing of school districts at least three times. At the beginning of the fiscal year they announced that school district budgets would be cut back by a certain amount. This required the school boards to adjust their normal budgeting procedures to cut teachers that they'd previously agreed to hire, to restructure classrooms and to change classroom sizes. It caused a bit of confusion, but we have confidence in the school trustees in this province. They were able to understand the problems of the economic recession and, as a result, they were able to come through that first change in education financing with little or no trouble.

MR. REID: And they will again too.

MR. SKELLY: There's that member for Surrey, Mr. Speaker, who is constantly interrupting this House, speaking from his seat, again causing no end of confusion in this education debate, which appears to be government policy.

MR. HOWARD: He makes more sense than speaking on his feet.

MR. SKELLY: No, I didn't mean speaking from his seat that way. I meant speaking while sitting in his seat. Mr. Speaker, hopefully you'll draw to that member's attention that the standing orders of the House do not allow a member constantly to interrupt the speakers who have taken their legitimate place in this debate. But okay, since he's done it, I'll have to go back over what I said in case some of the members didn't hear.

Anyway, at the first of last year, the government announced that they were going to impose cutbacks in the education budget. The school boards were able to respond positively, as school boards generally do. Those people are very concerned about the state of public education in this province. They are, in general, very good people. They are concerned about the tax situation. They are concerned about the situation in the province. They are aware of the fact that this government has driven the province tremendously into debt compared with previous governments. They are aware that since 1976 this government has spent the public's money like drunken sailors, and now we've reached the point of reckoning where we have to start cutting back on social programs, according to the government. The trustees were sympathetic with that approach in general and were willing, provided it was done on a one-time basis, to adjust their spending and employment projections. They did change their budgets and staffing requirements, and they did change class sizes in order to accommodate the new, more rigorous financial regime being imposed by the province.

But then suddenly, halfway through the year, the government announced that budgets were going to have to be cut again. The school districts couldn't believe that the Minister of Finance and the Social Credit government of British Columbia could be so incompetent as to be unable to project the revenues of the province on an accurate basis.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Are we on the budget or the bill?

MR. SKELLY: We're dealing with school district financing. If you have a problem, you could always stand on your feet in this House and draw the Speaker's attention to what I'm saying through a point of order. Surely these instructions were given to you in your first orientation meeting which was held just after the last election. Clearly, Mr. Speaker, the education program in the Social Credit caucus is a little deficient. I would suggest to that caucus — and not through you, Mr. Speaker; that wouldn't be appropriate — that perhaps they should provide a bit of an orientation session for their members, tell them what that little red book is for, and maybe point out that there are some rules and regulations that people in the Legislative Assembly should abide by. Now I'll get.... Oh, no, I'm going to have to repeat this again. I'm sure most of the members in the House would have got it by now, but in any case....

About halfway through the year the government then ordered school boards again to cut back on their financing, again to cut back on their staffing, again to change class sizes and shut down schools. In the case of the school district in Alberni, we were forced to shut down five community schools, to reallocate the teachers, to lay off some teachers who were on contract, to.... And this is very difficult, because I know my children go through it once a year when we move down to Victoria for a legislative session and then move back home, and they have to change schools. What this government did in Port Alberni was force that district to shut down five schools, to move the children around the community, to move the teachers around the community, to create additional confusion in that school district and additional problems in that school district. The government didn't have to bear the burden of those problems. It was the students, the teachers, the parents and the community of Port Alberni that bore the problems.

In spite of that, the school district was very responsible. They sat down and worked out a method by which they could chop back on their budgets, chop back on staffing, change class sizes, and change the allocation of students to various

[ Page 1172 ]

classes and schools in the district. The school district was very responsible in that regard.

Then, right after they did that, the government brought in the school districts' interim financing act, the Education (Interim) Finance Act, Bill 27, which again totally revamped the whole program of school district funding, seized the industrial tax base and the commercial tax base from the local school districts, totally changed the financial and budgeting system around, and threw the school districts again into confusion. As I pointed out to you before, Mr. Speaker, that type of confusion does not lead to good quality education in the public schools of the province. That type of uncertainty does not contribute to the improvement of the public education system in the province. I think there is some intent on the part of the government. It is evident from what the government has been doing over the last seven or eight years that they really have no respect for the public education system in the province of British Columbia. Wherever they can see an opportunity to bring in the wrecking crew, they do so. They attack school boards; they attack students; they attack teachers specifically.

They said the teachers aren't teaching properly, so one of the ministers brought in a system of province-wide testing. The idea of this province-wide testing was not to see how well the students were doing. We know from competent studies that testing is not really an accurate way of measuring how well students are doing, so the government said it wanted to do this in order to tell how well the teachers are doing. Because they changed the system of education financing around, and because they wanted to cut back on what the teachers were being paid, they cut back five or six paid working days from every teacher and they shut down the schools on those five days. As a result the tests were conducted at different times in different schools in different districts around the province, so that people from, say, Dawson Creek could phone down to Vancouver and say what was on the test. The whole principle of standardized testing, for what it's worth — and not many people these days consider it worth anything — was tossed out the window. That was all wasted money, wasted effort, wasted time by a government that is consistently wasting money, effort and time of the people of British Columbia.

That's the way they treat the public education system of the province. Finally you will recall the numerous threats that the previous Minister of Education made against the teachers in the public education system in the province. Fortunately he is gone, as I mentioned before, back to his potted plants, and now we have a new minister.

I know a lot of teachers and trustees around the province. I used to be a teacher and a school trustee before I was elected to this Legislature, and I know a lot of parents and students, and I was one of those as well. When this minister was appointed, as a result of his record as Minister of Labour, many teachers, trustees, students and parents heaved a sigh of relief because they thought that here was a minister who was willing and open to discussion. Here was a minister willing to go out and visit those communities, to talk to them, to receive information back from them and to discuss the improvements in the system.

Definitely they thought some continuity was now going to come back to the system as a result of eliminating the previous Minister of Education. Now they thought there would be some consultation. The Speaker smiles, maybe he knows something more than the rest of the parents and students and teachers in the province. In any case, those people had high hopes for the current Minister of Education. They thought that now there would be some recognition of the value of the service provided by school boards and school trustees — service that is provided for very low pay, as the Speaker will know. Most of that service is provided free; it is given willingly by the school trustees of this province.

They thought there would be recognition of the commitment to service to children by teachers and by other school board employees around the province. As I said before, they finally thought that now there would be a minister in the office of the Minister of Education who would respect the open door to discussion. With the throne and the budget speech and with the present legislation that is under discussion here in the House today, and with the utterances of the new minister, the hopes of those people throughout the province — teachers, students, school trustees, parents and communities — have been dashed, with respect to this minister.

They found the door to discussion slammed in their faces. The minister does not respect the opinions of those who have been involved in the educational process in the public education system for years and years. Maybe that isn't so, but what has happened in this House with respect to this bill and what has happened with the school budgeting process, leads people to believe that it is so. I am not convinced, as that member for Surrey has said, that this Minister of Education is that bad. I think he's just following orders.

Interjections.

MR. SKELLY: I think I'm going to have to go back to the beginning. How much time do I have left, Mr. Speaker? Nineteen minutes. I can go back to the beginning without cutting anything out.

No, I'm not convinced that this minister is as bad as the legislation and his recent utterances would lead us to believe. For example, when he was Minister of Labour he actually made a good try; he made a good effort. In spite of the pressures from the more extreme right-wing members of his caucus, and from the Premier, this minister did a relatively good job. If he was given free rein and allowed to apply his own particular personality to this legislation and to the administration of public education in the province, then this minister would probably do a good job. In presenting this bill, Mr. Speaker, and given the requirement to guide this bill through the House, the minister is actually operating under the thumb of the Premier of British Columbia, who we know has no respect whatsoever for public education in the province of B.C.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: On a point of order, the Chair recognizes the first member for Vancouver South.

[4:00]

MR. R. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, while I have no objection to the compliments to the minister, it does seem to me, under standing order 43, that the presentation is very repetitious.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Chair will further advise the member for Alberni that he's canvassing an area that might be better canvassed under the estimates of the Minister of Education and not under Bill 6. The member will please proceed with discussion regarding the bill.

[ Page 1173 ]

MR. SKELLY: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I'd be very happy to get onto the budget. This is the only province in Canada that doesn't have a budget for the fiscal year which began on April 1 of this year.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: To the bill, hon. member.

MR. SKELLY: It's really hard to believe how incompetent the government can be. If we're talking about the kind of certainty in the public education system that this legislation should provide, at least the people of the province should know what the funding program is going to be for the education system in the future.

As I was saying, I don't believe the former Minister of Labour is responsible for this type of legislation. I don't think he is that kind of personality. I don't think that he has that lack of respect for the public education system of the province, that he would present this type of legislation that results in the administration of the public school system in this way. I think he's presenting this legislation and steering it through the House under the thumb of the Premier of the province, who has no respect whatsoever for the public education system.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, that's beside the bill. To the bill, please.

MR. SKELLY: No, I think I'm speaking directly to the bill when I say that, Mr. Speaker, because the principle of this bill reflects a government that....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The first member for Surrey rises on a point of order.

MR. SKELLY: Is this a maiden point of order, or can I heckle it?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. The member for Alberni will take his place.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, under section 43 I would like to repeat that the statements are not only irrelevant but also repetitious. Could we please stick to the bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point of order is well taken. The member for Alberni will relate his remarks to the....

MS. BROWN: It's not well taken at all.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It certainly is. The member will relate his debate to the bill before us and not to other cabinet ministers or items that might be better canvassed under estimates.

MR. SKELLY: I was talking about how legislation such as this could be presented — legislation with a principle so abhorrent as the principle of this legislation; legislation that centralizes the power over school district budgets into the hands of one minister. That's the principle we're talking about in this bill, Mr. Speaker. There is no other section to this bill except that section which gives the minister the power to fiddle and tinker with budgets passed by school districts acting in good faith under the existing legislation. The minister has now centralized, into his own hands, the power to change those budgets. Even if they stay within the guidelines prescribed by the provincial government, he can go in and tinker with sections of the budget and change them around. They issued a directive to hospital boards, and this is on the same type of principle as is reflected in this bill. They say that the hospitals have two different sections in their budget; one section applies to equipment and the other to personnel. The government is willing to allow hospital boards to fire personnel and transfer those salaries to the equipment side of the budget, but they're not willing to do it the other way. It represents to me, as this bill does, an attitude about people, about hourly-paid workers, about employees, especially employees in the service industry.... This government's constant repetition about productivity in the public sector and in service industries indicates to me that they don't like people who work in the public sector. They seem to treat those people as second-class citizens, as people who maybe should not be citizens at all. What did they do during this budget year in this legislation? They attacked people — as they have done in hospital budgets, where the government allows tinkering with the hospital budgets — very much as they do in Bill 6, the bill I'm referring directly to. They allow a transfer from salaries to equipment, but they won't allow a transfer the other way. In other words, you can fire people to buy equipment, but you can't refuse to buy equipment in order to hire more people.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Tell the truth.

MR. SKELLY: What does that minister know about the truth?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. That is getting a little unparliamentary on both sides. To the bill, please, and perhaps we can avoid all these side discussions.

MR. SKELLY: Well, Mr. Speaker, I'm getting close to winding up my debate on this bill.

The opposition, and I personally, are opposed to this type of legislation. What it does is further concentrate the powers of local governments in the hands of a Social Credit cabinet minister here in Victoria. The result of that is that whenever errors are made they are magnified all around the province. When the minister is out $10 for one school district, if every school district has to abide by the same formula, then we're going to be out $840. The same thing for $1 million: if he's out $1 million in one school district then we're going to be out $840 million around the province, because he's operating every school district on the basis of the same formula.

What we're saying is that by getting many minds to work on the problems of restraint and how to develop school district budgets in times of economic problems, we can reach some good solutions. But when you only put one mind to work, then errors could be made which are magnified around the whole province, and that's what we're concerned about. Not only does it violate the democratic principle of broadly based consultation, of allowing people in their local areas with their locally elected officials to make up their minds with respect to budgeting priorities within their districts — and concentrating that in the hands of one minister behind the closed doors of that minister's office, thereby violating that democratic principle of broadly based consultation — but it

[ Page 1174 ]

also increases inefficiency. Some people say that a dictatorship is the most efficient form of government, but nothing could be further from the truth.

MRS. JOHNSTON: It depends on who it is.

MR. SKELLY: The lady member for Surrey says it depends on who it is. We've already established the price. She's willing to look at the dictator, but it depends on who it is. Some people say a dictator is a good thing — for example, the member for Surrey. But if only his mind is applied to a problem, the results are unpredictable and inefficient and create serious problems, as we've seen with every single dictator ever placed in office.

What we're doing in this bill is no less dictatorial. Putting one minister in charge of all the education budgets in the province and allowing him to fiddle and tinker with those budgets is no less dangerous than putting a dictator in charge of the whole country and risking that his judgment is the most effective in terms of government of the whole province. What we're concerned about is that this legislation makes that minister a dictator in terms of school district budgets around the province. We see that as a problem.

So we are concerned about this bill, Mr. Speaker, and that's why we're opposed to it. It reflects a total lack of confidence in the whole principle of local democracy. This minister, or this government.... I really don't think this minister believes it, but this government believes local governments are simply rubber stamps that should follow the absolute edict of the Minister of Education here in Victoria; rubber stamps that should follow the whims of the Minister of Education or the government here in Victoria. It's a vote of non-confidence in local governments around the province, and for that reason we intend to vote against this legislation. It's dictatorial, inefficient, a vote of non-confidence in democracy. It's a vote of non-confidence in the ability of school trustees, the ability of committed first-class people who have stood for election around the province out of commitment to the people of the province, out of commitment to the public education system and to local democracy. This bill, in our opinion, represents a vote of non-confidence by the Social Credit government in that type of local democracy, which we believe is the cornerstone of the democratic system here in British Columbia.

So for all those reasons, Mr. Speaker, I intend to vote against this legislation, and this party intends to vote against this legislation. In order to give the government some time, I would move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

[4:15]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 21

NAYS — 32

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

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, Bill 6 is déjà vu, in the sense that last year's education restraint financing act is in a sense being reconfirmed and expanded. We have in British Columbia a situation which we share with the rest of the country. Education in Canada is unique, unlike, I think, any other country in the world. Other democratic jurisdictions have similar education systems, but Canada has a most unique system because of the way it was established generations ago. Canada is the second largest landmass in the world, with a relatively small population. Sometimes the school districts and education had to reach small populations in remote areas. We had the unique....

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: Is the steel plate bothering you again? Can we send in the nurse to adjust the minister's steel plate? It's giving him headaches. I'm trying to educate these hon. members, who have been gracious enough to sit in the House — and I'm grateful for that — but they're constantly interrupting me.

In other democratic jurisdictions there was a general decentralization of education, but in Canada, because of the remoteness of some communities, we decided generations ago that we wanted to make education available to all communities as best we could with the resources we had. Sometimes that meant that in one jurisdiction, especially in western Canada, we would have an establishment of the one-room school. It's interesting if you read the history of the pioneers of this province and this country and how that came about. The hon. member for Burnaby North taught in a one-room school, and there may have been others.

MR. LEA: I went to one.

MR. LAUK: The hon. member for Prince Rupert confirms that he received an education in a one-room school. All of us here are receiving an education in a one-room school. But it was very much a part of Canada. It was part of our history. Certainly my parents went to a one-room school, and I suppose many of you have had the same background.

How it established itself was this: two or three families, usually farming families and one or two families in a village, would get together and say: "We can't send our kids constantly by wagon or train to the nearest school. We've got to establish a school in our neighbourhood, because it's having an effect on our families and our lifestyles." They would get

[ Page 1175 ]

together. They would combine and provide their own financial resources, and they would all build the school. They would advertise in some of the major educational centres in the country for a teacher. They raised the money to hire a teacher, and if problems arose, the families or the heads of families would meet and they would decide whether a teacher wants to resign or whether to replace a teacher or expand or whatever. It was a community type of organization.

When these villages and communities grew in population — after the First World War in western Canada particularly — the availability of these families and the time involved in the administration of the local school would become so onerous that they would delegate two or three of the citizens of the community to become the representatives to deal with the administration of the school: the teacher's salary, the conditions of work, and they would also deal to some extent with discipline and with curriculum and see that things were kept relatively up to date.

As the population expanded, they went to a two-room school. Sometimes they had two or three schools in a relatively definable area. We evolved the structure of what we know today as the beginnings of a school board, where we actually establish through provincial legislation in western Canada the process by which we elect from a community — by that stage called a school district — to administer the education system.

In those days all things were drawn to the attention of the school board: the raising of school money from the community to build schools, to pay teachers and to finance programs. The curriculum was also established and designed by local school boards to a great extent. Local school districts had to rely on some central body for materials — textbooks, guides and various other materials — to keep the system in that little school district up to date. The young people who went through that school district — let's call it School District 1 — would be up to date with people in School District 10 and indeed with kids going to school in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. In those days the materials — the textbooks and the course guidelines — were provided from central Canada and the United States.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: I don't want to keep anybody awake. Where was I?

MR. LEA: You were making a very intelligent point.

MR. LAUK: Thank you. I feel like I'm the only person in a one-room school.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Did you go to one of those schools?

MR. LAUK: No, I did not. I went to the school of hard knocks, my friend. I'm just a little country boy.

The point I'm trying to make is that in those days curriculum was the thing that concerned school boards. School boards not only in B.C. but also in other provinces met and said: "We've got to have a curriculum that is even and fairly uniform throughout all of our school districts, because we're finding that in some school districts there is a delay in catching up with other school districts — new materials and so on." So the request went out for some kind of central authority to establish some basic curriculum for school districts. I don't know what day that was, but it had to be a day that a wiser person would perhaps have recognized as a loss of local autonomy. A uniform curriculum was required at the time; nevertheless, it was a loss of autonomy.

How far did these local school boards want to go? Given the makeup of school boards in those days, I don't think they would have been particularly happy with Bill 6, any more than are the school board members of today. They wanted a uniformity in curriculum, but as provincial legislation evolves, and surprisingly enough, as politics in this province polarize and political philosophy enters into the education system, dangerous precedents are set. Now we have a situation where the autonomy of the local school board is virtually eliminated. Even during the NDP administration school boards had to go through elaborate approval steps to get the simplest improvements to their school districts. One example, I think, was in Prince George, where a school board member told me they had to go through 60 stages of approval to get the showers maintained and expanded in an elementary school. Do you remember the situation I'm talking about? It was in the Prince George school district, when the Deputy Speaker was on the school board. There were over 60 steps for approval to expand these showers. How ridiculous!

[4:30]

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: When did you start showering?

MRS. JOHNSTON: Not in school.

MR. LAUK: Not in elementary school; all right. Did you start around grade 10?

Interjections.

MR. LAUK: Perhaps one of the hon. gentlemen on the other side would care to help you. As far as I'm concerned, I'm on Bill 9.

AN HON. MEMBER: Bill 6.

MR. LAUK: That's right. Bill 9 has to do with community showers.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, I think I've just found out the problem. The hon. member said he was speaking on Bill 9, but we're really on Bill 6. Would you please, under section 43, ask the hon. member to see that his comments are not irrelevant or repetitious.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That point is well taken. I'm sure the member can relate his remarks to the bill now before us. Furthermore, I might point out....

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: One moment, please. I have one more comment: avoid personal references to another hon. member.

MR. ROSE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I don't have Beauchesne in front of me, but my recollection as it deals

[ Page 1176 ]

with relevancy and repetition is that it says the rules are so vague it is difficult to make that judgment, and that the member speaking should always be given the benefit of the doubt.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am.

MRS. JOHNSTON: That's a very good explanation.

MR. LAUK: I thank my hon. colleague. That's the most faint-hearted defence I've had in a long time. He might as well have said: "In spite of my own doubts, let's give the hon. member the benefit of the doubt." Thanks a lot. I've stood alone before and I'll stand alone now.

The reason I am raising the example of the 69- or 70-step approval — I expand it by 10 every time I mention it — is that we have gone towards centralization of the education system in a most irresponsible way. We have demonstrated we do not trust locally elected school boards. We have demonstrated over the years that centralization of education is supposed to be the way to go. No improper motive is attributed to that centralization. I think that originally they wanted to have an even-handed school system. They didn't want to hear a complaint that somebody had some equipment that another school district didn't have.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

It seems to me that it has gone far beyond the pale, and we were aware of this for some years. The NDP have argued for decentralization. We think there is a lot of room for it. We think it would be a demonstration of our confidence in locally elected school boards. We think it would be appropriate from the democratic point of view if you gave more responsibility to locally elected school boards. Then perhaps better people would run for those positions. That is no reflection on those who are running, who have dedicated their time, but perhaps people with better ideas, more energy and more time could run. Perhaps there would be more competition for those positions during the election of local school boards.

All of those benefits would flow from decentralization. I thought that both parties were discussing that. I know that during the 1975 election the Premier called for the decentralization of the education system. He called for it in quite clear terms. As a matter of fact, in my own constituency during that election the Social Credit candidates used that argument continuously. They said: "The Social Credit Party is committed to the decentralization of the education system."

Since 1976 we have become the most centralized education system in all of Canada. Last year, I believe, our education system was used in a conference in the United States as one of the examples of a very centralized education system in the North American context. I don't take any pride in that. I think it is a terrible thing that we are used as an example of ultra-centralization in education. That is a direct result of more and more encroachment upon the traditional responsibilities of locally elected school boards since 1976.

This bill not only centralizes the British Columbia education system in the ministry and sets up predictable formulas and procedures; it also places absolute power in the hands of one person, the minister of the day. That absolute power is a disgrace. It is a very dangerous thing, particularly when it comes to the education system. Will what our kids are being taught in school depend on what government is in power? Is that what's going to happen? We've seen the chamber of commerce and other right organizations argue that free enterprise and feudal capitalism be taught in the curriculum in the schools. We have seen attempts by right-wing organizations to effect curriculum changes in other jurisdictions in Canada and the United States.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: My colleague from Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) suggests that the Fraser Institute is writing curriculum. That would be a terrible thing indeed. We have a situation in which the propaganda merchants for right-wing politicians in the Fraser Institute are now being called upon to provide curriculum for our schools. If we formed a government tomorrow, would we eliminate all economics courses as they are now and reintroduce something on democratic socialist lines? This is the kind of nonsense we are facing when this ultimate centralization of education takes place.

The minister is a fine chap, and I trust him enough to know that he would not condone partisan philosophical interference with the core curriculum in the school system.

MR. LEA: You are wrong.

MR. LAUK: No, I am not wrong....

MR. LEA: He would.

MR. LAUK: I trust him because I don't think that he thinks in philosophical terms.

I think the hon. minister is — and I admire this quality in a man — a simple man. His lifestyle is straightforward and routine, and he doesn't want to have his comfortable ideas about life and society, albeit based somewhere around the fourteenth century, to be disturbed. The problem with that is that he may not know that the curriculum is being undermined and is being used for partisan political purposes.

I think the bill is a dangerous bill because the costs for schools are largely based on home-ownership and other forms of land taxation in the school district, so we can say that a major portion of the costs for education in the province is borne by people who live in the school district as homeowners and property owners. There's a large contribution from the provincial coffers, but there's an even larger one, if you like, indirectly from the federal government, and we, and I'm sure the Minister of Education, would resist any kind of move by the federal jurisdiction....

AN HON. MEMBER: Expand on that contribution.

MR. LAUK: All right. I think that certainly in post-secondary education there's a large contribution...

AN HON. MEMBER: We're talking about Bill 6.

MR. LAUK: I'm talking about education vis-à-vis Bill 6.

... from the federal jurisdiction to the education system, and I use that as an analogy to point out that both our administration and the current one has resisted any attempt by the federal government to direct the affairs of our universities. And rightly so. But, you see, from our point of view it's consistent with our philosophy of decentralization; from your point of view it's inconsistent, because on the one hand you agree with centralization if your government is the one with the power, but on the other hand if it's the federal

[ Page 1177 ]

government you resist it. I raise that as being an inconsistency and a form of political hypocrisy.

We are arguing that rather than going towards decentralization this government is moving more and more towards centralization. Bill 6 is the acme of this relentless drive to gather up all power over the education system into the hands of one person, the minister of the day. I don't think the stated purposes can be believed. It is not a question of restraint. I go back again to my historical discourse, where I pointed out that school boards, ordered to get uniformity, did relinquish some autonomy to a central authority. Now that that authority is being virtually swept away every year into the hands of the central authority, there are many school board members, parents of children and taxpayers in general who are very dismayed indeed.

I think it's a rather simplistic argument to say that centralization will create efficiency. Using my historical examples again, it should be pointed out that every time another aspect of school board autonomy is centralized, it has expanded the costs to the taxpayer generally and hasn't relieved in any way the cost to the local property owner.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Where did you get that information?

MR. LAUK: Oh, this is well known.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: Well, hang on. I'll give it to you. I'm glad you asked the question. If you look at costs in the 1960s and the 1940s, and also compare them to 1930s costs for our school districts here — per pupil — the costs are astronomical. Of course, that's taking inflation and everything else into consideration. The minister's experts will be able to tell you that, I'm sure, if you just make the request.

This kind of astronomical, exponential growth in costs, I argue, is attributable largely to the centralization process that has taken place. Rather than efficiency, we have more costs, layer upon layer of bureaucracy, higher salaries — because you can't be paid the same; if you're just a superintendent or a local bureaucrat in the school district you're going to be paid somewhat less than a high-priced bureaucrat working for the minister. There's prestige involved, and so on. He's got a large department and he has to pay these people astronomical salaries. This has been going on for years and years. Of course, the school board, being reluctant to give up its authority, holds on to some illusion of authority and keeps on high-priced bureaucrats at the local level as well. So you really just duplicate the costs to the taxpayer.

[4:15]

We're all the same taxpayer: federal, provincial or homeowner. We pay out of the same pocket, and the taxpayer ends up suffering. But also education ends up suffering. Because of needless bureaucratic duplication we seem to be reluctant to give more money towards expanding that kind of facility to education that will directly benefit students in the classroom. For example, it seems to me we would have progressed much more rapidly towards smaller class sizes, where they are appropriate, without the duplication of bureaucracy that has occurred as part of that disincentive to work towards that goal. And it seems to me that Bill 6 very much dots the i's and crosses the t's, and really buries local autonomy so long as this bill will stand as legislation.

The model of the early school board was an interesting one, indeed. As so often in political life, you see that when a government comes up with what they think is a curative piece of legislation to solve one problem they create a whole series of other ones. That is based upon really sloppy draftsmanship, but mostly upon sloppy thinking in terms of the kind of legislation that's required to solve a particular problem. I think all too often in the British parliamentary system we have partisan politics to the extent that instead of taking an objective view of education and saying, "What's going to benefit the education system? What's going to provide the broadest education, the most high-quality education for the young people of this province?" we seem to leave that to one side and take a political approach. It seems to me that the political approach this government is taking is to get control over the school boards.

What's happened lately? For many years school boards tended to be very conservative — small 'c' and partisan conservative as well. The school board membership generally went along with the central authority. I think that in the past ten years more and more people have taken an interest in local education, and you'll find a broader political spectrum on the boards. I think most people familiar with what's happened will agree with that. The response of the right-wing — the Socred Party, the beneficiaries of the right-wing in the province — has been to resist the power of locally elected school boards because they were actually making decisions that disagreed in part with the prevailing political philosophy in Victoria. I think that that political motivation is behind this bill as much as anything else. That political motivation is behind the relentless centralization of the school system over the years. That's a terrible thing, because it puts education on a political footing almost entirely. No one can raise a rational, reasonable argument with respect to education without there being a counterattack by partisan political forces within the province. It's a crying shame, and I think that if you thought about it, Mr. Speaker — I say through you to the hon. members — for any time at all, you would see that what I am saying is substantially correct.

Now how do we solve that problem? Well, you don't solve the problem through Bill 6. You don't solve the problem by encouraging more centralization. How can we ask a lawyer with a somewhat passing interest in education to be the sole arbiter of education finance from district to district to district? As I pointed out in the debate on the Education (Interim) Finance Act last year, there were differences between school districts in costs that were not due to the choices or the options open to a local school board. The differences in school costs were substantial where, for example, in northern school districts during harsh winters their fuel bills are much higher than they would be in Victoria and Vancouver where we have mild winters. It's just one example, but I'm raising it to point out that you can't have across-the-board financing formulas in the sense that Bill 6 is forcing upon the ministry without taking these differences into consideration.

The inconsistent approach of the Social Credit Party government towards education has caused massive chaos and confusion within the school system over the past three or four years in particular. That's another terrible price to pay for the political machinations between parties in this province. You've got one statement about "we want a postage-stamp finance formula...." I think the minister's predecessor was arguing that — certainly the first Minister of Education in 1976 argued that he would give benefits to school districts

[ Page 1178 ]

that saved money. We found out that, last year, those school districts that actually toed the line were penalized.

MR. ROSE: On a point of order, I'd like to draw Your Honour's attention to the fact that I don't believe we have a quorum in the House anymore.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. In accordance with standing order 6, I will ring the bell.

We now have a quorum, hon. members. Would the second member for Vancouver Centre continue, please.

MR. LAUK: I'm grateful that those who are here have agreed to come in and listen to this fantastic speech.

Could I get Hansard to read back my last two lines — is that possible? I wouldn't want to repeat anything.

As I was saying before the quorum call, partisan differences in the province have had a terrible effect on the education system, and people directly involved, including parents, teachers and school board members, have been thrown into confusion by the inconsistent and contradictory statements over the past two or three years by the Social Credit Party minister of the day, who has changed, I think, three or four times in that short period. For example, I was saying that the former Minister of Education in 1976 held out an incentive to local school boards to be efficient with the taxpayers' money and promised that they would be rewarded if they did so. School districts did so, and then a new Education minister changed the rules of the game and, in fact, the very people who had been efficient with their funds were penalized. This is the chaotic nature of the education policy, as enunciated by Social Credit ministers over the past several years.

The partisan nitpicking that has gone on and the demagoguery by a former Social Credit minister, calling for the socalled core curriculum — and that from a minister who is directly involved in the education system, and who should have known better — called into question the quality of education in British Columbia, which at that point in time stood quite high. It is now quite low. What administration is now in office? It hasn't been any other party except the Social Credit Party. In 1976 we were second to none in the country in terms of the quality of kindergarten to grade 12 education, but now we're standing very low, near the bottom.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: That's not what the teachers tell me.

MR. LAUK: Well, I'm talking about the quality of the system as a whole.

Our system is being questioned by educators and administrators all over the North American continent. This is public knowledge. I think part of the reason is because the government has not had a consistent education policy based on benefits to the education system and a broad education for our young people; it's been based on demagoguery and narrow partisan goals. To argue, for example, for a core curriculum, as one of the former education ministers used to argue, was pure and utter demagoguery.

HON. MR. McGEER: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the bells were ringing. Was there not a division in the House?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, hon. member, the bells were rung to get a quorum in the House.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, does that mean the hon. member was unable to retain even a quorum in the House? Is that entered in the Journals?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don't believe that came into the picture at all, hon. member. There was just no quorum here.

MR. LAUK: Well, the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications has now quite rudely entered that fact in Hansard in a most ungracious manner.

In any event, I'm glad that minister was the one to raise the issue. He was getting a little bit hurt that I would call him a demagogue, but that's what he was. He was going up and down the province undermining the confidence of the people of this province in the education system.

You know, the only time the hon. first member for Surrey stands is on a point of order. Will she be speaking in a debate soon?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The first member for Surrey rises on a point of order.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, I would call your attention to standing order 43. This hon. member continues to persist in irrelevance, and I would suggest that it should be brought to his attention that we would like to hear his comments on Bill 6.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, it's difficult precisely to demonstrate relevance in this case. I would suggest that the hon. member....

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would prefer not to be interrupted, hon. members.

The hon. member was speaking to Bill 6, and I believe that there was some relevance in what he was saying, but perhaps — on many occasions, I suppose — the Chair can be wrong. If the hon. member would try to be a little more direct in discussing the bill....

MR. LAUK: I thought that was very, very diplomatically put, Mr. Speaker, much more diplomatically than others have put it in the past.

I draw the relevance of my remarks to Bill 6 by pointing out that when you have centralized control, which Bill 6 is now completing in the education system, it depends largely on the mood or the whim of the government of the day and their partisan interests, and their purely political interests to....

Interjections.

MR. LAUK: This has not been a good afternoon, Mr. Speaker. I can't believe this.

Mr. Speaker, the relevance of my remarks is that with the kind of demagoguery we saw in 1976-77.... The chaotic statements made by Ministers of Education of the Social Credit Party in the past several years have created confusion and chaos. It would have been much less so had there not

[ Page 1179 ]

been this massive centralization of power that we see being completed by Bill 6. That's the relevance I wish to point out. It is ultimate presumption on the part of the Social Credit Party that one minister has the power to supervise budgets and expenditures by school districts. This is a most incredible power given to one person. I don't see why the Minister of Education — or anyone — should have been given that kind of power. If he was at all modest, let alone competent, he would refuse that kind of power, knowing that he hasn't the competence personally or in his department to carry it through.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member.

[5:00]

MR. LAUK: Were the interruptions counted in my speaking time?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You may close, hon. member. Quickly, that is.

MR. LAUK: In closing, I would like to point out to the House that this bill is draconian, dictatorial and extremely right-wing, and should be opposed. It will destroy education and create further chaos among the people in the education system. In addition....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member.

MR. LAUK: I move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry, hon. member, you had taken your seat.

MR. LAUK: No other person was recognized, Mr. Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, I believe I was right in my ruling that you had taken your seat, so we can....

MR. LEA: On a point of order, I was sitting right here and, as an honourable member, I can tell you that it could be only termed as a flexing of the knees. I was watching very closely, and I can tell you that the hon. member's bottom didn't touch his seat.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, if the bottom didn't touch the seat, why did the chair move?

MR. LEA: I kicked it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Does the hon. member rise on a point of order?

MR. LAUK: No. I still have the floor, Mr. Speaker. I move....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry, hon. member.

MR. LAUK: I challenge your ruling then, Mr. Speaker.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

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

YEAS — 31

NAYS — 17

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

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I'd like the members of the House to make welcome in the galleries a Vancouver Sun columnist and distinguished criminal court judge for almost 30 years in this province, Mr. Les Bewley, and his wife Bess.

MR. LAUK: I ask leave on the same introduction, Mr. Speaker.

Leave granted.

MR. LAUK: I'd like to point out that today, when I opened the Sun and saw that Les Bewley was on vacation, was the day I enjoyed his column more than any other time.

MR. REE: I also would ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. REE: We have a state representative from Wisconsin in the gallery. I'd ask the House to welcome Lois Plous from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

MR. BARNES: Ladies and gentlemen, fellow MLAs, members of the gallery, and visiting columnists in the galleries, I rise to oppose Bill 6, the Education (Interim) Finance Amendment Act, 1983. I feel it is a vicious piece of education, one designed....

[ Page 1180 ]

Interjections.

MR. BARNES: The Minister of Education finds those remarks humorous. After all, this is a very serious matter, certainly not something we should be joking about. When I say this legislation is vicious, I say it because the government is carrying out a diabolical plan to undermine most democratic institutions within this society. This piece of legislation, although it appears innocuous, is an attempt to freeze the education system within the budget program, and no one has any way of knowing what will be required in the future. You call it an interim piece of legislation, but the legislation may have disastrous effects in the future. Although we try to program objectively and to anticipate what administrative costs will be with respect to students and their needs, to try to anticipate trends in pupil-teacher ratios and the requirements from time to time, it's impossible to know for certain just what the costs and the requirements will be. For that reason, therefore, this legislation is a cause for concern.

I believe the government knows full well that it is attempting to restrict locally elected boards in a most unfortunate way, and there are serious implications.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: More money to buy a better education; that's all.

MR. BARNES: I can appreciate what the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) feels about dollars. I agree with him that we have to save money. We can't spend what we don't have.

I am not suggesting that we can provide programs for people without a cost. Obviously we have to pay. The question is the priorities that are involved — the concern that we should have for what we should spend money on. As we know, this government has a budget that will expend $1.6 billion that it cannot expect to get from its revenue-producing programs, from resources or otherwise. How can you do that in a time of restraint and at the same time show no concern for established institutions within the society like the school system?

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: I don't think the question is the cost. That is where your problem is: you are talking cost and you are trying to give the public the impression that you care about saving money. Let's be realistic, Mr. Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Brummet). We are not talking about costs. If that were the question we would have some facts before us that we could debate, and we would have some formulas that would make sense, and we would be in a better position to evaluate what we require and what the expenditures should be.

That is not the situation here. This is just another boondoggle, another attempt for you people to carry out your ideologies, to vest in yourself the powers that you feel you can exercise better than the people. It is really a contradiction. You are trying to tell us that it is restraint — that you are concerned about saving money that you don't have, that revenues are falling off, that we are not in a position to pay for the things we once had. This is the problem with this legislation. It just isn't addressing the concerns.

We are talking about the education system. The Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) made some interesting analogies when he was reflecting on the costs of certain industries trying to operate within this society. This is a quote from an article by Crawford Kilian, who writes regularly for the Province. I may as well give a plug for this fellow Kilian. He wrote a great book which I would recommend some of you people read in your spare time: Go Do Some Great Thing. Some of you might want to read that book because it will assist you in understanding the very delicate nature of our community of peoples from all walks of life, all cultures, all creeds, all sexes, all ages, all departments, all aspirations. That book would assist you people more than anyone else in understanding the needs of our society.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The first member for Surrey rises on a point of order.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Standing order number 43. I would suggest that the comments of the hon. member are certainly irrelevant and are getting a little tedious. Could you please ask him to stick to Bill 6?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is hard to define at this point, hon. member, as the hon. member has only been speaking for two or three minutes, but I am sure that he is going to relate his remarks to the bill before us. On the same point of order, the Chair recognizes the member for New Westminster.

MR. COCKE: On that point, Mr. Speaker, we are not debating Bill 6, we are debating a hoist motion on Bill 6, as I understand it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: We do not have a hoist motion, hon. member; it is the bill itself.

MR. BARNES: I appreciate the assistance from the hon. member for New Westminster. I can assure you that when we have completed the main motion we will be moving a hoist. It is just a matter of time.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. first member for Surrey is incorrect when she suggests that what I am saying is irrelevant and that it is tedious and repetitious. We are talking about the thrust of this government's spending program for education in this province. I am explaining to the House why I distrust this thrust, why I suggest that we are heading in the wrong direction and a dangerous direction. Very soon this government will be coming back to this House and saying to the people, "We made a mistake," as they have so often done. They made a mistake they are going to rethink things, and they would like our assistance.

But just listen to what the minister — as I was saying earlier, to quote the Minister of Education.... He draws some interesting analogies. He says he now understands how "the head of a sawmill feels when he's got to go and say to people: 'I don't have any money, I've got no market for my product and I'm afraid your employment is at an end.'" He's comparing the education system with sawmills. I think that is the crux of the problem. When you're dealing in units that are consistent and do not fluctuate and will remain static until you come in and change them, then it's possible to apply that logic, and those analogies and comparisons can probably be argued successfully. When you come back in two or three years, unless the economy has changed, you probably could use a relative argument to make the same case.

[ Page 1181 ]

Mr. Speaker, do you not agree that for the minister to compare sawmills with children, school teachers and school districts, and the diversity within this province that we have to deal with throughout a vast terrain — a mosaic of cultural differences that defies description...? To say that he now understands what it's like when a sawmill is no longer able to move its product.... We're talking about a resource: the people of this province. We're talking about the people who are going to run the sawmills, the people who have to keep up with technology in order to make those sawmills productive. We're talking about education programs that will assist those people who wish to go into the fields of forestry or any number of associated fields in that light. My problem is not so much with the costs, it's with understanding....

MRS. JOHNSTON: That's the problem over there: you don't care about the costs.

MR. BARNES: No, I do care about the costs. But I think we should understand what it costs when we short-sightedly fail to provide proper training programs for people who are going to husband those resources and who are going to have a duty and responsibility to maintain this society and run it efficiently and effectively. We're going to have to spend some money some place. You know yourself, Mr. Speaker, that nothing ventured, nothing gained.

So you are carrying on in isolation, creating your interim education finance bill, without having consulted with the elected representatives in the various school districts, those people who have run for office and who have committed themselves to try to provide education programs for people in their areas. They have not been consulted, nor have the teachers in those communities — certainly not the students. In fact, I don't know who was consulted. Perhaps it was sort of like the budget itself. It just came as a result of some preliminary information from polls.

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: I can't hear you, Mr. Member. Speak up a little bit.

Let me remind the House of something said by that side of the House. I've been giving you an idea of why I'm suspicious, and why I question the motives of the government in bringing in a program that will ultimately control the administrative costs of school districts and will put pressure on teachers and the cost of living for all other programs and staff involved in the school system. It is a diabolical plan to try and cunitize — if we want to use a phrase from the logging and forest industry.... It's a plan to put people in some kinds of units and say that by 1986 we will have absolute control over the budget and that we'll be able to have a formula that will apply at all times and will never change — no flexibility whatsoever.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Who said that?

MR. BARNES: That's what you people are saying. That's what this bill is all about. And that's why I say that....

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: Well, you get up. You'll have a chance. The first member for Surrey, Mr. Speaker, will have an opportunity — as she has had. She could have been up, in fact, before me, but she prefers to speak from the safety of her seat, where nothing will be recorded. Let her stand up here and defend this bill.

Mr. Speaker, do you know that in 1975 the Social Credit Party made a statement about autonomy of local school districts, the rights of locally elected officials, and their concern for participatory democracy — all those grand and glorious concepts and principles of the free and democratic society that we all love so much. The only thing wrong is that they were not the government when they were making all these statements. But when they became government they quickly abandoned everything.

Nonetheless, here is a headline: "Return Authority to Local School Boards" — this is the Social Credit Party's platform and promise in 1975. Do you remember that, Mr. Member for West Vancouver? Do you still agree with it? Do you think it's still relevant'? I'll read it to you, and then I want you to get up and say it's still relevant:

"In the past two years this province has seen a massive build-up of the educational bureaucracy in Victoria. The Minister of Education seems determined to gain control of all educational facilities within our province at the expense of local school boards. This move to centralized control means confusion and frustration for local board members and, more important, it means that educational policies are being developed with no real consideration for the needs and wishes of local areas.

"We in the British Columbia Social Credit Party believe that meaningful educational policies can only be developed in cooperation with local school boards. After all, the local school trustees have been elected by the people of their own area. They know the area and are responsive to the needs of their community. We would therefore return authority to local school boards, while at the same time eliminating the bureaucracy in the Department of Education. We would also work to return dignity and responsibility to individual classroom teachers — trained professionals who deserve more authority in setting educational objectives for their pupils."

This is simply a basic statement by a government on the outside trying to get in.

"In line with making education more responsive to local needs, the British Columbia Social Credit Party would expand vocational and technical training facilities on a regional basis throughout B.C. and would make a continuing commitment to improve the quality of education in all post-secondary institutions. As a related specific commitment, we would preserve the University Endowment Lands for public recreational enjoyment."

That isn't an issue at the present time; that's one of the things we haven't had to address yet.

"The current system of financing education out of property taxes is outmoded and places an unfair burden on the property owner. As government, the British Columbia Social Credit Party would change this system and provide revenues for ever-improved educational facilities from real growth sources. We would

[ Page 1182 ]

look to tax revenues from our resource-based industries, which would enjoy a steady growth under a new administration. We would also look to the provincial sales tax and to other revenue sources which increase naturally with our provincial development. This new approach would help to hold the line on property taxes while meeting the increasing costs of education resulting from inflation.

"Just as important as the source of educational revenue is the manner in which it is distributed. As government, the British Columbia Social Credit Party would increase direct payments to local school boards while decreasing the costs and importance of the central bureaucracy. The end result of such policies would be a better quality of education for our young people, a more meaningful education based on policies developed at the local level, and an educational system which can grow and develop without burden to local taxpayers."

[5:30]

That was signed by the now Premier Bill Bennett. The only thing, Mr. Speaker, is that it has no resemblance whatsoever to the government of the day. You were using rhetoric, which you're very good at. You've convinced the people....

MR. R. FRASER: That's true.

MR. BARNES: Yes, it's true; you know it's true. You've convinced the people. You found the right buzzwords — and I must give you credit. You spent a lot of taxpayers' dollars to do it. You had to cut all kinds of programs to find a way to survey public opinion and find out where the biases are, where people's hangups are, and what makes them uptight. You explored it. You found out that people do not like to pay taxes even if it's for their own best interest. You will distort and confuse.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Although this bill seems innocuous it is nonetheless — I said it right that time. There you go. One does learn. That's why you need a good education system. Some of us learn all of our lives, although some of you would like to abort that process at a very early age and throw everybody out.

Interjections.

MR. BARNES: It's all in scale; it's all relative. Education is a continuing thing and not something that lends itself to the careless anticipations by a government that is mainly concerned with the dollar bill. You've tried to create the impression that those of us on this side of the House have no regard for the costs involved, but you don't bother to tell the people....

One of the things I noticed is that you spend a lot of time talking dollars in the abstract, but when it comes to the services that those dollars buy and what the benefits are and what the cost values are, then you don't seem to have very much to say. For instance, I haven't heard any of you address the fact that in the city of Vancouver alone approximately half of the students at the secondary level — and lower — of the education system are people who use English as a second language by virtue of their new arrival to this country or because of other circumstances that have not allowed them to develop mastery of the English language. Along with that are associated other cultural differences and the kinds of characteristics that make up our country. As I said earlier, these differences do not allow us to have any simplistic approach to formulas in providing services for the people.

You would have no problem with the opposition, Mr. Speaker, if you came to us with a proposal based on the needs of the people and suggested to us the ways we could use to provide these needs within the limits of the resources that we anticipate and to what extent should we go in hock in order to provide.... Going in hock or running a deficit is probably an inappropriate way to describe what that money will be used for. What you're doing is investing in something tangible and meaningful. You're not just doing it for the person's immediate education or satisfaction or for the objectives of a person being able to qualify for a job or to gain some status by virtue of having a few more diplomas or degrees to go along with their achievements. We're talking about encouraging people to invest in their own environment. Let people know that it's a two-way, give-and-take situation. Most of us owe our education to each other, because most of us have to pay the taxes for each other. We invest in someone else's education.

But the impression one gets in listening to the government explain its restraint program is that everyone is on his own. We were just listening to the minister the other day — in fact, I think it was this week — explaining in question period that if a student is living at home for more than six weeks, he doesn't qualify as being independent. So what we're doing is discouraging that person and that family. We're saying: "Don't help them. Leave them out on their own so that we can subsidize their education. If you want to go home and cut down on costs, then we're going to discourage you." What kind of economic planning is that? What kind of encouragement and cooperation is that? You people are breaking up homes. You're not encouraging people to be together, and yet you're supposed to be concerned about the family and the integrity of society — those things that matter to us all.

It saves us money every time a family is willing to invest in itself, discipline itself, manage its affairs responsibly and work within the law. When people do that, I think it's worth something to us, and we should recognize it. But your budget seems to disregard those qualitative values. You talk in terms of quantity, dollars and units. In fact, one of the definitions in this bill deals with square metres in schools, believe it or not. Can you imagine that being a formula to determine how much education a person should get?

MR. R. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, with respect to standing order 43 and their relevance and tedious repetition, I think it would be in order for the Chair to remind the hon. member for Vancouver Centre to be relevant.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I have been listening to the first member for Vancouver Centre and he has introduced a new topic. He is talking about English-as-a-second-language students, which should be of major concern to that member for Vancouver South; instead he's trying to shut the member up. I think the member should be permitted to continue talking about the students who are going to be penalized by this legislation because English is their second language.

[ Page 1183 ]

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, notwithstanding the scope of debate allowed in second reading, it is incumbent upon all of us to.... While we will have an opportunity in estimates and other aspects of debate that will be before us at this specific time we are dealing with Bill 6, which is one which empowers "the minister to supervise budgets and expenditures by school districts." Hon. members, this does not permit us a wide, all-encompassing debate on education. I know that may come as a surprise, but we should really narrow the debate, hon. member.

MR. BARNES: I do appreciate your participation in the debate, Mr. Speaker, but I know that you are merely trying to assist us in sticking as close to the business of the House as possible, and I respect you for that.

I would suggest to Your Honour and to all members of the House that when we start talking about spending money for education we should not be so myopic in our view of what the requirements are as to suggest that we can anticipate, four or five years ahead, what the budget limitations will be. We're talking about a dynamic, changing, flexible institution. The education system does not tend itself to that approach like sawmills or any other industry that provides things for people. We're talking about intangible experiences, and the opportunity to exploit the individual's potential as an individual. To allow that opportunity, I cannot see how you can possibly discuss dollars on the one hand and say that you are trying to have an education system. What happens is that you understand what the objective is and then you see whether you can afford it; if you can't, then you decide whether you want to spend extra money for it. But you're telling us that you already know how much will be spent, that you already know what's going to be the cost. And you're telling the school boards that if they don't like it, then lump it. If they don't like that, Mr. Minister of Education, you're telling the school boards that if they can't live within their administrative budget, then they can cut teachers' salaries. They cannot even transfer the costs of administration to education. In other words, you are dictating.

How many of you people over there have any experience in education, anyway? How many of you know what you're talking about? These are all political and ideological moves. You are taking very blind and dangerous initiatives, with total disregard....

MR. REID: What experience do you have?

MR. BARNES: If you want to know about the experience, I'll tell you.

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: What seems to be the problem? He's asking about my credentials. The member for Delta wants to know about my credentials to criticize this government on education.

AN HON. MEMBER: For Surrey.

MR. BARNES: For Surrey. I gave him credit. That's right — the man with all those votes.

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: What's wrong with the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland)?

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: He's not the Chairman; he's the Speaker. Don't you know the situation here in the House? I'm going to take my seat until we get some order. Mr. Speaker, would you please bring the place to order? This is very unusual.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, if the member addresses the Chair....

On a point of order, the first member for Surrey.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, standing order 43. Many of us have been sitting here for four hours now, which is fine if we're going to learn something new, but this speaker persists in irrelevance. Most of his topic is very tedious and repetitious. I would ask you to suggest that he please stick to Bill 6.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I think the only tedious and irrelevant thing that's coming across here is the continued interruption by the member for Surrey, referring to a particular standing order in a most subjective and narrow, prejudiced way. I think Your Honour will probably find that if you look at that carefully.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, possibly the matter can be resolved if members refrain from interjecting and allow the first member for Vancouver Centre to address his remarks to the Chair, who will listen attentively.

MR. BARNES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's what I'm attempting to do, despite all the interjections from that side of the House.

Interjections.

MR. BARNES: Now I'm in real trouble, Mr. Speaker — very serious trouble, if the Premier is on my side. The Premier says he's for me. I'm really worried now.

I would like to address the question from the member for Surrey, who is suggesting that this member perhaps does not have the necessary qualifications to be commenting on the education system.

[5:45]

Mr. Speaker, this is the nature of our society. Politicians, including members on all sides of the House, are called upon to try to address very serious and complicated subjects. But you know, the difference between this side and that side of the House is that we recognize the limitations placed upon individuals and seek advice, consultation and cooperation with those people who are in a better position to assist us with certain complicated details. That's why we have a democracy, and that's why we believe in cooperation, something that the Premier, by the way, suggested he would be campaigning on before the May election. You will recall that he said: "No confrontation, just cooperation." You remember that? I just quoted you in your comments in a speech of 1975 — the same man who said: "Not a dime without debate." It's amazing how times change. The more they change the more they remain the same. Isn't it true? Politicians will be politicians, won't they?

[ Page 1184 ]

But the point is, on Bill 6, they are suggesting to us that this is a temporary measure to assist the school boards in getting their business in order. I suggest to you that this is a long-term measure with dire and dangerous future possibilities. And it worries me, because I can see the long arm of Social Credit reaching out into the shortened end zones, trying to expand them to fit their needs — trying to make the community fit their needs. But you know, the community was here long before Social Credit, and the people's needs were here long before Social Credit. You people are not addressing the issues of the public responsibly; you are doing it all in cabinet, by order-in-council, and with the assistance of your imported advisers from back east and other places. I say that you are being unfair to the people.

I see the Premier is anxious to get up out of his seat. I wish we could put his mike on and pick up some of those comments. They're fascinating. He's enjoying this, you see, because he knows he's got five years to debate Bill 6, so he's not in any hurry. He tells us that they have the mandate, and that is why they are bringing this bill and all those other dangerous pieces of legislation in.

I quoted the Premier in 1975 talking about cooperation with local authorities and local school boards. You know, I recall him making those comments, and I told our people: "You know, we are in trouble. If Social Credit is going to do that they are stealing our thunder. Those are democratic principles. What are they trying to do? They're going too far. They are going to have to live up to that stuff one day."

The only problem was that they were outside looking in. You see, when you are outside trying to get in, you will say anything, do anything and promise anything. When you get in you seem to forget about it. Mr. Speaker, there are guidelines to protect us from politicians who backslide on their promises; It is called a democratic process; it is called cooperation; and it is called having systems in place that protect us against ourselves when we get too excited about trying to misguide the public like you did after the May 5 election when you made certain promises and are now doing something else.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. Could we please return to Bill 6.

MR. BARNES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have been strictly addressing Bill 6.

MR. SPEAKER: You keep saying "okay" and "all right," hon. member, but we don't seem to get back to Bill 6.

MR. BARNES: Let me see if I can find the bill. I can't find it, but I can assure you.... Look, here is Bill 6. This bill appears to be such a neat little package, you know. It says "Education (Interim) Finance Amendment Act 1983." When I look at the bill, I don't see any details. At the same time, this bill deals with hundreds of billions of dollars, and yet there are no details. This is just another attempt by this government.... They had hoped that they wouldn't have any problem — that there would be no debate, no filibuster and everybody would just swallow everything they had done. We start looking at this legislation, and we see a connection between this and all those other bills that you brought in. We know you are trying to take over this province. We know you are going to confiscate it in one way or the other, because you have some advisors who tell you the people are asleep on the street, that they don't care and you could get away with it. I would like to suggest to you that you almost got away with it, but we are slowly getting hip to you. We know what the buzzwords are, and we are going to watch you.

I move that we now adjourn this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 46

NAYS — 4

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

Hon. Mr. Phillips tabled the answer to a question standing in his name on the order paper.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:57 p.m.