[ Page 5611 ]

CONTENTS

Oral Questions

Coquihalla Highway construction hiring practices. Mr. Gabelmann –– 5611

Ocean Falls. Mr. Williams –– 5611

Forestry budget cuts. Mr. Howard –– 5612

Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Ms. Brown –– 5612

Overseas trip by Minister of Finance. Mr. MacWilliam –– 5613

Rural electrification subsidies. Mr. Nicolson –– 5613

Presence of cabinet ministers. Mr. Cocke –– 5613

Foreign ownership of land. Ms. Sanford –– 5613

Report on PNE. Mr. Macdonald –– 5613

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Education estimates. (Hon. Mr. Heinrich)

On vote 17: minister's office –– 5613

Mr. Rose

Mr. Davis

Mrs. Wallace

Mr. Howard

Appendix –– 5636

MONDAY, APRIL 15, 1985

The House met at 2:04 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, on this lovely Monday afternoon I have great pleasure in introducing to hon. members of the House Mr. Barry Henderson, MP for Northeast Fife, and his wife Janet. I'd like to bid them a most cordial welcome, both from the government side and I know from the opposition side, and certainly my colleague the hon. member for North Vancouver–Capilano (Mr. Ree) joins me in these sentiments.

MR. BLENCOE: In the House this afternoon are a number of visitors from the Gulf Islands. John Rich and Kira Rich, his daughter, are here from Bowen Island. Also in the gallery are Mr. Nick Gilbert, who is the trustee for Saltspring and the vice-chairman of the Islands Trust. He has two members of his family with him: Mary Gilbert and Alura Gilbert. Would the House please make them welcome.

MR. REYNOLDS: In the galleries this afternoon is Mrs. Helen Lindholm, one of Victoria's great tennis players, and with her is her sister visiting from England, Mrs. Pauline Sadler. I wish the House would make them welcome.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery this afternoon are two representatives from a group in Campbell River, the Campbell River transition house feasibility study: Sally Bodnar and Sharon MacDonald. Would the House please make them welcome.

MR. MOWAT: Mr. Speaker, in the House today we have a number of visitors from Vancouver–Little Mountain and Vancouver–Point Grey: Monica Simonsen, Joy Roantree, Barbara Annandale, Maureen Zuccole, Warren Hale, Jean Green, Frances Warledge and Susan Davis. I'd ask the House to make them welcome.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, April 15 is the natal day of one of our better friends in this assembly, whose horoscope says he has a great sense of drama, is diplomatic, and that his spice of life is romance. A very happy birthday to our Law Clerk.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, I would like to answer questions put to me, Nos. 4 and 5 on the order paper. I like keeping the members informed.

Oral Questions

COQUIHALLA HIGHWAY
CONSTRUCTION HIRING PRACTICES

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Transportation and Highways. The Premier and the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) have promised that the construction of the Coquihalla Highway will mean work for unemployed workers in the Hope, Merritt and Kamloops areas. Is the minister aware that one successful bidder, Ledcor, actively recruited workers for its $6.2 million contract from Alberta, thus denying B.C. workers jobs on that B.C. project?

HON. A. FRASER: First of all, I'm aware that Ledcor was the low bidder on the contract. I believe they're based in Alberta. When the contract was awarded to them, they said they would hire all B.C. people except their supervisory people. They didn't do that, and that has since been corrected.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, would the minister agree that it "has since been corrected" refers to the fact that the Alberta workers have been encouraged by Ledcor to switch their Alberta plates to B.C. licence plates?

HON. A. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, I have no knowledge of what the member is talking about — about switching plates.

MR. GABELMANN: I wonder if the minister would confirm for me that in fact four non-supervisory jobs on that particular project have gone to British Columbia workers and that every other job on that site has gone to an Alberta or non-British Columbia worker who was actively recruited for that job, particularly because they were not resident in British Columbia and had no previous connection with trade unions.

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, if there was a question there.... But I won't confirm anything that was said there.

OCEAN FALLS

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Forests. In view of the statement of the earlier Minister of Forests, Mr. Williston, with respect to Ocean Falls, and the opportunity that is perceived in terms of underutilization of resources in that region, the fact that there is an existing community and power plant available there and the fact that there has been non-performance by some of the licensees in the region already, in terms of their timber licences, is the minister actively considering making use of these resources, getting the licensees to conform, or activating Ocean Falls again?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, the member should be advised that the Ocean Falls Corporation is the responsibility of the Ministry of Industry and Small Business Development.

MR. WILLIAMS: One of the licensees in the region is Doman Industries, who have been exporting raw logs from the Kimsquit valley of that region, which could have been supporting industry in that region and jobs in British Columbia. They have not performed in terms of the pulp mill they promised many years ago. The jobs are not here in British Columbia. Is the minister prepared to reconsider that licence question, in view of the job opportunities that are needed in the province?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: No.

MR. WILLIAMS: Is the minister saying that any company can export logs to Japan and not provide jobs in British Columbia — and indeed not perform on firm contracts?

[ Page 5612 ]

HON. MR. WATERLAND: No.

MR. WILLIAMS: Are contracts with this minister unimportant? Must they not perform, Mr. Speaker? That's the question. We need jobs in British Columbia. There has been non-performance in terms of pulp mill construction.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, the member is incorrect.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, the answer to that last question is obviously yes.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, the Chair recognized the member for a question.

FORESTRY BUDGET CUTS

MR. HOWARD: I'd like to direct a question to the Minister of Forests. In his absence — while he was in China — I posed a question to his substitute minister here — this was on March 27 — asking what effect the curtailment in the budget to his ministry would mean in terms of reduced services in the forest regions in the province. I wonder if the minister is prepared to answer that.

[2:15]

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, I am sure there will be ample opportunity to discuss my estimates when they're brought before the House.

MR. HOWARD: Such arrogance we haven't seen for a long time. No siree, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. This is question period.

MR. HOWARD: Yes, and it should be answer period too, Mr. Speaker. It should not be permitted for the Minister of Forests....

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. This is question period, and members are familiar with the rules that guide us in question period regarding what is and is not admissible as a question. The Chair has no power to insist on an answer. The member may pose questions.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. HOWARD: Why won't the minister be honest with the House and answer the questions that were put to him?

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Another word would be appropriate, hon. member.

MR. HOWARD: That's a question.

MR. SPEAKER: But it's not a question that's in order, hon. member.

MR. HOWARD: I think those words are quite appropriate to this minister.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the minister, because of his refusal to answer questions in the House earlier, whether he would reconsider and relate to the House the information that the employees within his ministry who are being fired as a result of cutbacks in his ministry budget are scalers.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, I hope the member is not inferring that I have been anything but honest in my dealings with the Legislature, pertinent to the preamble to his question.

Mr. Speaker, no one is being fired in the Ministry of Forests.

MR. HOWARD: Will the minister confirm that scalers will be laid off, that the employment of government scalers will be reduced?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, I cannot confirm that, no.

MR. HOWARD: Does the minister know anything about what is going on in his department?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

MR. HOWARD: Not very damned much.

CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the elusive Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith), the Scarlet Pimpernel of the cabinet. We know he's out there somewhere, because we keep reading comments that he makes, but we never see him. Is he in heaven? Where is he? Mr. Speaker, is the acting Attorney-General willing to deal with a question?

HON. MR. GARDOM: Yes.

MS. BROWN: Good.

One of the statements which we understand was made by the Attorney-General over the weekend was that after a three year gestation period there are going to be something in the neighbourhood of forty provincial acts adjusted to bring them in line with sections 15 and 25 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Can the acting Attorney-General tell the House whether a similar comprehensive review of provincial regulations is also going to take place?

HON. MR. GARDOM: I would be more than delighted to take that question as notice and relay it to my colleague, the hon. Attorney-General.

MS. BROWN: Another question to the acting Attorney-General. The policy in the Ministry of Human Resources which discriminates against recipients under the age of 25 is a matter of policy and not legislation. Nonetheless, this contravenes the Charter. Will this be looked at by the Attorney-General?

[ Page 5613 ]

HON. MR. GARDOM: Again, Madam Member, I'd have to take that question as notice, but it seems to me that you're reaching a conclusion that may indeed be erroneous.

OVERSEAS TRIP BY MINISTER OF FINANCE

MR. MacWILLIAM: In the Premier's absence, I'll direct my question to the deputy Premier. The Minister of Finance and an assistant have departed on a junket to Japan via Toronto, London, and numerous stops in between. I wonder if the deputy Premier could inform the House as to the purpose of the first-class round-the-world trip for which the air fare alone is near the $7,000 range.

HON. A. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Premier I'll take the question as notice.

RURAL ELECTRIFICATION SUBSIDIES

MR. NICOLSON: To the minister responsible for B.C. Hydro. I would like to ask the minister if the discontinuance of rural electrification subsidies through B.C. Hydro was cleared with him before it went into effect at the beginning of this month.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, I will take the question as notice.

MR. NICOLSON: At the same time as he takes it as notice, I have a new question. I ask the minister if he would find out if it's also been cleared with the B.C. Utilities Commission.

PRESENCE OF CABINET MINISTERS

MR. COCKE: I'd like to direct a question to the House Leader on the government side. My question is: where are they? Where are your colleagues, who are to be here during question period? As the person responsible for discipline on the government side, can you tell us that in the future we won't prepare a number of questions for all those empty chairs.

HON. MR. GARDOM: It's a very interesting responsibility.

MR. COCKE: This is a very serious question. The opposition has the right to question. Certainly there are times and situations where a few cabinet ministers are away on business and so on, but this is ridiculous. This has been going on every day. So would the House Leader tell us whether or not there's going to be discipline in the future with respect to cabinet ministers being here during this time?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, while the concern may be a legitimate one, unfortunately it has been canvassed many times — the absence of members from the House. I must again bring back the same reference that has been brought back on previous occasions.

MR. COCKE: Well, Mr. Speaker, with respect to that point of order, I agree that we've canvassed it with the Speaker, but now we're canvassing it with the person whose authority it should be to see to it — the House Leader.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Think for yourself instead of reading the questions that....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

FOREIGN OWNERSHIP OF LAND

MS. SANFORD: I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture and Food. B.C. is one of the few provinces in Canada with no restriction on the foreign ownership of agricultural land. In view of this situation and the possibility that nervous speculators looking for a safe place to invest will purchase land in British Columbia, has the minister decided to take steps to limit foreign land holdings in British Columbia?

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: The answer is: not yet.

MS. SANFORD: I would just like to know. Could I ask when?

MR. SPEAKER: That's future action, hon. member.

REPORT ON PNE

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, to the Provincial Secretary. In view of the fact that the city council's discussion paper on the PNE will be discussed at a public meeting very soon, will that minister finally release the report that has been in his hands for a very long period of time and make it public?

HON. MR. CHABOT: In due course.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to just fill in here. I would like to ask a question about question period, as I was supposed to be chairing it this morning. I find it very upsetting that our questions cannot be asked. I therefore want to ask the House Leader if he will make arrangements to meet with our House Leader to see if this kind of situation can be avoided. Otherwise question period in this Legislature will become a farce.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Judging by the questions we've received, I agree with you.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

(continued)

On vote 17: minister's office, $179,543.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I'm delighted that my critic is here today. I understand that there was some particular problem last week. I have heard one member speak, and I have responded. I am quite prepared to sit down and listen to the member for Coquitlam-Moody.

MR. ROSE: I thank the minister for his courtesy and also for the fact that he was so pleasant about bringing in the education estimates on Friday, which were a surprise to the

[ Page 5614 ]

minister and a surprise to me as well. So while we're here I guess we might as well proceed with them.

I think that probably never before in the history of the province has there been so much controversy surrounding education. I think there have been times when there have been areas where it was controversial. I was thinking of Coquitlam in the fifties — the business of the independent schools and the threat to send youngsters to the public schools, and what a difference that might have made to the enrolment, and to the problems and the solutions in Coquitlam. But the minister, to his credit — or to his debt, or whatever — certainly has elevated education to the highest level of consciousness in the province. I don't know whether he would have chosen that role for himself. I don't know whether he enjoys the kind of controversy and conflict surrounding the role. All I know is that he has stubbornly — and I say that not too unkindly — adhered to the fiscal framework, to the plan he laid out two years ago, and now we are approaching the beginning of the third year.

This is really the beginning of four years of vast changes in education which have sought to both downsize it in terms of budget and staff, but also to remove the powers enjoyed locally. Once we had a shared power between the central authority in Victoria and the local districts; we no longer have that. We have seen more and more power and finance and autonomy stripped from those local districts and winding up in the hands of the bureaucracy — the chief bureaucrat is sitting right opposite us — and we hope that they are in wise hands. However, it really doesn't make any difference if you have a monopoly on power, because whatever happens, there is really no check on that power other than that which rests with the people.

[2:30]

Mr. Speaker, just a quick review of this. First of all, the interim financing act of 1982 had a sunset provision in it, and that was to end at the end of 1982. However, we had Bill 6 introduced in 1983, which extended the powers to determine local budgets for another three years. We've had all kinds of other little interesting wrinkles such as referenda that were to be established right away in Bill 48 just a few weeks ago and then found that that was also...removed the sunset provision. So it is my view that as things go the way they're heading, what we can expect over the next few years is a continued centralization of authority in Victoria. So first of all we have the centralization of financing and a limit put on what was normally a shared decision in terms of fund-raising. The reins were put on the autonomous bodies such as school boards. This is not news to the minister; he knows that and he admits it. He says: "We had to do it." Then we see that that has been extended for another three years. In addition to that, we have more centralization of curriculum, fewer opportunities for the locals to meet local needs. Then recently even the power to arbitrate settlements with the boards and their staffs and their teaching staff has been removed, courtesy of the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis). So here we have a total centralization, a total loss and power-grab from the boards, including the commercial and industrial tax base resting in the hands of the central authority.

You fellows better make a good job of it. I don't think you are, but you're going to bear the entire responsibility, because you've had to fight just about every district in this province.

Now it's all very well to say: "Well now, some districts applauded this." I don't wonder. There are certain districts in the province that provided so meagre an educational fare for their students — for sometimes reasonably good reasons, like they couldn't afford any more. But some — about two-thirds of them — provided so meagre a fare that the minister's framework brought them up in terms of their budget, relative to the other districts. But those very districts that were doing what I regard as a job that people wanted for their children, looking after the handicapped, a wide variety of special courses for varying interests, high retention rates, special needs personnel, ESL people, student aid people, classroom aids — all kinds of fine maintenance and fine programs in the arts and various cultural agencies.... Those districts were largely — not totally, but largely — in the lower mainland. Over the past three years, if you count inflation, $200 million has been stolen from those boards. Two hundred million bucks, downsized by at least 13 percent in the three years by inflation, and another 6 percent by the admitted plan of the minister. No institution or group of institutions or one-third of a total provincial institution can stand that kind of a systematic attack without showing signs of strain.

Those are the general kinds of background I bring to the debate. Others will be elaborating on various other aspects. There's no limit to the number of things we could talk about here. There is absolutely no limit. We could talk about how we tax for schools. We could talk about how inflation has exceeded the decline in enrolment, conveniently ignored by the minister in all his speeches; how the public schools have high achievement standards and should not be attacked and discredited by way of insults or imposition of external exams. What's happened to the ESL picture in Vancouver, where over 40 percent and sometimes 60 percent of those kids going to those schools have English as maybe a fifth language? What do they need? What are they getting? We could talk about Mr. Curtis's recent freeze and how that was announced: by the media without any consultation with the boards, who didn't even have the directive until a week later. We could talk about "Let's Talk About Schools." Nobody else seems to be, so we could talk about it here. Those meetings have been terribly poorly attended, in my view. If you look at the research design I think you're going to have to be really smoking a lot of something or other to expect that you're going to get a great deal of real solid research from that kind of a survey. I don't know how you could draw any kind of reasonable conclusions from it other than the way Mr. Gallup does, in which the blind lead the blind, and we have a pooling of ignorance. We could talk about class size. We could talk about all the matters of the economics of education. We could talk about education and jobs. We could talk about the independent schools, colleges, or the NDP policy.

I hope that during this debate.... That's a tall order, and it's by no means limited to these topics. We could talk here for weeks. I don't threaten that; that has no more appeal to me than I'm sure it does to the minister and his staff.

Some people think that the government doesn't know what its doing. I disagree with them. I think that's an unkind cut. I think the government is deliberate and knows exactly what it's doing, and it's doing exactly what it intended to do: to downsize not only the number of people involved in the education industry but also public education in terms of the finance available to it. What is the percentage spent? In 1978-79 it was 14.8 percent of the provincial budget. This year it is 11.9.

Actually, we have everything here for a trial. Now the minister is a lawyer. It seems to me that education isn't on

[ Page 5615 ]

trial. I think public education has no need to go on trial. Sure, there are some things to be fixed up. A lot of people say: "All you're doing, Mr. Rose, is defending the status quo." Look, if we can't get progress, then you have to defend what you've got. Certainly we're not going ahead, and I'll try to make that case. The minister is a lawyer. The Crown is on trial, in my view, because the public is going to be the jury, and ultimately it will decide whether or not what has been done to education — the attack on education — has been good for education, has been good for the province and has been good for the children. I think that that decision won't be too long in coming.

I don't know, maybe the minister has got the number crunchers working; maybe he's got all those people out there sticking their wet finger up in the wind. They know what's happening out there. Bashing teachers may be good politics. It may be that if you can prove that they're greedy, incompetent and goof off all the time, that translates into a hell of a lot of votes, because they're making too much money while everybody else is unemployed.

What is the Crown's case for its attack on education? Well, I would think that one of the things that it's going to say is that by slashing educational funding — or fat, as it likes to call it — it can provide education without sacrificing quality. Isn't that really the issue? The Crown says: "What we're spending is too much and has been too much; therefore we can cut education. Sure, we're going to cut a few teachers out. We're going to increase jobs, but we're going to cut a few teachers out of work. Put them on the street; that helps create jobs." The Crown's case is: "Yes, we have to do that, because times are tough. So we're going to do that, but we're not going to sacrifice quality. Don't talk about quality. Don't talk about the kids. Don't talk about opportunity. Don't talk about jobs. We can get the same quality for less money, because education is fat." Well, I have an idea where the fat lies, and I don't think it's in the school system.

"Enrolment has declined," they said, "so therefore if it's gone down 10 percent, let's cut the school budgets by 20 percent." That's what you've done. Enrolment in the past, say, four years.... I see a number-cruncher over there listening to me very intently. For the years you described in your original framework, the argument was used that enrolment in the public system had declined. And I think it's going to decline further, too — not because of the birth rate, though, but because once you have a poor-quality public education and you tell everybody that the quality is not satisfactory, then of course people are going to seek other alternatives. And that's what's happened right now: independent schools are up 16 percent. All right, that's one case.

Teachers' demands are excessive, the second-highest in Canada. So what? Would you want them the lowest? I mean, the lot prices are higher here too. The average teacher's salary is $36,000. The average family income — I'm not talking about fringes — in 1983 was $36,000. So the average teacher in British Columbia makes an average family salary. Anyway, there's no money in defending teachers. Teachers have poor images, so we'll whack them around a little bit, and that will increase our political advantage. So teachers are excessively greedy.

The next point the minister wants to make for his case is that trustees are not acceptable guardians of the public purse. The Minister of Universities (Hon. Mr. McGeer) said here, not more than two or three weeks ago, that the reason that school board budgets have gone up astonishingly in the past five years.... I forget; he always chooses his own years for his own convenience, but I think 1979-84, 1979-83 or 1976-83 — it really doesn't make any difference. The point is that he said trustees were spending like drunken sailors. He forgets to mention that those were all arbitrated settlements. He forgets to mention as well that those were years when in one of the years at least — 1981-82 — there was 17 percent inflation. Well, you're way below that now.

If your enrolment is down 10 percent, with your $200 million out you've taken out 20 percent of your billion dollar budget. It's still a fantastic amount. It's still far more than the Third World will pay for its education. But why shouldn't we? Why should we not have as good or better a kind of educational system than everywhere else in Canada? What are we spending? It's 11.9 percent of our provincial budget estimated this year, while Ontario is around 20. That's terrible. What does the Minister of Universities say? He says: "Well, we don't need to worry about skills; we'll import them." So when we get to this high-tech heaven.... I don't think that, anyway. I think we're going to need more janitors and sales clerks than we're going to need engineers, or whatever those certain technologies use. They're job-displacing, not job-creating, in the main. Don't tell me any more about how the agricultural worker went to the cities. The whole ball game has changed.

Let's get back to the Minister of Universities — if you'd like to; I don't really care about it, but I think it's typical of the attitude on the other side.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Did you say it makes me belch, thinking of the Minister of Universities? Well, you're reasonably accurate.

What did he say? He said that university budgets went up massively during those years merely because school boards were spending like drunken sailors. The reason they were spending like drunken sailors was due to the fact that a lot of school teachers were on school boards.

MR. CHAIRMAN: One moment, please. Pursuant to schedule 5, Committee of Supply, I must ask the member if he is the designated speaker thereof.

MR. ROSE: Ask him what?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you the designated speaker during these estimates?

MR. ROSE: Why? Have I gone a half an hour already?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Fifteen minutes.

MR. ROSE: Oh. Yes, I am.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Please proceed.

MR. ROSE: I thought you were going to call me out of order.

Anyway, I put the case for the Crown. I put the case for the minister. We can cut the educational fat out because enrolment has declined and teachers' salaries are excessive, and if we whip them into line then they'll bear the same kind of responsibility for the recovery — whatever that is — that

[ Page 5616 ]

everybody else has to. Trustees are not acceptable guardians of the public purse, and education should bear its full responsibility. All right?

Now the case for the defence. I think what we have to do is put the issues here in a way that is understandable to the general public. This is the view, I take it, that the provincial government has assumed. I don't think I've been unfair to the minister when I say that.

What is the case for the defence? I'm arguing for the plaintiff. Who are the plaintiff? First of all, they're the students who are either going to get a reasonable level of service that they have the right to expect of their school system, or they're not. Then there are their parents, who throughout their lifetime have come to expect from the schools an increasingly heavy load of responsibilities. When once it was the three Rs, it's too late for that. Society has changed too rapidly for that. So the schools have been asked to take on all kinds of vocational things which are not necessarily educative — they're training, but they're not necessarily educative — all the socializing things, all the substitutes in terms of parenting and counselling and all the adjustments to a new society embodied in such things as ESL and other things like that. All right?

[2:45]

So this is why the parents are interested in the future for their own children, because we've come to expect upward social mobility in North America. Every kid who was born in the log cabin can become president. We felt over the years that through education that was an attainable goal, that if somebody had the smarts, if somebody had the wherewithal, the mental capacity, the energy and the dedication they could be sitting over there in the chairs with the minister, with a nice, professional background, a sense of achievement, or in business or whatever their chosen field happened to be.

The parents expect that from the schools. I doubt that we can expect that in such large numbers, for a lot of reasons, and not just the schools. It's quite different. But once upon a time, about 20 years ago, we could expect that 25 percent of North Americans would probably have better jobs, a better income and a better education than their parents. Those were the days of high immigration. That generation goes back perhaps 50 years ago. Today it's not that high, and I don't think it's going to be that high. As a matter of fact, this is the first generation that doesn't even think it might get a job. There are many, many young people, about 23 percent of those under 24 right now in this province, who don't have a job, and probably little prospect of getting one. What does that have to say about education? So anyway, they are the plaintiff.

The trustees. I don't know why anybody would want to be a trustee. They must be a masochist to be a trustee. What have they got to do? They don't decide on curriculum. They can only decide on so many leaky roofs — and I'm not trying to belittle their efforts. They can no longer negotiate with their teachers; there's no collective bargaining. They don't determine their own global budgets anymore. So what do they do? What is their real role, other than being local punching bags? I don't understand why anybody would want to go through that.

They're not even told.... Overnight, in the dead of night, in comes Mr. Curtis making an announcement. A week later Nanaimo still hadn't had the directive of which Mr. Curtis spoke. Is that cooperation? Is that consultation? What kind of a performance is that? After taking $200 million out of the school system — the school systems that were providing the best in enriched fare.... You took $200 million out of one-third of the districts and gave it to the others. Even those that got a 13 percent increase on paper really didn't, because they lost it all in inflation anyway. So the whole thing is flimflam. It's a game to hammer education, because I don't think that party over there believes in it. I don't think they really believe in public education. The important — as a matter of fact, I think the vital — ingredient to democracy is an enriched public system.

Anyway, what's the other case that the defence counsel might put forward on the part of the plaintiff? First of all, oh, we forgot about the teachers. Well, that doesn't matter, because they're not very popular anyway. But you let one teacher go in Qualicum and you lose 0.7 of another job in the community. Just on straight economics the policy is a dumb one. We're trying to increase our prosperity. You say you can't spend your way into prosperity. That's a cliché, eh? Well, you can't restrain your way into prosperity either. I'll go over the list of the various communities where these casualties of the teaching staff are looking for other work, and we find that we lose 0.7 of another job. Is that the aim? How would we feel if we somehow fired 2,000 millworkers? There would be a lot of questions in this House. But 2,000 teachers doesn't make any.... They are expendable. All they did was spend five or six years going to school to get there.

So there we have the plaintiffs. What is the plaintiffs' case? Inflation has been far more extreme in terms of increased costs of education than is overcome by any decline in enrolment. So inflation is the thing that forced those budgets up — that's all. Well, I shouldn't say all; it's because of arbitrated settlements that recognized inflation.

"Teachers perform better under larger classes and with job insecurity." That is what the ministry would like us to believe. I don't think that's true. I think that teachers' morale.... I've got surveys here as long as, my father would say, a cow's conscience to prove just the opposite or to indicate just the opposite.

Teachers are insecure, and they have very poor morale. Kids are being shuttled from one class to the other because of changes, especially in the six-month adjustment period. So the morale is bad, and I don't think quality education comes from a staff of whom some are assigned in fields for which they have had little or no training. I don't see how that kind of thing.... If they're constantly reminded that their efforts are really not very well regarded, I don't see how they can perform with any kind of encouragement, enlightenment, high morale or enthusiasm.

Another thing: what happens under Bill 3, because of the seniority provisions? Those people remaining in the school system are going to become increasingly more senior or older. I was going to say "senile," but I thought that I might include myself under that definition. That's what is going to happen. Your young and enthusiastic teachers, your energetic teachers, your innovative teachers, are often found among the more junior teachers. I could never see much point in an 11-year increment pattern anyway. It used to be 18 in Vancouver; all that is is really a delay in wages. That's all it is. I don't think it has any professional justification whatsoever. But certainly those teachers who are up to five years.... I found that I had far more zeal and enthusiasm in those days of my teaching career than I would, say, today, and I think that that happens to a lot of people.

[ Page 5617 ]

The senior teachers, the highly paid teachers, are being kept on. They are not the ones you can necessarily expect the highest degree of energy from, or the ones who are going to take the kids on the field trips, the bus trips, the basketball trips or the band trips. You're going to find that those are more junior people. But your average cost of teachers is going to go up, because the senior people are at the higher parts of the salary scale. Then we're going to hear from the minister or his staff: "See what's happened here. Education costs have continued to rise." Sure, if you fire all the inexpensive ones and you only keep the expensive ones, of course the average salary is going to increase.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Special services have been withdrawn. "It's not going to hurt the quality of education if you take out learning assistance teachers." If you take out counsellors, that's not going to hurt the quality of education?

Centralization is another one — all power in the hands of Victoria. Our case is that it has failed. To be colloquial, you've got the natives extremely restless. I've never seen so many people concerned about schools. Sure, they say that they like the minister personally. They think he's very genial, congenial. I don't know whether they consider him — what, a sort of smiling Jack the Ripper? Nevertheless, they like him. They put his picture on the front of the paper, throwing his dog a bone. As a matter of fact, when he was little he had to hang a bone around his neck so the dogs would play with him. But I want to remind anybody who saw the picture that the one with the Indian sweater on was the minister.

Anyway, his dog likes him. I think most people do like him. They just don't like what he's doing. They don't like what he's doing. I think most people don't like what he's doing, except those people who have the same kind of prejudices against education as I think the Social Credit government has.

Mr. Chairman, that is a general overview of the case. The case is that the minister says: "I can maintain educational quality for the children of British Columbia without sacrificing quality and cut about 20 percent out of the budgets, totally, for the province." The defence says: "No, you can't." Already the evidence is that those slashes have gone through and hit the quality of education like an invasion by Attila the Hun.

So the case really rests with the public, and I hope that they understand that it was a political decision that got us into this, and that a similar political decision — either by the government or another government — is going to get us out. I don't see any other alternative. I see little tendency to change their mind. I think they are doggedly determined that they are on the right track. I'm not saying that there's anything immoral about that. That's what government is all about — ordering priorities. Some people don't like the government's priorities. They don't like the fact that the educational budgets have slipped from 14.8 percent of the total provincial expenditures in 1978-79 — that's before the years of the biggest inflation — to 11.9 percent now. They don't like the idea that education has been downsized and put at a far lower priority than it once enjoyed.

Mr. Chairman, 1985, as well as ending the international s Decade for Women, is the International Year of Youth. I'm not convinced that what we're offering our youth in 1985 is as I good as it was in 1980. I think that....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: No, no, I'm the designated hitter.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I understand, Mr. Member, that designated speakers have 30 minutes, and this will be the end of your 30 minutes. You have another moment or two.

MR. ROSE: I have five minutes?

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, you have another minute or two. The green light usually indicates two minutes, Mr. Member.

MR. ROSE: Oh, I am pleased. Thank you. I am grateful to you, Mr. Chairman.

What I would like to do, in the final minutes left to me, is to indicate some of the other things that I intend to go on with. I want to talk in more and greater detail about what I regard as the sins of the Social Credit education policies. I understand also that once there's an intervening speaker of 15 minutes or whatever duration, I am entitled to proceed. I don't know who the next speaker is, but whomever that person is I think they're entitled to go as long as they like; I think we'll be around here for a few days.

I'll sit down now, and thank you very much for allowing me this introduction to my speech.

MR. CHAIRMAN: For clarification, Mr. Member, the standing orders do provide that you may continue for up to 15 minutes when there has been an intervening speaker. But the designated speaker may speak initially for 30 minutes without an intervening speaker.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I won't take too long, and allow my critic to get on his feet again, but I would like to remind the members that it wasn't so very long ago that we were getting headlines in British Columbia, which I have brought to the House before, and I quote one from the Province of February 1982: "School System a Ravenous Monster." Now I don't think the Province or any other newspaper is speaking out against public education as a result of putting a byline like that in the newspaper. I think what they are doing is reporting what in fact was occurring. We saw expenditures in public education almost double in seven fiscal years. I have said repeatedly that I am the advocate for he public education system, and that my job is to preserve it, not allow it to destroy itself or to be consumed by the demands it is placing upon the economic generators in our province.

Interestingly enough, article after article in 1982 really reflected the concerns of the public, screaming out for a solution. I concede that in 1982 it was very difficult. That was the time when arbitrated settlements, which presumably reflected inflation at the time, were making tremendous demands. These concerns were being expressed not just by the public, but by trustees, administrators, school officials. The first thing brought to my attention when I was assigned the portfolio was: "Can you do something to bring in some degree or measure of control in public education?" We did introduce a system, and it wasn't foreign. Most people outside involved in public education were aware of it. The question really came: "Do you have the courage to bring it in?"

[3:00]

[ Page 5618 ]

1 don't deny that the system we introduced for funding public education had some problems with it, but it was the first time ever that some degree of control was entered. I recognized in 1982 and 1983 that there were two programs: restraint one and restraint two. I recognized also that they were inequitable, because all we did as a government was to take a proportionate reduction from each of the 75 school districts and their respective budgets. That's all. But it wasn't fair, because many districts in British Columbia were experiencing a significant decline in enrolment — as a matter of fact, most school districts. There were other districts where the school population was levelling, others where they were on the incline; but for the most part they were on the decline.

What did we find out? We found out that it was in inverse proportion: as student enrolment declined, for some unknown reason there were more people brought into the system. But where were those people? They weren't in front of the classroom. More and more became specialists in certain areas, and it seemed that their claim to fame was: "Let's get out of the classroom and get into some job in the district office." How much can the system absorb?

On Friday I again made reference to what happened in the state of California. They had proposition 13. What did it do? It came in and put a cap on expenditure in public education. What really happened was this: it became so appealing to the politicians in California that they could not resist what the electorate was saying. The electorate was saying: "You put a cap on those costs." And they put a terrible cap on them. I am sure our job was to preserve the system that we had, prevent it from consuming itself and prevent an explosion. That's what we did.

The member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose) has made reference to a few items. Bill 6, I conceded — and I got this right from the initial movements made by government — would in fact cap budgets. But remember what the school trustees said. They said at the time that it was not inappropriate for government to do this at that point in time. They've never denied it. They recognized that some degree of control was required. When you implement some form of control, you obviously are going to erode autonomy. I concede that autonomy was eroded. I don't apologize for it. What we did was try to help each other get out of a very difficult set of circumstances.

Collective bargaining. Reference was made to that — autonomy is lost, so what's the point of collective bargaining? When I first came into the portfolio I wondered about collective bargaining. But do you know, there was no such thing as collective bargaining. Automatic conciliation was a joke. Voluntary settlements were a joke. Everybody just waited for the day to go to arbitration, which was compulsory under the act if they hadn't achieved a settlement by a certain date. So they went. The opposition can take issue with the compensation stabilization program, and I understand why they do. But as part of government I'm one of its strongest advocates, because I believe that the CSP system has been of immeasurable assistance. I never forgot my experience with the Labour portfolio, which taught me one thing. Instead of trade union leaders taking their rank and file out on strike, they had an opportunity to get off the pin as a result of this particular program. That's exactly what happened. There is a certain psychology, a certain momentum which occurs over a period of time. A trade union leader can say with justification and with knowledge of what's down the road that there really isn't very much point in withdrawing services: "We know this is the law."

The job right now is to preserve as many jobs as we can. It's all very well to make comments about the treasury board directive. I can assure the opposition that that was a cabinet decision. It seems to me that instead of school districts being placed in the position where they have to give untold numbers of layoff notices, at least they now know, because there are two areas that will be brought into issue for the purpose of establishing wages: one is the ability to pay and the second is the level of service. That level of service is reflected in the schedule which is appended to the directive and which points out the actual number of full-time equivalent teachers the funding formula will generate. It seems to me that that makes eminent sense in the times in which we live.

I think I should also note that the decline in enrolment was quite significant. When we look at it overall, the decline is something in the order of about 6 or 7 percent. That's an awful lot of students. In fact, it's worth something in the order of about 50,000 students in British Columbia. That many students in British Columbia is something, when you want to look. You can compare 50,000 students to the size of the Vancouver school budget.

Mr. Chairman, my critic makes reference to teacher-bashing. I defy the member for Coquitlam-Moody to ever find one statement made by me with respect to that. Never have I made comments derogatory towards teachers. The only time that I experienced something like this was in Powell River, during one of the meetings, of which I attended over 50. I'll never forget: it was an open meeting, and one of the teachers there made reference to teacher-bashing. I said: "What do you mean?" "Well," he said, "you said I couldn't have any more money." That was his definition of teacher-bashing. You have never found that out. What does happen, though, is that the concerns which are expressed by their representatives in the BCTF.... I concede that in this area, when you're talking sometimes government to executive, there are comments passed back and forth. Never, never have I been responsible for that.

All the framework does.... I might mention as well that I didn't come across one secretary-treasurer in all of the travels and in all of the meetings that I have had with them — their executives, and as individuals — who did not think that the system which we introduced was far better than what was there before. Interestingly enough, even many of of the trustees, who have had a difficult job in times gone by, really for the first time have a thorough understanding of the funding of public education by the way the system has been set up and the exercises which they have gone through in order to understand it.

The member also made reference to some of the difficulties caused by the six-month adjustment period. Converting over, so that the fiscal year and the school year are one and the same, has been advocated by the B.C. School Trustees' Association since time immemorial. Why it was never done before this I do not know. But we did do it. Obviously, if there is going to be some kind of change, there are going to be some problems attached to it. But that was something that had to be done. It has been done, and for the most part I have yet to find a school district which really has taken issue with that. In fact, they have all been quite supportive.

In concluding my remarks at this time, I think I can say fairly that the amount of money put into education in British Columbia per student compares favourably with all other

[ Page 5619 ]

provinces across our country. The average teacher's salary compares favourably with all other provinces across the country. In 1984 we were sitting in number two position. I can tell you, as far as class sizes are concerned, it compares favourably. Interestingly enough, with all of the objections that seem to be raised right now, I look at the PTR, and in September 1984, for the year that we are in right now, the average PTR is 17.73 to 1. In 1975-76 it was 19.14 to 1. Next year I believe we're projecting about 18.28 to 1.

While the member can make reference to a considerable number of dollars involved, I can point this out: the amount of money that's gone into public education is something in the order of $1.9 billion, and it has been for the last three consecutive years.

MR. ROSE: I thank the minister for his defence, but just as he's heard all my words before, I've heard all his, and it hasn't changed anything at all. The point is that he justifies this and says: "Well, we're really not whacking at it very hard. We had to get some order out of all this chaos." So his argument runs. "But we've still got a pretty good system. We're still spending lots of money on it." In some of the things he says, I think, there is not that much argument between us. The point is that throughout that whole period there was a tremendous amount of inflation. My gosh, if you look at just during the.... I had it here a second ago; I'll see if I can find it again. But in terms of cost, there was a high of 17 percent in 1982. Well, if you have 17 percent inflation, it means that everything you're spending your money on, not just teachers' salaries but your oil, your buses, all your maintenance and all your materials and supplies are going to be up at least that much — although it was beginning to come down in '82, and when the minister arrived on the scene in '83 we'd already had the 6-and-5 federal program, so that had a moderating affect. And also it was lower in the States. So there's another reason. So he uses these things, I think, as a power-grab. Again....

[3:15]

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, all right; I'm entitled to think that. You say you had to do it, because you really couldn't trust the trustees to look after the system. They couldn't cope. We had to cap these budgets. All those budgets were a result of arbitrated awards because of inflation. You'll say: "Well, after all, there was no negotiation, no collective bargaining. It went from conciliation to arbitration." For whose protection? It went, by and large, I think, for the protection of the trustees. But I could be wrong there. The trustees knew that if there was an arbitrated settlement they were off the hook. The teachers knew that they couldn't be accused of ganging up on their own school district if it was done by a third party. So that's my view of what happened during those years.

The minister said: "Yes." And his predecessor said: "Yes, we'd like to hang on to this power to control budgets for one year." But when this minister assumed the mantle of that particular job he extended it for three years. Since power is not loosely given once obtained, I think there will be a great temptation for him to keep on with it. "Volunteer settlement is a joke," he said. I've already explained the reason I think that it happened. Then he goes on in his rebuttal to me — and we'll probably end up rebutting one another all afternoon — that the CSP system, or Ed Peck's.... He was one of the strongest advocates. Why then did the Finance minister come in and say, in effect: "It doesn't matter what Ed Peck says, we're going to freeze those wages"?

It seems to me that if the Compensation Stabilization Commission was such a valuable instrument, then he wouldn't have gone over his head — unless the Finance department went over the minister's head. I know it was billed as a great job-saving scheme. We're going to protect teachers from themselves, because if I am stubbornly going to insist that I can cap budgets — even though I promised to do otherwise in '83.... If I'm going to do the '85-'86 budget capping and Ed Peck authorized a 2 percent wage, then that's going to mean 2 percent fewer teachers in the district, because I control the total purse strings. So if he liked Ed Peck's little commission so well, why didn't he let it work? He didn't let it work. The cabinet didn't let it work. The Minister of Finance marched into the airport last Thursday — or a week ago Thursday — and announced that the rules had changed. So if the minister likes collective bargaining and all that stuff so well, and Mr. Peck's little office, then I think he should at least have let it work.

"Secretaries like the framework." Of course they like the framework. They're largely accountants. If they can pigeonhole something here and here and here, they don't have to make any adjustments at all. I don't think there's anything wrong with suggesting broad guidelines for the framework in the various functions, but to demand that and to punish school boards if they violate that is I think an unwarranted intrusion into the ongoing affairs of previously autonomous elected bodies. How would the minister like it if the feds came in here and said: "No, no, no, you've got to stop diverting those millions of dollars you get for public education, including half of grade 12, into something else — into roads and sewers or holes in the ground up in the Peace River." Of course they like it. Any group of people who are accountants like a system. I don't think there's anything wrong, as I said, with having a system that provides certain kinds of guidelines for boards.

Even the old referendum under W.A.C. Bennett only clicked into place after the boards exceeded their budgets by 8 percent. So, no, this is a real cutback in educational spending. It's a real cutback.

Anyway, over those years that I spoke of the average percentage of inflation was roughly 1 percent per year, and enrolment has decreased an average of 3 percent. So that's where that stands.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to just talk about a few of the things that have happened in this International Youth Year. I think we've reached a point where it's kind of depressing and bleak if you're a young person looking for a job these days. It can be soul-destroying to the extent that it affects your whole life.

I'm of the age, a little older than the minister, whom I remember as a little kid in the streets of Mission, in his Indian sweater — I don't know if it's the same Indian sweater — hanging on to his father's pant leg.... Those were the years....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Thirties.

The minister probably can't remember clearly into the thirties, but I'm of an age where I can still remember the effects on me, although I wasn't personally touched by it, of all the people who were unemployed and all the sandwiches

[ Page 5620 ]

that were made by my mother for people knocking on the door. We used to stop down at what we used to call Desbrisay's store, where they had the railway track crossing over there, and see hundreds of men in Mission going by on those freights. We'd also walk down the tracks just a little bit south of the station and see all the shanty towns that developed there as the so-called "bums" boiled their kettles and took the sandwiches they got down there.

I know that the NDP — and the CCF before it — is accused of having a depression mentality. However, the happiness boys are over here now. The gloomy Gus's are over there saying: "My God, we can't do this, because we can't afford it." Anyway, those people with the confidence are right here.

Those scenes affected me all my life, although it didn't personally touch me. If you're a kid and can't get a job, and you're unlikely to get a job, then you're going to be affected in terms of your own confidence all your life, unless something happens like what happened then — and God forbid that it does — which was that there was a war and everybody was suddenly completely employed and needed. I've heard lots of people say: "Well, they didn't have shoes for them until they got them in the army, and then there were lots of shoes for them." They couldn't get any dentistry, but when they got in the army there were lots of dentists around to fix their teeth.

But I'm digressing, Mr. Chairman, and before you call me to order with your stem hand, I will move on to some of the things I'm concerned about as far as the youth are concerned, because I think it does destroy confidence and will affect a lot of these kids for their lives, because they go knocking on the doors of colleges and they can't get in.

Student loans were changed two years ago, although you loosened up on that one, and I congratulate you for it. It was two years late, though. I don't know how many people you prevented from getting in the system for that little failure. But I know I'm going to hear about college enrolments going up now — not now, but in a little while.

I think that one of the problems is that Social Credit doesn't recognize education as an investment. It looks upon it totally as a cost. There are all kinds of studies to say that a highly educated society really brings tremendous economic benefits as well. I've got a very interesting paper — a monograph, actually — that I could read to you on that subject, and probably put you fast asleep. But the essence of it is that it is job-producing.

School services have been slashed 25 percent over three years. I think that's a ballpark figure. But when you add your ministry's 6 percent, plus the 13 percent, plus inflation, that's not too far out — 20 to 25 percent.

In California's Silicon Valley they lead in educational spending. Sure, they went through proposition 13. What did they find? They found that people weren't willing to come to an area that didn't have a good public education system. So in order to solve the problem they threw money at it. I know, I hear all these clichés — you can't solve problems by throwing money at them. Well, they threw a little money at the school system. They now have the highest and best school system in California in Silicon Valley. Why? Because they have to attract a lot of very talented people, and that's one of the things they insist on.

Culture is another thing that this government has slashed, things like music, drama, and grants to those things. In the schools it's the same way: an attack on the cultural subjects and the humanities by making it so restrictive in terms of their curriculum that those things are going to languish, or maybe even vanish for kids who want to go on and don't want to take any chances. They become so cautious and safe that they can't enjoy the things that make them human — a kind of obsessed-with-the-bottom-line mentality that denies that there's any higher form of human endeavour than meeting a payroll. They obviously haven't heard about Bach and his three-hundredth anniversary and how he is revered. I don't think he ever met a payroll.

Anyway, universities are similar. Fees are skyrocketing up 30 percent last year and 10 percent again this year in some of them. They'll be charging in our public schools. I gave you the little story about Langley, about fees for everything under the sun. I'll go into greater detail there. That's another thing that's happening.

There's not equal access for all students, certainly not at the post-secondary level. There aren't certain courses in certain places. It costs $2,500 extra each year if you live in Vernon to go to university than it does if you live in North or West Vancouver, or West Point Grey.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I don't think that people stay in the dorms if they live in Coquitlam. My own kids drove. But maybe it costs you more to go from Coquitlam.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, I didn't say it did. I thought you said it did. Anyway, we're getting involved in another kind of exchange. I mustn't be distracted or else somebody will tell me my 15 minutes is gone, and I won't have covered all the things that I wanted to.

The small schools, of course, can never offer the same range of electives as large schools can, but if you rig the curriculum in such a way, even the large schools won't be able to offer them, because there won't be the demand for them. If you say you have to have a certain number of people, as you're doing in the colleges now, to justify a course, then those courses will disappear. Hundreds of programs have disappeared from our colleges. It's bitter medicine. If everything is so lovely, I don't see why the ministry and the minister are not winning some kind of popularity contest. I don't hear many people cheering them on, certainly not among the general public.

College instruction will be cut by 43 percent, 1988-89 over 1982. This year the major cuts are Open Learning, down 8 percent; Pacific Vocational Institute, 6.4 percent; BCIT, 6 percent; Selkirk and Northern Lights, each down 6 percent. So what is it? Without inflation the average cuts are probably 3 percent.

We have the worst student aid program in Canada. We're the only jurisdiction I know that doesn't supply at least part of it with grants. I don't think that that is a very good record, personally.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I'm only going to cover a couple of items. I will repeat again that, in my view, the treasury board directive removed considerable uncertainty as far as the managers were concerned. Instead of massive layoffs creating unnecessary anxiety among parents, children and teachers.... It seems to me that it was incumbent upon us

[ Page 5621 ]

as a responsible government to issue a directive, incorporating policy, to remove the apparent uncertainty. It also seems to me that it was in the interest of job preservation, and that we ought to be commended.

I would like to make reference to one other comment. The member opposite made a statement about punishing school boards. The fact is that school boards have always had the opportunity to allocate all funds which they receive, with one exception: special needs, function 3. That was an item incorporated within Bill 6. I again repeat that, despite what the member says, support was given to government for Bill 6.

[3:30]

As far as the colleges are concerned, the total amount of funding given this year is exactly 100 percent of the funding which was given last year. While the member may refer to declines with respect to operating grants, the fact is that the amounts allocated to each of the colleges and institutes resulted in an increase from 95 percent to 96 percent, that 1 percent being equivalent to $2.4 million. On top of that, there was a sum in the order of about $1.4 million to look after satellite campuses. Another $3 million was advanced to colleges, and it was identified as a renewal fund. The final sum to make the 100 percent total was $5.8 million, which was offered to colleges for colleges to come back to government with programs for the expenditure of those funds, and with the idea that those programs would reflect the needs of their communities. I can say that when I met with all of the college principals and the chairman of each college and institute boards, there was a great deal of happiness that the amount of funding which government had made available was equivalent to the total funding made the previous year, when they were expecting a reduction of 5 percent.

With respect to the student aid item, it is my view that the comments made by the three newspapers were in error. Each of their lead editorials was wrong. We loosened the eligibility requirements. Instead of the full program, or not less than 80 percent, it was reduced to 60 percent to blend with the federal program. The federal program base had been increased from $1,200 up to something in the order of $2,300. That loan was made available to the students. I think it was in 1983-84 we made the grants available; in 1984-85 they all became loans. I am advised as well, as far as the differential is concerned, that in 1982-83 some 18,900 students received approximately $31.3 million in federal loans. In 1983-84 it was 18,500 students. In other words, the difference was 400 students. In 1983-84 the amount was $47.7 million.

The whole object of tightening the eligibility requirement was to ensure that those who were really in need would be the recipients of financial assistance. It's absolutely true. I'll tell you again and again — so I'm advised by officials in the ministry — that often students who were receiving assistance from their parents were also the recipients of loans and grants. In my view, if parents can afford to assist their children to go to college or university, then I think they should. The funds which we made available were available to those in need.

I'd like to make one other comment before I sit down, to an earlier comment which the member for Coquitlam-Moody raised: that is, "Let's Talk About Schools." You weren't here on Friday, Mr. Member, and I understand there were reasons for that. The response to that document has been nothing short of incredible. To date there have been in excess of 17,000 responses. It may very well be that those who had particular vested interests didn't want to respond. But remember, the public education system is owned by the public of British Columbia. Yes, there are vested interests everywhere. But with the number of responses that have come in, I'm advised by the people involved that they have never in their experience — and I'm talking about dozens and dozens of years' experience in the education community — been the recipients of such a large response. What's really appealing to me about it is that we have bypassed the great old Canadian way of doing everything: if we've got a problem, let's have a royal commission. I think we have to make up our minds: if we're elected, we're elected to do something. It seems to me as well that if the public are prepared to respond, that's what's most important. Well, they have responded, and they've responded in some detail. I'm as anxious as you are to see what the response is going to be, to see the contents of the report as well as all the polling that has been done at their request. Not at my request; I've kept at arm's length from this thing in every conceivable way.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Yes. Never mind "oh?" I have kept my distance from this thing, and, Mr. Member, you are aware of that.

AN HON. MEMBER: You have short arms.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: No, it's you with the short arms and deep pockets.

The strangest thing about it is, I'll never forget when the BCTF came in and said.... If you'll remember, they published a document, and the document was this: "All right, we will participate in the 'Let's Talk About Schools.' However, there are a number of things which we want done." Some of them I could agree with. But one of them was this: "We don't want any polling to take place. We don't want to know what the public is saying out there, and we don't want anything to be used as a check or a balance against what the people are saying." In fact, what they were really saying was "what we and the executive of the BCTF are saying." While they were doing this, and making this request of me, do you know what they were doing? They were out there polling like you wouldn't believe. As a matter of fact, they're polling today with respect to some other issues which are not for me to raise. While they want to take certain tools away, not from government but from the advisory committee and the provincial school review committee — there were the two of them — they want to keep for themselves certain tools which they think they will use to their advantage. Well, it doesn't work that way. We're interested in what the public has to say. The provincial schools review committee has said: "Not only do we want to know what the public is saying — and we're going to have a pollster look after that — we want to interview 600 educators in the province as well, to see what they have to say."

I think the "Let's Talk About Schools" was the method to go. Although I received the position taken by the local association of the party of the members opposite.... They have all, of course, been taking issue with the forum: there wasn't enough time, and we always want a commission, de dum, de dum, de dum. Six, eight, ten weeks is more than enough time to put material in, because once the material

[ Page 5622 ]

comes to us.... Once it comes to us — and then preparation of a bill or a White Paper — then we've got something really to discuss, which then can be circulated widely as well.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Quit picking on Powell River.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I'm not picking up Powell River. I want you to know that I had a wonderful day. And, you know, you live in one of the chosen parts of British Columbia.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, every time the minister speaks, he provokes me. I'm interested in one of the quotes about "Let's Talk About Schools." Research design, Dr. Todd Rogers.... He says: "A truism of analyses in basic and applied research — evaluation, operations research, policy analysis and other like activities — is garbage in, garbage out." He also goes on to say: "If completed well, not only will valid, usable data be obtained, but also the level of awareness about schooling will potentially be increased...." So certainly I think that's a fair quote from him. But it is also true that the minister has certainly done his share to increase the awareness of education. When something is attacked the way it has been, a lot of people are going to be aware of it.

The restoration of college funding — the maintenance of funding is more accurate — includes a $12.7 million item that is at the minister's disposal....

HON. MR. HEINRICH: No.

MR. ROSE: The minister answered me in the House that the minister decides what that is to be used for.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Did you hear what I just said?

MR. ROSE: I heard what you said. You said you dangled $3 million in front of some of the colleges — or $5 million here just a little while ago — so that they could provide you with some ideas for innovative programs. My own view is that a lot of that budget will be used for the termination pay of the college professors. I would like the minister to tell me, as I have the records here, how many terminations there have been in the colleges since 1983, since his program started. There is no question about it that there have been a lot of casualties not only among students but also among the staff of the colleges.

Now I know that there are some people much closer to certain institutes than I am. I notice that maybe he could be counted as one of those people who is less in terms of strength on the staff than, say, in '82, because he was elected here. But I'm talking about the fact that budget cuts have caused the termination of, if not hundreds, dozens of faculty members, and will continue to do so as the programs fall.

However, that is not the point that I want to argue about today. The minister is responsible to reward or punish, in terms of the colleges, programs that he likes or disapproves of. The colleges are no longer autonomous community bodies, because under Bills 19 and 20 — again, of the infamous dirty dozen bills — the power to elect boards to those colleges and make them community institutions was summarily removed. There's no argument about that.

Again, to respond to some of the things the minister said about reserving the loans for those students who really needed it. Now isn't that wonderful? I'm almost prepared to give crocodile tears to that one. In the previous year the budget for student grants in the province of British Columbia was $15 million. Because of the demand, those college grants were increased in 1982 to $22 million — I'm just doing this from memory off the top of what some people would regard as my head. If the government was really interested in giving money to those students who really needed it, why is it that after spending $22 million in 1982, it completely removed the grant portion of that student loan? And then what happens? Then it so tightened the criteria that after the feds increased their sharing — increased the level of loan guarantees — the province made its restrictions and criteria for the acceptance of the loans so tough that it ruled out a lot of people who really did need it. Now how can a single parent — a mother with children — take an 80 percent course load and qualify for the grants?

The minister said: "Well, we've reduced it to make it consistent with the federal guidelines." Two years later he gets consistent — there must be an election coming up, or something like that — two years after he has made it so restrictive that B.C. students had a terrible time not only doing without their grants but even obtaining a loan. If you lived at home, you couldn't qualify for a loan. If I lived at home and was 19, and my dad or my mother were helping me to the tune of providing me with room and board, maybe I would really rather not have that extra drag on them. Does a person have to move out of his house in order to qualify? If he owned a car, he couldn't qualify. And there are all kinds of stupid things that ruled out a lot of working mothers, who were supposed to be the people the community colleges were created for — people who could go part time and in the evenings. People like that were denied it.

First of all, the grants were all gone — $22 million out the window — and then the minister has the audacity to say: "We did it because we wanted to preserve the money for those students who really needed it." I'll tell you how you can help those students who really need it. Restore those grants. That's how you'll do it. It costs $15,000 more in British Columbia if you go through your whole university program on loans than it does in Ontario. Does somebody have to move to Ontario in order to qualify for an education? Have you so downsized the institutions that you're going to make them restrictive and only for the wealthy?

[3:45]

MR. WILLIAMS: That's where they're going to go for a job.

MR. ROSE: Where?

MR. WILLIAMS: Ontario.

MR. ROSE: We're going to get our trained people from Ontario too, because the Minister of Universities says that we don't need to worry about skill, we'll import it. We will de-skill. A perfect example of de-skilling can be found right in the far comer. We will so de-skill our people that the Ontarians and the Manitobans and the others will come in and take their jobs.

Mr. Speaker, the participation rate in post-secondary education is roughly 10 percent in British Columbia. About 10

[ Page 5623 ]

percent of the students go on to post-secondary education. I know for some schools, like the Vancouver schools, it's much higher than that. But the average is roughly that, according to the last figures I saw. For Canada, it's roughly 17 percent. Now I've seen so many figures on educational costs and student access that I distrust nearly all of them. Nevertheless, the best figures that I have show that it's about that. So if you live anywhere else in Canada, you've probably got about twice the chance of going on to some form of post-secondary education.

So what is happening then? What is happening is that we have a situation where Social Credit has failed to educate our kids, and it has failed to create jobs for our kids — not just because of the cutbacks in the education system, but because they parallel the cutbacks in the economy. If you haven't got a job, you'd probably like to go to school, and you can't go to school if the fees keep jumping up or you can't get loans or grants.

Young people over 15 make up 23 percent of B.C.'s population but represent 40 percent of the unemployed. That's up; I didn't think it was that high. I also know that those people who have some post-secondary education have got twice the chance of getting a job. I thought it was roughly 20 percent who were unemployed in that age group, but I'm told the latest figures show that of the 15 percent unemployed in British Columbia, 40 percent are young people between 15 and 24.

Those who are employed are concentrated in male blue-collar jobs and female pink-collar jobs that are insecure and poorly paid. So while we've been slashing our access programs, other provinces — notably Ontario — are maintaining or increasing them, and I'm concerned about it. Somebody asked me if I thought what they were doing was a smart move or a dumb one. I said: "Well, they've won too many elections for me to conclude that they're dumb, so there must be some reason they're doing it beyond just basic teacher-bashing and downsizing of education." It really worries me why they might be doing it. I think it has nothing to do with the economy. As a matter of fact, I think it's counterproductive in the economy.

Anyway, it certainly leads to a lot of uncertainty. I'll go into my own sinister suspicions of why this is happening, and it has something to do with that whole package of stuff like special industrial zones and the Philippines of North America, and the idea that if you're not going to need many skilled people anyway, why provide them with a broad, quality, highly retentive educational system? So if we're looking for sinister motives, I might be able to supply one with the scenario that I think has been talked about — maybe not explicitly, but I think there's a residual of it.

We have a situation of uncertainty, I think, and that's no good for education. What is the alternative? What would the NDP do? What is our policy regarding education? First of all, we feel that the ultimate philosophical framework for the public education system is that people should be able to have an education suitable to their interests and needs, regardless of the ability to pay.

MR. REID: Yes, that sounds like your philosophy.

MR. ROSE: Is your philosophy then that the public education system, paid for by every man's parent, should be restricted to those with the ability to pay? I don't believe ability to pay has anything to do with it. That's why I think it's an attack on the education system....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I'm talking about the student's ability to pay for his education system. Certainly the public school level should be open and accessible to every man's child regardless of ability to pay. Anybody who argues against that is absolutely undemocratic.

Now to say there aren't limits within which a particular province can afford to invest, or is willing to invest, in public education is quite a different question. Our expenditures are 11.9 percent of the provincial budget; in Ontario it's about double that. The Canadian average is double that as well. So to say that we're shovelling money off the end of a truck is just not true.

MR. VEITCH: What about the homeowner's grant?

MR. ROSE: We're talking about the public expenditure on education. If you want to talk about the property tax on education....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Please, Mr. Chairman, don't let these people distract me and get me off course here.

AN HON. MEMBER: Get you on the right track.

MR. ROSE: I would prefer to be on the left track. You're the guys who are on the right track — the right-wing track.

Mr. Chairman, there was a little reference to taxation and ability to pay. Again, we are the highest, certainly in the four western provinces — five if you count Ontario — for dependency on property taxation to pay for public education. The B.C. school trustees recently put out a paper indicating that we're financing 65.4 percent of our public education out of the property tax.

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: You don't believe the B.C. school trustees? Would you suggest that the B.C. School Trustees' Association would lie about something as serious as that?

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Oh, the member for Coquitlam-Maillardville (Mr. Parks) is going to bash the B.C. School Trustees' Association a little bit. The members may not believe this, but in terms of the information that I have, that is precisely what is happening. In terms of property taxation dependency, we are about 15 percent higher than any other western province. The minister is now going to send out his advisers to get his facts straight, but I have the paper; if anybody cares to see the document I'd be very pleased to show it to them.

On the whole business of access to education, we know that post-secondary education has traditionally had as its recipients, its consumers, above-average income-earners, or the children of those above-average income-earners. I think the directions indicate that that will intensify, will magnify, because as you strip away grants you make the loans more

[ Page 5624 ]

difficult to get, and you hike fees; consequently, it's going to be more difficult for those students of modest means, especially if they can't get jobs, to upgrade their education.

There, the minister's advisers are going to scribble. Oh, he's got it in his head.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I don't know if the member for Coquitlam-Moody remembers, but it seems to me that about a year ago we passed legislation in the House which eliminated three bodies: the Management Advisory Council, the Academic Council and the Occupational Training Council. As a matter of fact, those three bodies were the ones which prescribed to the nth detail how colleges were to spend their money. If I recall correctly, I felt that we didn't really need that level of bureaucracy there. They had fulfilled their purpose, and it was time to allow colleges to be more of an autonomous body. Do you remember what we did? We eliminated those three. You supported us. You and members opposite thought it was a great idea too. As a result of that, we now have the moneys, which are advanced to colleges, under the direction of their own administration and their own boards, and for their own allocation.

When I made reference to the $12 million adjustment fund, I gave the member a breakdown of the utilization of those moneys. All of those moneys were assigned to the colleges and are incorporated within their college budgets, with the exception of $5.8 million. Do you know what the response was from the college chairmen and the principals? They were pleased. The principal from Malaspina said: "It's the first time we've got a chance to really do something with respect to the utilization of those moneys."

Now I don't know where the member is getting his figures from, but I will tell you that I asked one of my officials what the enrolment in colleges is and what percentage is going in. This is what I'm told: the percentage of high school graduates attending colleges now is higher than it has ever been — that's today. I got this from officials in response to a question, and I believe them. With respect to attendance at colleges, the attendance has moved up in the last couple of years. It has not declined; it has plateaued.

With respect to the autonomy of school boards.... You're telling us that I have got all this power. The truth is, in the colleges branch of the ministry we give direction on 34 percent of the courses offered, while 66 percent is determined — and this is on average — by the college boards and the college administration.

With respect to attendance at the programs, I asked: what programs do we have that are not being filled up? Three were given to me from BCIT. I'll give you the three. These apparently are half-full. One is surveying; another is, I suspect, mining technology and engineering; the third is forest products. The reason they're only half-full is that there is a deficiency of applicants.

I repeat three items which I think are important. The boards have autonomy; direction from government represents 34 percent. I thought, frankly, it was a touch higher, but it's 34 percent, I'm advised. Secondly, we abolished the Management Advisory Council and Occupational Training Council. So the boards had autonomy, in order to handle their funds, instead of each of the college boards coming down and pleading with those three councils as to how funds were to be allocated. It's worked out very well. As a matter of fact, the colleges were delighted that we removed what they felt to be an impediment to their operation.

With respect to one last item, tuition, the average tuition paid by college students is 11 percent of actual cost. The actual dollars which are spent for tuition now are less in real dollar terms than they were in 1971.

MR. ROSE: It almost sounds like the minister is about to embark on a tremendous defence about how much money the B.C. government is pouring into colleges and universities, when the fact is that the provincial share has been shrinking. The last time I looked at the universities — and I know this isn't under this particular minister, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were the same in colleges — it was about 80 percent from the feds — some say it's even more than that — 16 percent from the students, and about 3 percent from the province. The Minister of Universities (Hon. Mr. McGeer) will argue: "Well, it's all provinces' money anyway; the feds just launder it for us and send it back." But the fact is that the commitment on the part of this government to post-secondary education is not great.

As far as the numbers are concerned, if people can't get jobs, yes, they'll go back to college if they can afford it. But I wasn't arguing that point. The point I was arguing was that tied to attaining a position in a post-secondary institution is the ability to pay. Because of the lack of decent access programs in British Columbia, such as loans and grants, it favours those students who have the bucks and not necessarily the brains.

[4:00]

You've rigged the loan requirements so that they were so extremely restrictive that I think you were probably threatened by the feds, who said: "Look, if you don't loosen those up and make them at least equal to our standards, we're going to drag them back." If you continue to divert federal funds away from education the way you've been doing for the last five years, you're going to find the same thing happening to educational EPF grants as you found happening to the medical grants, because the new Canada Health Act said: "You spend that money on health care, not roads, sewers, coal mines, ports or whatever, or else we're going to hold it back on you." I think that's going to happen in post-secondary education. Last year the $27 million increase that came from the feds was diverted. This year there is a 40 percent increase from the feds, and you're still cutting courses, downsizing programs, raising fees and in general wreaking havoc in the educational system at the post-secondary level.

College autonomy. What a laugh that is! Bills 19 and 20 removed the elected college boards and put in college board members who were appointed by the minister. I don't see how that's true autonomy. After all, what's going to happen if one of these people, who are supposed to be in there, I think, because they're compliant and will reflect the interests of the government and the minister...? They're not autonomous at all. They are at the behest of, they are the servants of, the minister. They are not the servants of the college; they are first and foremost servants of the minister. Why wouldn't they be?

Do you know any who really don't follow...? They probably all hold a Social Credit card. Do you know any who have ever bucked at all? I've yet to hear from an appointed college board that's complaining about things that are happening in the colleges. But we certainly did before we had appointed boards — lots of complaints. We have autonomous school boards as well. We get lots of complaints from those school boards because they are elected by the people. They

[ Page 5625 ]

are not appointed by the minister, and that's exactly what the minister has done.

In addition to appointing the college boards under Bills 19 and 20, he allowed the government — or the minister, at his pleasure — to add or abolish courses. He's done that. Talk about 35 courses at the direction of the minister.... He can do anything he likes: changing the rules for the medical lab technicians overnight — no reference to the college boards at all. The college boards weren't consulted on that one. I don't know if they were consulted about the abolition of hairdressing and barbering — business that went to the private schools at five times the cost. That's a record he doesn't want to talk about. He never mentions that.

How wonderful the colleges are, and how they're autonomous.... That's just plain nonsense. Only a child would believe that they have autonomy when those board members are there only at the pleasure of the minister. That's a big laugh, and nobody's going to buy that. They don't believe it. They're not autonomous. They are, in fact.... I could be really cutting here if I wanted to be, but I'll choose a euphemism: they are the servants of the minister. That's what they're there for. They don't raise any Cain out in public at all. I think there are plenty of reasons that we need autonomous people, because it's not an all-knowing, all-seeing bunch over there. There are, in fact, legitimate criticisms of the way things are going on, and I think there is every right to have those criticisms.

Let's get on with this business about.... I was reaching this pinnacle in my speech, Mr. Chairman, where I was going to talk about what we would like to do. We would like to see the 1984 levels of service maintained, and then continue on with the costs that reflect inflation. Yes, you can't shovel money into education right off the end of the truck. I think everybody agrees with that. But if you knew in advance what you were going to have, you could certainly limit the uncertainty that's out there. We need to assess the damage that's already been caused in terms of teacher morale, lack of opportunity for students, support staff, dirtier schools and less safe schools. We need to do that; we've got to do that.

We need a new School Act. The minister has promised one. Is he going to get it out of "Let's Talk About Schools"? Is he going to send a parliamentary committee around the province with a draft act? We'd do that. Sure, it needs to be updated. As Dr. Rogers said, we haven't had a real good look at education since the Chant commission about 20 years ago. I know what the Chant commission did. It put all the arts and culture in the third ring. It put math, science and engineering in the centre ring. So it described — I don't think it was their term — cultural imperatives and cultural electives.

Because the Russians had put a dog up in a satellite, we all of a sudden got a highly academic school system that threatened to ruin all the programs that were just developing at that time. So we had more math and science. I'm one of those people who studied lots of math and science. I was said to teach logic, but I suppose I would be a perfect example of how that was a failure — to some people anyway. But I know this much: I've been running around prepared to do a quadratic equation at the drop of a hat for the last 40 years, and nobody ever asked me. I know a little bit about angles inscribed in a circle. We're going to have more time for that stuff.

There's something else I think we should look into: not just what we're doing in schools, but what we're not doing; what courses should be in there and what courses shouldn't be in there. I don't see that it makes much sense to make your high schools much more academic while at the same time at your colleges you are downplaying your university transfer programs. Is that because you want more dropouts at the high school level and fewer people knocking on the doors of university transfer programs — fewer kids from Prince George, from your riding, able to qualify to go on to post-secondary education? I'm wondering about that. I would like to have a clear unfuzzified, unjargonized reply to that.

Anyway, we need a new School Act. We believe that we should have a mechanism that reflects a commitment to equal opportunity. We don't have a funding mechanism like that. In spite of differing assessments, we find that the cost for sending children to North Vancouver schools is a lot more than to West Vancouver schools. We need to go into that whole taxation thing. At present it's not equitable. The minister claims he's got a framework that's going to make things equitable. Things may be equal, but equality is not equity in many instances. There are too many instances to the contrary. We want local participation and autonomy in the school system. That's been stripped away.

I'd like a clear commitment from the minister that he intends to let the sunset law function at the end of 1986. Mr. Minister, can I have that commitment from you, that you will be true to what is said in Bill 6? The trustees were so happy; they said they needed somebody to make them sober up, and they were willing to accept the global budget as set down by the minister. But all this would be over in 1986. "Just suffer for three more years with me, and all that will end in 1986." Now there was a little slip in Bill 48 which indicated that....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: It sure was a mistake. It really frightened me, and it frightened a lot of people that you were going to delete.... You explained that. But can you give a clear commitment that the funding caps that were imposed — the 2 percent per year reduction — will in fact be removed by 1986? Because that's when they are due to sunset.

I think that the tax burden should be based on ability to pay, not on some other formula, and it isn't right now. There's far too much of our taxation for education based on property taxes. I know it has been removed from commercial-industrial — a third of that. I just hope that those grants to the school boards will be maintained in lieu of those millions that were removed for tax incentives.

I will leave it at that. I can go on to university reconstruction plans and all that stuff, and I will. But I want, first of all, to get the minister to answer my question about whether or not he still maintains his commitment to have this Bill 6 provision of global funding sunset at the end of the 1985-86 school year.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make reference to a few comments which have been raised. Twice the member for Coquitlam-Moody has made reference to property taxation. We know that the amount of money which has been paid by the commercial and industrial sector is 34.5 percent of the total. It was roughly $662 million. I have said that a thousand times. Now that has been reduced as a result of the first phase of the reduction on machinery and equipment. The average amount paid towards public education by residential taxpayers is in the order of 8.5 percent.

[ Page 5626 ]

Why the member continually throws out the figures from the BCSTA is beyond me. I don't know how many ways we can say it, but the total amount of money which is put out by the commercial-industrial sector — non-residential — is 34.5 percent. Residential is about 8.5 percent. If we start talking about the amount of money which is paid towards public education by homeowners in the province of British Columbia, all we have to do....

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: That's right. It's down. I think it started four years ago, when it was $187 million. In 1984 it was $157 million — that I can remember from memory. But even when we look at the revised lists.... I can tell you right now that the residential taxpayers in 27 to 28 percent of school districts in British Columbia end up paying school taxation. All of the rest throughout the province of British Columbia don't pay after deduction of the homeowner grant. What the BCSTA always does — and they have been pushing this jargon out forever and ever — is forget about the homeowner grant. The fact is that it comes out of consolidated revenue. Now there's no mystery. I was the first one to say I didn't want to get into a fight about property taxation and whose bill it is. The fact is that it's got to be paid by taxpayers. We still know that 51.5 percent is coming from consolidated revenue. In addition to that, more will be coming as a result of the first phase of the reduction.

Another item raised by the member involved the appointed boards. College boards were always appointed. Some were appointed by government. Others came through school boards, but the school boards appointed them. And the people who sat on those particular boards were one of two types: either they were elected trustees, or they were others appointed by the board; but they were always appointments to the board.

The comment was made with respect to medical lab students. There was a great deal of consultation between the ministry and the administrators of colleges. Across Canada we were advised the program had been reduced from three years to two years. All we did was follow the pattern that was occurring across the country, but that didn't occur without consultation.

Another item you raised is the sunset clause. The sunset clause is, yes, 1986. It is my commitment — and this is what I wish to do — to bring a new School Act into the House. The member is aware of that. All I can do is tell you this is what I plan. I'm waiting for the report before we prepare the legislation, either in the form of a bill to be introduced or a White Paper. Whichever way it goes, it's going to involve a great deal of dialogue. That is my plan and that's what I intend to do. I can't give you any more assurances than that as an individual member or minister.

[4:15]

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

With respect to the EPF funding. This is a statement which I used not so long ago in a speech I gave, and I quote from it: "You should also know that provincial spending on the college system increased much more rapidly than EPF revenues from 1977-78 to 1983-84. Although provincial spending has decreased marginally this past year, and we recognize that, our spending on the system, including debt services over the six-year period, has increased by 162 percent while EPF has grown by 131 percent."

These are the figures I have available to me, and this is the information I passed out to the college boards and their administrators.

MR. ROSE: It's very interesting that the EPF figures are really very difficult to get. You have them, but they're not necessarily available to everybody. How much was received, for what purpose and for what portion and what was spent is virtually impossible to find that out.

I recall having an exchange with the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) during his estimates just about a year ago. I maintained that there was an extra $27 million diverted from education into general revenues, because the total budget for universities went down by $54 million. He wrote me back and he said: "Oh, well, it's not true. It's only $22 million." So I don't know. It's a mystery anyway.

Just one other thing. The minister suggested that we voted in favour of the elimination of the three councils. Well, we voted against Bills 19 and 20 and they were embodied in those. I just wanted to set the record straight on that one. I don't think it's a big deal anyway. I think we probably had the same concerns about those three councils as did the minister, but the vote was embodied in Bills 19 and 20, so it was on that basis that we voted against those bills.

The minister, though, has a bit of a tendency to.... We all try to make the best use of our statistics, but you know he sometimes — I wouldn't say deliberately, Mr. Chairman — tends to mislead the public. On Friday he said that the actual amount of the operation for colleges was increased by 1 percent, or $2.4 million. It actually went down 4 percent, but how do you know that from the minister's speech? You see, they thought that they were going to get a 5 percent cut, so a 4 percent cut becomes a 1 percent increase. I don't understand that, but I do really.

We had a $3 million institutional renewal fund. He said that there were no strings attached. Here's a list of the strings attached for the renewal. String No. 1 is that funds as identified by management services on April 2, 1985, "cannot be used for normal operating expenditures." No strings attached. String No. 2: "...can be used for development of new program curriculum," but implementation of any new program will not be approved until you can pass a 21-point test by the ministry. String No. 3: "...can be used for facility renovations to improve productivity." What does that mean? Larger rooms so you can pack more kids into the same classroom? Is knocking out walls what you call a productivity renovation? Presumably it's okay to pull down a wall so that one teacher can be heard by more students, but it's not okay to keep extra faculty or counsellors with this money. String No. 4: "...can be used to purchase equipment to improve productivity or enhance quality." All right, if it's going to be used to purchase equipment, what does the capital equipment grant have to do with it, in the college budgets? So there may be some questions there that will bear a little bit of examination or exploration.

So there are the four strings to the minister's no-strings budget allocation. I would be interested to hear his comments on that one. I don't know if he's going to respond now — because I'm going to go on to something else if he doesn't.

The minister is conferring. I'll wait until he's finished, and then I'm going to sit down and let someone else have an opportunity to cross-examine the minister and his officials,

[ Page 5627 ]

since they are here, reserving of course at all times the right to return once more.

I said that the minister is attempting to make the case that by slashing educational fat he can provide education without sacrificing quality. Well, I don't believe that. I have here before me a number of reports from some of the Vancouver schools, and I'll just read you some excerpts from a couple of them. The minister is not able to do the college response right now. I'd just like to show you what's happening in terms of class size. We're not using PTR; we're talking about class size.

In September 1983 in Begbie Elementary School they had the same number of students for three years — '83, '84, '85. The average class size in division 1 was 31 in 1983, 36 in 1984 and 37 in 1985. What we're talking about is class size; we're not talking about PTR. I think that Vancouver has a pretty good record at being lean on administration.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Could you repeat that?

MR. ROSE: I said Vancouver has a pretty good record about being lean on administration.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The Vancouver School Board.

MR. ROSE: Yes, compared to others, in terms of the costs as well.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Is that right?

MR. ROSE: Yes. It may not have that reputation with the minister. It has all kinds of problems for the minister. I understand that. They're not compliant; they're not a college board, you know. They are an elected board. They represent the people.

Anyway, I could go right down the line, but the BCTF maximum, for instance, for kindergarten is 20, and for the primary 25. Here we've got a class in primary of 29 in 1985. It was 21 in 1983 — the same class — and 25 in 1984; and 27 in another class by 1985. They are well beyond the recommended minimum.

Numbers of teachers have dropped by one special-needs teacher. There was one in 1983, now half-time; there was one ELC teacher, now 30 percent. Preparation time has been cut too. Secretarial staff has been cut way down. So have counsellors, custodians, speech and hearing psychologists, nurse. Okay, let's have a look at these things — the assistance for the social problems. An area counsellor: five hours a week in 1983, four hours a week now — a 20 percent cut. Speech and hearing: three hours a week to 1.9, a cut of a third. Psychologist: five hours a week to 4.7 — not as severe there. Nurse: six hours to 5.2. And the multicultural: down 25 percent.

I'd like to go on to another school which I think is probably typical. What are the effects of the restraint programs on the people who are working in these schools? The teacher has less time for individual instruction. This comes from a report from Britannia Elementary-Secondary School in my colleague's riding. The teacher has less time for academic instruction. The increase in the number also increases the noise level. Safety levels are compromised — busy streets, urban setting, foggy days, sometimes rainy days. The teacher has less time to attend to children's emotional needs — because the teacher is a substitute parent in many of those homes. A considerable amount of time is spent on class management — that means discipline problems are more difficult, because the classes are larger. The teacher finds it more difficult to involve herself with extracurricular activities because of burnout. In order to get a group of children, the teacher has to instruct to large groups rather than small groups.

Individualized instruction, as I think the minister's assistants will agree, is probably the ultimate aim in education. The closer you can come to individualizing instruction, the more likely you are to have the maximum opportunities for learning. I think those are tendencies and trends only, but these things are being defeated by larger classes, because you can’t even handle smaller groups within the class because of the other things I mentioned. It makes it difficult for teachers to help individuals with difficulties, or difficult to take a large group on trips or downtown or to the museum or anywhere else. More split classes.

So there are all kinds of ways in which the restraint program has made education more difficult and less effective and has reduced its quality.

I'm going to leave it at that point, Mr. Chairman, and listen to the response from the minister. I'm interested particularly in his response to the no-strings-attached college stuff, because I just read four strings, in terms of criteria, that must be satisfied before any money can be used for the institutional renewal fund,

HON. MR. HEINRICH: With respect to the item on the $3 million institutional renewal fund, this is something which was requested by the colleges. One of the complaints which was always advanced to me was this: we require funding to change the size of a particular classroom. Why do we want it? So we can accommodate more students in the class because we are capable of doing it. One for which they wanted it was for funding equipment. Any adjustments which they want to make with their program is up to them. Those are the three or four items which are in there. I've given them carte blanche authority for the administration of their own fund.

Never mind the strings attached. The only concern we had was this: these funds which are available are for the improvement of the institution and are not to be used for salary increases; that's all. But what we did do, because of the increased productivity which happened in the colleges, was to increase it from 95 to 96 percent, or $2.4 million. I don't think that's really unacceptable. I can assure you of one thing, Mr. Member: they were most pleased with that particular program when we advanced it to them. I have not received any criticism of it.

MR. ROSE: When a person is starving, he probably doesn't remember he doesn't like parsnips.

It's too bad you didn't make that speech last year, because it just sounds like Orwell. "No strings attached." It sounds like "war is peace," and all those little contradictions that we have here. No strings attached. Cannot be used for normal operating expenses. Can be used for development of new program curriculum, but any new program will not be approved until you can pass the 21-point test. That's a string. Can be used for faculty renovations to produce productivity. Can be used to purchase equipment to improve productivity. However, as I pointed out, you've already got an item in your budget for that anyway. So that seems to me a fairly large set of strings, if anybody is interested in bowing on them.

[ Page 5628 ]

Mr. Chairman, I've going to leave that for a while, and ask if there are other members of my group who would like to say anything.

[4:30]

MR. DAVIS: There's a truism or at least a statement which goes unchallenged so far: that is, if more money is spent on education, the future of the province or the nation is better assured; an investment in education is an investment in the future, and so on. I have two questions to the minister, and he may not want to answer them right away. One, if we're spending more per student in the primary and secondary schools than other provinces, why are fewer of our young people going to college and university?

There are some here, I know, who will challenge my statement that we're spending more per student on primary and secondary education. I think if you take provincial budgets only, and look at the expenditure of the Education ministry in each province and divide it by the primary and secondary school populations, you do arrive at odd figures, figures which show British Columbia well down the list. But in many provinces the only source of funding for primary and secondary school is directly from the Ministry of Education. In British Columbia, as you know, Mr. Chairman, a good deal of the money is supplied from the local taxpayer, and it may also come indirectly from the province through the homeowner grant. The homeowner grant and the local taxation is generally ignored by those who simply take expenditures of provincial ministries on education and divide them by school populations. If you include the other sources of revenue — property tax revenue, homeowner grants and so on — British Columbia moves briskly to the top of the list. Therefore I think it's statistically true that British Columbia does spend more than most other provinces — perhaps Alberta spends more — on primary and secondary education.

Clearly, as a province we spend a lot on education. If we spend a lot on education, if education pays off, why are such a small proportion of our students who leave grade 12 going on for further education? They've received a greater investment out of the public purse.

In passing I might comment on centralization. If other provinces are spending almost exclusively at the provincial level for education, perhaps British Columbia is moving in that direction by centralizing more of the financial control at the provincial level. In provinces where the funding is totally or largely from the provincial source, surely the control has existed at the centre, in the ministry, for literally decades.

However, I wonder if the minister could comment, first, on how much we spend per student. Are we in fact at the top of the list or nearly the top of the list? And secondly, has he any idea why a much smaller proportion, at least in comparison with Ontario, for example, of our high-school-leaving students actually go on to institutions of higher learning?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, to the member, the total amount paid per student in British Columbia, if you wish to incorporate the cost of teachers' pensions, is just under $4,000 per student. I've always maintained that instead of using all of the statistics when we're starting to do provincial comparisons, because what we do is compare apples to oranges and it doesn't work out, the real answer is to go to the school district and find out what the true cost is per student. You'll find that the true cost per student, if you incorporate all of the benefits, both statutory and non-statutory, to the biggest item, which is teachers and support staff, is pushing $4,000.

The other question, though, which gives me some concern, is why is it that such a low number of people appear to be going on to post-secondary education of one form or another, whether it's vocational school, university or college and institute. We know, according to the statistics which I have now, that the number of students registered for the first time in academic or technical courses at colleges in 1984-85 was 31.02 percent of high school graduates. We can add to that those students who go to vocational school and those students who go to university. So it seems to me that if we add all of them together — and I'm guessing.... It's 5, 6 or 7 percent for vocational — probably higher than that, probably 10 percent. And if we add the university enrolment — I think something like 10 or 11 percent go to universities — I would suspect that probably 50 percent would be the combined total of high school graduates going to vocational schools, universities and colleges.

Interjections.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Well, I recognize that the opposition seems to be giving us some other information. But according to the information which I have — and all I can do is rely upon it, and it would appear to me that those figures are quite precise as far as colleges are concerned — on technical and academic it's quite high. Add vocational and university, and it seems to me that we probably don't have a bad average on a national basis.

MRS. WALLACE: I don't know where the minister gets his figures, nor how he can stand there and say that our average of people going on to post-secondary education is quite high when in fact it's just the opposite. We have the lowest participation rate of any province in Canada according to the statistics I have. One hundred and one out of every thousand young British Columbians between 18 and 24 go on to university. This is 25 percent below the Canadian average.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: That's universities you're talking about.

MRS. WALLACE: Okay, but let's listen to the next one. Just listen a minute, Mr. Minister. Only 7 percent of B.C. grade 12 graduates outside the metropolitan area of Vancouver and Victoria attend university, and only 16 percent of Victoria and Vancouver grade 12 graduates do. Do you know the reason, Mr. Chairman? The reason lies right at the feet of that ministry. In the first place, tuition fees have gone up and up for colleges and universities — for any post-secondary. The other reason — and it's not entirely his fault, but certainly the fault of that government over there — is that student loans and the economic position of those students has gone down and down. That's the situation that's facing young people in this province today.

Certainly it's the situation facing the people in Cowichan-Malahat. It's the situation facing the students who would like to attend courses at the Duncan campus because they simply can't afford to stay in Nanaimo, to attend Malaspina College. And the courses that are offered in Duncan are now practically non-existent. That campus has not quite suffered the fate of Parksville, but almost. It's been cut and chopped and

[ Page 5629 ]

cut and chopped. If you want any credit courses you have to go to Nanaimo.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I do a TV show every week on my local cable station, and during Easter holidays I taped a show with a high school student, a Malaspina College student and a university student. That Malaspina College student, who happens to live in Chemainus, is hitch-hiking to Nanaimo in order to get his credits so he can go on to UVic. How he's going to manage that.... It's going to be difficult. Fortunately he has a brother who is apparently going to come up with some funds for that. But that's the kind of situation that's facing young people. These cuts and chops at the colleges have certainly cut down at that level, and if you cut at that level then you also cut at the university level. The whole pattern is right there. Our young people are being given a handicap in any possibility of entrance.... Their economic future is being handicapped because of their lack of ability to get the access to adequate education that's needed in today's highly technical society.

The minister talks a lot about figures, and he certainly gave us some figures on Friday that I don't think my colleague has mentioned. He keeps saying that in the last seven years — I think that is the figure he uses — the expenditures on education have doubled. Well, there are a few things the minister forgets. I imagine he is talking about K to 12, colleges, community colleges and public universities — the whole shot.

The figure that I have — in 1976 dollars — is about $900 million in 1976 and close to $1,700 million in 1984, and he says that is double. Well, it is double in 1976 dollars, but it certainly isn't double in 1984 dollars, nor is it in relation to the total budget, nor is it in relation to the actual percentage increase if you take it into 1976 dollars. If you put it in 1976 dollars, that $900 million in 1976, or $896.5 million, is equivalent to only $908.8 million in 1984, or $937.3 million in 1983, which in fact is a decrease in relation to the total expenditures within the province.

Certainly if you look at the yearly percent increase over those years, starting with a zero base at 1976, you have an increase of 1 percent in 1977, 3.9 percent in 1978, -8.4 percent in 1979, -0.4 in 1980, an increase of 8 percent in 1981, 6.6 percent in 1982, in 1983 some -5 percent, and in 1984 some -3 percent. To say that he's doubled and use 1976 dollars: I just don't think that's being very upfront with his figures, Mr. Chairman.

I want to ask him a specific question about the school districts in my own constituency. He made mention Friday that he had visited 50 boards around this province. Now Cowichan isn't very far away, and neither is Lake Cowichan, but my understanding is that he has never met with either of those boards, and I would like to know why. I have written to the minister, and the board has written to him. Cowichan is the one that I am concerned about particularly.

They had two questions. They were concerned about what he meant by the fiscal framework relative to teachers' salaries. They know that now; he has made a public announcement on that one. As far as I know, they still have not found out what he means by the fiscal framework as far as the facility that they rent under a long-standing agreement from the community centre, where they have classrooms across the street from the high school. The time is now past. They had to make a final submission by the thirteenth. As far as I know, there has been no response from that minister — none at all. They were valiantly trying to find out just what constituted a proper budget within the fiscal framework, and they haven't been able to find that out from the minister. As he will know, I have written him to get that information. He's had letters from the chairman of the school board there, and no response.

Perhaps he'd like to answer that one at this particular time.

[4:45]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, with respect to the last item involving the community centre, I am aware that a meeting has taken place among my deputy minister, the superintendent, the secretary-treasurer and the chairman of the board. I believe that that meeting happened Thursday of last week and that there is some community of understanding. I am not at liberty to discuss anything, because I don't know.

As far as the meeting with the boards, I have not met with them. I recognize that. I apologize for it. I can spread myself only so thin, and I have done my level best to do something. I don't think anybody else has really taken it upon themselves to spend as much time as I have with the boards. I don't believe I've had a meeting in my office with Cowichan either, but I have been at meetings where the superintendents of both districts were involved. Communication with the district and he ministry has been open. I recognize that there are a couple of problems, which we are attempting to resolve. I apologize for the fact that I have not, but it's not that I haven't tried to meet as many as I can, Madam Member.

MRS. WALLACE: Yes, and I apologize to the minister for not having.... I was out of town over the weekend and there may be a message in my constituency office to say they have now resolved that issue of the community centre, but I was not aware of it.

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: Yes, okay. I had had no response to my letter. In no way was I aware that that had happened.

I am of course very concerned about what's happening with education in the Cowichan-Malahat constituency. I don't want to repeat a lot of the things that I said during the.... I don't know whether it was during the throne speech or the budget debate, but I did get involved in discussing education at an earlier time. It may even have been during the last session. This sheaf of letters is just the most recent communications that I have received from people in the Cowichan-Malahat district, pointing out the effect these cuts are having on our young people's education. The minister keeps trying to tell us that the quality of education has not been affected; that it's because of all these high-flying boards that we're expending so much money, and that's where the cuts are taking place. They're not affecting the young people. He tells us that in one breath, and in the next breath tells us that really his objective is to get down to a PTR of 19.14. That's a very difficult thing to do when you're dealing with a school district that is as scattered as Cowichan, and with as many small schools.

I know that the minister has talked about areas like the Nishga in the Atlin constituency, where they make allowances for these kinds of things. If he's making allowances

[ Page 5630 ]

in Cowichan for those kinds of things, then all I can say is that those allowances are not great enough. The truth of that statement is borne out by the kind of comments that I get from people in the constituency. I don't intend to read these by any means, but just give you an idea of the kind of comments that are coming in, Mr. Minister — the opening sentence of each of these letters, for example. The first one is to the trustees: "I am totally opposed to the proposed teacher cuts facing school district 65." That's December. Those are the ones that were coming up on the ninth. It goes on to point out that the decision is causing all kinds of difficulties with the school in which this person's children are enrolled.

"I am writing to protest the loss of my son's grade one relief teacher smack in the middle of his first school year. How dare the board consider this?" "I am becoming increasingly angered as more budget cuts are made with our school budgets. I do not believe for a minute that our economic condition demands such dire methods of restraint." "As parents of a child attending Cowichan Station Elementary School, we feel it is time to express our extreme displeasure at the course you and your department have taken" — this was addressed to the minister himself — "regarding reduction of funding for the schools in our district."

"As an elector in this beautiful province, I am writing to you to express my disappointment at your public statements and actions on the continuing cutbacks in public education. My disappointment stems from the fact that young people — my children and the children of hundreds of thousands of other electors — are surely a most vital human resource."

And it goes on. "I'm writing to you as a parent who just happens to be a school trustee." This is actually from the chairman of the school board, so she has double concerns. She has children in the school, and that's why she ran as a school trustee. That's why she's there trying to do a job for those children, and she's finding her hands tied on every side.

"We are concerned and dismayed with the board's decision to reduce the teaching force of this district further, and we are outraged that this reduction is occurring mid-year." "I'm deeply concerned about the erosion of public education which is occurring in the Cowichan School District. As concerned parents, we feel it is our duty to write and request that the restraint programs now in effect be halted." "I would like to express my disappointment in your attitude toward the cutback policy. Surely a quality education can not be expendable to save a buck." "Restraint is forcing our school districts to step back in time. This is 1985. Our children need a healthy environment with opportunities for total development in all areas to understand and cope with today's complex world." "I'm outraged at the cutbacks that are being done to our education system. How is the future of our economy going to improve if the generations to come will be too uneducated to run the country. Education is the backbone of the province." "I'm protesting the cutbacks that are proposed for our school system."

Here's one to the minister, with a copy to me. This is February of this year: "Until recently I have agreed with the provincial restraint endeavours. Decreasing general revenues obviously require adjustments. In 1982 and 1983 I agreed that education funding cuts were necessary. Trimming budgets is always difficult. We in B.C. are now past that point. Your government has made such an issue of restraint that the rhetoric tends to obscure the facts."

Here are some more letters: "I wish to express my opposition to your present policy of restraint regarding schools." That was January of this year. "As a parent and a taxpayer, I am thoroughly dissatisfied with the educational cutbacks. My money is being spent at Expo." "As concerned parents of a grade 1 child in School District 65, we would like to ask you to please reconsider any more cutbacks in education funding." They go on to say that what has happened previously is probably okay, but it has now gone too far.

"I'm writing to state my concern and dismay regarding the educational policies and projections for the future of our province." "We are writing as concerned parents of two children presently educated in an elementary school." They say they are appalled by the policies of restraint. "We all have to pull in our belts, but after seeing significant cuts in our school budgets, we feel enough is enough." "Where are your priorities? As a parent, mine are with my children and their education. Your cutbacks in education are outrageous."

This is the Burns plan that this letter is talking about and expressing concerns about: "Your government has just lost its last vestige of credibility. In a united effort to avert layoffs, teachers and school boards in some districts have come up with an innovative plan."

Here's a letter from a parent — a retired teacher and a taxpayer — expressing concern and giving some priorities, as parents see it, Mr. Chairman, like keeping the class size to 25 and under. You know your 19.14 will not keep it to 25 and under, no matter how much you pare the administration. I think you would agree with me, Mr. Minister, that Cowichan's administration is not top-heavy. It is and always has been one of the top school districts as far as administration goes. These are priorities from one parent: to stop further teacher cuts; to stop the loss of the eight days of schooling; to introduce summer school programs again; to bring about learning assistance programs again; and to look closely at administrative principals' and teachers' salaries. Perhaps we are losing teachers because their wages have reached a limit. "Please help this sinking ship."

Here is a letter to the minister on behalf of the parent teacher' association. This was a letter to the minister. I have a letter from the principals in School District 65, which wrote down — after a great deal of time and effort on their part in evaluating what would happen if in fact the necessary layoffs were made last January to accommodate the minister's restraint budget; and they were made, and these things happened — the number of students displaced, moved, or affected by that. It was a layoff of some eight or ten teachers, and more than 500 students were affected by having to be changed into split classes and those kinds of things, where there were more children coming into the classroom, a different teacher, even a move from one school to the other. I think the figure was 500; I may be conservative in stating that.

What I'm trying to point out to the minister is that in doing what he's doing he has drastically affected the quality of education. We've done away with our music program; we've done away with our swimming program; we've done away with all those so-called frills. The choices are much more limited now in what a young person can involve himself in. We've seen this happening with drastic effects in the higher echelons of education, where students have two or three years invested in a course of study, where they want to go in a certain direction, take a certain course of training, and then all of a sudden the next year it's chopped.

[ Page 5631 ]

I know what that's like, Mr. Chairman, because I'm a product of the prairie schools that were very small and had very limited educational facilities. I remember that I was in one school, and I was taking French. I had two years of French, and I transferred, and they were into Latin. I had to start with one year of Latin at the grade 11 level. Those are the kinds of things that happen. I'm not saying it's quite that bad here yet, but I'll bet in some of those small outlying districts that's exactly what's happening. There are cases where students are working up a course of study, and suddenly that course isn't there anymore. It's certainly happening at the college and university levels, and to the people who are involved in the health courses; that's been one of the things that had really affected them.

I want to quote a few remarks from an article that I came on. It's written by Dr. Joseph Katz, who is of course a professor at UBC, but he was the chairman, I believe, of the Human Rights Commission. He was appointed by this government at one point to take that position. This quotes some very well-known people, certainly qualified peopled in their area and their country, talking about education. The first one he quotes is Matsushita, who is the head of Japan's electrical company by the same name. He says that the Japanese approach to education and training is based on the fact that "the intelligence of a handful of technocrats, however brilliant, is no longer enough. Only by drawing on the brainpower of all its employees can a firm face up to the turbulence and constraints of today's environment. This is why our large companies give their employees three to four times more training than yours."

He's speaking to North American visitors to the country.

"This is why they foster within the firm such intensive exchange and communication. This is why they seek constantly everybody's suggestions, and why they demand from the educational system increasing numbers of graduates, as well as bright and well-educated generalists."

Then Dr. Katz quotes the West German federal minister of education, Dr. Dorothe Wilms: "We are not in a position to forecast the spiritual, social and cultural conditions in the Federal Republic of Germany; neither do we know what specific qualification requirements by the employment system will be called for. What we do know, however, is the fact that a sound course of training is the most reliable way of equipping young persons with the ability to react flexibly."

I have more quotes, Mr. Chairman, but I note that my time is up, even if the Chairman is in conversation.

[5:00]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: In response I have a couple of comments. First, I would like to raise the point of 19.1 in the PTR. I would like to advise the member that in March of this year, because of the concern which had been expressed, as well as some misunderstanding with respect to the use of PTR, that the 19.1 objective which had been stated.... Mr. Chairman, I was just wondering whether the member wants to hear the response to this. Well, 19.1 was used as a financial equivalent.

At the beginning of March I wrote to all school districts, and I will quote to you from a letter which was sent to them:

"The guidelines have been developed on the basis of a projection, now almost two years old, of the financial equivalent of returning the system to 1976 levels of service; namely a provincial pupil-teacher ratio of 19.14 to 1. As I have stated a number of times, it is not" — and I repeat not — "the government's intention that any particular school board use this as a specific target. We recognize that appropriate local decisions are possible, and in many cases have been made to arrive at other pupil-teacher ratios for the 1985-86 school year."

Now the important point to the member for Cowichan-Malahat is this: it is impossible to achieve the 19.1. That was never the objective of government at all. There was no such thing as service levels when we first introduced the new system of funding. We had to start somewhere. The average which we had in 1984 — and that covers from September 1984, for 1984-85 — is 17.73 to 1, and the projected average for 1985-86 is 18.28 to 1.

I notice when I look at the profile for the two school districts in your riding.... In Cowichan, School District 65, in 1983 it was 17.34 to 1; in 1984 it went to 17.48 to 1. In other words, there was a jump of 14 one-hundredths. I, with all due respect, would not say that the jump from 1983 to 1984 was anything too shocking — from 17.34 to 17.48. The adjustment which will take place this year.... For 1985-86 we're looking at a PTR of 18.18 to 1, and that's the number of certificated staff which will accommodate that number of students.

Now that doesn't seem unreasonable. The provincial average will probably be about 18.28, so it's beneath that. I'm not taking issue with the Cowichan board or their management at all. Believe me, I'm not. I do want it made abundantly clear, though, that the 19.1 figure is one which will not be reached, nor is it the government's objective. We are now going into the third year of a three-year program. We know it involves three fiscal years. Interestingly enough, you should know that it is now actually being compressed to two and a half years because of the transitional period.

Reference was made to the music and swimming program. I would like you to provide me, perhaps in due course, with more details on that, whether or not you are making reference to.... Mr. Chairman, if the member is making reference to a specific program and a specific grade involving music or swimming, I'm not sure.

I would like to go back to the opening comments of the member with respect to attendance at post-secondary institutions, colleges or universities. I understand the information which you have advanced involving universities, as far as a national average is concerned, is correct. That's not under my jurisdiction. What I am concerned about is the acceptance in colleges and institutes of high-school graduates.

I will repeat again the figures, which I did for an earlier speaker. The average, as I recall, was 31.02 percent — that's the total number of high-school graduates who are taking either academic or technical programs at colleges. Now there is a differential between those who come from the interior and those from the lower mainland. As is to be expected, you would find more students from the interior and the northern part of British Columbia attending a regional college. After all, that's why the government has gone to considerable expense to build those colleges throughout the province. The average in the interior is 33.8 percent, and if you come down to the lower mainland — Victoria, Vancouver and that area — it's 29.9 percent.

I conclude my remarks with two items. The amount which I make reference to in academic and technical.... It is averaging 31 percent. I can't tell you what it will be as far as institutes are concerned, and for those in a period of

[ Page 5632 ]

vocational training. In vocational training I suspect it's — if I were to guess — somewhere between 10 percent and 20 percent; I'm not sure. But I am positive that it is in that area somewhere. Add to that the number of students who are attending university, and I think we come up to a very significant average across the country. I can't dispute that one way or the other.

The last item I wish to raise involves tuition. On average, tuition for colleges is something like 11 percent of the total cost. Even using constant dollars, 11 percent is less than the tuition paid in 1971.

In addition, something which we do have knowledge of but not administration of is the federal funding made available through CEIC, federal manpower, involving those people who do need assistance — primarily single parents and children who are the responsibility of a single parent. The amount of money involved in that area to assist students is very considerable. The exact amount I do not have, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were in the area of $40 million.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

MRS. WALLACE: I'm interested in the minister's statement that he has no intention to go to 19.141, that he's only going to go to 18.43 or something. I have in my hand here a summary from February 1982 to January 1985 that was prepared by the Cowichan School Board. It indicates that at some time in 1982, the ministry announced that funding to school boards will be based on a 19.14 PTR. If that's incorrect, I would hope that the minister will advise Cowichan that that's not going to be the case, that that's not the direction they're going in and that they will not have to face up to that situation. Certainly their impression is that that's the direction they're going in, and that it doesn't matter what they do as far as any economies that they create.

I would like the minister to just discuss for a minute whether it is 19.14, 18.43 or whatever. Is that the criteria, or is he looking at other things? Is he picking out a PTR figure and having his fiscal formula relate to that figure? Is it going to be related to other things within that school district, or is it strictly on that PTR?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Let's go back to the time the framework was originally introduced and the concept was being formulated. We required a financial equivalent. The financial equivalent of 19.1 in 1976, in my view, will have been achieved when we put to bed the 1985-86 budgets. Whatever those PTRs may be — and they, of course, vary considerably provincewide — they represent the amount of money which is the financial equivalent to 19.1. That's why I thought it was important that I read to you the contents of the letter which was sent out at the beginning of March of this year to clear up any misunderstanding with respect to the 19.1. The average is — and it's going to be provincewide; it's turned out that way — about 18.28. The financial equivalent turned out to be about 18.28. There are some very good reasons for that. You have to take into consideration the special-needs children and the care and attention which they receive. So it's a physical impossibility, in my view....

To be very candid, Mr. Chairman, I'm looking to wrapping up the 1985-86 budget and accomplishing what we had originally set out to do over a three-year program with the new method of funding. So I think that you can rest assured and discharge forever that it is an imperative that a school district achieve 19.1 before the ministry is finished with its work. That is just not the case.

As a matter of fact, a good example, you know, is the other school district, Madam Member, in your riding, Lake Cowichan. When I look at Lake Cowichan, interestingly enough.... I know it's a small school district. Even though they have had a decline in enrolment over the last four years of roughly 150 students — from roughly 1,200 to 1,050 — 1 notice the PTR has remained from 1981 to 1984 at 15.32 to 15.35. It is projected for 1985-86 to be 16.07. Now that is their PTR, and as far as I'm concerned, it's been achieved. We have achieved what we set out to do, and when the new School Act comes in, it's going to be entirely up to what that legislation says as to how the school districts are going to operate and also where their revenues will come from. If they wish to manage their affairs in such a way as to drop the PTR down to 17 or 18, that's entirely up to them.

[5:15]

MRS. WALLACE: I thank the minister for his comments. I guess that what you're really telling us is: "What we see is what we get." That's what you're telling us — that it's going to stay that way, even with the new School Act; there's not going to be any upgrading of the funds available provincially. The minister is shaking his head, but he's saying that those figures are set. They're going to bring in a new School Act, and what the locals do after that is up to them. Of course, what the locals do after that is based on a situation where they have a very small percentage of the tax base left at their discretion to provide any of the things they might want to bring in, because you've got the commercial and the industrial now, Mr. Minister.

We're not satisfied with the standards that are there. We're not satisfied with the fact that our kids do not have the opportunity to branch out into various areas of training. We're not satisfied with the fact that there have been such curtailments in the courses available. We are not satisfied with the fact that we have 30 grade one kids in one classroom. In fact, we've got one where they did knock out a wall a few years ago, which my colleague was talking about, when they were going to have this open-learning type of thing at the lower level. We've got one classroom that has 60 kids and two teachers at the lower grade one, two.... I'm not sure whether it's the one, two or three level, but in the lower elementary levels,

We're not satisfied with those things, and what you're going to leave us is such, a small portion of leeway, as far as increases locally, that we're going to be stuck with this low class education forever unless you change entirely the approach towards educational funding under the new School Act. I know we can't talk about legislation; we certainly can't talk about legislation that isn't even coming in yet. But whether or not we agree with the way in which it's been done, you have been getting some input from people around this province through "Let's Talk About Schools." I don't like to say I don't trust that minister. I don't trust that government.

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: I don't like to say that, but you see, my problem is that I'm not sure that what we'll get in the new School Act will accurately reflect what has come in. The minister has said he's going to publish all this and make it public and so on, but the concern I have is that we.... How

[ Page 5633 ]

many years have we had this existing education act? Now we're going to get a new one, and unless we do a good job with that, we're going to be stuck with an education system that is second-class. That's what it is right now — second-class. You can use your economies or restraint or whatever as the reason it's there, but I think you have to admit that it is a second-class system now. It has been so reduced that the quality has been affected.

I am extremely concerned that we're going to get a new School Act that is maybe based on what the people have said they want, and maybe not. And where do we go from there? Those school boards have such limited opportunity to improve that quality; their finances have been cut off at the knees. That's a grave concern, Mr. Chairman, and I would like a really strong commitment from this minister that he is going to provide for extra provincial funding so we can get that school system back to where it ought to be in British Columbia.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I reject unequivocally the last comments of the member for Cowichan-Malahat. The reading assessment tests administered in British Columbia just recently showed a staggering increase in comprehension — by staggering, something between 2 percent and 3 percent. I was so pleased that I issued a press release and complimented the teaching staff, because they've done a commendable job. I take exception to the comments about a second-class system; I don't believe we have a second-class system at all. What we've got is a first-class system at reasonable cost, and it seems to me that that should be our objective.

It's fine to comment that you don't trust me, or whatever it may be. My point is.... When we talked a long time ago about the schools and publishing, I made a commitment that all the work being done by the advisory committee, the provincial School Act review committee and the researchers, which they are now compiling and coding, including the polling, is going to be made public. I don't know how open an administration can be. Therefore everybody will have that opportunity.

When we go back to your school district, and when I look at the PTRs which are here — let's go back to the PTRs in the late seventies and early eighties — there isn't really that significant a difference. There's a difference, yes; there has been inflation and, yes, some of it has been eaten by the boards. There has been an overall increase in the cost per student. When I look at Cowichan between '81 and '85-86, the actual increase in the cost per student has been 21.1 percent. Now we know that inflation.... If we want to take into consideration the actual impact of the '82 wage settlement — which, by the way, actually netted out to be not 17 but 20 percent.... We know that the school districts have eaten some inflation. I don't deny that. But there has been an increase in that particular school district of 21.1 percent, and in Lake Cowichan an actual increase of 18.9 percent in per student cost.

I cannot stand here and make commitments or give guarantees as to what the funding is going to be in years hence, commencing with the school year '86-87; but I think a lot of that is going to depend upon the manner in which school districts are going to be funded. I think it's something that we should remind ourselves. One of the reasons the non-residential tax base was assumed by the provincial government was to promote equity throughout the province. There are many school districts in British Columbia which have absolutely no commercial or industrial base whatsoever. To spread that evenly and fairly....

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Yeah, but they seem to have another base, and....

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: You know, we want to look at that particular area because that happens to be the residential base. But interestingly enough, by the way, they also paid probably one of the highest percentages towards their total cost, as compared to.... If we were to look at School District 55 and do a comparison, we'd find that 77 percent was paid provincially. All I can say to those people I represent in the rural part of British Columbia — and it doesn't necessarily have to be confined to my riding — is that I'm pleased we have a non-residential base which is distributed equitably by the province of British Columbia to help those who have a primarily agrarian base or a base which is residential and small commercial to a degree.

The other thing that's interesting to look at is the actual taxation paid. I know that in both the school districts in your riding, Madam Member, the actual school tax paid after deduction of the homeowner grant is zero on average. So I think.... I mean, these facts are understood and we all know them. That's the advantage of it.

But I can't give you a commitment for what's going to happen in the future. I think we're going to have to see what comes down the pipe with respect to school legislation. You can rest assured that I haven't gone through this exercise of school review just to fill out my timetable. I intend to do the right thing by it.

MRS. WALLACE: I really wasn't going to get up again, but I'd just like the minister, in reviewing that figure about zero school tax paid in Cowichan-Malahat.... I brought some figures to the House, and I don't have them with me today, but in the city of Duncan's assessment rolls the average school tax, as my memory goes, was $500 per residence.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: That's on average.

MRS. WALLACE: Yeah, but there's something mighty strange if it's down to zero on average, because the city of Duncan is the sort of average residential area in that area.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Chairman, I have just a few remarks with respect to the minister's portfolio. On an earlier occasion, in considering the minister's estimates, he and I had a discussion in the House about the Anspayawx School at Kispiox just north of Hazelton, subject matter that at the time of that debate the minister didn't know anything about or appeared not to be familiar with, with respect to the details of the financing. Subsequently he and I exchanged correspondence about that subject matter, and the minister, I regret to say — I said it to him in a letter, and I must say it publicly — took advantage of his position to attempt to twist the purport of what we were doing for what he considered to be political

[ Page 5634 ]

advantage. Now that is really something beneath the dignity of the minister, and I don't think he should have done that. He knows my feelings about it. That's not what I intend to discuss today; I just thought it would be worthwhile to relate that again to the minister.

I wonder if the minister could tell me.... He may have done this before, and if he has then he needn't do it again just for my benefit; I'll find it elsewhere. When reference is made, as it is from time to time, to the pupil-teacher ratio, or PTR, what factors go into determining what is a teacher? What components go into that question of teachers, the numbers? Who is included in the teacher side of that ratio? What categories of employment within the school board are included to make up that number? The student one is easy: I guess you just count students.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: This has been published on a number of occasions, Mr. Chairman — all certificated staff within the school district, with the exception of the superintendent. Now I think the member thought that would be the answer, but there must be another question behind this that you have in mind. It is all certificated staff other than the superintendent. That would mean directors of instruction within the district office, subject coordinators, curriculum coordinators.

MR. HOWARD: I didn't have any specific question behind that. It was just not clear in my mind, out of remembrance, just what went into that. What it means is that there are employees of the school board who might be certificated but are not in the classroom — are not teaching. That's the point I want to get to. The minister nods his head, admitting that that is the case. Now he holds up his hand. Does he want to expand upon his earlier remark?

[5:30]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: What the member for Skeena has made reference to.... I presume that all of those who are certificated and could be working in the district are not in the classroom, save and except that there may be a music coordinator about whom in fact the district might say: "Well, it's better for us to have such a person within the district." But they still may be conducting and moving from school to school. I don't know whether, not necessarily getting in.... But just because they happen to be within the district office doesn't mean to say they may not be in the classroom. Because the member's comments were after I had said that all people who are certificated, save and except the superintendent, are included within the PTR — and we use that particular expression. But that doesn't mean to say that because they are in the district office they may not from time to time be in a classroom.

MR. HOWARD: For discussion purposes, I think what I'm getting at is that the continued reference to pupil-teacher ratio is misleading. It's misleading to the general public, which is extremely important. I say it's extremely important for the general public and parents to know what this is all about. So when reference is made to pupil-teacher ratio, the generally accepted understanding.... I've talked to a number of people just this past little while at home as to what they thought it meant, and in their minds it meant the ratio or the numerical relationship between a teacher in the classroom and the number of students, etc. That is not the case, and that's where it's misleading.

The most important figure, if one is going to deal with statistics and deal with the value that a teacher may have in a classroom, is the size of the class in relationship to the teacher. Class size: how many students are in that class? How many students does a teacher have to deal with, teach, cope with, handle, and concern himself or herself with? That's the important consideration in my mind, because that's where the quality of education is involved, and the valuable part of education.

I would think that if we could come up with some other reference point or some other information or some other way of identifying that ratio of teacher to class, the general public and the parents may have a better appreciation of what some of the difficulties are. When he tosses off figures, as the minister has with respect to School District 88, saying that it has a pupil-teacher ratio of 16.86 or something of that sort for this coming year, that leads the general public to believe that there are 16 students in a class on average. The minister knows that is not the case. He knows that the figures are much higher than that.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

When class size is up, when it's increasing in numbers — and it is in a number of school districts and in a number of schools — the demand on the teacher increases as well. The teacher has more students, more individuals to relate to and to attempt to teach. The availability of that teacher to the students goes down as class size goes up. The availability of the teacher to individual students or to groups of students goes down. As a consequence, the education for those students tends to go down as well. The quality of education tends to go down as class size goes up. The teacher has less time to spend with students who might need the extra help, because the teacher's time is spread too thin.

There are students who need the extra help. They may be a bit behind from having been ill and away from school, and may need to catch up on lessons that they had missed, or they may be a bit behind because of other factors. We don't all have the same capacity to learn. That's a variable factor. Whatever the reason, the larger the class size, the less opportunity there is for those students who may have missed lessons or may be a bit behind to get that extra attention necessary for them to catch up, and they tend to always be behind the norm, the average or the group.

Those students who are the brightest and who might benefit on the other side of the coin by individual attention, and don't get it, become bored and disinterested. They may have a capacity to learn that is beyond the lesson that they are taking or beyond the program that's in effect at the present time. All in all the situation deteriorates as class size increases.

Teachers also, as class size increases.... And I regret very much that the government has seen fit, by its declarations with respect to incomes, notably from the Premier, the greatest offender in this regard.... I regret that the government has tended to denigrate teachers in the public's mind. As class size goes up, teachers find that not only is their time in the classroom spread more thinly over the numbers of students, but also that they're doing extra work outside of teaching hours. I know teachers in Terrace who get to the school at 8 o'clock in the morning in order to ensure that their

[ Page 5635 ]

classroom is in shape and that whatever preparations are necessary are done so that when the students arrive at nine or thereabouts — it varies from school to school — things are ready for them. The general public normally doesn't appreciate that or know that that happens.

I know teachers who stay after the hours of school in order to do that kind of work. I know teachers who spend two or three hours at night at home doing school work, especially at report time with the preparation of reports. They spend a lot of hours in the evening doing extraordinary work. That extra load on top of teachers, just from the simple process of having to deal with more students, interferes with the quality of education, and the quality suffers. That's the regretful part.

Now the minister — I say this in all sincerity — has a tremendously good grasp of the complexities of his ministry. His ability to stand up in the House and recite percentage figures and quote statistics and ratios just off the top of his head is amazing. He would make a very good deputy minister with that capacity. But it doesn't, I think, lead very well in the direction of good policy. It doesn't lead very well in the direction of having a good quality of education. I think that if the minister would spend less time and less of his effort memorizing the statistics and more of his time concerned with the quality of education, this society in British Columbia would be better off.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I accept the spirit in which those comments were offered, but obviously I would like to respond on two or three items. First of all, with one of the school districts in the member for Skeena's riding — Terrace — it's interesting to note that the PTR in 1984 was 17.45, and I'll make a comment on that in a moment. For 1985 it's going to be 16.86, so it's down.

Now with respect to the expression PTR, that's something which I've inherited. If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: the fact is, if the people who are involved in the education community would have come out and, instead of using this idea of PTR — because it completely misleads the public; I'm the first one to state it, and have said so on dozens of occasions.... If we had such a thing as a staff-student ratio, it would be more realistic. The person who always bears the brunt of this is the teacher. Why do teachers continually have to answer, when they are at social functions or anywhere else: "What are you complaining about? The average is 19 to 1. Can't you you handle 19 students?" We know it's patently false and not the case. But this seems to be the vernacular which has developed in the educational community over a long time. So I guess it's something we have to live with.

I think I'd like to make one other point. About the allegations with respect to the idea of retaining the odd figure here and there.... But I would just like to remind you, Mr. Chairman.... I never recall the discussion in the community — certainly when my children were going to public school — about curriculum. I did introduce for this wide discussion with the public a paper on curriculum content for grades 11 and 12. Interestingly enough, the response that I've had to that from those teachers and administrators with whom I've spoken — and there have been many over the last two years — has been encouraging. Some have knocked parts of it. I thought that education was more than just number-crunching. God knows there has been enough of that. So I thought that perhaps there was something interesting which I as a minister could introduce here.

There was a great issue with respect to external examinations. But interestingly enough, I notice there is now considerable support for it, and it seems to be right across the country. I'm even finding out from teachers.... Some of the correspondence which I've received was critical, but a lot of it has been very favourable with respect to exams. The only thing that I will say is that in some quarters — and I don't think it's that wide now; the percentage weighting is really the issue.... But I think the member makes a valid comment with the expression PTR. Believe me, if you can.... I'm looking for any guidance or any suggestions which anyone may have so that we can replace that particular expression with something else that would more accurately reflect the public understanding. As far as class sizes, you might be interested to know that in '84 the average size in the Terrace School District for secondary was just under 21, and for elementary it was something like 23.4. The reason I raise his is because you're interested in the PTR when we're talking all certificated staff, but the actual average class sizes n the Terrace School District seem to me to be acceptable.

MR. HOWARD: The poor minister — my heart bleeds for the minister. I'm just so upset that he inherited this terrible thing called PTR and can't change it. He's changed nearly everything else in the ministry and its approach; why can't he change that simple little thing? If he'd spend less time worrying about the statistics and the number-crunching, working out percentages and averages, maybe he'd come up with something that would be meaningful to the general public.

I wonder if the minister could tell us the status of the inquiry or the investigation or the study — or whatever it was — that was taking place in his department with respect to the Programme Cadre de Français.

[5:45]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Are you talking about the management of...? I'm sorry, I didn't hear the question clearly.

MR. HOWARD: There is a program called the Proramme Cadre de Français — the French language program for students whose parents are francophones, or they themselves are of francophone heritage; not French immersion, but Programme Cadre. What's happening? That's been under study. I've got letters saying it's been under study off and on for a year now.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I can't answer that question. I will find out this evening what your question is. What's happening to the Programme Cadre, apparently, as you say, is something that's under study. I don't really know what you're getting at. I think perhaps I'd better find out and come back tomorrow.

MR. HOWARD: I've had correspondence, maybe not directly with the minister, but with officials in the department

[ Page 5636 ]

who say that the minister is studying and examining the Programme Cadre de Français with a view to making changes in it. So I assume the minister would know what it is he's studying. But if the minister wants the time that he indicates, I understand there's a desirability to moving along.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:47 p.m.

Appendix

WRITTEN ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

4 The Hon. J. Davis asked the Hon. the Provincial Secretary and Minister of Government Services the following questions:

For each of the fiscal years ended March 31, 1981 through March 31, 1985 —

1. What payments were made to the Hon. Ronald Basford for services rendered to the Provincial Government and/or the Ministry of Industry and Small Business Development?

2. What expenses were claimed by the Hon. Ronald Basford in the performance of services rendered to the Provincial Government and/or the Ministry of Industry and Small Business Development?

The Hon. J. R. Chabot replied as follows:

"This question should be redirected to my colleague, the Hon. R. H. McClelland, Minister of Industry and Small Business Development."

5 The Hon. J. Davis asked the Hon. the Provincial Secretary and Minister of Government Services the following question:

How many Orders in Council were passed in each of the fiscal years from 1972-73 to 1984-85, inclusive?

The Hon. J. R. Chabot replied as follows: