[ Page 5683 ]

CONTENTS

Oral Questions

Price of beer. Mr. Passarell –– 5683

Mr. Macdonald

Education minister's meeting with New Westminster School Board. Mr. Cocke –– 5684

School counselling. Mr. Rose –– 5684

Okanagan College board. Mr. MacWilliam –– 5684

Chinese investment in forest industry. Mr. Howard –– 5685

Legal contracts. Hon. Mr. Smith answers questions –– 5685

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

On vote [7: minister's office –– 5687

Mr. Mitchell

Mr. Hanson

Hon. Mr. Gardom

Medical Services Amendment Act, 1985 (Bill 50). Hon. Mr. Nielsen

Introduction and first reading –– 5694

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

On vote 17: minister's office –– 5694

Mr. Michael

Mr. Rose

Mr. MacWilliam

THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1985

The House met at 2:03 p.m.

MR. REE: In the gallery above you, Mr. Speaker, is a young couple — actually, they're in their young eighties — who have driven from Ottawa to Vancouver to attend the Commonwealth Games annual dinner, which was held in Vancouver last week. They have since toured Vancouver Island and are now visiting here. They were actually hoping to drive up into the Yukon, to Whitehorse. They are Warren — commonly referred to as Monty — and Jean Montabone. Mr. Montabone is a special individual, I think, in Canada. He participated as a hurdler on behalf of Canada in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris and in the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. He was also present to follow the Chariots of Fire run in the Paris games of 1924. He's advised me that the movie is very much on point. I'd ask this House to welcome the two of them to British Columbia, to Victoria and to this House with a very warm welcome.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, we have three special guests in your gallery from the Sooke School District. They are here very conveniently — the minister will be speaking on the Sooke School District. I'd like the House to welcome Marg Jacobson, Margaret Fleming and Elizabeth Stewart.

MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, I notice in your gallery this afternoon trustees Anne Bailey and Beth Colpitts. I would ask the House to bid them welcome.

MR. REID: In the gallery today are some very special people that have arrived from Seattle today on the inaugural run of the jetfoil. Some of them came to witness the Legislature today. On behalf of the Legislature and you, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to welcome those people from Seattle.

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today are three residents of Cowichan-Malahat who are extremely interested in education, including the president of the Cowichan District Teachers' Association, Mr. Denyer. I would like the House to welcome them.

HON. MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery today are a group of teachers from School District 42, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, and a school trustee: Wendy Hale, Jane Denton, Drusilla Wilson, Nel Joostema, Cathy Brugge, Howard Brown and Barbara Andreasen. I would ask the House to make them all welcome please.

MR. ROSE: I am told that there is a delegation of parents, teachers and members of the college in North Vancouver. I would like to welcome Mrs. Henis, Maureen Buhler, Walter Stewart of Capilano College Faculty Association, and Jessie Rybchinsky and Andy Krawczyk of the teachers' association, as well as Verna Smelovsky.

MS. BROWN: Six people visiting us from Burnaby, Mr. Speaker, are also interested in education. They are Mrs. Beth Colpitts, a parent; Mrs. Nancy Anderson, a parent; a school trustee, Mrs. Anne Bailey; two teachers, Mrs. Linda Shuto and Mrs. Sharon Freeman; and a member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 379, Mr. Bill Harper. They are here to strike fear and terror into the heart of the Minister of Education, and I hope the House will join me in bidding them welcome.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery this afternoon is a very active entrepreneur from the Clayton area of Surrey. It is our hope that he will soon be able to proceed with the neighbourhood pub application that he has for development of the community, and I would ask the House to please welcome Peter Loewen.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, with the greatest of respect, the Chair has, during the introduction period, been most lenient in advising members that the introduction period should be kept brief. Certainly, simple introduction is all that is necessary. I would commend to all members that we adhere to some basic proprieties at introduction period.

Oral Questions

PRICE OF BEER

MR. PASSARELL: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Under this government the price of a dozen beer has doubled in three short years. Does the minister agree that this price is too high?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, the price of beer, of course, is determined not just by government in regard to taxation or markup, but also by the manufacturing level, which institutes price increases from time to time.

MR. PASSARELL: Mr. Speaker, a new question. A box of beer costing less than $3 to produce now costs $9.60, plus deposit, when sold. What action is the minister taking to bring the price of beer down to a reasonable level in this province?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, I'm not contemplating any action.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, the minister says that the price of beer is set at the manufacturing level. Would the minister agree that following the Goldberg report to Mr. Hyndman, his predecessor, and the right of the breweries to advertise their beer freely, the prices increased in lock-step every six months or so from $4.95 on April 1, 1981, to $9.20, and that the big three — Labatt, Carling and Molson — always come around to quoting the same price and there's no competition there whatsoever?

HON. MR. HEWITT: No, Mr. Speaker, I don't agree. Unfortunately I don't have in front of me the spread of prices with regard to various brands of beer, but I believe that there is a price spread of approximately $1 to $1.20 between the highest-priced domestic beer on the market and the lowest-priced. Those prices have been established by the manufacturers after they were allowed to set their prices freely rather than have the government regulate them.

MR. MACDONALD: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. The prices should be known to the minister. They're all here. They go up.... You go at any stage, whether it's $5.51,

[ Page 5684 ]

$5.61, $5.61 — all the same, right across the page, every day. Does the minister not realize that he's been hoodwinked, and the breweries are acting in cahoots, and that accepting that Goldberg report and deregulating has meant that you've given away the key to the breweries? You're fattening eastern breweries' profits; they're going up like the suds in a glass, and the beer-drinking public are hopping mad. You've let them down.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, is that a play on words — hopping mad?

First of all, having the prices in front of him, I of course question the member's asking the question. Secondly, there are a number of factors with regard to the price of beer: there is the federal taxation; there is our markup, granted; and there is the price that the manufacturer places on his product. The combination of those three has increased beer prices, as the member for Atlin (Mr. Passarell) says. Would you rather have a tax on milk, Mr. Member, as opposed to a tax on those products that do create social costs for the province of British Columbia? I have no objection to the taxes on beer, wines, spirits, cigarettes, etc. In my opinion, those are luxuries and should be heavily taxed.

MR. MACDONALD: A supplementary to the same minister. The minister mentioned what is received by the government; that's fine. It's been going up, up, up. What about the brewery profits going up? You never disclose what's made in B.C. What about the contribution that the breweries make to the Social Credit Party — is it going up, up, up? I ask the minister this simple question: is it?

Interjections.

MR. MACDONALD: It's all there. The simple question is: why are you sitting on the Goldberg report? We had a draft of it a little while ago. Will you get up in your place now and say that you'll table that report?

Interjections.

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

EDUCATION MINISTER'S MEETING WITH NEW
WESTMINSTER SCHOOL BOARD

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I'll direct a question to the Minister of Education. Will the minister advise why he has failed to show up, or has refused to honour the request of the New Westminster School Board for a meeting? They've been asking for some time.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact on reasonably short notice I put it in my schedule some time in January or February — I can't remember the exact month — to attend the New Westminster School Board. I think there was a couple of days' notice; I was advised by the school board that they would need much more notice than that. I found it somewhat difficult, because when I was traveling around the province many of the boards were quite prepared to meet on reasonably short notice.

What happened on that particular day was that because of the weather — flying was difficult, as well as driving — I couldn't get to one particular school district in British Columbia, and I said I would go to New Westminster. Unfortunately I was told that that wasn't convenient to them. They have recently sent a telegram, I think within the last couple of days, asking to meet with me. I also received a letter from them within perhaps the last month, and I will visit the New Westminster School Board and all other boards.

[2:15]

AN HON. MEMBER: When?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Well, I've been up your way.

Interjections.

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

MR. COCKE: Precisely 16 hours' notice, they were scattered all over the face of the earth, and there was no way they could get it together. In the afternoon the day before for the morning of the next day — that's precisely how much time. Mr. Speaker, all I want from the minister is really — I think I got it — that he's going to meet with them, I hope, soon. Will it be soon, Mr. Minister?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I will meet with the New Westminster School Board as well as other school boards as soon as I am able.

SCHOOL COUNSELLING

MR. ROSE: I have a related education question. I was going to ask when the minister intends to deregulate the school boards, as we've done recently with the big breweries, but that really isn't my question.

I'd like to ask a very serious question. It concerns the delinquency problems in Surrey that we've heard a great deal about, mainly caused by a lot of young people who have been school dropouts and failures in that system. I'd like to know whether the minister is aware that in Surrey there is a ratio of one counsellor to 1,460 pupils. That's appalling when you consider that the guideline for counsellor-student ratios is something like one counsellor for every 315 students. Is the minister aware of this situation? I know the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith) wanted to put on more police as a solution, and I think that that's been happening. Is the minister aware of this problem of counselling and the rotten ratio, and if he is, what's he prepared to do about it?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I am not aware of that particular problem. I suspect the member received that information sometime today, because when I left at noon there was a delegation — who I believe are in the gallery now — who left some information with me, and it may very well have been within that brief. I talked to them for probably the better part of an hour, and people from Surrey. I will take that particular question as notice, because I am not aware of the statistics I which the member advances.

OKANAGAN COLLEGE BOARD

MR. MacWILLIAM: I have a question for the Minister of Education. Since last fall there have been three vacancies on the Okanagan College board. My office, as well as the office

[ Page 5685 ]

of the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. Michael), has submitted names for replacements. My question to the minister is: when will those replacements for the three vacancies be coming forth? Will there be replacements in the near future?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: In the fullness of time. Many members from that particular area who are interested in Okanagan College, and there are a number of ridings.... There are two or three vacancies, and I'm filling them up over a period of time. I'm sure that the member will find out, I hope before too much longer, that the positions have been filled. I might say I appreciate that the member has been most interested in this and has advanced to me the odd name.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Supplementary. The minister did in fact mention just a minute ago that the vacancies were being filled up. But the latest information that I have available is that none of those vacancies has been filled. Names have been submitted as far back as last fall. The last letter that I got from the minister himself said "if a decision is made," and that leaves in question whether the minister intends to fill the vacancies at all.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I should have used the word "will." The answer is yes.

CHINESE INVESTMENT IN FOREST INDUSTRY

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I had intentions of asking a question relating to the Kemano completion project of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. Rogers), but I see he's not here, nor has there been any indication as to why he's absent. But I would like to ask the Minister of Forests a question based upon his recent visit to China. He apparently came back with no orders for products that we produce in this province but did make a statement about the possibility of the Chinese investing $100 million in a pulp mill in this province. I would like to ask the minister whether he was able to identify whether BCRIC's subsidiary, Westar mill at Prince Rupert, is being considered for sale to the Chinese.

HON MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, to the member, personally I think perhaps if he were to phone the office of the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, he could find out the fact that the member is absent and where he is. I'm sure the ministry would be very happy to oblige in that matter.

I have no knowledge of dealings between Westar and the Chinese. Mr. Speaker, I did not announce that the Chinese are considering investing $100 million in a pulp mill in British Columbia.

MR. HOWARD: It's terrible when the minister gets misquoted so badly. Can the minister indicate where this $100 million will be invested in British Columbia? Or is he denying that?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: When I returned from China as a matter of fact, when I was in China — I spoke to reporters in British Columbia, and I advised them that the Chinese had expressed great interest in joint venturing with a British Columbia company in one of the two pulp opportunities that are currently being offered by the province of British Columbia. These opportunities could lead to the establishment of new pulp facilities in British Columbia, probably thermo-mechanical pulp mills, and I suggested that probably the lowest price to put one of these mills into production right now would be around $100 million. The Chinese have expressed interest in learning which companies in British Columbia would be interested, and they would like to contact them and then pursue the possibilities of joint ventures. This is the nature of the comments I made, Mr. Speaker.

LEGAL CONTRACTS

HON. MR. SMITH: I wish to respond to oral questions that were put to me in the Legislature on April 12, Mr. Speaker. These were questions concerning legal contracts.

The member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) asked me:

In March of 1984 when Bud Smith, principal secretary to the Premier, was making his decision to come down and serve in the government in Victoria. did the department suddenly take two legal contracts away from lawyers in Kamloops ... and give them to one Daphne Smith of the firm of Mair Janowsky Blair?

That was the question.

Then he subsequently asked me a followup question: in October 1984, when the new woman lawyer came to Victoria, did the Attorney-General's ministry

... having issued temporary contracts to that point, take legal work worth about $4,000 a month away from three Victoria firms and give it to the firm that Daphne Smith joined, which was the Hutchison and Gow firm? Do you know whether that happened too?

Mr. Speaker, these questions stem from an article that appeared the week of April 11 in a tabloid called Monday Magazine — an article which contained a romance novel about private firms with public friends. That information, when it was published last week, was a year old. It was one of the stalest stories in the corridors. Many times last year I was questioned in the corridors on those allegations, and none of the working press in the Legislature, save for the author of the romance novel, chose to print it. I think it'll be apparent why.

Now it is correct that Mrs. Daphne Smith was, until May 31, 1984, a partner of the firm of Mair, Janowsky, Blair in Kamloops; also, that she is married to Mr. Bud Smith, a matter which is well known, and that he ceased to be a partner in that firm on March 31, 1984. The Mair, Janowsky, Blair law firm has done contract work for the provincial government, starting in 1973 –– I can't remember who was Attorney-General at that time, but I have a dim recollection that it was in fact the asker of the question.

Daphne Smith joined that firm in 1976, and since 1979 she has acted on a number of family law matters for the provincial government — work under the Family Relations Act, the Juvenile Delinquents Act, the Child Paternity and Support Act, and the Family and Child Service Act. She has done that, as has that firm, for Kamloops, Salmon Ann, Chase, Merritt, Lytton, Lillooet and Ashcroft. So the firm has done the work for a long time, and she has done it for about four years.

These contracts generally expire at the end of the fiscal year and are renewed or revised annually. In March 1984, when the contract was drawing to an end, a member of my staff had discussions with other law firms and committed to

[ Page 5686 ]

give some of this work to two other lawyers; that would involve the work in Lillooet and some other work being done by other than the Mair, Janowsky firm. When I reviewed that in April it did not seem to make any sense in either dollars or efficiency, because it meant that the Mair, Janowsky firm and the other lawyer would both be traversing the same route and duplicating the same ground, and it was going to cost us more money. So after two months we cancelled those contracts and left the work where it had been before — it wasn't a new assignment — with the Mair, Janowsky firm, which has been doing the work efficiently for some years.

Mrs. Daphne Smith did move to Victoria. She came down here, I think sometime in the summer or the fall. In April of last year we had the Young Offenders Act proclaimed in Canada. We had no idea at that time how much additional work the new legislation was going to generate, so as four Victoria firms were interested in doing it, what we did was give each of them a piece of the work on rotation. We told them at the beginning — in April — that it was a temporary assignment and that we would be consolidating later when our experience indicated how much work there was. In September we did consolidate, and two of the firms that got it — one was the Mah Ming, Chaperon firm, the other was the Smith, Hutchison and Gow firm — ended up doing all the work. The work amounted to contracts for $2,000 a month per firm to do young offender work.

Mrs. Daphne Smith joined that firm and does do that work, and I can say that I'm delighted she is doing the work. She is a very well-thought-of counsel in the bar of this province, with a wide range of experience in family law. She has taught family law; she has been active in the Kamloops community as a director of a number of societies working with young people. She's been director of the Civil Liberties Association. She's been the chairman of the Kamloops Regional Law Centre Society. She's been actively involved in legal aid for some years. She served without remuneration on the Task Force on Public Legal Services. She's a superb barrister, and she takes her public responsibilities seriously and does public service without remuneration.

So I'm very proud that we employed her, and I can assure the member that we will continue to employ her despite these veiled attacks upon her by the member for Vancouver East, whose question can only suggest that he objects to her because she's married to Bud Smith.

I'm really ashamed of this member for doing this, particularly during the week in which the equality section of the Charter of Rights is coming into force, because it's guilt by spouse identification.

[2:30]

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

HON. MR. SMITH: Oh, sure it is. Come on. A barrister who is good in her own right should get work regardless of who she's married to. I'm ashamed of him. I know that the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown) is ashamed of him, and she'll tell him what the Charter of Rights means.

Now I will just speak about the other person, Mrs. Loretta Chaperon, who he mentions in his question:

... does the acting Attorney-General know, however, that the Attorney-General managed in that reshuffle of the work to keep a third of the work for Loretta Chaperon, who is his active and faithful campaign worker in Oak Bay?

Well, strangely enough, Mrs. Loretta Chaperon was also hired by that member when he was Attorney-General. In April 1975 she went to work for the Attorney-General's ministry. Her husband, Barry Mah Ming, also worked for him. He hired her as a prosecutor. He knew good people when he saw them. They continued to work for the government for many years. Long before my tenure as Attorney-General they were doing family law work. That firm has done since 1978 — with one or two years excepted — the protection of children work, the child paternity and support work, and the juvenile delinquent work, and in April 1983 they successfully bid in Victoria for a new family law contract. They received that contract and they now do work, including the young offenders work, for $3,500 a month.

Mrs. Chaperon, I'll tell the member, also has a distinguished background in family law. She's the chairman of the family law section of the Victoria bar. She has been on the Legal Services Society and still is, and she was on the Task Force on Public Legal Services. Her husband has a long background of criminal law and juvenile law.

The last question that was asked to me was the question that was asked by the member for West Vancouver-Howe Sound (Mr. Reynolds). His question was:

When he's checking on this information for the member for Vancouver East, can he ask the Attorney-General to report to the House how much work Mr. John Brewin is getting in the Victoria area, also?

Well, I've done that, Mr. Chairman, and....

Interjections.

HON. MR. SMITH: Well, yes, it's very interesting, you see, because Mr. Brewin's firm....

Interjection.

HON. MR. SMITH: Well, I think he's known to the member for Vancouver East better than he is to me, but his firm have been doing family law work for us since 1981 by contract, which consists presently of all the work under the Family and Child Service Act in Victoria. They received for that work $5,800 a month last year...

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

HON. MR. SMITH: Yes.

...and $6,300 a month this year, for the amount of $75,000. I don't know that firm as a firm that notoriously supports this government. I could be wrong, but I don't know them as a firm that normally does. So you see you can only come to one conclusion in all this, and that is that we don't have a political litmus test.

Interjections.

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

Orders of the Day

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

[ Page 5687 ]

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

(continued)

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

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, at this point I defer to my colleague from, Esquimalt-Port Renfrew.

MR. MITCHELL: If I could kind of rehash what we were doing to begin with, I was speaking and the minister was answering some of my questions before the noon-hour break. I don't intend to go over the 15-20 minutes of debate that we had this morning, but I would like to review a few of the facts that I brought forward to the minister. Also, he failed to answer my questions.

As I mentioned earlier today, certain guidelines for the pupil-teacher ratio have been established by various groups within the education fraternity. One set of figures that I use, which has been well established in British Columbia, shows that the pupil-teacher ratio should be based not on some fictitious figures based on principals, superintendents, etc., but on the number of children in the classrooms and the teachers teaching them. The figures I gave earlier were for grades 4 to 12, where there should be a maximum of 30. In primary schools there should be a maximum of 25. In kindergarten the figure is 20, and in special classes it's ten. It has also been established — and I believe the minister himself would support this in some of the issues that he mentioned — that where there is a split class these figures should be reduced by at least five. I think the only figures we can go on when we quote figures are the actual figures of kids in classes and teachers who are teaching them.

I mentioned to the minister that 82 classes or 48 percent of the elementary class schools in the Sooke district are in excess of those amounts. When you go into the split classes, 85 percent of the split classes are in excess of the figures recommended by the teaching fraternity; 95.2 percent of these figures are in the primary grades and 75 percent are in the intermediate grades. The split classes are in excess of the guidelines. I also mentioned that 40 percent of the kindergartens in Sooke School District are in excess of recommended guidelines.

It's easy to take figures and say that his set of figures shows that a majority of them are in the.... When we start changing the goal-posts in education, we can bring in any sort of figures to justify the situation. The situation that is being brought out by all levels of government, parents and educational support groups is that there is a slow erosion of what's taking place in our school system.

When you get into secondary class sizes in Sooke School District, there are over 122 classes that have been identified as being oversize. These range from 25 to 26 in the industrial classes up to 40 in band. I know there are a lot of people who say, "Well, bands are not important," but they are. They are part of the culture of getting children out into the community. It's part of the growing process, and actually an important part of what's going on in the world.

Some of the reasons given by the school board.... The minister and the government have been saying that this erosion is only taking place because there's been a drop in the number of pupils. I don't know what set of figures they use in Sooke, but in the last year there has been a drop of 263 students in the Sooke School District; at the same time we've had a drop of 54.8 teachers. The information I received yesterday is that another 14 will be dropped. When you take any set of figures, the amount of teachers we are losing in the Sooke School District, compared to the drop in pupils.... Every teacher we lose is represented by five students. With all of the ratios that have been used.... When you lose one teacher for every drop of five students, there is something definitely wrong in the financing of education in British Columbia.

One of the big problems in the whole concept of education is the difference in funding. There has to be flexibility. We all know that some communities are smaller than others, that some communities have different problems, but the important part is that there has to be a commitment by this Legislature, by the government, that the educational needs of students be met. We can't afford the pleasure of continuing to move the goal-post, continuing to bring in new guidelines.

What really happens is that a lot of courses that I think our society needs, courses that have evolved over the years and that many parents have come to expect, are being cut out. Go through the courses that have been eliminated or reduced: as I mentioned earlier, bands, French, library, enrichment and learning assistance. These have been cut back, eroded or eliminated. To say that this is not important, to throw out another set of figures and another set of percentages, is not going to be accepted by the people of British Columbia. The public is looking seriously at the priorities: what are the priorities of the government, what are the priorities of the minister?

Another one that has been cut back severely is libraries. It's easy to say that libraries are not important. It's only a small percentage of the number of teachers who are involved. But if the program of library training is taught properly, if it's taught well, it's something that stays with children throughout their adult life. We have millions of dollars invested in the library system. If students — and it doesn't matter if it's this year's or last year's or next year's students — miss the opportunity to have proper instruction, they go through life never knowing how to utilize the vast investment that we have in the libraries throughout the province. We can't afford to keep cutting back on needed programs that are going to affect the group of children going through our school system today.

[2:45]

It's easy to say that down the line we'll do this, down the line we'll do something else. It's the students going through our system today who must be protected. There are all kinds of recommendations about the ratio of librarians to students — one set of figures that I would like the minister to comment on. The figures say that for every 100 to 400 students there should be anywhere from half a librarian, or the equivalent, to one. For every 400 to 700 students, there should be anywhere from one to one and a half librarians. In the Sooke School District all the librarians have been reduced in one way or another. Out of the 16 schools, only two — the Ruth King school and the Sooke school — have full librarian service to the standard as recommended. We have librarian assistants that vary from 72 percent of the standard down to 40 percent, 12 percent, 0 percent, 30 percent. There are not the proper library assistants or enough librarians to give the vital training that is needed.

Maybe you averaged it; maybe you threw in the two schools that have enough librarians, so that you would put the average up. What happens is that those students who happen to live in one community for one reason or another —

[ Page 5688 ]

because that is where their homes are, or that's where their parents are employed — are being denied the needed education to understand how to use libraries. I feel that we just can't afford to keep wiping this under the carpet, changing the guidelines and cutting back on services.

One of the programs that I personally, because of my involvement.... Cutting back on learning assistance to students who are in need.... As I said, I remember many years ago, when I was working in police and we had kids who were dropping out of school, kids who were causing problems in our society. We thought they were bad kids, but they had dyslexia. A lot of us on the beat in the police force really didn't understand what it meant. It wasn't until I went into the schools, when I went to talk to some of the teachers, that I understood the problem that these kids were suffering from and that they could be cured — the children could learn to master their problem if they had the proper teaching assistance.

When you look at what has happened in Sooke.... There are guidelines. For up to 175 students there should be at least one half of a teacher's time for work on learning assistance in the school. From 175 to 350 students there should be at least one teacher who is working on the kids who are in need. What has happened in Sooke School District? There are only four schools that have full-time learning assistance teachers allocated to that particular problem. All but three of the other schools are operating below the recommended guidelines. This is an important part of what's going to happen, because the cost.... These particular groups of students.... I've gone through all the displays. I've talked to the teachers who are involved and to the parents of kids who are suffering from dyslexia. Why are these small problems, which are not affecting a lot of people...? The cost down the line, if training is not given, is going to be horrendous. I know from my own experience that a lot of these children will end up in the criminal justice system, and that the cost will be a lot more than the extra amount of money needed right now — the extra amount of money that must be put into the system.

I ask the minister if he will cover these subjects when answering questions.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to take my place in this estimate debate. There are serious concerns in the region that I represent about the way this minister has managed education for our children. School District 61, as the minister is aware, encompasses a large part of Esquimalt, Saanich and Victoria. I would like to make some comments specifically about the conditions faced by that school district and its students.

First, I would like to make a few general remarks about the way this present government approaches education. Clearly they do not recognize education as an investment in our economic recovery. In every advanced, progressive society education is seen as an investment in the future; the technological and educational training given to each successive generation is seen as something that will benefit all of society and will certainly benefit the economy. That is not the philosophy of this government, and I think that everything that has been said so far by our side of the House supports the claim that Social Credit does not see education as something worth investing in for our future.

Also, there's a disturbing trend towards providing educational opportunities for those who have the wherewithal to pay for it. In other words, those who can pay for various kinds of educational opportunities — for example, lab equipment, field trips, various kinds of athletic activities and so on — are benefiting most. Certainly regional districts and school districts where the real estate value is high and the wealth is there are benefiting more than the regions that do not have a high tax base.

One of the other general themes about education under Social Credit is that it's not accessible to all students from B.C. In quality terms. Small secondary schools cannot offer the same range of courses that larger school districts in metropolitan areas can. Certainly it has to be the philosophy of a progressive and modem democratic society that the best educational opportunities should be available throughout the province to the best of our ability rather than seeing remoter areas really cut hard and people denied a quality education. When I say regional, I don't mean off near Bob Quinn Lake in the riding of Atlin; I mean that just out of the lower mainland the quality of education falls off very substantially.

So programs have been cut because of the government's preoccupation with providing all of the revenues that should be available for education and health care, putting them into Expo, into megaprojects that will have a short-term economic impact and really not offer the citizens of our province the opportunities that they should have during this economic downturn to upgrade their skills and to ready themselves for the future. Clearly we're going to have to compete with adjacent jurisdictions, and we're going to have some difficulty doing that.

In its education policy Social Credit has created a pervasive climate of uncertainty, so that not only trustees and faculty but the students themselves really don't know from one year to the next what situations they are going to be confronted with and what conditions the school system is going to operate under.

I'll just give you an example. The school district here had to face enormous cuts, and they are certainly trying to the best of their ability to ensure that students get the best possible education they can, given the dollars that this government will make available to them. But constituents come to me and say: "I don't understand why my child comes home from school every day and seems to be oblivious of the fact that he's sitting in the house and won't take his coat off." The fact is that that child goes to school at 8 o'clock in the morning and from then until he leaves the school at 2:30 or 3 o'clock sits with his coat on because the school district doesn't have funds to activate the boilers at a sufficient level that the students can feel comfortable in their own workplace, in their own school. I think anyone who has worked in any clerical capacity.... I don't mean working outside, fully clothed with work clothing, but sitting down and trying to concentrate on mathematics or science or English or French or whatever, and having that classroom cold enough that you can't really perform properly. That is the situation here in our school district.

A report was produced by the school district that looked at some of these things. I'll just digress for a moment to talk about.... They were faced with the choice of firing teachers or reducing the heat, and in this case they reduced the heat. Of course, the boilers can't come on after May 15, and they can't go on before October 15; there is no heat in the schools at all during that period. But I'm talking about the reduced temperatures after October 15. Here's what the school district administrators said about that — from the

[ Page 5689 ]

superintendent. He said that the lack of heat, particularly in elementary schools.... These are children between the ages of 5 and 12 years, going to school with sweaters and bundled up, sitting in the class, trying to learn. "The lack of heat, particularly in elementary schools, is perceived to be related to increased absenteeism of both staff and students." In other words, the temperature is sufficiently deleterious, destructive and disruptive in the classroom.... This is not an option that they've had to take lightly. They had either to fire more teachers so that the ratio would rise to the point where they couldn't manage the classes, or reduce the heat. So they've got increased staff time off, increased absenteeism, increased sickness among the children. Isn't that great?

Secondly, there is decreased productivity in cold working conditions. Also, it is very damaging in terms of the work environment and the emotional environment, and creates anger and dispirited staff and students when the school is cold. This is a fact. I think it is a disgrace.

That's just one. The grounds aren't properly maintained. They can't use them any more in many respects. The public can't use them. There isn't adequate funding for water systems, for looking after the playgrounds. They are now regarded as dangerous. They're so pitted with holes and so poorly maintained that they can't be used, so there can't be sports. Those are just a couple of the non-teaching dimensions of this government's policy.

Let's just look at the general situation with respect to teacher reductions in the schools. I might point out that school services in British Columbia — and School District 61 is no different — have been cut by 25 percent over the last three years. We know there's been inflation in addition, so 25 percent is the reduction in school expenditures in 1985-86 over the last three years. What is the result?

[3:00]

Let's look at teacher reductions. There are significant increases in primary class sizes. Seventy-one elementary school classes exceed the recommended 25 per class. As you get more students in a class, you are impairing the ability of the teacher to deal one-to-one with the students. I think everyone understands and accepts the idea that if students need help they're going to get less of it as the class size gets larger.

The teacher reductions at the secondary level have resulted in significant increases in class size. The number of science labs, home ec labs and industrial education shops with more than 24 students in a class has increased significantly, causing concern for the safety of students. For someone who is teaching industrial arts — say carpentry, with saws, that kind of thing — the class size is larger. The teacher has to be more vigilant and more wary of safety procedures at all times. Is it a good idea to have industrial classes larger so that students are at risk? That's the philosophy of this government. It's more difficult for teachers to keep students on task in a larger class. There are fewer teacher-student academic contacts in large classes. There are fewer teacher-student personnel-related contacts.

My colleague the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose), our debate leader in Education, has indicated the ratio of students to counsellors in Surrey. It's the same situation here. I looked at the numbers. Some of them are 1 to 1,500 or 1 to 1,700. If you have a problem and have to make your way through 1,750 other students to get to the counsellor, there's less likelihood that you're going to see that person, who I imagine has a booking, a schedule, and has severe problems, perhaps children suffering from depression, problems at home because of marriage breakdown, other kinds of things that are affecting their emotional and academic stability, and they need to see a counsellor. They might be crying out for help in their own way, but those counsellors are not accessible. Those counsellors are too few in number because of Socred educational cutbacks. Elementary school counselling service has been reduced significantly. Those are just a couple of things.

Let's just take, for example, a child with learning disabilities. We all know that if a learning-disabled child is diagnosed early enough there are all sorts of remedial help that that child can get so he can then begin to learn and function properly and have good esteem and good study skills and ways of dealing with the problems that he may have. But what's happening to the learning-disabled child as a result of layoffs? It creates shuffling within the district so that students for whom continuity is especially important may have two or three teachers in a year. It causes inappropriate teaching placements due to seniority.

For example, we know that a grade 9 math teacher was assigned to a special-education class without training. So you ask someone whose training is to effectively communicate the concepts and methodologies of mathematics to teach learning-disabled children when that teacher has no training. That's demoralizing for the teacher. He feels inadequate, and the child doesn't get proper training.

The reduction in the number of teachers available with the proper skills necessitates an overall decrease in courses offered. Often these courses are the ones in which the learning disabled student realizes the most success. Learning-disabled children, we know, do well in drama. They need reading labs. They enjoy music — that's helpful — and they need minimal essentials in English. Teacher reductions have also resulted in significant increases in class size, both at elementary and secondary levels.

MR. COCKE: I call quorum, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It has been brought to the Chair's attention that a quorum may or may not exist. Let me count and get it right.

Pursuant to our standing orders, I'll ring the division bells.

Quorum is satisfied, hon. members.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Chairman, this morning I heard the very profound, ringing words of my colleague the hon. Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen), and by virtue of his statements I am moved to make a few observations during this debate on the estimates of our good and kindly Minister of Education.

As did the Minister of Health, I wish to refer my remarks very much to the general public, to the parents, to the students within the system, and certainly to the media, and I would like to make three points.

The first one is whether the grid system is the best, most effective process of determining teachers' or principals' salaries. Some people feel that this system is perhaps a throwback to or a continuation of the system that was brought in during the rather dark days of the Depression in our country in the thirties. The grid system pay levels, as you well know, Mr. Chairman, and pay increases under the grid

[ Page 5690 ]

system, which are also subject to the arbitrative process, are very much dependent on the scholastic achievement of the teacher and years in service, both for levels of pay and for automatic increases — more for an MA than a BA, more for a PhD than an MA, and so forth and so on.

But the question I think does have to be asked: is a person necessarily a better teacher of students because he or she is a higher-level academic? Certainly some are, but I would venture to say, Mr. Chairman, certainly some are not. An effective response to that question cannot come from a politician; it has to come from the teachers themselves, and, I'd say, more importantly from the students and perhaps their parents. Where do most of these higher-ups in that particular kind of a scale end? Usually and regretfully, out of the active teaching capacity into some form of administration. I think you just have to ask the students and the parents what they want, and what they want are the best teachers in the system teaching in the schools, not being upgraded to administrative levels and deprived of their capacity to further and better educate the youngsters in our province.

Working in a classroom, as a teacher said to me, is where the action should be. He said: "There are too many chiefs. There are too many admirals, vice-admirals and rear-admirals. There is too much fat at the top." This, I think, is a lot of the difficulty with our educational system, not only in the province of British Columbia but throughout our country.

The second point I would like to mention, Mr. Chairman, is about some thought being given to providing some incentive, some type of increased support, something extra for those teachers who are really doing the job, a recognition for merit. The students can identify these people; the teachers in the school system can identify them; the parents can identify them. I'm talking about all of those teachers, who indeed are the majority of teachers in our province — and I'm sure the majority of the teachers in our country — who do not fall into the category as being defined as "3:30 drop-outs." That's how the students describe those other teachers. But it's always the same pay, the same consideration, without recognition of merit, of merit pay or of merit benefit. I say that there is ample need at this point in time in our history to give more full consideration to that concept.

A teacher achiever, Mr. Chairman, is a person who in my view should be more specifically recognized instead of just lumped in with the rest, or, indeed, with those the pupils know might well fit within the lowest common denominator.

I have a third point, and the last one that I will be developing, Mr. Chairman. The newspapers say — and I suppose if the newspapers say so, there is no doubt that there is an overwhelming presumption that what they're stating is correct — that the B.C. Teachers' Federation have launched or will be launching a court action claiming a right under section 15 of the charter, the equality provisions under the Canadian constitution, to bargain not only for money but to bargain for conditions of employment, class size, working conditions, hiring practices, etc.

I just wonder, Mr. Chairman, whether or not in that lawsuit, or perhaps in another lawsuit, section 2(d) of the charter might be given some consideration by the court as well. Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms reads as follows: "Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms," and (d) is: "freedom of association." I'm just wondering whether that issue will be considered as well, because it is my information — I may be incorrect, and if I am, I certainly hope that I will be so advised — that a teacher cannot teach in a B.C. public school unless he or she is a member of, and pays dues on a check-off basis to, the B.C. Teachers' Federation.

This freedom of association issue and membership in an organization of employees being required or mandatory in order to work has been considered in other jurisdictions with findings to the contrary. Whether that conclusion would be a provident or an improvident conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I will leave to others with sagacity beyond mine to determine. But I would volunteer the observation that it will be very interesting to see if that issue of freedom of association under section 2(d) of the charter will or will not be raised in our courts by any people, be they teachers or trustees or interested parents who may be inclined to do so.

[3:15]

MR. HANSON: After listening to the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations, one would think that B.C. was paying its fair share into education. On a Canadian average, the numbers indicate that it certainly is not. The Canadian average is 5 percent of the gross provincial product invested in education. In British Columbia it's 3.5 percent. School board services have been cut by up to 26 percent over the last three years. College instruction services, under this same minister, will be cut 43 percent in 1988-89 over 1982, if inflation averages 5 percent over this period.

Here is a statistic that that minister certainly refuses to acknowledge: fewer young British Columbians go on to higher education than in any other province in Canada. How do you like them apples?

HON. MR. GARDOM: It's children.

MR. HANSON: That's right: it's children. Your government puts less money into post-secondary education, in terms of access and availability, than any other government. That's a shameful record.

Interjection.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

MR. HANSON: Maybe we should cut it further, says the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf), recently promoted to principal secretary to a cabinet minister.

British Columbians qualifying for maximum student assistance will owe $22,000 on graduation with a bachelor's degree if they have to borrow money. In Ontario $5,000 would be the debt. We have the poorest loan and grant system in the country. Here we are in this province, richly endowed with wood, minerals and other precious resources, yet we have the poorest system of anywhere in this country for providing grants, bursaries and loans to students.

Our party has a plan. It's a school reconstruction plan. Here are some of the things that we feel should be done. For the 1985-86 school year, programs should be funded at their 1984 level plus inflation. We should assess the damage caused by Social Credit's abandonment of "equal educational opportunity" and develop an orderly program of mitigating the worst effects of the current government's policy.

We should publish a new school act and refer it to a select standing committee of this House, with the mandate to tour the province and consult British Columbians about education governance.

[ Page 5691 ]

This government stripped away authority from local trustees, locally elected people. They don't believe that they can handle the job. Well, we believe they can. We believe they are closest to the situation, and that they know their local needs best.

We should develop a funding mechanism that reflects a commitment to equal educational opportunity for all children in British Columbia, which means equal access to educational services; local participation and autonomy where, within a framework of provincial goals, boards of school trustees have the right to set budgets that reflect locally determined educational needs; that the tax burden be based on ability to pay; that the New Democratic Party accepts the report of the McMath commission, which recommended that 75 percent of operating and capital costs should be funded from general provincial tax sources and 25 percent from local tax sources.

We also have a plan to reconstruct our community college system. It's at the community college level where we have the closest link between educational and career and vocational and job-related training. If we're going to have something at the end of the school system for our young people, other than welfare, or sweeping up around the computer, or working at McDonald's, or selling hotdogs at Expo.... If we want people to have meaningful, positive employment possibilities that excite their imagination, that strive for academic and intellectual excellence, or give all citizens a chance to achieve what they wish to achieve, educationally and vocationally, then we must provide and properly fund our community colleges. Community colleges are the central part of our post-secondary education system.

The NDP proposes a four-part plan to revitalize our college system. One is to fund colleges at the 1984 level, plus inflation. In other words, no cutbacks and no rollbacks. Make education a top priority, which it should be. If we say people matter most, then we mean it. We'll fund our children because — and I've said it before in this House — there's one thing all citizens of this province, no matter what their political persuasion, no matter what party they vote for on election day....There's one thing that crosscuts all those individuals: they want their children to have a quality education and a fair chance at the future. Most people want their children to have a better education than they've experienced themselves. I think all members recognize that. Yet this government continues to deny proper funding for education.

Put the "community" back into community colleges by restructuring college boards so that the majority of board members are elected by the voters in the communities served, not appointed by the minister in terms of whether they'll have their chain yanked and be quiet little dogs when required.

Restore to the community college boards the authority to set budgets and deliver a comprehensive range of university transfer, training and continuing education programs. College costs should be met in the same way as school costs. We don't believe that education should be funded on the basis of the value of real estate in the region. We believe that the quality of education should be determined and paid for out of general revenue to the largest extent possible, so that if people are living in Kamloops, Cranbrook, Valemount or wherever, their children get the best possible education available. So we believe that you want to put local community people back in the driver's seat in terms of being responsive to local needs.

We also believe in a universities reconstruction plan. Social Credit is increasingly involved in university budget allocation, and we've seen the exodus of academic talent that we should be benefiting from here in our province. Now we see them leaving for jurisdictions that appreciate them and recognize the value, not only educationally and culturally but also economically, of their presence. Sometimes one world class academic can make an innovation or generate some kind of research which will create employment and generate all kinds of economic activity. We're losing that. We're very rapidly becoming a substandard academic jurisdiction. As I said, our children have the poorest chance of going to university of any in Canada.

As a first step the government should make four commitments: (1) that funding be available to the Universities Council to maintain services at 1984 levels; (2) that federal funds received under the established programs financing arrangements and earmarked for education — and this is the most shameful thing, that the government has taken federal money coming in earmarked for education and deflected it away from the universities — be used for that purpose; (4) that the 7.5 percent increase in federal government funding....

AN HON. MEMBER: You've got the wrong ministry.

MR. HANSON: Fine, I recognize that, but we believe that education is a lifelong process and that it must really be looked at from K to postdoctoral degrees — which are in abundance on that side of the House, I have been made aware by recent articles and surveys. But if the House doesn't want me to refer to universities under this estimate, I realize the Universities estimates will be coming before us in the near future. So we'll discuss it at that point.

But let me just reiterate that we believe that education is a lifelong process. Access in and out for skill upgrading and retraining is impaired by this government because of their narrow, bottom-line focus that does not appreciate that a dollar spent in education will come back as an investment in a citizen who understands and values British Columbia, understands and values academic enterprise and academic excellence, and benefits all citizens. Unfortunately, all of these messages fall on deaf ears. This government fails to recognize that. We're going to have to pick up the pieces after the next election. Our priority and our emphasis will be to give quality education opportunities for the citizens of this province, no matter what their aspirations, no matter where they are situated in the province. We regard their ability to learn as an asset and an investment in the future.

MR. MITCHELL: I was hoping that the minister would get up and answer some of the questions I put to him earlier.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: As I recall, the questions raised by the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew were about the levels of service. It seems to me he was making reference to librarians. Under the service levels, which I'm sure he must have a copy of, you will see that in each case for both elementary and secondary the funding which is made available is one librarian for each 400 students.

Another thing. The member has kept referring to moving goalposts. My comment on that is short. In 1983 we presented to all school boards a framework, a set of service levels, and budgets for three years. The only moving goalpost that occurred was the result of increasing the amount of

[ Page 5692 ]

funding by approximately.... I think it was around $35 million. That came about because of the discussions which we have had with school boards, MLAs, officials — superintendents, secretary-treasurers. The improvement of the system, which obviously on being introduced a first time is going to contain some problems.... It was not perfect. But I just know this: I have yet to find anybody telling me that it was not a significant improvement over the method of funding which had occurred in the past.

I think it would be fair to say that school trustees for the first time really have — other than those who have been on boards for a number of years.... But let me refer to recently elected trustees — and you know there's often quite a change. They have seen exactly how funding is allocated to their school district and the reasons for it and how it is applied. Better still, it gave to trustees an opportunity to be accountable. There's nothing wrong with that.

[3:30]

The last speaker on the opposition side, the first member for Victoria (Mr. Hanson), made a comment about an investment in the future. He and I agree on that comment about an investment in the future. But it seems to me that a public institution, no matter how large, is really no different than any other type of institution, public or private. They're all providing a service. During some difficult times, we have all had, and taken advantage of, an opportunity to streamline the system and to determine whether or not there's a better method of delivery — and also to check the costs.

I can go back to first principles. We all remember what was happening with the residential taxpayer in 1981-82. We knew what was coming down the pipe with respect to a potential property-tax revolt. Then it was seriously compounded. It was compounded in the area of non-residential — that is, commercial and industrial — taxation. The drift was moving in a certain way. We had to check that drift, otherwise all elected members — I don't care what party they come from — would never be able to resist what the people were telling them. That is, we just can't afford to continue to pay what is being asked of us. It seems to me that the responsible thing to do was to inject into public education a method of funding which now has general acceptance. The comments made to me were: "Well, look now. We're 90 percent of the way. Can we get the next 10 percent?"

With respect to the Sooke School District, the number of teachers in 1984 — and I think I made reference to these numbers this morning — was 398.7. The funding which we provide will accommodate 397.5. In other words, there is a differential of one teacher. The question then comes: how are the funds allocated by the boards? That's their responsibility, not government's. If they wish to have by design a particular class which has 30 or 32 students in it, or more, that's up to them.

You know, I went into two schools last fall. It was, I believe, in the month of October. I learned a great deal. One was a junior secondary school, grades 8 to 12, about 540 students. The other was close by; it was an elementary school, kindergarten to 7. It was one of the best weeks I spent in the ministry, The playgrounds were fine. They were busy as can be before school started, at lunchtime, during the physical education classes and after school. I don't recall seeing the potholes that the first member for Victoria (Mr. Hanson) was referring to. I was running around on the playing fields with the kids as well.

But I also learned something else, because I was as concerned as everybody was with respect to the allegation on class sizes. So I asked for a copy of the timetable. Now that's the most revealing document you will ever find when you go into a school, because what the timetable contained was the list of all of the teachers down one side, then the blocks that the teachers were responsible for. Contained within the block was the actual subject description, whether it was social studies, English, physical education or math, and the number of students in each one of those blocks.

The reason I was concerned about it is that I'd been hearing some of these stories about large class sizes. But when you looked at the average, then you found out why I find in elementary the average may be 23 or 24 and in secondary it could be the same. They vary one or two either way.

Now I didn't find, really, at either of those particular schools any major problem. I talked for literally hour upon hour upon hour in the staff rooms with teachers, and the only message I got from those teachers was this: "We'd like you now to go to an inner-city school." This morning I made reference to some of the problems. I thought it was an excellent program — the second one I've seen on public television. When they referred to the problems in inner-city schools, they said: "Now look, Heinrich, this is fine, but you better get over there." Now I haven't been yet, but I'm going.

When we talk about the problems with respect to unwanted pregnancies, lack of parental interest, alcohol and drugs, and fear of failure.... Those four items were the major concerns of the inner-city school, and they're all our concerns. Some of the interesting things which are being done in major areas, where I guess there are some serious problems, if we look into the big cities in North America, because that's exactly where most of the focus of the program was going....

There was also the point about the cost of a particular type of inner-city school which was set up — totally unrelated to the other school but integrated, so that some of these kids who have problems find that people do want them and care for them, and, after they regain some confidence, get back into the public schools as we know them.

I'm only going to make one other comment, because I gather that the member for Okanagan North (Mr. MacWilliam) wishes to speak, and no doubt he is an expert in this area. The first member for Victoria made a comment with respect to funding of post-secondary education. The funding which has gone in over the years has been of extraordinary significance. Yes, last year it was 31/2 percent down. This year they expected 95 percent of the previous year's budget. They are all pleased with the amount of money which was made available this year. I mentioned that to the members of the House before.

As for electing college boards, I searched across this continent to find out if this ever existed, and I can't find a junior college or any form of college or institute in Canada where they are elected in the manner which was advanced.

AN HON. MEMBER: Break new ground.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: No, I'm not going to break new ground, and I'll tell you why. The other thing which the member mentions is this: that they should have carte blanche authority with respect to funding. The member, I think, made an error when he said that it's funded through property

[ Page 5693 ]

taxation for colleges. Colleges are 100 percent funded by the two senior levels of government.

The reason the changes were made is that I believe that school districts have enough to do now. Those who were sitting on school boards before were either elected trustees, then placed on the board, or the board would make an appointment and put on a college board. I see what happened in the lower mainland. There are a number of liaison committees set up between the schools and the colleges.

The cost of going to the colleges has not been that significant really, when you look at constant dollars — '71 dollars — and compare the tuition. The tuition which we have in British Columbia is not out of whack with the rest of Canada in any of the post-secondary institutions.

One comment in my concluding remarks: the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew (Mr. Mitchell) was concerned about some of the problems in the area of learning assistance. In special education alone, your school district is the recipient of something like $2.66 million to look after these particular problems. If you recall, we as a government kept the special needs fund here and would allocate it so it would not become a political football with respect to school boards. I think that's a fairly significant amount of money.

Can I go back to the original point here? One, in the framework in the funding level, 1 librarian for every 400 students, How the board wishes to allocate those funds, how they wish to use them, is entirely up to them.

MR. MITCHELL: As the minister said, the school system has a lot of unfairness to it. I have to agree with him. I'd just like to bring to his attention, and I think we all must realize, that when you have communities throughout a semi rural area, and you have blocks of residents and schools that have evolved and have grown within that community, it's easy to say 1 in 400. If the communities are spread out in such a manner that there isn't an opportunity to spread one-quarter of a librarian from Sooke to Colwood, what actually happens is that the students in that school district are not being properly taught.

Also, when you get down to the actual dollars, the minister throws figures back and forth, but the Victoria area — and I take in Victoria, Saanich and the Sooke School District....They are fairly relative. But when you go through the per-pupil costs on the southern end of Vancouver Island, if Sooke School District had gotten the same amount of money that Saanich got, there would be another $498,000 that would have come into the area — if they had gotten the same per pupil grant in Saanich compared to Sooke. If they had the level of Victoria, there would have been another $725,000 — roughly three-quarters of a million dollars. If they had had the provincial average, there would be $938,000 — nearly a million dollars. So there are different guidelines or different ratios, and there are different problems.

[3:45]

The thing that the minister keeps on missing is that children in that area are going without. It's easy to say that the government has given grants for teachers, that there is only going to be call for a layoff of one teacher, I take it. There is a difference. But, you know, fifty-odd teachers have already been laid off since this restraint program started; and there are 14 more, if my information is correct, coming down in the next few days.

What I am trying to get through to the minister is that we have to look at the districts and the students who are involved.

To say that Sooke School Board is maybe not handling their funds properly.... I think that if you go back over many years, Sooke School Board has run a very tight, economical school board. They were not one of the high spenders. They kept it cut to the bone. What happened is that when restraint came in there was no fat in Sooke School District to adjust. This is one of the reasons why I think it shows up that there has been a certain misrepresentation of the cutbacks and what happened.

I was quite intrigued when the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom) carried on the same type of attack as the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen), picking on the fact that maybe teachers shouldn't be in their association. Well, as I said earlier, every piece of legislation we have on the books that requires teachers to have certain qualifications, to have certain standards and to be members of certain organizations is on the books because this Social Credit government demands it. So to try to run a red herring across the educational estimates — that it's either the high cost of system superintendents or the need for teachers to be in an association — has nothing to do with a serious debate on education.

I don't want to go off into tirades either for the teachers or against the teachers, or against the association, any more than I would go after the legal association. I wouldn't attack the legal association because they say lawyers have to be members of the bar. I have run across a few people who would like to practise law, but because the Law Society said they could not join their particular association, they are not practising law — and some of them shouldn't be practising law either. So you can't use that as an argument in an education debate.

The main issue we have to look at is the educational opportunities of the future citizens who are going to be here when we are finished in this Legislature and when some of us will be collecting our pensions. We have to make sure that the students who come out of our system this year and next year and every year are going to get the maximum educational opportunity they need. This is the one thing I would like to get through to the minister.

I've prepared all these notes, and I can't help but end.... Some of the parents from Sooke School District came and asked me to ask the minister a few questions. One of the things they mentioned was that three years ago the parents' groups were raising money in the community to send children down to the Legislature on educational junkets — things that dealt with the culture — and they were happy to participate. Last year the parents were out raising money for computers. Well, a computer is not something that can be compared to the cultural needs of the community. A computer is something that is going to affect the lives of every one of us because of the need to learn how to run a computer. The parents are not out raising money for computers now. This year parents in Sooke School District are raising money for reading kits for those who are in need of special assistance.

So there is deterioration of the standards. The minister says they haven't moved the goal-posts, but they have moved the goal-posts in one way or another, because the standards are going down, the teachers are going down and the students are going down.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I couldn't help but think of a statement that I had written down that the Minister of Education himself said back in December 1984. He said: "Our schools have always been gateways to opportunities." I say to

[ Page 5694 ]

the minister: let's keep that gateway open. Let's keep those opportunities and that training for the children of all areas, not only my riding but for children from all school districts. Let's make sure our priorities are placed in the proper perspective. Let's not take cheap shots at superintendents or at teachers or someone else — should they belong to this association or not. Let's make sure that whatever studies are made, they are made by competent people in the educational academy.

I say that a lot of us, no matter how versatile we may have been in our various occupations.... It is very important that education be maintained. It's not something that we can jump into or make political speeches on, but it is something that has to be given a lot of consideration. There has to be a lot of thought given to it, and the important part, that gateway, must be kept open because every child should have that opportunity.

The House resumed; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

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

Introduction of Bills

MEDICAL SERVICE AMENDMENT ACT, 1985

Hon Mr. Nielsen presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Medical Service Amendment Act, 1985.

Bill 50 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

(continued)

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

MR. MICHAEL: I have listened to the debate in the assembly here, and I've listened to the members from the opposition. Mr. Chairman, you would almost think that the government over the past few years had reduced the amount of money going into education. I'm sure that if members opposite would do a study such as one I did in my area, they would find that that is just not true. There is more money per capita going into education today than there was four, five and six years ago. I did some studies in School District 89, Shuswap, and I found that between the years 1980 and 1984 the money being spent by the district increased by 43.08 percent. During that same time, Mr. Chairman, I checked with the Canadian consumer price index to do a comparison, and I found that the consumer price index during that period rose 37.6 percent. So during that four-year period School District 89 actually enjoyed a net gain of dollars to spend of 5.48 percent, approximately 5.5 percent more real dollars than they had in 1980. In other words, the budget went up from $12.9 million to $18.587 million.

Mr. Chairman, in looking at those figures, the only thing that could distort them, to give the school board or the education fraternity a case, would be if school enrolment had gone up by 5.5 percentage points or more. So I went back to the school board and asked some questions about enrolment, and found that rather than going up between 1980 and 1984, in fact enrolment went down — from 5,670 students in December 1980 to 5,458 students in 1984. It was very simple then to do an analysis of the average pupil cost in 1980 and compare that to 1984. The average pupil cost in 1980 was $2,291; in 1984 it was $3,405. The interesting figure here is that the average pupil cost — the amount of money that the board spent on pupils — had gone up 48.64 percent in relation to that cost of living figure of 37.6 percent. So on a per-pupil basis, with the enrolment going down and fewer teachers needed, the school board had a net gain during that four-year period of slightly over 11 full percentage points in relation to the cost of living.

I listen to the debate of members opposite and look at these figures, and I don't really believe what I'm hearing. I'm confident that if members opposite would go to their school boards and ask questions — go back three years, four years, five years and pick any number they want, do some statistical analysis, gather the facts — they would find that their school board figures are similar to what has occurred in my area of Shuswap.

Another interesting point: in looking at the hue and cry about the number of classes in British Columbia that have in excess of 30, 31, 32, 33 students per class..... I did an analysis of that and it's very interesting: the vast majority of classes with more than 30 students are from the music and recreation area. But we don't hear that mentioned very often in debate. We should perhaps look at the point mentioned by the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew (Mr. Mitchell). He talked about fewer people working and laying people off. If there are less students, there should be less teachers. It's logical that we should be reducing the number of teachers, and it's the policy of this government.

[4:00]

It was well known by the electorate in the last election that it was the intention of this government to reduce the number of people in the public sector, but the members opposite refuse to look at the facts: that despite the reduction of people in the public sector over the last year and a half or so, there were more people working in December '84 than in December '83. There were 20,000 more people working in British Columbia than in the previous year. If you look at the statistics for February 1984 to February 1985, there were 29,000 more people working in British Columbia than 12 months earlier. An interesting statistic that I received just a few days ago is that as of the end of March 1985, 40,000 more people are working in British Columbia than were at the end of March 1984. But you don't want to talk about those. You don't want to talk about the amount of people entering the workforce in this province, migrating from other provinces. You never mention that. You ignore those statistics. You ignore the fact that there are more spouses entering the workforce than ever before in British Columbia. Look at the bottom line: 40,000 more people working at the end of March than there were the year before.

I think we treat our teachers fairly well. I know there's quite a lobby going on throughout the province. We all know — those who read the papers — that there's going to be a very strong lobby over the next year. The Teachers' Federation has budgeted millions of dollars to lobby people throughout British Columbia and try to make this government look bad. But I think we treat our teachers fairly well. As a matter of

[ Page 5695 ]

fact, in looking at the average teacher's wage in my school district, I don't feel ashamed of the meagre wages we pay our teachers. If you take the average wages, benefits and pensions all together, in my school district they receive $42,050 a year. I don't think that's all that cruel.

I think the pension fund is very generous indeed. This government put in excess of $104 million into the teachers' pension fund in the last fiscal year. I think that's fair and very generous. That's an average of $3,700 a year. If you look at the indexing of the pensions, the benefits and the wages, I think we treat our teachers fairly. I think the vast majority of the teachers feel and think that we treat them fairly. It's the politically motivated few, mainly the leaders of the B.C. Teachers' Federation, who are making all the noise. But in talking to the average teacher in the street, I think they're very happy. I think they're very happy with the Minister of Education. I think they're very happy with this government, and I think they will continue to be happy.

We know there are going to be some reductions. Let me tell you, Mr. Chairman, there have been reductions throughout the private sector in any area you look at. Go talk to the pulp mills. Go talk to the IWA. Talk to the sawmills in the area. They've had tremendous reductions in their workforce. Technology, automation and things like that are happening throughout the province of British Columbia and, indeed, throughout the world.

I think the Minister of Education has done a very good job. I think the fiscal framework.... Perhaps it could use a few more alterations. I know he's made over 20 up to now; he may be making more in the future. But by and large I think that the system is good. I think that he can stand up and protect and encourage further development of that fiscal framework, because I think he's on the right track. It's certainly a far cry from what it was a few years ago, as far as the management and administration of school and education funds go.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I'm the debate leader here. I know you run everything else in the province in education, but as far as being the debate leader here, I'm the debate leader.

I'm certainly glad that the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. Michael) is supportive of the Minister of Education; I'm glad someone is.

I was quite taken with his little talk until he said how satisfied and happy all the teachers were. Then he blew it. He was just gone. The fair-haired boy of the Shuswap....

MR. LAUK: White-haired.

MR. ROSE: Yes, the white-haired boy.

I happen to have a copy of the member's facts that he put out in his newsletter. I have no doubt that in most cases he's factual.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, I don't have the thing before me, but if you like I'll get it in a little while, as long as the minister doesn't object.

I think the important thing, Mr. Chairman....

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: One at a time, please.

MR. ROSE: I'm about to defer to the second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk).

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The answer is no. Please proceed.

MR. ROSE: He's trying to get on the record. With his record, he doesn't need to add to it.

I've no doubt that the member is factual in most cases. I'm not particularly concerned about his facts but about what he's really trying to imply from those facts. I think the member's objectives are as obvious as his assumptions. I think his newsletter was largely propaganda, designed to protect the minister and to leave the impression with the voters that these things were happening — especially with those voters without children, who constitute something like 62 percent, I'm told, of the voters. It says that school budgets were out of control, that school costs exceed inflation — therefore teachers are greedy — and that the pupil-teacher ratio hikes talked about by some of the parent groups and coalitions that appear here as so-called lobby groups.... By the way, those lobby groups really are following the democratic process. They come unarmed, except with facts and their own concerns. So they're taking part in a democratic process to change the minister's mind and the government's policies.

Incidentally, I saw a little newsletter that recently came out talking about the government's policies, but I've lost it again. I don't really know what those policies are. I've never heard a statement of policy, except to cut costs.

"Education costs too much in B.C." And, finally, the fifth one: "The BCTF is a fat, overstuffed, left-wing organization, and teachers' salary demands would be less if their union dues were more modest." I'd like to deal with each of these in turn.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, the minister is asking me about my rather extensive notes here. He asked me from which set of papers I'm reading. I am a poor unarmed person here. I don't have a coterie, a troika of experts behind me. One of yours was obviously imported from the Mafia — the hit-man in the dark glasses over there.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. That is unparliamentary.

MR. ROSE: I apologize.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, please proceed. To the estimates of the Minister of Education.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, in my own defence I must say that my original statements here were.... I had to go through a great deal of across-the-floor heckling back and forth even to get into my basic remarks. So I don't really feel that I have been the most offensive in terms of being out of line or out of order. I say that in all due respect, in my own defence.

[ Page 5696 ]

The member fails to remind the people of Salmon Arm and other places in that riding that school budgets were set by arbitration according to the laws of the land. That's why they are what they are between 1980 and 1984 — not because of excessive or greedy demands by a particular group of individuals, whether they be CUPE workers or teachers. They were set.

As far as those boards were concerned, they had to accept those arbitrated awards as legally binding and entirely beyond their control. So don't give the impression to the voters up there that these awards were somehow as a result of school boards who, as the Minister of Universities (Hon. Mr. McGeer) claimed, were spending money in 1980-84 like drunken sailors — and those were his words — and that that is the reason that people such as the minister now have to come in and hammer the boards down to a point where they can become more compliant.

The pupil cost in Salmon Arm is $3,405.62. The B.C. average is $3,346. So what is Salmon Arm's school cost? The average for British Columbia. They were so average, as a matter of fact, that they neither lost nor won in the minister's new budget allocations, as a result of their fiscal framework. They didn't get an increase in their budget, nor did they lose anything. That's how average Salmon Arm is.

How would the voters like to compare the cost with Edmonton, at $3,688, or Toronto at $4,340 per pupil cost? I don't think the citizens of Shuswap are that badly done by.

Now the member talks about school costs that may have exceeded inflation in 1980-84. Housing costs did too. So did property values. Even so, those school costs were not controlled by either the teachers or the boards but by independent arbitrators.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Independent arbitrators, hired by the teachers and the school boards. That's what happened.

Inflation provincially so far in the last six years has exceeded decline in enrolment — far exceeded it. The inflation rate has been an average of 9 percent per year in terms of school board budgets, and the decline in enrolment hasn't been much over 3 percent per year. So when you cut the school budgets by 20 percent when the enrolment has only declined 10 percent, you can't just blame it on decline in enrolment. There's some other factor working there as well.

Anyway, the teachers' average salary is about $36,000 a year. When you're talking about the average salary of an MLA or anybody else you don't count fringes. The average salary for a family of four in '83 — not '85 — was $36,000 a year. So the average teacher in British Columbia makes an average salary. I'm not saying it's not a good salary, but they are, after all, professionals with up to six years of education, and they aren't — in terms of "average" — average in terms of their education or their investment in that education, which I think should be respected, not demeaned by the kind of scapegoating that they've been getting over the last two or three years.

They're going to go higher, too, those average salaries. You know why? Because the less expensive teachers at the bottom of the teachers' salary scale will be terminated. I've got a list of where they're going to be terminated all over the province. So when your lower-paid teachers are terminated and your higher-paid teachers are left on the staff, then naturally the average salary is going to increase, not decrease. That has some profound implications for school budgets, especially when tied to increments. I'm not saying they're all at the maximum, but a good number of them will be. But the others will be getting increments, so that will play on the total budget, regardless of what Mr. Curtis has to say.

Rural areas are not necessarily going to have higher PTRs. Sometimes they don't have enough in a particular area, without busing miles and miles, to fill those classes — again with declining enrolments. The question is: how many split classes are there there? I'm told that in the elementary school there are at least 500 Shuswap children in classes of over 30 in number. That's elementary school, exceeding the guidelines — over 500 children.

The member in his letter to his constituents didn't mention that the local PTR is about right on — 16.9 — compared with Alberta and Saskatchewan. But I don't think that that indicates that the board is squandering its resources, because if it's a rural board it has some special circumstances to contend with.

[4:15]

I think saying that the costs of education are too high in B.C. is deliberately misleading. I think the member tried to tell the people of Shuswap that the cuts had been fair and equitable. That's what the minister is trying to say too. What we're saying is that compared to other provinces with equal resources, we're not giving education a high priority. We can't compare ourselves to a Third World country. We're not comparing ourselves with Turkey or some place like that on education costs.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, I think we can do that quite favourably. Their budget for education went up 30 percent two years ago. If you want to talk about Manitoba some time, we'll devote a whole day to it.

The provincial average is exactly what you saw it gets. Despite that, they've had to make substantial cuts. They've neither received extra funding nor have they been cut. But what has cut them is about 13 percent inflation in terms of real dollars over the last three or four years. What does that mean? It means that 25 teachers have been terminated, and 35 aides and 28 special workers have lost their jobs.

The other matter is the assertion that somehow the BCTF is overstuffed, fat and requires too many union dues. After all, BCTF membership is required by the provincial government. It's part of the school law that every member of the teaching profession in British Columbia belong to the BCTF As a matter of fact, the BCTF might be described as a creature of the provincial government.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Somebody said: "We're going to fix that." Well, we'll see if you're going to fix that. That would be fine.

Anyway, I think it's important to keep up the fight for quality education, Mr. Chairman. I don't think that it's good enough to just say that it's not popular, or that certain teachers are not popular, so therefore we shouldn't be entering this debate. Nor do I think it's fair to say that there's some great conspiracy out there, as the member for Richmond (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) said this morning. I don't think we can stand idly by and have trustees browbeaten, teachers scapegoated and our

[ Page 5697 ]

kids chiselled. What are you trying to do — discredit education in order to privatize it? What are you after? I don't know.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: No, I wouldn't say that about the minister. He's originally from Mission.

I could give some other information, but the member for Okanagan North (Mr. MacWilliam) would like to get up. I didn't want to let the member for Revelstoke-Shuswap (Mr. Michael) go without letting him know that other people read his propaganda too, and that there are possibilities of sound rebuttal to some of his assertions. That doesn't make him wrong and me right. It's a matter of opinion — where your priorities lie and where you think our government dollars should be directed.

Let me end with a quote by Eric Downton, who is a freelance writer specializing in international issues. This is from the Vancouver Sun for April 12, 1985: "To See Ourselves as Our Partners See Us." That word "partner" is a good one — I like that.

MR. LAUK: That's history, not Eric Downton.

MR. ROSE: Well, I think it's Eric Downton who writes this.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: No, but you haven't got the proper accent for Burns. You are bastardizing and distorting Robbie Burns. Just because you are Chairman doesn't permit you to get away with that. Withdraw!

Mr. Chairman, let me quote from this article:

"Do Premier Bill Bennett and his cabinet in Victoria really understand the nature of the challenge they face, on the threshold of the twenty-first century, around the Pacific Rim? In various forms, that question has been encountered by several travelers from Vancouver on recent visits to the 'economic miracle' states of East and South-East Asia — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

"Doubts and puzzlements arise, particularly from what is seen by politicians, bureaucrats and academics from those countries as the B.C. Social Credit government's negative, even regressive, attitude toward education. The travelers were surprised by how much seemed to be known about the problems and discontent in this province's schools and universities."

Then they go on and talk about how education is considered a sacred trust in some of these countries. Phenomenal technological, industrial and economic success is ascribed largely to two factors: the high priority given the education system, and — I quote here to be fair — "the intensively competitive examination procedures and the assiduous applications of the fruits of that policy to a nation's practical affairs."

It closes by saying that "education is a holy word in that most remarkable city-states, Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew, the man mostly responsible for the island's progress, who has been Prime Minister for the entire 26 years...regards educational improvement as crucial for the tiny republic's future."

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

MR. MacWILLIAM: I'm not about to make a speech, but the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke made some remarks that I do think bear taking issue with. I would like to dispense with those and then hopefully, without getting into repetition, bring out a few of my concerns in terms of where education is heading today, and the local concerns, certainly in the North Okanagan area with respect to School Districts 10 and 22, and of course Okanagan College, which is also part of my constituency.

I did find it rather interesting that earlier today one of the members spoke, and now the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke has spoken at great length targeting out a specific group in our provincial community, seemingly taking direct aim at that group, and attacking that group in no uncertain terms. I find this concerted effort to discredit these individuals rather unsettling. When we entered this chamber earlier in the year, we entered with a spirit of cooperation and consultation in mind. It disappoints me to see that certain members on the other side are forgetting about that feeling in the House and the feeling that should be developing throughout the community of British Columbia.

The people of British Columbia have grown very tired of this constant batting around the ears, of being kicked in the shins time and time and time again. They're tired of it. Yet the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke takes direct aim at the teachers again and makes a target out of them. I really believe that what I'm seeing is the establishment of an agenda that will lead to a pre-election target, using a specific group in our society as a scapegoat. I want to point out to the member, Mr. Chairman, that over 80 percent of the people polled in British Columbia are tired of this confrontational nature that has been a fact of life with this government. They're tired of being kicked around. They're looking for a spirit of cooperation, and the member certainly has not displayed it. It's rather disappointing.

Some statements to the Minister of Education made reference to the fact that I would like to speak on the subject because I'm an expert on it. Well, it's true, Mr. Chairman; I have been involved in the education field. I don't consider myself an expert. I don't think any of us are experts in any field. We're all students in this game of life. When we start to think of ourselves as experts, I think we take a fool's path. We're certainly all students in the game, and all learning along with one another. But I have spent a number of years in the system, and I feel I have some valid concerns of a firsthand nature as to what has happened in education throughout British Columbia in the past few years. After all, one of the reasons I'm standing here today is because of my very deep concern with the directions taken over the past few years. I've watched education in this province be continually compromised as this government has set its sights on other priorities. The pie is only so big. I've watched education continually take a back seat, to the point where we're compromising the educational and professional futures of the children, the young people of this province.

The minister earlier made remarks in regard to the accountability of school boards, challenging them to be more accountable. My question to the minister is a very simple one. It's very difficult for the school boards to be accountable when virtually all of their decision-making powers have been stripped from them; their autonomy has been stripped away.

[ Page 5698 ]

Yet you're asking the school boards throughout British Columbia to make decisions when they don't have the power to implement those decisions. So in many ways it's a rhetorical question.

I sympathize with the minister. He has an extremely hard task in dotting the i's and crossing the t's in terms of balancing the educational budget in this province. The task has been made even more difficult because of the misdirected priorities that this government has had in terms of continually squeezing the education budget as it funnels money into other projects — into the megaproject economy that this province has revolved around for some time. The pie is only so big.

Interjection.

MR. MacWILLIAM: It's quite all right, Mr. Chairman. I can remember when I had my first beer.

The minister had earlier made remarks in terms of class size; that he'd been to many schools and found that the class size was not unacceptably affected. I want to tell the minister a personal experience of mine. I was in charge of biology 11 and 12 classes and science 10 classes earlier this year, before I entered the House. My class size was extremely large. In one class I had 47 children in a class which could comfortably seat only 30. They were sitting on the lab benches to the sides. There was no room for them to work. They were on the floor; there were no chairs.

You rightfully made the comment that there are blips: there are some classes that are frightfully overloaded, and there are some classes that are underloaded. I don't disagree with that statement. But I think one of the reasons for that is the continual squeeze on the education budget; and in order to accommodate students in a tighter curriculum, with less flexibility available, we're getting into that problem.

That was a personal experience that I had: 47 children in a science lab, where really 30 should be the maximum. There was no way I could teach that class. We did manage to level things out somewhat. But I want to tell the minister this: for a month and a half I found that the education of those students was being severely compromised; I simply could not teach them properly. You cannot personally meet the demands of every student in that environment, when you've got 47 kids in your class.

As I said, what has happened in a lot of ways is that we have restructured the curriculum somewhat. We have lost, in terms of the pupil-teacher ratio. We have been squeezing more and more students into the academic courses, and those courses are being pressed to the limit. There are other courses that are underloaded. I think the administration made very good efforts to level things out. But even after they were levelled out, Mr. Minister, those class loads were still unacceptably high. I had an overall class average of around 200 students over...I think it was seven classes. If you want to do the arithmetic, that's a pretty high class size. That's a direct experience, and I just wanted to bring it to your attention. Those are very unacceptable limits in an academic course, in the science discipline.

The minister made the statement that there are blips, but on the average things don't look too bad. Well, that's kind of like the guy that's got one foot in boiling water and the other in freezing water, but on the average he's not too badly off.

[4:30]

AN HON. MEMBER: We heard that two days ago.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I don't know if it was mentioned a couple of days ago, but I thought I would bring it up.

Just to reiterate some facts that I consider salient in the discussion.... The member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. Michael) mentioned a number of other facts. We can play the numbers game all we want. But the real issue here is that the quality of education — and I do speak from personal experience — is unquestionably being compromised as a result of the funding squeezes. The morality of the individuals I worked with in the profession is very low. They are very tired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Morale!

MR. MacWILLIAM: I'm sorry. Thank you. Oh boy, that was.... If I may withdraw that remark and rephrase it as, 'morale."

HON. MR. HEINRICH: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I think if it is possible to have those comments struck from the record, I would agree with that, because it is putting a professional man in a very difficult position. If possible, I think it should occur.

MR. MacWILLIAM: As I was saying, the morale of individuals working in the profession is at a very low ebb, and that doesn't augur well for the quality of education delivered. A person can't do a good job when he's feeling all the time that he's been kicked around.

I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but I'll mention it again. British Columbia has among the lowest expenditures in education throughout Canada. Relative to personal income, B.C. spends less on education than any other province; B.C.is the lowest spender for post-secondary education, along with P.E.I. B.C. has the lowest participation rate in post-secondary education in the country, excepting Newfoundland.

Interjection.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Those are the figures that I have available. You may wish to rebut them.

In terms of post-secondary students in the interior, the study has shown that the chance of those students getting an education, compared to a student, for example, at a college or university down here at the coast, is significantly less — about 40 percent less. It's difficult for them to get access. I think what's happening with the cutbacks, which I'll be mentioning, in terms of Okanagan College is that that situation has been made even worse. We are denying the students in the interior the opportunity to receive a decent postsecondary education.

MR. CHAIRMAN: One minute, Mr. Member.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Oh, that's right, I have a shorter time. I'm new at this game, so I do make a few mistakes. Thank you.

The member for Shuswap-Revelstoke had earlier mentioned — and this is where figures become so confusing — that we are spending more and more on education. But when you look at the budget allocations from 1982 through to 1985-86, the fact is that when you consider an average 5 percent inflation, we've dropped about 23 percent from

[ Page 5699 ]

where we were in 1982. Those figures may have changed slightly from when I researched them, but I think they are probably fairly close. We are squeezing down on the whole education system, and the effects are undoubtedly being felt throughout the province.

I will defer now to my colleague, and I will have a few more points to make in a minute.

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is a point, I believe.... You're sitting, are you, and your colleague is rising in his place? It's not a deferral? The member for Coquitlam-Port Moody.

MR. ROSE: It's difficult for the Chairman to understand when the hon. member is sitting down, and it's hard for people to understand when I'm standing up. But do I have the floor now?

MR. CHAIRMAN: If the member understands he is standing up, he does have the floor. The member for Coquitlam-Port Moody.

MR. ROSE: I hope, Mr. Chairman, that people in the galleries don't feel that we're trivializing this whole debate. It's not that we are not serious; it's just that we have been locked into this kind of deadly embrace for some time now — not too long now; this is only the third short session. I guess you can't stay mad all the time. As Sydney Smith once said in the seventeenth century when he had nothing better to do: "Do not think me foolish because I am facetious, and I'll not think you are wise because you are grave." I think maybe we can have a more pleasant kind of debate this way.

It's not that we don't hold our views dearly, but I wouldn't want anybody to think that we didn't care about this, because most of us care deeply. The debate is really a matter of philosophy, of how one envisions a school system and what kind of services we expect from a school system in a democratic country.

I was going to make a few comments about class size while my colleague got his notes together. I have some information here, and I think it is important to go over the class sizes according to the BCTF. Their recommendations of class sizes are as follows. I think it is important, though, that the minister agree that his class size projections in terms of his PTR are pretty well square with the BCTF's, and maybe sometimes even smaller in terms of numbers.

I think it is also important to remember that while there is, I suppose, not uncontroversial evidence that in all cases children in smaller classes learn better, I think that anybody who has ever done any teaching knows that to give special attention to individuals is certainly much easier to do in small classes, as is individualized assistance of various kinds.

So I think it is an important concept that is sometimes glossed over. We see, say, in first-year university, classes in English and science and math and some of the others with up to 500 students. I think there are times when you can do that. I'm not sure you can do that down in the primary system as effectively. I think the idea would be to group as many children together as possible and work with many groups — to individualize, with the teachers addressing themselves to the particular needs of the children.

But anyway, here's the regular elementary and secondary class sizes and the percentage of classes in violation in September 1984. But I promised — I got sidetracked — to at least give the listener and also the Hansard reporter an opportunity to know what these class sizes are. For kindergarten, they're 20; primary — that's grades 1, 2 and 3 — 25; intermediate — that's 4, 5, 6 and 7 — 30; secondary — 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 — 30; K1, K and grade one split classes, 15; primary split classes — that is, more than one grade in one class — 20; and intermediate split, 25.

According to the information that I have — and I should give my source: the January 1984 Metro Education Association publication — the Burnaby elementary system has 47 percent of its classes over the maximum. Just going down the list in elementary: Coquitlam, 44 percent; Delta, 38 percent; Langley, 55 percent; Maple Ridge, 50 percent; New Westminster, 44 percent; North Vancouver, 35 percent; Richmond, 36 percent; Surrey, 37 percent; Vancouver, 65.5 percent. Now that's not due just to numbers. Sometimes it's due to the number of split classes. Anyway, this is what they published. West Vancouver, 40 percent.... Imagine! A community like West Van, probably the wealthiest community in British Columbia, has 40 percent of its elementary children in violation of the numbers.

Here's the secondary: Burnaby, 16.7 percent; Coquitlam, 23.6 percent; Delta, 23.7 percent; Langley, 19.8 percent; Maple Ridge, 23.2 percent; New Westminster, 20.4 percent; North Van, 16 percent; Richmond, 7.4 percent; Surrey, 16.4 percent; Vancouver, 37.3 percent. In addition, those Vancouver classrooms have literally hundreds of ESL kids, immigrant children whose first language is not English.

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: I'm going to give a whole little speech — I know you can hardly wait for it — on the ESL condition in Vancouver, and the funding. However, if the member for Vancouver South would like to get up and intervene and make his own speech, instead of trying to piggyback his onto mine, when I sit down I would be delighted to yield the floor to him.

Let me just say in conclusion that I can give you chapter and verse for practically every district in the country, as can the minister. I don't think it's acceptable or educationally sound or desirable to have those numbers in those classes. It isn't just a matter of ideology, it's a matter of how much people can grapple with, how much people can handle before the discipline goes all to pieces in the school or the teacher burns out in a state of exhaustion. So I won't say any more on class sizes. Levels of service have declined. There's no escaping it. Quality education cannot persist and continue if you have a constant decline and erosion in levels of service and increases in class sizes.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: You know, I think we're going to go around in circles, Mr. Chairman, when we start firing out these numbers. As a matter of interest, perhaps I ought to just quote to you, for the record, the average class size provincewide. I can go into each of the districts. You talked about Burnaby. You know that I have the average class size in the secondary school and in the elementary school. In Vancouver.... I'll just leave that alone for the time being.

In kindergarten, the provincewide class average is 19.6; kindergarten to grade 1, 22.8; grades 1 to 3, 24; grades 4 to 7, 26.7 on average provincewide. Let's go into grade 12 classes alone. The reason I wish to make reference to this is because the member for Okanagan North (Mr. MacWilliam) made

[ Page 5700 ]

reference to a very undesirable situation that he was confronted with. Provincewide, if we look at averages.... I'll take these particular subjects: algebra in grade 12, 29.4; biology, 27.5; chemistry, 25.6; English, 32.2; French, 25; German, 28.7; geography, 31.9; geology, 31.6; history, 30.1; English literature, 26.7; physics, 25.8; Spanish, 14.7.

1 don't think we're going to accomplish anything by firing out these figures and these averages throughout, but one issue which constantly concerns me is this: if the allegations are going to be continually made that we're concerned about quality of education, then perhaps there ought to be some recognition of what the government is attempting to do, and in my view what in fact has succeeded to some degree.

When I first came on board with this portfolio, I had been hearing a number of concerns expressed by the community, and when I mention the community I mean the teaching community: those who enrol classes, those who are in front of the classroom, and those who are doing a great deal of the work in the school district. One of the concerns they had been giving to me is that with the decline in enrolment, if more certificated staff are coming on board into every school district, why is it that the size of our classes — that is, the actual number of students in each class — is not declining? The number of people coming in had been increasing substantially.

[4:45]

What was happening is this. It would appear that while the PTR would drop from 19.1 to 17.1.... Being a layman, I would look at that and it would tell me that surely the real class size would drop. But in fact the real class size wasn't dropping by that amount. It was dropping by a fractional amount. In most cases it was under one or pushing one. Therefore the bell rang. What we were finding was that as enrolment was declining, more and more administration seemed to be coming into play. Where is this administration? In one particular school district it got so high that something like 36 percent of the certificated staff within that particular school district were not involved in actual instruction in the classroom.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Surely, as a government, if I wanted to try to bring equity between districts, then my objective should be to get the money in front of the classroom. That means we have got to look at where all of that administration was located. We found it often assigned to the district office, or excessive administration within the school system and in the schools themselves. By applying pressure overall, I think we have succeeded in putting the emphasis where it ought to be: with the teacher who enrolls the class.

I don't discount for one moment that there are times when you require additional administrative support out of the district office. But it seems to me that it just got a bit out of hand. The interesting point about it all.... At least this is what I'm given at first hand from boards and their officials: "All right, we recognize this fact; coming to terms with it is where we're having some difficulty." In 1983-84 there weren't anywhere near the layoffs that were projected. In the transitional 1985, absolutely minimal. Now we're into'85-86, and that is when it's getting a bit tight in some areas. I concede that point.

What I really want to say is that we can talk about figures and we can spit them across the floor at one another for ever and ever. The philosophy of what we're trying to do, and what I think we have succeeded in accomplishing, is trying to zero in on the classroom and the teacher. After all, who do you recall when you're in school after you've put in all of those years? It's the teacher. That's who I remember; I'm sure everybody else does. It's the level of instruction we got from that teacher which I think we all remember too. That's where I want the money. That's where the government wants to put it.

One point which a previous speaker who's not in the House right now raised.... He was drawing a comparison between three school districts. The districts he referred to were Victoria, Sooke and Saanich. He wanted to know why the cost per student is different. It's easily explainable.

When you look at the average teacher's salary within the district, you look at the level of negotiated non-statutory benefits, because they vary widely from district to district. In Sooke, for example, we have one of the highest in the province with respect to non-statutory benefits. The average in most school districts is about $600 to $650, which we made an adjustment for under the framework, but in some areas it's extraordinarily high. Special-education demands vary from district to district, and there's a distinction between those three particular school districts, which is where the demand is in those three areas. Transportation costs in some school districts are negligible; in others they are very significant. It's all reflected in the per-student costs. Another factor comes up when we talk about maintenance of buildings, whether they're new or old.

I just want to make the point that in any case where you find a difference.... What we've broken it down into is not only the district but the region and then the province — the average in each case. Each is readily explainable. Because I myself have asked some questions. As a result of traveling extensively throughout the province, I had some difficulty understanding why two particular school districts in the northern interior had such a distinction with respect to the costs and the amount of money put out per student. The major factors usually come out to three: (1) average teacher cost — district teacher salary; (2) transportation; and (3) special education needs.

MR. ROSE: I'd just like to make a couple of remarks about what the minister had to say. First of all, on the average of the PTRs across the province, it doesn't really help very much for someone in Vancouver or Coquitlam or Langley that the class sizes in kindergarten or grade1 are much smaller in, say, Fort St. John. It's not particularly helpful either to those pupils or to the teacher. The average is no help at all. The thing is that when you have excessive — and we have excessive averages.... The other thing is that it seemed to be.... I'd better finish that sentence. Averages, again — I agree with the minister — don't mean anything. It's what you're dealing with in your own classroom, wherever you're teaching; it's not what the average is. So averages, even when he spouts them, are not particularly helpful. So you can't on the one hand condemn the use of averages and then say, "Well, the average is low," because, again, that begs the question.

The other thing that the minister seemed to be implying was that when he came into his job he found the whole place just burdened with administrative fat — that the new people coming into the school system were doing things other than teach. It was his aim to get the bucks where the kids were and

[ Page 5701 ]

where the teachers were — on the firing line, in the classroom, and other little clichés. If that's the case, why are the class sizes going up? Again, you can't have it both ways on that one. Class sizes are becoming excessive and they're growing each year, and I've got the figures to prove it. Again, figures, according to the minister, don't mean a great deal. Nevertheless they're there, and I don't see how he can beg that question. He may get some advice on it. I hope he gets some good advice on it.

But when you look at this list that I just read and you see how they've grown in the various districts.... On Monday or Tuesday I cited from the Vancouver schools of Britannia and also.... What was the other one? It started with a "B." Again, that's happening. So the money is not going.... The assumption is that it's the same amount of money, and it's now going into the classroom. It's not going into the classroom.

Finally, in his zeal to trim and eliminate so-called fat, I think it's understandable why there are relatively fewer people in teaching positions and relatively more, as we've been able to afford it, in nonteaching positions. Is the minister saying that learning assistants, who do not usually register classes, are not providing a service? They're not in the classroom, but they're part of the PTR. Here's a nonteaching position, and he wants the money.... What about the subject coordinators to assist other teachers? They're not in the classroom, yet they're part of the PTR. What about the AV specialists — our district specialists? What about...? In this time of stress and disruption, student dropouts, and gangs in Surrey — the Surrey Burnouts — and all kinds of suicidal kids, you can't even get an appointment with a counsellor. Your counselling ratios have gone way up. Are counsellors and psychologists of no use in the school system? That's what the minister seems to be saying.

So if he's put all the money into the classroom, then there must be a lot of counsellors and psychologists teaching classes, a lot of learning assistants teaching classes. That's why there are no services beyond the classroom, but despite that over 50 percent of the class sizes in some districts are in violation.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, under the service levels.... Why I took the question asked in question period with respect to Surrey is that I want to find out what the facts really are, because we provide, under the service levels, in counselling, one teacher for every 315 students. I believe the member quoted something like....

MR. ROSE: Fourteen hundred. Victoria is the same.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: That's what's funded under the service levels which we provide.

Secondly, I made specific reference to the fact that there are people who are employed in the district office who float and do provide services; I didn't exclude everybody out of the district office. However, it seems to me that it was getting rather heavy. When it is conceded to me by officials within the boards that they are a little bit heavy in that area, whether they need six subject coordinators or 15 subject coordinators, then I think it's something that they themselves wish to address. And they did.

Another interesting item involves the school district of Delta. I am told that yesterday the school board made a decision involving administration within the school. That involved vice-principals. I understand that in the elementary schools vice-principals have now been reclassified, and they are going to be involved in instruction. I don't know what all the facts are in this, but this is a decision which was made. That's a good move on their part, and a recognition by that school district, and I think it will probably be used by a number of others. I commented on that a moment ago. If within the school itself there is excessive administration, maybe some of that ought to be addressed by boards, and they will use those individuals in the classroom. How they classify them....

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Well, that's a matter of opinion. I leave that to the school board and the administrators. Surely they are not going to abandon the administration of a school. If a school board makes that particular decision, perhaps there was a reason for it.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I don't think any of us would disagree with the concept that the minister has spoken about, in terms of trying to make the system run a little more efficiently and trimming the fat where it needs to be trimmed. Some of your comments are certainly valid, Mr. Minister. I've been part of the system, and I have seen some of the strengths and weaknesses in it. Your objectives may be honorable, Mr. Minister, but I believe you're going about them the wrong way.

The reality is, as my colleague has just pointed out and as I pointed out earlier, that the budgetary squeeze is causing those class sizes to increase inexorably. There is no question about that. When those class sizes increase, the job of providing a first-class education to students in those classes gets exponentially more difficult. There is a world of difference between standing in front of a class of 24 and doing a firstclass job and standing in front of a class of 30, 36 or 40 and trying to do that same job. It becomes virtually impossible, Mr. Chairman. The effect of what we are seeing.... I don't disagree with your intentions — I think your intentions are in the right direction — but what is happening is just the opposite. We are making the job of delivering education to our young people more and more difficult for our professional educators throughout the province. I want to state that fact very strongly. Class sizes are going up.

You know, the whole idea of trimming fat at the administrative level puts into question the value of some of that administration, because much of that function — the job of some of those out-of-class professionals — is to provide the auxiliary backup service that is needed. As you cut down on the auxiliary services, you make the job — as the minister previously stated, the job on the front line, where it really counts — much more difficult for the individuals concerned.

Simply put, you cannot equate providing quality education with getting a carload of coal to the market. It doesn't always come down to dollars and cents. You have to look at the human element involved. Believe me, Mr. Chairman, the situation that we have in the province today is far from good.

[5:00]

I want to go on to some specifics in terms of School District 10. School District 10, Arrow Lakes School District, is, as the minister knows, a small, rural district. There is, I think, a total of about seven schools. It's very highly dispersed; geographically it's very spread out. In total there are

[ Page 5702 ]

just under 1,000 students. I might point out that the enrolment is dropping. It's dropping because the unemployment level in the Slocan valley is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 57 percent. That's incredible, and that's why the enrolment is dropping. I don't disagree with that.

However, as a result of dropping enrolments, combined with the cutbacks in funding, this school district faced the possible closure of three rural schools — I think they were in Burton, Fauquier and Edgewood. It faced the possible closure of those schools. There was a lot of noise made about that in the fall, and I have a number of letters written to me specifically on that subject. People in the area were extremely concerned about the effects of the possible closure of those schools. Now those schools did not close. They did find a way out.

But I was just speaking there on the weekend, along with my colleague from Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson), to members of the board, to teachers in the area and to people in the community, and they're extremely worried that once again they face, with preparing for the new budget, the possible closure of those schools. When you close a rural school, Mr. Chairman, you really draw something away from the lifeblood of the community, because the school plays much more than simply an educational function for the children; it plays an extremely important social role in the community.

As a result of the budget restriction, the possibility of busing many students if those schools close is increased, and some of those students already spend three hours on the bus going back and forth. It makes it very difficult.

I want to point out some of the things that have happened in the district since 1982.

I seem to have lost my little addendum here. Let me go on, I'll get back to that.

At this point the district again faces the danger of closure, as I mentioned, or a further loss of teaching staff. Even if they keep within the needs budget, they lose the equivalent of about three full-time teachers. If they are forced to pursue alternative budgets, the loss in teachers may be even greater. If the teachers go, or if the schools go, or if both go, there's going to be a severe compromise in the quality of education in the area.

I have some particular questions for the minister in terms of School District 10 that I would like him to try to address. Those questions are reflected in a previous letter that I wrote to the minister regarding some of the concerns that the school district had already brought to his attention. They regard the fiscal formula for rural districts, such as the Arrow Lakes. They have, as I mentioned earlier, some considerable problems in terms of dispersion, isolation and school size. Most of their schools are pretty small. Will the minister consider altering the fiscal formula to accommodate the needs of these small rural districts? Specifically, will the minister take another look at this formula for isolation, because the school doesn't qualify for the isolation allowance within the framework of qualification simply because, I guess, it is close to Highway 6. In all other aspects they really are quite an isolated district, yet because the location of their board office is near the highway, they don't qualify for that assistance. I wonder if you would consider taking a look at that.

Will the minister also recognize the need to accommodate the higher operational cost that such a dispersed district incurs, such as busing students and travel back and forth for the maintenance and the school district staff? Would you recognize the need, then, to readdress the geographic factors of dispersion and isolation and also recognize the need that there's really no provision for inflation that is built into the present fiscal formula? I think that has to be addressed.

I'll sit down now, and perhaps you could give me answers to those questions.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, with respect to the last item, building in the cost of inflation. It is built in with respect to the average teacher's salary, which now has a floor. That's the first thing.

Secondly, it is built in with respect to maintenance and operations, and what we have done.... We've had some difficulty under function 5 with maintenance and operations, but what we did is operate on a three-year rolling average. Year 1 is X dollars, year 2 is Y dollars, and year 3 is Z dollars. What we do to keep that average above a constant on a true average is inflate year X and year Y by an inflation index factor and then take the three new numbers to give the average under function 5 for maintenance and operations.

Also, when traveling I found some specific problems which are associated with small secondary schools in areas like Princeton, South Cariboo and Chetwynd. I asked to have the framework changed so that we would increase the base number of teachers for a small secondary school from what it was. I am told that that made a considerable improvement.

The service levels. I said what the cost of running a dispersed school was defined to be. Let's say there are 11 or more students: the cost of a half-teacher unit, plus the cost of a half-teacher unit per junior grade, plus the cost of one teacher unit per senior grade, plus the cost of one teacher unit for every 25 pupils. What I did was build in one and a half more teachers, as I recall. That certainly eased the burden. Why it was done was that some of the demands placed on those teachers were quite significant. They were responsible for offering a number of courses.

I'd like to make reference to the particular problem in the Arrow Lakes, because the member for Okanagan North (Mr. MacWilliam) is correct. It has suffered a significant decline in enrolment. I'll tell you another adjustment which I made to the framework. In 1981 they had more than 1,000 students. So under the framework they would be funded for the full-time secretary-treasurer and superintendent. What happened is, if you dropped under 1,000 the framework was you'd only get a half. What I did was change it. I said: "We'll prorate it on the number of students." In 1984 it was 910 students. I think we're projecting 885 for the Arrow Lakes School District for 1985-86. So that was another adjustment which was made to accommodate the small rural school district.

We met in my office on two occasions. I know the board chairman, superintendent and secretary-treasurer have also met with the officials in the ministry. We have gone a considerable distance to accommodate the concerns which they have had. I think in fairness the member would probably concede that point. For example, the issue came up involving Burton, Fauquier and Edgewood. That came up when there was an event occurring in British Columbia, particularly in Okanagan North; the timing, of course, was propitious. There was no reason whatsoever for the school board to take the position to close those three schools, all of which are community centres in the areas where they are located.

When we get into Nakusp, we find that there are two schools, and you can call them half-empty or half-full. There was a possibility for consolidation of those two. Whether the board is prepared to address that issue or not I do not know; or

[ Page 5703 ]

whether they have I do not know. The only outstanding issue, as I recall, involved one grade 7 class. I think that's what it was. The other issue involved transportation. The bus service, the routes that were being used, would accommodate the children.

In Arrow Lakes I think an error was made on their part with respect to hiring some new staff. I believe there were three senior teachers who had either left or retired. They immediately filled their positions. I'm not sure, but I think they filled them with six, and then suddenly there was a drop of 90 or 100 students. Then there was a problem. That's the one they had to address. I think we should keep in mind, as well, that the PTR in the area, projected for 1985-86, is going to be 13.96. For 1984 it was 13.40. The provincial average is 18.28.

Mr. Chairman, I can advise the member that we're always prepared to look again and again, but the information which I had, particularly from the superintendent, Mr. Dick Chambers, is that the adjustments which we have made to the framework have been accommodating, and that we have been very cooperative in trying to assist them through a difficult period of time. The correspondence which I have received from people living in the area would indicate that there has been considerable improvement since Mr. Chambers arrived as the superintendent of Arrow Lakes.

[5:15]

As for the dispersion factor, this matter can be adjusted. Annually we have the whole funding program reviewed. It's reviewed by co-opting secretary-treasurers and superintendents with the ministry to try to iron out any of the problems. That is about the best assurance I can give you for the following year, because I think really we have gone some distance to accommodate the Arrow Lakes School District.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: You'll have to leave that with me. It involves a number of dollars, and I just do not have any further funding available to me right now. But I can tell you, if it is a problem in the following year, it will be an issue raised and put on the list of those suggestions which will be made by people in the field who can make constructive suggestions and who want to make constructive suggestions for improvement. That assurance I can give you.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I concede that the ministry did make some alterations. However, in discussing some of those alterations with Mr. Chambers, I was informed — and I was just looking for the information here, but I don't seem to have it available — that the readjustment of the dispersion factor, some of the geographic factors, in fact went against the board; they actually ended up losing some money as a result of that. Perhaps when I do find the appropriate paper I'll take the opportunity to bring the issue forth again.

Let me just review what happened in 1984, very briefly. I said I would get back to it later, when I found it. As a result, in 1984 the board laid off about 6.5 FTEs; reduction of most learning assistance programs; loss of support staff in many areas; loss of resource centre librarian; the combination of elementary grades — split classes; custodians working beyond the guidelines; only three maintenance men for all seven schools, although they had to cover a distance of over a hundred miles; administrative time reduced. The list goes on. I go back to the statement that we can throw the figures around all we like, but the ultimate reality is what is happening on the front line. What is happening on the front line, once again, is that we're losing teachers, programs are being compromised, and educational quality is being compromised.

I'd like to move on to address a few problems with respect to another school district in my constituency, School District 22. With regard to the 1985-86 budget.... This is a kind of summary of what has to be done in order to meet the requirements. To provide the same level of service that exists this year the school district would require about $900,000 more than the ministry guidelines presently allow. This, by the way, assumes no salary increase for teachers in the next 18 months. That is just to maintain the present level, which has already been eroded somewhat from previous levels, in terms of the quality of education. They have survived the dual problem of declining enrolment and restraint, and have maintained a bare-bones system, but a system which does continue to deliver a reasonable quality of education. The board was urged by the teaching district to.... I think I'll wander back into that one later. Just excuse me for a second here while I grab something else.

The board, in its decision to comply with the minister's guidelines and submit a budget in line with the money available....That means that the estimated costs of about $26 million have to be pared down to $25.5 million to match the guidelines. The board has decided to cut or not increase proposed programs in all seven of the different functions. A total of 10.5 to 11.5 full-time equivalent teaching positions will be eliminated, as well as total of about 13 support staff being cut, with the cuts spread across the system and felt in all areas. It's felt that these cuts could jeopardize the quality of services to children in the district and of course make the entire problem of delivering a first-class education more and more difficult for the professional people involved.

I have some specific questions to the minister in regard to the situation in the school district. In light of the $900,000 shortfall, is there any consideration by the ministry of increasing the funding levels so that the quality of programming that will be compromised can be maintained? In terms of the shortfall, is there any possibility of reconsidering this budget allocation? I'd like to point out that Vernon was seventy-third in British Columbia out of 75 districts with respect to pupil-teacher ratio. They certainly weren't on the top of the heap.

I think the board has done a very commendable job of maintaining a fiscally conservative rule over the budget in the past, and it does seem that even though they have been very conservative in their budgeting they are still being penalized by having to cut further into the bone. I wonder if the minister would be prepared, in light of the fact that Vernon is still on the low end of the scale in terms of pupil-teacher ratio, to reconsider the reallocation of some of this funding shortage that the district presently experiences, as I mentioned before, at about the $900,000 level.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The PTR level has been reasonably constant in the Vernon School District since 1981. I think the member, because of his profession and knowing the background, would be interested to know this. In 1981 it was 17.95 in 1982, 18.05; 1983, 18.17; 1984, 18.12. That's interesting: there was a drop in the PTR in Vernon in 1984

[ Page 5704 ]

over 1983. The projection according to the framework and those which will be generated is 18.31. So it is still within that category. It is constant, even though the enrolment dropped. There was a drop in enrolment of about 150 students, 1984 over 1983, and the projection is a drop of approximately another 60 students. Do those figures pretty well agree with the evidence that you have? There's been a decline. Okay.

As far as the budget is concerned, starting in 1982 and up until the present time the actual increase in the cost per student has been 21.8 percent. The differential between '84 and '85, according to my information, is roughly $400,000. In other words, the drop in budget '85-86 as compared to 1984, deleting the transitional year, is about $400,000. I do not know the $900,000 to which you refer.

Now the figures — which I also give you — are those incorporated within the grant portion. Usually there are revenues from surpluses which we've authorized to be carried forward over the last few years and into the future. There's also revenue which is generated from within the district. The quick answer is that the money which has been provided is the money provided for all districts, and that is the amount I have available for distribution under operating grants. I am expecting a compliance budget from the school district. I do not know whether or not.... I'm expecting to receive a compliance budget from Vernon.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Mr. Chairman, to the minister, I think because Vernon ran a pretty fiscally tight ship in the past it certainly hasn't been hit as hard as other school districts. I concede that fact. But perhaps that makes my argument even stronger, in light of being probably one of the lesser affected districts.

If I can just read a recent article in the Vernon Daily News that highlights some of the things I was talking about:

"Nearly $1 million in budget reductions will mean the loss of up to 20 teachers and higher pupil-teacher ratios in School District 22 next year. Vernon School Board has examined programs, and feels its restructuring of the system to cope with the $946,000 budgetary shortfall will lessen the adverse affect on the education of children here. To meet the budget, the board will reduce by about 11 or 12 teaching positions. A further six to eight teaching positions will be lost because of declining enrolment."

In terms of the specifics, how does the board approach the matter of making up this shortfall of almost $1 million? I think this is where the guts of the issue lie.

I want to remind the minister, Mr. Chairman, of my statement earlier that Vernon really is getting, I guess, the light end of the stick, in many terms. If the situation in Vernon can be compared, we could assume that situations throughout British Columbia could be significantly worse. In terms of making up the shortfall, in function I there was a reduction of almost $200,000 through the loss of clerical, field studies, the busing program, the swim program, adjusting the staffing formula, and the elimination of three administrative positions. In function 2, to make up $155,000, it was by elimination of department heads and, again, adjusting the teaching staff formula. In function 3 it was by the loss of 0.6 FTEs in speech pathology, the reduction of elementary counselling, the reduction of special needs and kindergarten, and the loss of 1.25 FTEs in Indian education. It goes on, it goes on, it goes on. Function 4 — reduction of the business administration staff, two full-time equivalents; function 5, elimination of maintenance managers — even last year when I was working in the system we noticed a significant depletion in the level of maintenance in the school — further reductions in custodial staff, and reductions in non-instructional equipment repairs.

Again the list goes on. In function 6, to make up the shortfall, the elimination of field studies consultants, the elimination of a resource teacher, the elimination of teacher centre clerical staff, a reduction in resource centre supplies; in function 7 it was by the reduction of $7,000 in the program for busing and for the swim program, and reduced auxiliary transportation costs.

The list is pretty extensive. It shows a significant loss in both staffing and support programs. In light of the fact that Vernon is getting the light end of the stick, it only serves to highlight the fact that we've got significant problems here.

[5:30]

I'd like to move quickly on to the third item that I would like to address today, and that is the issue of Okanagan College. Now Okanagan College is a multi-campus college that runs throughout the Okanagan Valley. There're campuses that run from Osoyoos up through Revelstoke. And it's long been a pride of the communities throughout the Okanagan, with the North Okanagan particularly proud of the Vernon campus.

Let me just review very quickly what's happened since 1982. In 1982, of course, they received no further budget increase. In 1983, holding to the same level of funding, salaries were frozen and there were increased tuition fees for the students. Layoffs occurred through attrition. In 1984 and 1985, funding was reduced by 5 percent. They had to increase tuition fees by 35 percent to help make up the funding shortage. The college is concerned; I was actually speaking there last night. They are very concerned about having to pump up that tuition fee again. They are already above provincial levels, and there is a lot of concern that they are pricing themselves out of the market.

There is a critical lack of maintenance. One particular concern, for example, is that on Saturdays one of the administrators has to go and open up the college so that the public can get access to it. If there are courses running, there is no maintenance or security to look after the place even on a Saturday. That's a real concern.

In 1985 and 1986, of course, we had the further 5 percent proposal in funding reductions, and this has been reduced somewhat. I concede the fact that the minister has looked at making up that shortfall, but there are still some significant problems. The $600,000 or $700,000 reallocation back into the college leaves it still about $1.3 million short. Although some of the campuses that were in danger of closing will be able to remain open, there's a feeling that many of the programs throughout the college will be severely impacted.

Here's a quick summary of the effects of that shortage. The most severe impact, Mr. Chairman, is felt in the university transfer courses. Loss of instructors means cancellation of programs, and this is an area where the demand is high. Already the demand outstrips the availability, and losing more programs in the university transfer courses is going to make that problem even worse.

There is a significant cutback in student services. Here are some specific examples: the possible elimination of the remedial English program; virtual elimination of counselling in Salmon Arm, in Vernon and in Penticton, with up to 30

[ Page 5705 ]

percent of the counsellors removed; reduction in the learning resources centre; the elimination of the audio-visual coordinator; the elimination of the librarian on the Vernon campus; and the loss of about 50 percent of the learning resource staff throughout the district. I'll give you an example. The clerks run the library in the Vernon campus. If a clerk has to leave the room in order to respond to a simple call of nature, she has to close the library. There's simply nobody else available there, and that causes a real problem.

If you look at the budget estimates, and I'm looking here at the allocation summary for 1985-86, Okanagan College looks pretty good in terms of the other ones. Yet look at what we're experiencing in terms of what's happening with the shortage that is there. We've lost these programs. We're losing staff. Layoff notices have gone out. There's no question in the minds of people up there that post-secondary education is being compromised. There's absolutely no question in their minds. Yet Okanagan College looks pretty good when you compare it to the others.

1 wanted to bring those facts to the minister's attention. I hope he will respond to some of the specific questions I have. I'll outline those questions right now. The first question refers to the multi-campus nature of the Okanagan College system. I think the minister will concede that any multi-campus college faces significantly higher operational costs: building costs, maintenance costs, communications, administration and travel.

The multi-campus concept is good. It provides a good service, but it's more costly than a centralized campus. I wonder if the minister is pursuing a restructuring of the fiscal formula that will recognize the higher cost structure of the multi-campus concept. I understand the present fiscal formula is a single pie. If you're going to increase funding for one area, you're going to have to pull from other areas, as it is presently established. Perhaps increasing, to recognize the costs of the multi-campus colleges such as Okanagan College, is going to pull from others. Perhaps the minister can address that point and answer as to whether he's considering changing that funding formula in a way that will not compromise the other colleges and yet give multi-campus colleges a better break.

Secondly, is the minister considering any further reductions in the present $1.4 million shortfall that the college faces at this point, in light of the facts that I have addressed? Is any consideration being given to having another look, especially in the areas of university transfer courses and lost courses, such as the music program which is being eliminated at the Vernon campus?

Lastly — this is a question that came up earlier in the day, and I would like to readdress it and have the minister respond — he referred to three vacancies on the college board which came up last fall. The minister is well aware that we've responded a number of times on the issue. I believe there are a number of names at the minister's disposal from my office, from the community and from other offices. Could he give me a time line as to when he expects a final decision on these replacement appointments? I might emphasize the fact that two of the replacements were for the North Okanagan community, in the Vernon area. The Vernon campus feels it is without adequate representation at this point. They have appealed to me a number of times to seek an immediate answer from the minister on the reappointment, and I wonder if he would respond to such.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, the member for Okanagan North is quite correct in his comments with respect to the funding of Okanagan College. They in fact received an increase of 2.1 percent, and the overall mean decline was 2.9 percent. There was an increase to Okanagan. In addition, as the member knows, I was very concerned about the campuses in Salmon Arm and in Penticton. In both cases an adjustment was required. As I recall, you were pushing me as well to reconsider the satellite campus at Salmon Arm. Now that involved $1.4 million so that we could treat just about everybody as fairly as we could provincewide.

The concept of multi-campus, to be candid, is a very ticklish one with all of the colleges and all of the administration. There is support for it in some quarters, but I think it would be fair to say that in many quarters in the regional college system, in the entire network, there is.... I won't say opposition, but there is certainly concern, because the feeling is that the funding made available to some satellite campuses drains the core funding to the main campuses for each of the colleges. So it's a fight over bucks.

Now the commitment which I made was that we would allow the joint committee, which consists of ministry and administrators, to review the concept of multi-campus. As far as I'm concerned, particularly in the case which came to my attention when I was in Salmon Arm, there was a commitment. It was given at the time Okanagan College started, because that college had an opportunity to go elsewhere. But if they were going to remain a permanent fixture, they didn't want to be pregnant one year and then suddenly without child the next. They never knew whether or not they were going to lose. I'm doing my level best, and I've made the commitment that that campus will be a permanent facility.

Yes, the Okanagan salaries are low, I understand, compared with the rest of the system. I understand as well that the Okanagan board has agreed to bring them up to the average over three years. But you know, to do that they required increased workloads. So the board asked that they would, I gather, be responsible for more instruction than their 12 or 16 hours a week, plus preparation. I think it was pushed up to 17.5 hours a week of instruction; I'm not sure, but it must have been.

Did the Okanagan board not take a firm position and take a lockout? I think they did, yes; and they were serious about the position. This was the amount of money that was available, and the election then was of course given to the employees: "If you wish more money, it is going to result in layoff." The employees took that position. If the union wanted to take the choice to lay off some of their colleagues and increase their workload, that was their choice; and that was the choice they made. The only thing that concerns me about it is that... I'm particularly pleased with the agreement made between the BCIT board and its employees, where in fact they agreed to hold their wages at the present level until April 1986, I think it is, for the preservation of jobs. As a result, 72 instructors remain on the payroll. So on the satellite campus it's being reviewed again. My objective, obviously, is to preserve the Salmon Arm and Penticton campuses, and that's what I intend to do; and I have made that commitment.

On the counselling, which you have mentioned, they have decided to centralize their counsellors at the headquarters in Vernon, and they can move. If counsellors are required

[ Page 5706 ]

they can travel from Vernon to Salmon Arm, or as far as Kelowna.

[5:45]

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Well, with a shortage of funds, sometimes they may just have to try, as you mentioned earlier, to break some new ground and see whether or not it's possible. The enrolment, certainly at Salmon Arm and Penticton, is not all that significant. The distances between the centres of Kelowna and Vernon and Salmon Arm are not really that great.

On the formula, my only point is one that I'll repeat. That formula has been accepted by all but one of the colleges and institutes as a fair and equitable way of dividing up the available resources.

Now on the shortfall. When I met with the college board in the presence of all of the public, the position that was taken with me by the board and by the people who were present was this — and this is before the budget came in: if there's to be 95 percent of last year's funding, we are going to be $600,000 shy. What in fact happened is we increased the 95 percent to 96 percent, pushed that in — and that was worth about $130,000 to $140,000 — and we added.... I think it was around $400,000. They ended up with a net increase of 2.1 percent. If they wish additional funds, they have access to the $5.8 million which is in the college adjustment fund.

Each of the principals and board chairmen was present at the meeting when we told them about it. They were prepared and frankly were encouraged with the concept of making application. Now how they wish to use those funds is entirely up to them. No doubt the ministry will be the recipient of a number of proposals.

I think I've covered the items. I gather you didn't want....

MR. MacWILLIAM: The appointment of college boards.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Pardon me. In the last item, the appointment of college boards — and I answered that question today during question period — they will be filled and....

MR. MacWILLIAM: Do you have a name?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I didn't really have one in mind, but you know....

MR. MacWILLIAM: Pick one out of the air.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Soon.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Hon. Mr. Nielsen moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:48 p.m.