[ Page 5723 ]

CONTENTS

Applied Science Technology Act (Bill PR401). Mr. Reynolds

Introduction and first reading –– 5723

Oral Questions

Federal-provincial forestry agreement. Mr. Williams –– 5724

Trade and convention centre. Mr. MacWilliam –– 5724

Location of O'Keefe ranch. Mr. MacWilliam –– 5724

Resignation of Dr. Chad Gaffield. Mr. Nicolson –– 5724

Mrs. Dailly

Mr. Blencoe

Okanagan tree-fruit industry. Ms. Sanford –– 5725

Commissioner of critical industries. Hon. Mr. Curtis replies –– 5726

Pemberton flood. Hon. Mr. Pelton replies –– 5726

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

On vote 17: minister's office –– 5726

Mr. Lea

Mr. Rose

Mr. MacWilliam

Mr. Stupich

Mr. Passarell

Mr. Gabelmann

Ms. Sanford

MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1985

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. MOWAT: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to introduce to the House today the British Columbia Social Credit Women's Auxiliary. They have been attending a seminar this weekend and touring our building this morning. Their president Donny Redding is with 35 other ladies. I would ask the House to make them welcome to our Legislative Assembly.

MR. GABELMANN: In the gallery this afternoon are some visitors from northern Vancouver Island representing teachers, trustees and parents, here to visit some of us on education issues. From the Vancouver Island North School District, Mr. Phil Imrie, Mrs. Lynn Skrlac; from the Campbell River district, Richard Franklin, Coke Pedersen and Ken Pedersen. I would ask the House to make them welcome.

HON. MR. GARDOM: One of our number has this to say about him on this twenty-second day of April: check possessions, tighten security, and don't forget to count your change. And I would like to say, Mr. Speaker, buon compleanno al migliore amico membro per Atlin, il piu giovane della Casa. Happy Birthday.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Sitting in the members' gallery today is Mr. Huang, the newly appointed consul-general for the People's Republic of China in Vancouver, and Mr. Mah, consul for the People's Republic of China in Vancouver. I would like the members to join me in welcoming them here today.

MR. REYNOLDS: I have a number of my friends in your gallery today. Nan and Dianne Hartwick from West Vancouver are here with Martin Kernahan and Michael Witt from Calgary. Also in your gallery are John Leech, John Paterson and Ron Green, all of the Society of Engineering Technologists, and one of their associates, Jim Bennett. I wish the House would make them welcome.

On behalf of my colleague for Maillardville–Coquitlam (Mr. Parks) I would ask the House to make welcome people from his constituency, Bill and Sue Grant and their children Douglas, Brian and Cheryl. Bill was a Conservative candidate in the last federal election and also is a director of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association.

MR. R. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, it's interesting that in this morning's paper I read that the Vancouver School Board is going to cancel French immersion. With the same breath, I would like to say that at the school they're talking about, Winston Churchill.... We are hosting today from Winston Churchill a group of exchange students from Quebec, in fact from the College of St. Bernard in Drummondville, Quebec. Would the House please make them welcome?

Introduction of Bills

APPLIED SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY ACT

MR. REYNOLDS: I move that a bill intituled the Applied Science Technology Act be introduced and now read a first time.

Mr. Speaker, the Society of Engineering Technologists of British Columbia have been petitioning the government since 1975 for legislation covering the registration of those practising in the province as technologists and technicians. Registered under the Societies Act since 1958, they have within the Iimits of that act provided an invaluable service covering such areas as examination, certification and accreditation.

Through the Applied Science Technology Act it is proposed to establish a governing body to regulate standards of practice, establish and maintain standards of professional ethics, regulate the right to title and provide protection for the public. The applied science technologist and technician is to be found today in every major and emerging industry, in universities and research facilities, in health care and in government services at all levels.

Our government has been funding the academic training of these individuals in a wide variety of disciplines for many years through the B.C. Institute of Technology and the community colleges. Employers throughout the province have come to recognize the unique contribution of these individuals in the fields of applied science.

I would point out to this House, Mr. Speaker, that similar legislation has been recently enacted into law by the governments of Ontario and Quebec, and indeed other jurisdictions are in the process of doing so.

Over the last few years, the Society of Engineering Technologists has spent a great deal of time with the Attorney-General's staff, with various ministers and their staff, with representatives of industry and education and with members of both sides of this House, to reach a consensus. Having done that and published the required legal notices, it is with great pleasure that I now table the Applied Science Technology Act for first reading by this House.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS –– 42

NAYS — 1

Bill PR401 introduced, read a first time and referred to the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders, Private Bills and Members' Services.

[2:15]

[ Page 5724 ]

Oral Questions

FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL FORESTRY AGREEMENT

MR. WILLIAMS: I have a question for the Minister of Forests. Two federal Members of Parliament from British Columbia, Mr. McCuish and Mr. Oberle, have confirmed that the federal-provincial agreement with respect to funding the forestry agreement in terms of $300 million, $60 million a year, is ready for signature. In view of the short season for tree planting, will the minister advise the House what he thinks may be achieved by holding back on signing the agreement at this stage?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: It's rather an open-ended question. The member asked me to advise what I think. It could be a very short answer, couldn't it?

Mr. Speaker, the matter of total ERDA funding must be resolved before any subsidiary agreements are signed. That's what I think.

MR. WILLIAMS: Can the minister advise us whether he is proceeding with $60 million in expenditures in this fiscal year regardless?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Under the proposed forest management agreement, which is to be signed with Ottawa when the time is appropriate, the first year's expenditure amounts to $22 million.

MR. WILLIAMS: I have a further question to the Minister of International Trade and Investment. The two aforementioned MPs indicated that $50 million in federal funding was available under these programs last year but that the government of British Columbia simply blew it and wasn't prepared or ready to proceed with agreements. Can the minister confirm that?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: I'll take the member's question as notice.

MR. WILLIAMS: Along with many others.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: In due course.

TRADE AND CONVENTION CENTRE

MR. MacWILLIAM: I have a question to the Minister of Tourism. Has the minister been made aware of the situation in Vancouver where valuable convention business is being lost to the economy of the lower mainland because of a squabble, involving the provincial government, over who is going to pay the operating costs of the convention centre?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, the first part of the question was really a statement, and more a matter of opinion. Secondly, the responsibility for the convention centre in Vancouver clearly lies with the federal government.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I realize, Mr. Speaker, that the responsibility is also federal. However, in view of the fact that convention business creates jobs and incomes for the residents of this province, what steps has the minister taken to help settle this matter? It's both a federal and a provincial concern.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, we're very much aware of what the convention business means to this province. We have a full-time convention manager in my ministry doing nothing but looking after conventions for the entire province. Secondly, we have yet to be approached by the federal government, who are the people in authority on the convention centre.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Mr. Speaker, the recently published Gladstone report prepared for Canada Harbour Place shows — and I'm sure the minister is aware of it — that $1.5 million a year will accrue to the province from increased hotel room and liquor sales taxes if the convention centre goes into full operation. Has the minister decided, in light of these facts, to balance this review against operating funds which may be required from the province to attract the convention business to the lower mainland?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: As I said, Mr. Speaker, we are very much aware of the value of the convention business to the province. I'm sure that in due course we and the federal government will be sitting down and talking about it.

LOCATION OF O'KEEFE RANCH

MR. MacWILLIAM: I do hope it's soon, Mr. Minister.

Another question to the Minister of Tourism: on April 15, 1985, Maclean's magazine carries an advertisement signed by the minister for visitors to the O'Keefe ranch in the Okanagan. The location of the ranch is identified in the ad as "just north of Kelowna." Has the minister decided to consult a map of British Columbia, which shows plainly that the O'Keefe ranch is slightly north of the town of Vernon, rather than the town of Kelowna?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, I haven't seen the particular ad in question, but I'm sure that the member would agree that the ad is not incorrect, but it could be just a little more precise. I'm sure that I will be bringing that to the attention of those who prepared the ad. I happen to know very well where the O'Keefe ranch is.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Will the minister please advise the House whether this ad was placed by the firm of McKim Advertising Ltd.?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, as I said, I haven't seen the particular ad, but I would imagine that it was, as they are the agency of record for the Ministry of Tourism.

MR. MacWILLIAM: In light of the information which the minister has just received, I wonder if the minister would decide to place a further ad clarifying the actual location of the O'Keefe ranch. Or has the minister decided that the town of Vernon no longer exists?

RESIGNATION OF DR. CHAD GAFFIELD

MR. NICOLSON: I have a question for the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications. On Wednesday

[ Page 5725 ]

last Dr. Chad Gaffield, head of the Vancouver Island Project, resigned his position at the University of Victoria and cited official distrust, misconceptions and confusion created by the government of British Columbia. When is the government going to recognize and acknowledge the message which is being delivered by a growing number of top-notch academics who are resigning and leaving this province in protest?

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, I know of no resignations in protest. The only ones I'm familiar with are those where academics have left either for a promotion or for a raise in salary. We should always be disappointed when our better academics are being recruited, but I have suggested to the universities that one of the moves they could make is to match the salary offers of the other institutions, because of course the universities are free to use their government grant in any fashion which they choose. I might add, Mr. Speaker, that the academic community is an international one. We recruit people into British Columbia, frequently by offering the individuals concerned promotions and improvement in salary over their current positions, and we should anticipate that a certain amount of that will work in reverse.

MR. NICOLSON: Apparently last Wednesday the minister told Bob Gillingham that the matter was too trivial for him to comment on. I'd like the minister to answer a question. It's a quotation: "It is in the past four years, after so many top educators departed the province, that British Columbia has slumped to bottom place in the nation." I would ask the minister if he could answer this question: who was the author of that not-so-trivial question?

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, I have no idea.

Perhaps the member could help me out. But certainly whoever it was could not have been referring to British Columbia.

MR. NICOLSON: I'll answer the question. That was from page 37 of Politics in Paradise.

HON. MR. McGEER: We had a minister that would have made all the difference.

MRS. DAILLY: A supplementary to the minister. While all these things were going on in the minister's ministry last week, we understand he was in Texas. Could the minister tell the House what government business he was doing in Texas, in relation to his portfolio?

HON. MR. McGEER: One of our ministry's major activities is to attempt to recruit into British Columbia high technology industries. There are industries around the world that are growing extremely rapidly. If British Columbia can get its share of that growth, it will do more than almost anything we could achieve to alleviate our unemployment problem and to build a more secure industrial future for our province. I visited four high-technology companies, all of which are growing in the Dallas area. One of them will be coming to British Columbia, and I hope others as well.

MR. BLENCOE: To the Minister of Municipal Affairs, following up the resignation of Dr. Gaffield. The Vancouver Island Project, the minister may be aware, is a research project funded through the Canada Council which carries the support of municipalities up and down the Island. Many of them have indicated incredible support for the project. Has the minister indicated his concern about the loss of the co-director of the Vancouver Island Project?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: No, I haven't expressed my concern on that particular issue up to this moment.

MR. BLENCOE: A supplementary. The municipalities have praised the work of Dr. Gaffield and his colleagues in cataloguing and organizing municipal records, which are extremely useful for new industries and new opportunities for jobs and employment. Many businesses are utilizing them when they move to Vancouver Island. What steps has the minister taken to recover or replace the federal funding that has financed this important project up to this point?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Speaker, no steps to do so have been taken as of this moment.

OKANAGAN TREE-FRUIT INDUSTRY

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture and Food. The minister surely is aware that among B.C.'s financially troubled farmers, fruit growers in the Okanagan area are perhaps the most desperate. Approximately one-half of their income is derived from provincial and federal stabilization programs, and at least 60 orchards in the Okanagan are up for sale. Can the minister assure the House that under the long-awaited ERDA agreement a significant increase in funds for the construction of more controlled-atmosphere storage plants in the Okanagan will be made available?

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: Mr. Speaker, I'm awaiting with great expectancy the signing of the ERDA agreement. The province's share of that agreement is $325 million. We're expecting a matching number of dollars, for a total of $650 million under the ERDA umbrella agreement. The amounts that have been designated are clearly visible in the budget for the province. I wish it was as clearly visible in the federal budget as well, and then I could announce today the signing of the entire agreement.

[2:30]

MS. SANFORD: Can the minister assure the House that negotiations, at least during the negotiations with the federal people under the agricultural sector of the ERDA agreement, have taken place with respect to additional funding for those much-needed storage plants in the Okanagan?

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: The industry itself has been anticipating the completion of these agreements. Applications, as I understand it — I don't have them on my desk, but as I understand it — are being entertained and considered as they arrive.

MS. SANFORD: I still didn't get an answer to my question, but I'll try again.

The age and quality of many of the orchards in the Okanagan prohibit the production of premium-grade apples.

Since the elimination of the long-term planting loans under the ALDA program, the amount of orchard replanting has dropped off sharply. Has the minister decided to address a

[ Page 5726 ]

serious structural problem in the tree-fruit industry by restoring long-term, fixed-interest orchard replanting loans?

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: The ALDA program is still in place, and applications are being received under the ALDA program. Sufficient applications have already been received for this year, so that no further applications can be entertained. However, the ALDA program is in place.

COMMISSIONER OF CRITICAL INDUSTRIES

HON. MR. CURTIS: I wish to respond to a question taken earlier on notice in the oral question period. On Thursday, April 11, and Friday, April 12, the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) posed questions with respect to the newly appointed commissioner of critical industries, Mr. Art Phillips. On page 5594 of the printed Hansard the member for Nanaimo is quoted as saying:

Apart from what he said about government helping, he also said he considered the forest industry to be a sunset industry in the province. Yet forests is one of the two main industries that this commissioner is supposed to be helping.

Mr. Speaker, in effect I took the question on notice. I've obtained a transcript of Mr. Phillips' full statement before the MacDonald royal commission on June 12, 1984. He did not make such a comment about the forest industry. In fact Mr. Phillips, in that statement, did not mention the forest industry.

PEMBERTON FLOOD

HON. MR. PELTON: I would also like to respond to a question taken on notice earlier. A question was asked by the hon. member for Cowichan–Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) concerning the Pemberton flood. I would just like to respond that 400 claims have been filed; these claims totalled $3,643,829.89, and 277 claims have been paid. The total amount claimed on these 277 claims was $3,203,829.89, and the amount paid was $2,622,834.77.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

(continued)

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

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, I met with the Prince Rupert School Board yesterday, and I took along with me a copy of Hansard, which outlined the minister's responses to the questions I asked on behalf of the school board. When I arrived, the trustees looked frustrated and, in fact, indicated to me that they were frustrated and that their morale is at an all-time low. When I gave them the copy of Hansard, I can tell you that that feeling of frustration took on a higher degree, because now they don't have any idea how they're going to budget in the future.

There is one other question that I'd like to ask the minister. The Prince Rupert School District has had its foot in the door with the ministry for some time in terms of money for a new high school. If I am not mistaken, the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) indicated earlier that there would be some freeing up of moneys available for school construction in the province. As the Prince Rupert School District has been at the top of that list for some time, I'd like to ask the minister some questions.

Firstly, is there going to be capital made available for a new high school in Prince Rupert? If so, when? How can the Prince Rupert School District go about getting that capital? They've asked your ministry a number of times, and all they're told is that they're high up on the list, but there's nothing available. If my understanding of the Minister of Finance's statement is correct, there is money available now. Prince Rupert has been on the top of the list for some time. I wonder if the minister could tell me what that situation is all about at the moment.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, the capital budget has not been concluded yet. There is money in the capital budget for both major and minor projects, and I have not yet concluded the allocation for this year. When I visited the Prince Rupert School Board, there were two projects, as I recall. One involved the high school, for which they have already expended — I'm going from memory — around $1.4 million with respect to planning. This was some time ago.

The second school is an elementary school that is being serviced by some portables. I believe the school is called Pineridge Elementary School. I am aware of the concerns which they have expressed. I repeat, the allocations have not yet been determined, but I am aware of the concerns which have been expressed, both by the board and also by the member for Skeena (Mr. Howard).

Maybe when this has been concluded.... I may have more to say later on, but I can't do it right now because it's not yet concluded.

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask if the minister would pay some personal attention to this matter and not just leave it up to the ministry. I think there are some circumstances there that need to be addressed.

If this money isn't available for a new high school, the Prince Rupert School Board has no other choice but to start spending money on some existing schools, which in their opinion and in my opinion would be throwing good money after bad. Probably the new high school would be somewhere in the order — and this is a ballpark figure — of about $10 million. They have spent a little over $1 million in property acquisition and other matters already. But if that money is not available for a new high school, they are left with no other choice but to start spending money on some of the old school buildings that are presently there. I know they don't want to do that. They're talking of close to $4.5 million that they would have to spend. Then after having spent it, they would be paying for the maintenance costs of an old building. Over a period of amortization, that obviously wouldn't be the most sensible way to go.

The ministry has recognized that Prince Rupert should be high on the priority list in terms of a new high school. If it is not forthcoming, after the budget is put together, your ministry is going to have to spend a lot of money to bring those old schools up to a point where they can continue to be used. I believe it would just be an absolute waste of money. You're better to go the extra mile and to spend that money on a new high school, because over a period of time, it will be the most economic way you can go; it will be the best solution for the

[ Page 5727 ]

students and the best solution for the community. So if the decision is not to build the high school, the decision will still have to be to spend money, and it will be money ill-spent. I'd like to ask the minister what advice he's getting at the moment in that regard.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Well, Mr. Chairman, I wasn't receiving any counsel on this. The question which I asked....

I want to be clear on whether or not I heard you correctly. You made reference to an amount of $10 million. Then you made reference to an amount of $4.5 million. The figure which I recall the school board advancing to me for the high school portion alone was something in the order of $4.5 million. But if you are suggesting that a new high school.... Maybe I didn't hear you correctly, but if you're suggesting that there should be a $10 million expenditure in Prince Rupert, that would probably eat up more than 50 percent of the available money for major capital projects. So I would have some difficulty, if that was the correct figure. If the amount to which you refer is $4.5 million, is that the amount which is going to be required for renovations only of the existing high school?

MR. LEA: I'd have to go back over my files to get the exact figures. I believe what I said is correct, and you understood it correctly. But I'll go back over my files and get that information to you so that we know absolutely what we're talking about.

You've just thrown a bombshell. If Prince Rupert were to take $10 million of the total provincial budget, and that $10 million were half of the capital that's going to be available for school construction, we're in real rough shape.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I said "major capital projects." There are a number of projects available in the schools budget. Some involve renovations; others are of a minor nature; others, the way they're classified, are expenditures involving $1 million or under. Many schools can be constructed for that amount of money. When I'm referring to major capital, I'm talking about items where the price tag per project is over $1 million, and all the way up.

MR. LEA: I wonder if we could leave it this way, Mr. Chairman: that the minister would undertake to have his staff get in touch with the secretary-treasurer, Mr. Lien, of the Prince Rupert School District, and nail those figures down. Their problem is that if they don't know soon what choices they have.... They have to make a choice. If they're going with the new high school, then they're not going to do some renovations. But if they don't know.... My question to them was, " You'd almost rather have a 'no' than not know, " and they said: "Yeah, because we can't do any planning whatsoever." Every time they go to the ministry they get no answer, and they don't know where they stand.

The time is coming shortly that if they don't know about the capital for the new school, they're going to have to go ahead with renovations. I think that would be a pity, because the renovations would just be throwing money down the tube in terms both of what you're left with after the money's been spent and the ongoing maintenance costs, which are going to be very high compared to what a new building would be.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I can advise the member that it probably won't be necessary to contact the secretary-treasurer, Mr. Lien, although I'm quite prepared to ask them to. You see, the correspondence which we have — and I have looked at parts of it for the new high school in Prince Rupert — is that deep. They're well aware of all of the figures. We recognize that. We can't turn around and point fingers at the ministry, saying that they don't know; the ministry requires money for going either particular route, whether it's new capital construction to complete a $10 million project or a renovation job for $4.5 million. The ministry will follow the direction of government. The question that then comes up is the availability of funding, and that's it. But I recognize your concern, and we'll have a look at it. That's all I will mention to you at this time.

[2:45]

MR. LEA: Okay. There are some other matters, but they're smaller and I'll get in touch with the minister by letter.

I would just like to share with the minister the feeling I got from that meeting with the school board. I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, that for all intents and purposes it is a non-partisan school board. There are people on that school board who provincially have their own politics, both Social Credit and NDP, but for all intent and purposes it is in its deliberations a non-partisan school board, at the school board level.

I'd like to say, Mr. Chairman, that they are a very frustrated group of school trustees. I have never seen anything like it. I wonder to myself why they stick it out. I admire them for sticking it out. They've had all of the decision-making processes taken away from them. They are there only to administer dictums coming from the ministry, the minister's office and the government.

AN HON. MEMBER: Victims.

MR. LEA: It's worse than being victims. At least a victim can understand who's victimizing him. They are frustrated. They feel a sense of uselessness. They don't have any information to make decisions. They can't put their budgets together. It is a very serious situation. When the whole world is talking about decentralizing the decision-making process, about local decisions being made at the local level and about local decision-making groups having the authority to meet the desires and the needs of their neighbours at the local level, and it's being taking away, it is a frustrating emotional experience for those school trustees,

I know it's easy for the minister to point at a school board and say: "Well, it's all political, because they're all NDPers on that school board. It's a political reaction I'm getting out there." It is not a political reaction that the minister is getting out there. They are dedicated school trustees dedicated to bettering education in this province, and the tools for them to do their job have been taken away from them. They've been told: "We can't trust you" — not in those words, but the actions say that. They've been told that they're irresponsible.

For instance, in Prince Rupert, where you have probably the most inexperienced teaching staff in the province, the per capita cost of teachers is the lowest in the province because of the turnover. At the same time that they are faced with that, they have to face the costs of professional development because of the newness of the teachers in the system, and it's not there.

[ Page 5728 ]

1 think the minister would be well advised if he, even at this point, were to go into a system of consultation with the school trustees that is meaningful, were to at this time start giving them back some of the powers that they had, and in fact were to give them powers at the local level that they've never had before. It's needed.

I think that this government is going to be surprised when they find out how deep-rooted the desire in this province is for decentralization of government. I don't think they have any idea, but I think it's going to come back to haunt them as we go down the political road.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, I hadn't planned on speaking at this juncture, but something that the member for Prince Rupert mentioned sort of provoked and stimulated me, because he asked the question of the school boards: why do they stick it out? I've asked that question myself. As a matter of fact I've even offered some gratuitous advice that they shouldn't — that they should just give it all back to the ministry. All they're acting as right now is sort of local punching bags for all the ills, failures, controversy and dissent around a declining school system, one that's falling apart because of morale problems, class size problems and the rest of it.

But, while I've never said it publicly before, I think my advice would be wrong. I think they've got to stick it out, because I think they're the only board of any public body left in the province that's capable of supplying any kind of dissent. Dissent has been systematically removed from hospital boards. Dissent has been systematically removed from college boards. And now the local school boards are the only ones left that can speak up against some of the misguided invasions by this juggernaut of a government. So I think we owe them a great deal of gratitude for standing in there, for being scapegoated and browbeaten for all these months and years. And yes, if they can stand it till the sunset laws.... If they don't sunset before this sunset law, then I would think that they should be congratulated. They're the only ones left.

Do you hear any dissent out of the college boards? They're all appointed. Now the minister is going to get up and say: "Well, they were appointed before." At least half of their members were elected indirectly through the school boards. College cuts over the last three years, counting this year, will amount to roughly 43 percent. I'm not going to go into the college problem at this point, because I can speak long and perhaps loudly, and I think I am reasonably well informed about it, but that's not the point. The point is that throughout all this I have never heard from one college board. I've had school board delegations from all over the province — not necessarily, as the member for Prince Rupert mentioned, just members of my party. But I think they're as entitled to be on school boards and municipal councils as any other group of citizens. That's not the point.

It isn't a dark kind of plot, except to get rid of dissent. There's where your conspiracy is. It's nowhere else but there. Directive after directive after directive to people — they don't know where they are. Budget after budget after budget — they don't know where they are.

The member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) also asked a question — I believe it was last Monday or Tuesday — about what he should tell his board when he went to see them. My board is meeting tonight. They're meeting in a public meeting, because people are interested. They are coming out to school board meetings in droves all over — something like

150 or 200 in Nanaimo two weeks ago. I'd like to ask the minister what I should tell my board in terms of advice on how they should proceed, because we are in a virtual tanglefoot of misleading and contradictory legislation and directives.

Here's the problem. I know the Social Credit government wants larger classes, and I know they want to downsize education. They want teachers to be fired: that's their aim. They've got to cut it down to the 1976 levels. I think they're going to get the class size to 1972 levels, but that's only an estimate. Will the minister please tell the boards how they get around if a school board has to lay off teachers? They can't do it under the School Act, because there's no provision under the act for laying off teachers.

I want the minister to listen carefully to this. He may have heard this song before. You know the song; you also know the answer. You know it in every key, I suppose. They can't fire teachers, because there's no provision under the School Act. They can't do it under section 2 of the Public Sector Restraint Act or Bill 3, because the layoff has to be in accordance with the regulations, and after two years the government has failed to draft any regulations. So the school boards are in a little spot there. But the boards may have to fire teachers to meet the Education minister's budget target under the Education (Interim) Finance Act, but they may not have enough teachers on staff to comply with the Finance minister's directive.

I know this may sound somewhat confusing to the gallery — not only to the gallery; it sounds confusing to the boards. There is a Finance minister's directive of '86, so they may get hit with a fine with the government in a combined role of judge and jury and prosecution and executioner, and there is no provision for defence counsel under the Socred system. They may not be able to pay salary increments. If they do pay salary increments it could put them over budget, and if they don't then they are in violation of a contract with their own teachers.

Here we have it: a symphony of ad hockeries. It really is — a silly symphony. So what do you tell the boards? Here they've got a contract with their teachers. It's been approved, a raise has been approved by the Compensation Stabilization Commission, the celebrated Ed Peck. After going through all this stuff, spending a million and a half on arbitrations, we're told overnight, in the dead of night almost, that that no longer counts, and they have to come under some other kind of formula. It's all at public expense: SWAT teams, BRAT teams, arbitration board chairmen. If this were a work of fiction, it would be rejected by the publishers as being too farfetched, unrealistic.

Anyway, my board meets tonight. I know they have been one of the dissenting boards, but it wasn't just the New Democrats on those boards who were dissenting, everybody was — everybody, of all political stripes, from the right to the left; I might even say from the far right to the far left. I know that the minister has his views on this, but what are we going to tell them about this? What should we tell them to do tonight so they're not going to be in defiance of some particular provision, some kind of law? It seems to me an impenetrable jungle of laws, and the school boards have got to grapple with this at the same time they have to deal with a declining budget and, in some cases — notably Surrey's — an increasing enrolment.

If the minister can convince me and can clarify the matter for me, then I'll be able to phone the school board and tell

[ Page 5729 ]

them that the minister has given his word that this and this is the action that they should take to solve this particular problem. They know what actions they should take to solve their local problems, but they're forbidden by law to carry out those functions.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, the one item the member has raised with which I agree involves the matter of termination or layoff. I'm very much aware of that, and I have been in discussions with the B.C. School Trustees' Association executive. Some boards, as a matter of fact, have outlined in detail what they believe the difficulty to be. I have already advised the BCSTA that the appropriate measures will be introduced into the House, and I've so advised the superintendents at a meeting ten days or so ago. It's something which boards and their managers require, and I recognize it. What's really happening, from what I can understand, at least from the point of view of the managers, is that they are having some difficulty securing an exemption agreement. If they're not going to be able to enter into an exemption agreement under Bill 3, then they've got a problem because there's no provision under the School Act. So that matter has got to be addressed; and I want to advise you, Mr. Chairman, that it will be addressed, and soon.

MR. ROSE: Is the minister's reply to my next question likely to be "in due course, " if I ask for any details here?

[3:00]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: It's not a matter of "in due course." Why it has to be brought in is that for a school board that does not have an exemption agreement under Bill 3, there is now no provision to effect terminations if they are necessary. There's the additional problem that so many days' notice is required under the agreement; therefore it's incumbent upon government to bring in a correction as soon as possible — and I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, that that is the case — so that we can assist the board to manage that particular item.

MR. ROSE: Is it the minister's view that that will solve the problem? You can arrange it here by legislative termination, all right. It still fulfils the government's aims; it lets the school boards off the hook; but does it go beyond that? What about the situation where the school board, through controlling a budget and effectively terminating, falls below the particular formula for that district in terms of numbers of teachers and their per-teacher costs? If they don't, they could go under budget, break a contract; if they do the reverse, they go over budget and incur a deficit and risk the kind of punishment that was meted out to Delta.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The fundamental thrust of the Treasury Board directive was to preserve jobs for teachers at the low end of the scale. I felt that it was wrong that compensation increases should be made by boards if they did not have the ability to pay and then would end up laying off the young teachers, when in fact there's no need to cause that type of anxiety, particularly when government has been saying for months and months that there is not any money for wage increases for '85-86.

1 think it makes eminent sense to introduce to the compensation stabilization office two levels for the purposes of determining whether or not a board has the ability to pay increases. Number one is the ability to pay, and number two is the level of service which was determined, being the numbers which were appended to the schedule. If in fact the existing numbers are beneath that particular number, then I think that they ought to be comfortable; there are presumably no increases to be paid for the year. We know exactly where the compensation guidelines, which were amended some time ago, lay: that the ability to pay is paramount, and it takes into consideration both increments and wage increases.

MR. ROSE: The minister knows full well that he controls the ability to pay, because he puts the cap on salaries.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: On the budget.

MR. ROSE: It amounts to the same thing. He still begs the question. Why did the government allow the public to spend a million and a half bucks on arbitration, and why was the directive done through the Minister of Finance when the House wasn't even in session? It came through a directive rather than regulations, which could have been debated right here. It's the same kind of furtive behaviour that we've seen for two years.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: You know, I like to see the member get exercised about the fact of arbitration. You know as well as I do that arbitrations have been going on ad infinitum — for years and years. Arbitrations are voluntary, yet tell me.... I can never forget that when I first came into the ministry, there were so many agreements that could have been entered into voluntarily, but, no, they weren't prepared to do so. It was: "Go to arbitration; we might be able to get more by arbitration." Knowing full well that the CSP office is in place to review the arbitrated awards and knowing full well what the averages were, everybody was told to go to arbitration. Even the local teachers' associations that were prepared to enter into an agreement.... What happened to them? The directive comes from the BCTF. The executive says: "Go to arbitration." I read their whole campaign to you the other day — the unbargaining issues, the unbargaining year.

MR. ROSE: My final question is.... I've said that three times to the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea).

I wonder if the Minister of Education might enlighten the House on why the settlements on teachers are bound to 1 percent and 2 percent and the decisions take six months to come from Mr. Peck, when the CUPE settlements are around 3 percent to 5 percent and decisions are made on them in two weeks. If that has been the pattern, is that something that suggests that Mr. Peck and his commission are beyond arm's length of the government? Quite frankly, I don't believe it.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I honestly cannot respond to the comment with respect to if, in fact, it occurs with respect to the variation on CUPE contracts. I suspect there may have been a contract which was for perhaps two or three years, and that contract was put to bed. With respect to teachers, the CSP officer, Mr. Peck, told us in the two decisions that came from Howe Sound and Surrey.... They were decisions, not awards. He said: "I have to wait until after April 20 or up to May 1 so that I know the exact amount of money within school board budgets. It's then that I will know, not before." Do you know why he said that?

MR. ROSE: Ability to pay.

[ Page 5730 ]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: No. Ability to pay is part of it, but I'll tell you why I think he really said it. We thought that we would monitor some of the arbitration hearings, and it's done as a matter of course to hear the arguments which are being advanced from both sides. Items that constantly came up were the positions taken by the advocates on behalf of the teachers, which were: "Just a minute, don't...." They'll put in evidence indicating that there's more money coming: "You see what happened last year or the year before. They've made a change to the framework."

In accepting the recommendations coming from school districts, we made a number of changes over a period of a year and a half. They were good changes, something that they wanted. I agreed with them, and made the changes to make it a better system.

Some of those changes involved funding, so the CSP commissioner was really in a position to either accept or reject the argument advanced on the ability to pay. There were times when he said: "Just a minute now. The advocates before the arbitration panel are saying that more and more is coming. I'm going to wait until May 1" And that's his own decision.

MR. LEA: I guess when another question is asked in this discussion, it leads to more.

I'd just like to share something with the minister. He possibly already knows. The Prince Rupert School District put in a compliance budget. They were able to do that because they decided that in order to put in a compliance budget there were certain things that they wouldn't do this year. For instance, they're not going to replace any inventory in supplies; they're going to let their inventories run down, and they're not going to purchase any new books for the library system. They're going to make a compliance budget work by cutting down in those kinds of areas. They say: "I guess for a year we can get away with it. But next year what happens?" The percentage increases that are going to have to be there to bring it back to standard are going to be incredible. Then the finger is going to be pointed at them. But the only way that they're able to reach a compliance budget is to make those kinds of shifts and those kinds of cuts.

Following up on what the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose) said, when the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) issued his directive in terms of education, he said: "There will be no pay raise for teachers in 1985-86 because we are not going to allow the system to deteriorate" — if the teachers take no raise, the implication being that the same amount of teachers could be in the system next year as were in the system last year or this year. What I'd like to ask the minister is: now that the teachers' wages have been frozen — the implication being in the directive from the Minister of Finance that if that were done there wouldn't have to be any terminations — why does the minister have to bring in an amendment to this House to make it possible to fire teachers? It doesn't make sense.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The statement which I believe the member for Prince Rupert refers to, I don't think, is quite accurate, because the Minister of Finance said in his press release, as well as at the press conference when he announced the Treasury Board directive, that this does not mean to say that there will not be some layoffs. I can remember reading that in the press release.

The reason that there has to be an amendment brought in to accommodate layoffs, certainly for some school districts, is that there is no vehicle now. Now it may very well be that they are going to be okay in Prince Rupert. I noticed when I was there that they were the envy of all the school districts across the northern line because they had so much money in their surplus account that they could roll over and push in.

MR. LEA: I guess they wish they hadn't now.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Why? They've taken it to full advantage. As a matter of fact they were pleased and ought to be complimented for being able to build up that kind of reserve, and they were pleased that we as a government agreed to allow school districts to roll surpluses forward from year to year to reward good management. It involved provincewide, depending on the year, anywhere between $10 million and $25 million a year. That's a fair amount of money.

It certainly became very evident during the fiscal year 1984, and it also became quite evident in helping the school boards during the transition period of January to June 1985. As a result of allowing the surpluses to roll, it eliminated in almost all cases disruption over Christmas. It seems to me that there are some advantages in that area.

So it may not, as far as any right to require termination is concerned, be required in your school district, but it certainly is required in a number of others. I am responding in this case to a request being made by the BCSTA, the Association of British Columbia School Superintendents and the British Columbia School District Secretary-Treasurers' Association. It seems to me that when I receive a message like that from three bodies, all involved with school boards one way or another, I've got to listen to what they are saying and provide them with the vehicle which they need.

[Mr. R. Fraser in the chair.]

MR. LEA: I read an editorial not long ago talking about restraint. It said there are two ways to deal with restraint: the correct way and the incorrect way. The correct way is to go out and consult and talk with all the user groups, and to find out what their priorities are; you put teams in the field and you do it in a consultative way. That's the proper way. It said the improper way is to take 5 percent across the board from everybody. The editorial ended up saying: "...and I'm in favour of the improper way."

[3:15]

Having watched this government's experience with the way they've tried to do it, I think maybe the government would go along with the editorialist at this point. Probably everybody and every budget could have found 5 percent of fat that could have been cut out of the system with no problem. Probably everybody could have done that, and it could have been done that way if the government hadn't wanted to make brownie points with the restraint program. If they had just wanted to achieve a purpose, it could have been done.

There are people's reputations that I believe have been ruined over this government's ineptitude in dealing with restraint. I think you would hardly find anyone in the province who doesn't believe that there had to be some restraint measures put into government. With less revenues coming into the province it's obvious that you have to reassess your spending. But the way the government has done it has created nothing but havoc in this province. I would say

[ Page 5731 ]

that this minister's reputation as a Minister of Education has been thoroughly ruined. Any respect that he may have enjoyed from school trustees or teachers has been lost forever, and I strong suspect that the minister himself knows it has been a disastrous, stupid way to deal with the educational system. I believe that no one can go through this kind of exercise and come out of it thinking it was done the proper way. It has been unthinking, unfeeling and detrimental to education.

You see, the government first felt that as long as they kept the attack on the teachers, everything would be all right. We have to be honest. We know that the feeling out there against teachers isn't great. It's very difficult for people who have lost their jobs to run into somebody who is making $40,000, $60,000 or $70,000 a year and not have a very human thing happen to them: they resent it, especially when it's taxpayers' money. That's a fact. But to take advantage of that resentment is immoral, and that's what this government has tried to do.

The fact is that in this budget the major grants from the provincial government to school districts have decreased by $25 million, not including inflation. If you take a look at those cute little accountant entries in vote 19, you can be led to believe otherwise, but I've had professional accountants look at it. It's cute, but it's bull; the $10 off one and added to another to make the totals look different is cute, but nothing more. There's $25 million less — not including inflation — going into the school system this year. Do you agree with that?

Interjection.

MR. LEA: That's right. Mind you, the casual observer reading vote 19, without knowing the cute little accountant's trick, would actually have thought there was an increase, and it was sent out all over the province. It's a cute little accountant's trick employed by the people's representatives to fool the people who pay the bills. That's the immorality of it.

Mr. Chairman, if there is one driving fuel that will take us into a better economy, it is education. I believe that small business is the engine that will take us into a better economy, but the fuel in that engine will be education. This government has shown a wanton disregard for that fact. They have played nothing but politics with education, taking advantage of bigotry and prejudice, always present in any society, and they've taken advantage of it politically. They have not led us in practical terms, economically or in education, and they have let us down morally in terms of political leadership. That is the heritage.

I don't know what a cabinet minister makes these days over and above a private member's wages, but I'd like to know what amount is worth sticking it out in a cabinet that has done what this government has done to education. What is, as they say, the bottom line? When do you pull your morality together? When do you look in the mirror and say: "I will not preside over this kind of destruction. I will not preside over a system that's going to leave children in a disadvantaged position in terms of making a living in the future and being good citizens and taking part in the decision-making of a democracy. I will not preside over it"?

Everybody who took part in the decisions to use bigotry and prejudice to make political points over education should hang their heads in shame. That's what this government has done, and the people who are resigning from education because of it should be held up as models of citizenry in this province. It goes beyond whether you're left, right, centre. We're talking about the future of our province and the future of our children, and to preside over the destruction of it for political brownie points is a little bit more than you should have to do for the kind of bucks you get paid to hold the job.

Mr. Chairman, I know that another cabinet minister who is involved with education has already gone to the Premier and offered his resignation over what this government is doing, and he was talked out of it. We know that. I know it's true. Members on the other side of the House know it's true, but they'll deny it. I can't prove it, but it's true. And I believe that this minister, if he cared about the duties that he's taken on on behalf of the citizens of this province, would be the one person in education who should say: "I object. I will not take part in it. I resign. It's not that important to me personally that I be a cabinet minister."

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Well, Mr. Chairman, I suppose it would be nice to let go with remarks of equal force from this side. Perhaps I ought to point out to the member exactly what happened in 1982 and 1983 — just a pro rata reduction of school budgets. It didn't hurt the people that had huge declining enrolments at all.

We found that some boards in the lower mainland.... What did we find? Precipitous drops in enrolment. They could turn around and take 5 percent off, and it wouldn't hurt them. But what about all the other school districts in the province whose enrolment had reached a plateau? What about those that had an increase in enrolment? Perhaps the member conveniently forgets the clarion call that was made to me when I first came into the portfolio, a call to bring some equity into financing of school districts. That's exactly what they told me. I tell you, that probably came from Prince Rupert. What's the PTR in Prince Rupert — 16.22? I wonder if the member's had a look at....

MR. LEA: That's because you're taking in the Indian villages. That's a false statistic.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: You had your chance. You just sit down and shut up.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, let me tell you, the Indians are part of the school system. The funding which comes in — journal entry — goes to the district. Let me tell you, you're talking about $25 million down. You're correct when you say $25 million. But you talk about morality. How about you conveniently forgetting about the decline in enrolment in the province?

MR. LEA: Why did you try to cover it up in vote 19?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: It's not covered up. I'll tell you.... Mr. Chairman, I listened to the member, and I don't recall interjecting once.

Do you know why the revenues are up and the Education vote is up? It's because we as a government decided to take away, over a two-year period, the impost on property taxation with respect to industry and commerce — in particular, machinery and equipment tax. That's the lion's share of the increase. I don't know whether or not.... You know, the member's spots have changed. When he was sitting right over here as a member of the opposition party, I remember the

[ Page 5732 ]

comments that he made with respect to the government paying more towards public education.

MR. LEA: That's not true.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Do you agree that we shouldn't be paying more?

MR. LEA: You don't even know what I said.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: You support....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the members please refrain from commenting while the minister is speaking.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: So here we are, Mr. Chairman, taking off the backs of industry and commerce something which the school trustees have been advocating for years and years — that is, the machinery and equipment tax, which is an inequitable tax. It's an immoral tax. It should be paid, and it is going to be paid, by the provincial government. That's the reason the budgets are up.

I want to go back to the point about arbitrary decreases. What happened? If you recall, in 1982 there was restraint. In 1983 there was another pro rata reduction. You ought to have heard the squealing from the boards, and rightfully so, because many of those boards didn't suffer the pain of it at all. In addition to that, there were the surpluses we permitted to be rolled forward to reward good management. We introduced a system for funding which would bring equity throughout the districts. You can't do it overnight. It takes some time. It's taken three fiscal years, albeit one of those fiscal years is a short one.

I have one concluding comment. It is never easy to bring changes into a system which is as large and as complex as that of funding public schools. It's never easy, and there will obviously be some resistance. But I was encouraged by the responses I had from those people who were charged with the administration — and, I might add, management, because there's a great deal of difference between the two.

The only concluding comment I would make now is with respect to Prince Rupert. I think the member made reference to a reduction in budget with inflation not taken into consideration. I can tell you that for the school years starting after 1981 — and that was in those days of a fiscal year being a calendar year — the increase on a per student basis in the Prince Rupert School District is 25.1 percent. So it seems to me that we have taken into consideration the inflationary spiral which was occurring. We certainly took it into consideration with the average teacher's salary in the district, and we certainly took it into consideration with maintenance and operation, because there's an inflation index built right in. So when we take a three-year rolling average, we go to the.... We take years one and two, which are by this time audited. The third year is budgeted. We increase the audited by the inflation index for years one and two, and then take the average. Those are two components looking after inflation; hence it was 25.1 percent over that period of time.

[3:30]

MR. MacWILLIAM: Due to the fact that I did have a few questions remaining from, I guess, last Thursday, when I last was on the floor discussing the debates on education, I wanted to bring to light a few of what I consider very important points.

But before I get to that, I found the previous discussion most stimulating and most interesting, and I think the discussion highlighted a number of very critical facts. Mr. Chairman, the minister talks about collective bargaining, about freedom of arbitration, about ability to pay and about establishing educational priorities. And yet what we've seen here is that the minister has all the control. He controls all the purse strings. He controls all the power. He emasculated the power of the school board. You've taken away, through the confiscation of the industrial and commercial tax base, the ability to control finances. You've got all the control, and yet you're asking the boards — both college boards and school boards — to do your dirty work on the front line. I think it's unfair, and of course it's totally unreasonable. It just demonstrates the further centralization and further confiscation of power that has been a guiding principle this government has demonstrated time after time. Certainly in terms of education those principles are well highlighted.

Mr. Minister, the critical matter here is not a numbers-juggling game at all. It's the fact that your program is squeezing the lifeblood out of education in this province, both at the secondary school level and at the post-secondary and college levels. You've got all the power, you've got all the control, and you're asking somebody else to do your dirty work for you.

I do want to go on to some specifics — because I didn't get a chance to talk on it the other day — in terms of the college issue. The minister and I were talking the other day, and we both recognized the fact that Okanagan College, as a decentralized campus, does incur extra costs above and beyond what some of the other colleges incur. We recognized the fact that there has been some solution in terms of the funding shortage. Last fall it was $2 million short. There has been some money reallocated. I think they're about $1.3 million or $1.4 million short.

In relative terms of what's happened in post-secondary education, Okanagan College is not badly off, when you look at the figures for some of the others. It's not bad off, and I'll concede that fact. But I want to highlight just what the effects have been in Okanagan College, which is an institution that is not badly off in those terms. Let me show you what is happening in terms of what the budget reduction will cause. This is out of a recent article in the Vernon Daily News. It highlights the exact effect of cuts.

"Kalamalka Centre" — which is, of course, the Vernon centre of Okanagan College — "is facing a reduction of four instructional staff and the elimination of four courses in the coming year. In the second draft of Okanagan College's 1985-86 budget, to help cope with a $1.4 million shortfall, a total of 11 positions college-wide have been eliminated, with four jobs in Kelowna, two in Salmon Arm and one in Penticton also chopped. The job cuts in Vernon include one biology instructor, one sociology instructor, one music instructor and one German instructor. The sociology, German and music programs will be eliminated...while the biology program will continue in a diminished capacity, with second-year course offerings going by the wayside."

Reduced educational opportunity is the only consequence of those cuts.

[ Page 5733 ]

"The elimination of the biology instructor will also mean the centre's second-year chemistry offering will be discontinued."

Second-year courses in the sciences are down the tube, Mr. Minister. In Salmon Arm, a psychology instructor and one counsellor are eliminated. In Kelowna, staff members will be cut from the audio-visual department, from the library and from early childhood education, and also in the area of geography.

Okanagan College students in the coming year face a further 15 percent increase in their tuition fees. May I remind the minister that last year they had a 30 percent to 35 percent increase, and this is an extra 15 percent tacked on.

What is happening to the cost of education in this province? It's going sky-high, while the minister and the rest of the cabinet are saying: "We have to toe the line on costs. We have to toe the line on the budget." Yet they don't give a darn about what the student has to face in terms of getting himself an educational opportunity in the province of British Columbia. It's absolutely disgraceful. University transfer students will be paying about $800 for a two-semester year, which, according to the college vice-principal, may be a major factor in students attending other post-secondary institutions elsewhere, namely Alberta. They're going elsewhere.

In the concluding remarks here it says: "'We have cut almost $4 million out of our budget over the last two years. Another reduction, and we'll be in very difficult waters.' If the college is forced by provincial government restraint edicts to cut any more from the 1985 operating budget...it is unlikely all campuses can be kept open." Again, there's the portent of the closure of campuses throughout the province. If we close those campuses, we're going to compromise — in fact deny — the essence of the community college concept, which is to get those programs out and into the communities throughout British Columbia. And we're going to deny the students in the interior of this province, who already face only a 40 percent opportunity, compared to a student on the coast, for a post-secondary education.... We're going to further deny those students the right to and the privilege of a post-secondary education.

I want to point to some very specific questions again for the minister, and then I'll conclude and sit down and let him respond. The other day the minister confirmed that he was going to reappoint those members of the college board. If I can refresh the minister's memory on that, the commitment he gave in terms of a time-line was "soon." I believe he said "very soon." However, I took these statements back to members of the college community, and they're rather disappointed that a definite date has not been set, so I've been asked to request of you again: do you have a date, a time-line? Give me a day when those vacancies will be refilled. I want to point out, Mr. Minister, that the vacancies in the North Okanagan community — Vernon and Lumby — have been sitting there since last fall. The college has critical decisions to make and wishes to have proper representation from those communities. When will those decisions be made?

Secondly — and this is not in terms of Okanagan College, but is a concern with colleges in general — it's my understanding that the Minister of Education's plans for the coalition or the amalgamation of the British Columbia Institute of Technology and PVI.... I might remind the House that they are two of the largest institutes in British Columbia. I think there are some questions that remain to be answered with regard to this proposed possible amalgamation. One question is: have the boards of either of these institutes in fact been consulted? Another question: have the students in these institutes been consulted? Have the instructors of these institutes been consulted? What, Mr. Minister, are the reasons behind the amalgamation? Perhaps you could expand on those questions for me.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, the comment with respect to tuition....
It's always a sensitive one. But it seems to me that last week — and I don't have them with me.... The dollar equivalent which is being paid for tuition in post-secondary, in constant dollars, is less than it was in 1971. I recognize that there are increases and that boards have budgets to meet; I do recognize it. And I recognize in some cases that it may cause, and probably has caused, some hardship in some areas; I'm not disputing that. But I think we've got to be realistic as well and have a look at what the real dollar cost is. It seems to me that $400 per semester, or $800 for the full year.... For some it may be an unreasonable amount; for others, and I think probably for the vast majority, it's an acceptable sum.

Everybody would like to pay less. I don't know about you, but I remember when I was going to post-secondary that the amount of my tuition was roughly 25 percent of the total cost of going to school. Now, from my own experience, as a matter of fact, with my own family, and of course with all of their friends who are in post-secondary as well, I have an idea of what it does cost. So while the tuition issue is a sensitive one — and I accept the comments you've made — I don't think it's totally unrealistic.

You were kind enough to mention that Okanagan College is not doing too badly. One of the reasons why the budget is the way it is is to accommodate the satellite campuses which you so eloquently advance. I also recall that the administration of Okanagan College took a position — it seems to me it was a while ago — with respect to productivity and insisted they wanted more hours of instruction from their staff. I think they increased the number of hours. I don't know if it was by very much — perhaps an hour or an hour and a half per week. It was available.

As for the courses, I don't have any immediate knowledge, other than what you have advanced, of the courses in that particular college that have been eliminated. But I do know from my experience in my riding that the courses which the college decided to drop were primarily the result of decreasing demand, even while enrolment is either plateauing or could be going up. The fact is that there was a decrease in demand for some of those courses.

With respect to BCIT and PVI, those matters are under consideration, and I'm really not in a position now other than to be candid with you and say we do look at any number of possibilities.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Whom will you consult?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: It would be safe to draw a conclusion that with the numbers involved we must take into consideration the interests of all of those who participate. I think that would be fair comment. It would be only natural that we would.

[ Page 5734 ]

1 cannot give the member for Okanagan North (Mr. MacWilliam) a date as to when the board appointments will be made, but I assure you that I will be making those appointments, the sooner the better, and put it to rest.

With respect to your opening comments involving the erosion of autonomy, I recognize what you're saying. Part of what you're saying is true. But I conceded that with my opening comments. I concede that capping budgets eroded autonomy. I think the only defence which I have is to tell you that it was done with a very good reason in mind. I am as hopeful as everyone else that when we come out of the school year 1985-86 these problems will all have been put to rest.

[3:45]

It's fine to get wound up about the non-residential tax base. While it may affect the sensitivities of some members on both sides of the House because of the tax bases which they have in their ridings, not all ridings in British Columbia are so blessed. The object of the game was to spread some degree of equity.

I'm sure the member must agree with the reduction and the ultimate removal of machinery and equipment tax for the purposes of raising school taxes, and that those funds be paid out of consolidated revenue.

MR. STUPICH: There have been some expressions of confidence in the minister, both inside the House and out, that he's really trying to do a good job with the material that he has to work with. I wish I could share that confidence. I can recall one government minister, going back a long time — I wasn't in the House at the time — who felt so upset about government legislation that he was asked to bring in in his capacity as Minister of Labour.... He was the member representing Nanaimo at that time, George S. Pearson. He was so concerned about legislation that was being brought in that he refused to bring it in. Someone else had to bring it in.

I get no feeling that the minister is doing anything other than completely supporting everything he is doing to education, Mr. Chairman; no feeling that he is in the least concerned about the fact that he isn't able to do much more. In every case, when he's asked a question, there's no suggestion that he would like to be able to do something better; he's only doing what he believes to be the right thing to do under the circumstances.

Mr. Chairman, we're in a year when the estimated expenditure for government in total exceeds those for the previous year by 14 percent. That's restraint.

I'll just read from the estimates — and it takes a little bit of explanation, Mr. Minister. The total expenditures estimated for the year 1984-85 in the estimates that were tabled in the House just a few weeks ago were actually $8.39 billion. But included in that was an item of $470 million that was not there when the estimates were presented in the House a year ago. It's not money that was spent; it was a shuffle of paper. It did not affect, in any way at all, the government's ability to finance services of any kind.

So the total estimated expenditure — going back to last year's estimates, and there may have been some minor changes — is really $7.92 billion. The figure this year is $9.056 billion, an increase of $1.1 billion, which works out to 14 percent. That $470 million was a one-shot deal; it was simply a paper shuffle. As I say, it didn't affect the government's ability to finance anything. If you relate the government ministry expenditures from one year to the next, we find an increase of 14 percent. Yet if we look at the Ministry of Education, Mr. Chairman, we find that it has decreased by 1 percent. Total government expenditures went up 14 percent; total Ministry of Education expenditures went down 1 percent. That also requires a little bit of explanation.

If we look at the estimates for the year 1984-85 in this same book — we're now on page 65 — we see that they add up to $1,355,930,889. But that's a net figure, after having deducted recoveries, of some $663 million. So in fact the gross expenditures by the Education ministry — the gross dollars that the minister had to work with — were $2,018,600,000.

Using the same figures for this year, we see that the minister is spending the figure that's in the book, $1.428 billion, which has been reduced by $576 million of recoveries, so in fact he's spending $2.004 billion. In total that is the gross expenditure that the minister has control of in Education. The total has gone down by $18 million, which is approximately 1 percent of the total expenditure. So it's less money than he had to work with a year ago.

If there were that much less need for education in the province, then I suppose the minister would justify it. He may even try to justify it. He may even try to argue with my figures. If he does, I would welcome that.

But I'd like to take it from another point of view. The minister said in his remarks a few days ago that his real objective was to return authority to the school boards. That certainly ties in with what his party was saying some nine years ago.

I have an ad I can show him. I'm sure he'll remember it: "Bill Bennett's Way." We're now talking about education. "Better education for our children through policies set by local school boards" — Mr. Chairman, that was the message.

This is from a leaflet entitled: "Get B.C. Moving Again." It says: "Restore control of education to local school boards, teachers and the family. The centralist trend in education should be turned around and the classroom teacher should be assured security" — Mr. Chairman, what security do they have now? — "and freedom to develop a learning climate in the schools, and the government should give financial support to alternative systems of education" — they've done that — "which can be developed in cooperation with local school trustees under the leadership of the Department of Education."

Mr. Chairman, not just this minister but every minister preceding him since the Social Credit government was elected in December 1975 has systematically been reducing the authority of local school boards. So at the present time the only authority they have is to say yes to the minister, or to resign, or to invite him to fire them. Those are really the only initiatives they have left. The minister has complete control of everything that is being done at the local school board level — complete control of what they're teaching, complete control of what they're paying.

If they go through the process — and the lengthy process of arbitration has been talked about before — then go through everything else and get to the point where finally an award comes down and teachers are awarded an increase of 1.2 percent or 2.1 percent — whatever.... Then the government refers it to the Peck commission, and the Peck commission says no increase. No, I think the Peck commission awarded an increase in some areas. That being done, the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) then says.... I'm not sure whether he consulted the Minister of Education. The Minister of Education did say that he saw a copy of the

[ Page 5735 ]

release, which some of the school boards waited quite some time to see. But the Minister of Finance says, "Even if after all that process there still is something in there for a salary increase, you're not going to get it unless you're prepared to pay the price," and it's a pretty high price for the school boards to pay.

When is this process of restoring going to start? I think I told the story previously — it's an old one — about the person in the insane asylum knocking his head against the wall. When he was asked why, he said: "Because it feels so good when I stop." The minister is determined to take away every vestige of authority that school boards have so that he can give a little bit back and say he's restoring their authority. Is that what he means? Is his long-term objective to return authority to the school boards? He's taken away a significant part — perhaps the larger part — of their authority to raise money at the local level. That has been done; I'm not sure whether he did it or his predecessor did it, but the government has certainly done it. He's taken control of everything they're doing, telling them how many people they may hire, how many they may fire, and how they are to go about doing it. Legislation is introduced so that they can fire them.

What authority do they now have left, other than the three options that I mentioned? When does the minister intend to start on the road back to restoring authority to the local school boards? What authority does he want them to have, what options? Does he want them to listen to the local teachers, the local parents? What about the college councils?

Mr. Chairman, I took part in the very first campaign in Nanaimo, before Malaspina College was ever launched. The first campaign was a plebiscite, simply asking people in the area whether they wanted one. The college system was very new in British Columbia at that time. We had to send delegations out to other areas to find out what it was all about. B.C. did not get involved in the construction of colleges such as Malaspina College until we got precious near the time when federal government grants for that purpose were running out. It was only because we stood in danger of losing that federal money coming back to B.C. that the government, led by W.A.C. Bennett, started constructing colleges all around the province. We were the last to get going at it, but at least we did get started; that's true. I campaigned in favour of that plebiscite. It wasn't a hard thing to do. The ratepayers weren't being asked to spend any money. They were simply saying: "What do you think of the idea? Would you like to have one?"

Nanaimo took it seriously, and committees were established to travel to other provinces, in particular Ontario, and to the United States, in particular California. Every report that came back included the same message: the importance of the college relating to the needs and the desires of the community that it was serving. That was the message. We had to be sure that every college was distinctive to that particular area; that it was designed to meet the needs of the people in that area. That's the way the college system in British Columbia did develop. It's certainly the way the college system developed in Malaspina College, and it's still trying awfully hard to maintain that, in spite of the difficulties imposed upon it by this Social Credit administration and by this minister. I've not heard him dissociate himself in the slightest from what's happening with respect to the complete control of colleges, and in particular, in my instance, Malaspina College.

We talked before about the members of the college councils. I'd like to talk about it from another point of view. There's this argument as to whether they were all elected or all appointed, and it was a halfway thing. Some were appointed and some were selected by school boards from among elected members; so it was a mishmash, but at least there was that local involvement. At the local level people had an opportunity to vote for members, some of whom became members of the college council. That opportunity is gone completely. The government chose to name every member of college councils.

I can recall when the Hon. Pat McGeer was the minister responsible for college councils. One of the first things he did on assuming office was to make sure that every member of every college board throughout the province.... Every member who couldn't produce a current paid-up membership card in the Social Credit Party was out. It happened in Nanaimo. When I asked the minister about it....

Interjections.

MR. STUPICH: I'm talking about appointed members.

I asked the Minister of Education at that time, the Hon. Pat McGeer, about this policy. Instead of defending it or denying that it was going on, as somebody is doing down there, he admitted it. He said: "But you did the same thing." Even if we had done the same thing, that would not have been good enough. Besides, Mr. Chairman, it wasn't true. The others can speak for their own areas. From the day we first formed the government until the day we left, Malaspina College kept the same members except for two people who resigned, one for health reasons and another who moved away from the area. We did replace them with appointments, and we did pick people from the community, and we did check with the local college council to see what they thought about these appointees. I kept in touch with that college council. They were satisfied with the people who were on the board, and asked me not to make any changes. We made no changes, Mr. Chairman — none at all.

Mr. Chairman, I wish the minister would stand up and give this kind of speech in favour of the ministry that he's heading, and say that he would like to do better and that it's simply because of the bad times we're in that he isn't able to do it.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to quarrel with the figures which have been advanced out of the blue book, because I haven't really had an opportunity to go back and look at '84-85. However, I think it would suffice to say that there has been a drop in enrolment of about 6,000 last year and probably another 1,500 or so this year, and that translates into something in the order of about $25 million.

[4:00]

Now the other point is this. With respect to the comment that school boards allegedly have nothing left to do, my comment is this. I think that we have gone through a very difficult period in British Columbia's economic history. I will tell you that it has been difficult, very difficult. The comment was made: "Well, certainly you could at least say you're going to do more." I'm not going to make statements like this which are going to perhaps put false expectations in the hearts of many. I'm going to level with them and tell them exactly how I see it.

[ Page 5736 ]

Now we've gone through.... And the member for Nanaimo, being the former Minister of Finance, knows as well as anyone about the ravages of a recession and the impact that it has had upon the revenues coming to the provincial government, particularly in the resource area and particularly with respect to the export market.

Now as far as colleges are concerned, I checked last week, and asked if somebody could give me the exact numbers involved with respect to direction from the provincial government and how much of it is really locally inspired as far as courses are concerned. I'm told — and was given these figures — that on average about 34 percent from the provincial government.... I thought it was higher; I thought it was somewhere around 40 percent. But they tell me that around 34 percent is what is directed to each of the colleges on certain programs which it is mandatory to deliver, and the others are the result of programs which the colleges themselves sponsor.

Now you made reference to the previous councils. I don't know, Mr. Chairman, if the member meant to say "boards." But I want to be clear on this. No reference was being made to the management, academic or occupational councils which we eliminated. With respect to the college boards and the composition of the boards, it is now — and it is no secret — by government appointment. I would think that all the people who are on those boards are people who have demonstrated a commitment to their community. Now if the member is suggesting to me that they are to be members of the opposition who are to be appointed to the boards, then I want him to say that.

One item which came up, and has come up often, is whether or not people ought to be elected to college boards. I could find no precedent for that. I requested....

AN HON. MEMBER: So what?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: You know, sometimes we can rely, surely.... The member for Nanaimo makes reference to the fact that before Malaspina got off the ground there were groups of people who went to Ontario. Why did they go to Ontario? They wanted to find out, I guess, how a particular college got started and how it was operated. Did they find out whether or not in that province...? I can't say for sure, but I suspect that all members on those boards are appointed and don't come from school boards. I have yet to find anybody coming to me with evidence that would refute the statement which I just made that the appointments to college boards, both in our country and in the U.S., are appointed — other than student representation.

I think the amount of money which has gone into education, after you take into consideration the reduction in school enrolment, is pretty well the same as it has been for the last three years. I think that's about all I can say on that.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Chairman, the minister defends the reduction in spending by relating it to a drop in enrolment.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The minister and the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) will come to order. Order!

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Chairman, I think the minister himself would agree that the policies that he and his predecessors have imposed have cut the enrolment in colleges; certainly not in the public school system, other than for the transfer to the private school system, which again is deliberate government policy, there's no question about that.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Are you against independent schools?

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Chairman, I was asked that question 36 years ago, I guess almost before the minister was born, and I gave the same answer then as I'm going to give now: I'm not against independent schools; I am against public money going into independent schools. But it's not my estimates that are being considered right now, Mr. Chairman; it's supposed to be those of the Minister of Education.

He has brought about some of the drop in enrolment, but he also helped bring about — and it's evolved over the last two years — an increase in enrolment; not a net increase, but an increase by the transfer from other institutions into the school system. Children with learning disabilities, mental or physical, are now part of the school system. They require special attention.

I've been saying this for many years as well, Mr. Chairman, and I said it during the last campaign when I talked about the importance of maintaining the level of education in this province. It's not good enough to say that the pupil-teacher ratio — and I think the minister said this — is much the same now as it was in 1976. While the pupil-teacher ratio may be the same as it was in 1976, it's more difficult now because of the inclusion in the system of students who need special attention. They're not getting it, unfortunately. It may be that they're particularly gifted and are not getting the special attention — we'll all pay for that ultimately — or that they need some special assistance to maintain any level of education, and they're not getting that; that, too, is a cost that we'll be bearing for decades to come. The harm that has been done over the last three years is going to be with us for generations, Mr. Chairman.

So to say that the money is being reduced as the pupil population is reduced — knowing all the time that he's part of the reason that that is being reduced, and knowing also that while the total number may be going down there are added problems in there because of these extra students that are part of the system now — is really not an answer to the question of why the minister accepted.... Maybe he did fight; maybe he's just not willing to tell us. He wasn't here when the NDP were in administration. It was nothing new for NDP ministers to be talking about what other ministers were doing, even on the floor of the House. If we felt something we said it. Certainly there were things we didn't say, but there were things that we were quite prepared to say publicly, either here or outside. But that hasn't happened since 1975.

The minister says that we're obliged to follow this course of action because of the poor economy. Well, who brought about the poor economy? Remember, the first deficit budget in the history of British Columbia since 1951 was brought in by this government on July 7, 1983. After they were re-elected in May 1983, they brought to B.C. the first deficit budget in 34 years. That's a real accomplishment for a party that campaigned and said they would not borrow to buy groceries. They then proceeded to make sure that the economy would get worse.

[ Page 5737 ]

But even if that was completely beyond their control, may I submit to the minister that one of the most important services to maintain when the economy is down is education. The minister himself.... I have quotations from many sources, trying to impress upon people that if the economy is ever to grow, whether it's a poor economy or a good economy, then we must have quality education in this province. We don't have cheap labour to sell, but we could have qualified people who would be available to do research and development work. The high-tech industries that might be attracted to the Philippines because they have cheap labour aren't going to come to B.C. for that reason. But they could come here if we had quality education available in the quantity necessary to train our people to work in that kind of industry. We're not going to get it if we destroy our educational system.

But even beyond that, when I was talking about the college system I said that it was intended to serve the needs of communities — not just to suit the economic activities that were going on in those areas but also to serve the needs of the people in those areas, including the need that some people have to further their education. It may not be for economic reasons. It may simply be that mentally they need some exercise, and the college system did provide that through campuses like Malaspina College and the satellite campuses that Malaspina had and is struggling to maintain. Those kinds of opportunities are more important in times when so many people are unemployed or on social assistance and are losing hope. If they had opportunities to take more and more courses at places like colleges, then that would at least give them some confidence in the future and would give them something to think about other than their dire straits, the circumstances in which they find themselves at that time.

Mr. Chairman, the college system was a tremendous development. The minister didn't understand why we sent delegations to Ontario. It was because their college system had been developed much earlier than ours, and we were able to learn something by what was happening in another jurisdiction. It was the same with California: we went to learn. I don't know whether the college boards were appointed or elected in those areas, or how they were done.

The minister said he could find no precedent for the kind of college boards we had here, where they were made up in part of elected members. Well, we had the precedent right here in B.C. Until they changed that, the system was here. The school board members were elected and from among them members were selected to go to the colleges. The system was working and I heard no criticism of it, and yet it was changed. One effect of that change was completely to remove from the local people that level of authority. They had no authority after that. The authority is completely in the hands of the Social Credit members who happen to be on these college councils. Mr. Chairman, I don't see that that's any improvement, and I ask the minister why it was changed. He didn't have to go outside B.C. to see a precedent. He could see it right here.

The economy is poor in British Columbia. We are able to spend a total of 14 percent more for other activities; we are spending 1 percent less for education. That isn't good enough in British Columbia. I've tried to give some of the reasons why I think it's important to spend more. I appreciate that you don't solve a problem simply by throwing dollars at it, but I wish the minister would set about.... This is something he didn't mention: just when he intends to start giving back to the local school boards some of the authority they have. And how far does he see this going? How far would he like it to go?

He didn't have to take away from the boards all of the authority they had. He and his treasury board and the government have the authority to limit the amount of money that they are offering to the school board. They could cut back on that, as they have done. They've cut back on the grants going to the local school boards. They might well have gone further with that had they really wanted to. But did they have to tell the school boards how to spend it? Could they not leave it up to the school boards?

Certainly when this was happening two years ago the plea from the school boards was: let us spend the money that you're prepared to give us to deliver education. If we feel that within the limits of the money you're making available to us we can do any innovation, continue the Steps to Maturity program that was developed in Nanaimo, for example; if we believe it's important to maintain library services in our area at a higher level than we are able to maintain them; if we feel it’s important to do things like that and let other things go by the way, as long as we are able to maintain certain standards in certain areas.... I admit the minister's responsibility to make sure that they do. It's not just his authority, but he has a responsibility. But as long as they were prepared to live within those limits, why could he not have let the school boards continue running their own business and even have given them the authority to spend more money if they were prepared to raise the mill rate for school purposes in their districts and then face their electors come election time?

This government raises taxes every year. It never goes to a referendum to ask whether or not it should do that. It determines what the needs are and then votes in this House. Mr. Chairman, why do we have to interfere so much with school boards? They are elected members as well. Why not let them run their business, as long as they are prepared to maintain certain standards in certain areas, and as long as the government has the authority — and certainly it has — to limit the amount of money that it's going to provide for those purposes in those areas?

[4:15]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I would like to answer briefly half a dozen questions which have been raised by the member. First of all, I think we must go back and look at the history of the development of regional colleges in British Columbia.

The first point is that school districts were used as a vehicle for the purposes of raising operating capital. Then they were used also to provide facilities. We know those two events came to pass. So school boards at one time were intimately involved in the development of colleges — one, operating capital; two, facilities. I think it was only right and proper because of that that they ought to have some representation on a college board.

With the passage of time something happened. Funding for colleges became a senior government responsibility — that is, the provincial government. Yes, funding is advanced by the federal government under post-secondary education. It comes within the envelope, and under agreement is allocated by the recipient province. Coupled with that, I was of the view that school trustees — and I think everyone will admit this in view of the new funding system which was introduced — had a great deal of work to do. In addition, if

[ Page 5738 ]

there is to be a liaison of one kind or another between a school district and a college board, there's ample opportunity for that liaison to exist. It doesn't have to come from an elected school trustee or someone appointed by a school board to sit on a college board. Both were being done.

I think the resolution to that issue was something which I found existed in the lower mainland, and does now, with Pacific Vocational Institute and the liaison agreements which it has with a number of the neighbouring school districts. I think there are seven or eight in existence, but nobody on those school boards sits on the board of PVI.

Government made a decision. It was a policy decision which came in when we eliminated those famous buffers which had served a purpose at one time: the Academic Council, the Occupational Training Council and the Management Advisory Council. While they were important at one time, what they really grew into, to be very candid, were recipients of the lobbies from the various colleges throughout the province. The whole thing was resolved by the endorsement of the principals, the administrators, to fund on an equitable basis using a particular formula, which they all supported and said was a great improvement. Not only that, but the college instructors were nonplussed, to be honest with you, Mr. Chairman, when they found out that not only were we going to eliminate two but we were going to eliminate all of those councils. To be very candid, I think it has worked much better. Forgetting my comment, if the same views hold which were given to me by college principals and college board chairmen, it would appear that we did the right thing.

Another item that the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) raised was this: when are we going to restore that autonomy? I will repeat, my objective is to have either a bill or White Paper prepared for a new School Act which will incorporate those views expressed by the public when they had the recent opportunity during late winter and early spring of this year. There must have been a lot of material sent into the committee involved. I can't give you any particulars of it, because I am waiting for the report, but I am sure that the new School Act — or at least the White Paper — will incorporate many of the concerns which are now being expressed.

I've heard the argument before to allow the school boards to increase the mill rate. You know, the message the government received, and in spades, was to please exercise control of expenditures used for public purposes. I know that was very clear in my riding. I think those expenditures involved not only commercial interests, which we are advocating control of or even reduction in, but they were coming from ordinary members of the public — the homeowners who had a great deal of concern. I think we have to keep in mind, as well, that the percentage paid by the homeowner toward the Education budget is proportionately relatively small. About 81/2 percent provincewide comes from residential taxpayers. Last year it was about $157 million. This year, I can't tell you what it will be, but I suspect it will probably be in the same area. So here we have a significant sum, and remember that you can say that we removed — and this happened, I believe, in 1981 or 1982 — the non-residential base. That was done; I'm just repeating myself on that. You all know the reasons why it did occur, and I think they're supportive.

Opportunity was given to take advantage of the referendum, but nobody was prepared to do it. Some concerns were expressed to me that there wasn't enough time. Well, they had six or seven weeks, and you can run a provincial election in one month, so I think there was adequate time. I think the truth is that the school boards were really not prepared to take the risk, knowing full well what the majority of people were feeling. So what they really wanted was government to do what they were not prepared to.

Now another item that came up here involved the alleged directives coming from government as to how to spend the money. The member made reference to two years ago, and I think he was probably referring to Bill 6. But I think it would only be fair to point out that there were two amendments to Bill 6, and one of those was the removal of an expression, as I recall, "or a portion thereof, " which was really the authority for government to step in within a budget and determine allocations. Now there was a particular reason for that. It would involve the administrative portion, often referred to as function 4. We amended the bill and deleted that language, "or a portion thereof, " so the boards were, without any question, free to allocate. As a matter of fact, that was the sum and substance of the BCSTA submission, and there was a great deal of lobbying going around on both sides of the House at the time. So boards are free to make the allocation of all the dollars which they get now.

MR. ROSE: Within the function.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: No, they can take the money in and out of any function they want. The only reservation involves special needs, and when you come to special needs, we can put a provision within Bill 6 to look after it.

You know, the most interesting thing happened not too long ago. Boards were concerned about the money they were getting for special education. Now we didn't want any board making a political football out of children that require special assistance. So the boards that were complaining.... And we had 20-odd boards that said: "No, you're underfunding us." So we offered to go to the school board, and the specialist in the special education division was to go out and we would have a look, and we would, you know, count noses and really do it — sort of a gentle audit. Do you know how many responded when we offered to do that? Two boards. I wonder why.

So my point is, the bill was amended and there's freedom to allocate; as far as giving back authority, a new school act. I've said many times that it's a three-year program. By May 1, final budgets for the 1985-86 — and then we're out of this part of it. Then get into things which are.... Get away from the finances — although we've always got to keep them in our mind, because it's a fairly expensive item. Liaison committees often exist around the province, and as far as the amount of money is concerned, I think that we are carrying through the mandate which we received from the electorate, and the electorate certainly consists of more than the nonresidential tax base.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to comment first on the minister's concern for local taxpayers.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Yes, I'm just wondering. I suppose I could talk a little bit more about R and D for a moment by quoting from a paper on B.C.'s high-tech policy, on page 3: "High technology is associated with highly skilled, well-

[ Page 5739 ]

paying jobs in the research and development of new technologies, and technological innovation is commonly accepted as a determinant of economic growth."

I said earlier, Mr. Chairman, that one thing we need in British Columbia right now is economic growth. It would seem to me that every reference we can read on the subject or every spokesman that we listen to tells us about the need for higher-quality education. There are some conclusions here that say the same thing really. B.C. does not have a comparative advantage in low-wage unskilled labour.

Mr. Chairman, as much as the Minister of Universities, Science and Technology (Hon. Mr. McGeer) might want to make B.C. a Philippines of the north, we just can't compete in that kind of area. We don't have those advantages — if that can be considered an advantage. The author of the paper suggests that it is the research and development component of high-technology industry which should be encouraged here.

[4:30]

For the Social Credit government to profess an interest in encouraging high tech in the province while at the same time it's effecting higher cuts, greater cuts, larger cuts in education funding and engendering a demoralized atmosphere in the school system, the college system, the university system, is, as I say, contradictory. Most of this is oriented towards the university level, which this minister is not responsible for. Unfortunately, to have students for university we also may have to make sure they're coming through the system, unless we're going to import them to the province from other areas.

Research and development thrives in areas with active and innovative universities, and employs skilled technicians and scientists. The different ministers of the government are fond of talking about California, but what they never bother to mention is that Silicon Valley is located close to Stanford University. It's the university atmosphere, not the climate of California, that attracts that kind of research and development, that kind of work, to that particular area.

I want to talk about the minister's concern about looking after local taxpayers. He doesn't dare let school boards levy money for education purposes, because the taxpayers don't want to pay more taxes. Certainly they don't. Certainly we don't. I think every one of us would agree that the only proper tax to collect is the one that somebody else is paying. The provincial budget certainly hasn't had that kind of consideration for taxpayers when setting its budgets in the last three years. We have increased, over 1982.... In three budgets we have increased our total spending by 25 percent — from $7.2 billion to $9.06 billion. There isn't a school district in the province that wouldn't like to have had the money to increase its programs by 25 percent in the last three years.

So while the minister may have some concern about local taxpayers when it's locally elected school board members that may be making some change, he seems to have little concern for local taxpayers when he's a member of a government that is levying taxes provincially. In every budget there have been increases in taxes. There have been some decreases as well, but in every one of those three budgets there have been increases in taxes. The total increase in estimated revenue over that period is 25 percent. The minister said that locally residents are paying, on average, 8.5 percent of the cost of education in the public school system. He's not prepared to take the risk that school boards might simply increase those taxes to continue the kinds of programs that they would want to continue.

What I'd like the minister to comment on is if the base is that small, if we can collect only 8.5 percent on average of the cost of maintaining the public school system from local taxpayers; if that is the only base that local school districts can go to when they are asking for a referendum to approve higher expenditures.... It's going to be very difficult to get any meaningful amount of money if that small taxation base has to cover the cost of whatever the school boards want to do. Maybe I'm missing something in the formula, but that's the way it appears to me. A referendum is almost doomed to fail; to raise any meaningful amount of money the mill rate increase is going to have to be relatively high, since the base, as the minister told us, is very small.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The cost per student varies considerably provincewide. What is plugged into the funding are the true costs which have been experienced by boards, and they are historical. Remember that approximately 92 percent of the funding comes from consolidated revenue, non-residential property taxation, grants in lieu of taxes, and some miscellaneous funds — which do add up — from the Department of Indian Affairs and the Department of National Defence. So we know there is a variation, and that is plugged in. We just have to look at the costs of some of the rural districts, and we soon find out where there's a huge differential; also the economies of scale. Other factors come into consideration: the split between elementary school children, the number enrolled, and the number in secondary. I could go on and give a number of examples of why there are these variations, but that's plugged in, and I think it has been reasonably equitable.

When it comes down to the actual amount of money, remember that as far as the residential taxpayer is concerned, there is a homeowner grant involved. That comes to — I'm guessing — but probably something in the order of $216 million. So add that to the actual amount of money paid by the residential property tax payer. I did the calculations once on raising a school board's budget by 2 percent. We did a run, and it seems to me the average increase was about $30 provincewide. It varied, of course, from district to district, with a low of $18 or $19 up to a high in Stikine, where we have some concerns. The member for Atlin (Mr. Passarell) raised that.

I recognize that there are certain limitations which are going to be placed upon school boards to raise funds from residential property taxes. But when this is out, they are in no different position than anywhere else. A great deal of the funding, as we can know just by percentages which have existed for years and years, has not come from the residential property base but from consolidated revenue, including the homeowner grant, and non-residential taxation, all of which are distributed on an equitable basis by the provincial government. That's the way the legislation is now. I don't think there's any question that school boards in the future are going to have to depend on the provincial government to a considerable degree for their funding. They have to by virtue of the percentages which exist now and the percentages which have existed for some time.

[Mr. R. Fraser in the chair.]

As far as scooping the non-residential base, the biggest concern that we had — and I think this was recognized by everyone — was that the increase in taxation in that area was

[ Page 5740 ]

getting totally out of hand. We know in British Columbia the commercial and industrial assessment is probably as large or larger than any other province. We're trying to reverse the shift in that direction. That became evident with the ultimate removal, over two years, of machinery and equipment tax. So school districts are still going to be very dependent upon the provincial government for their funding. That's why it's so important that we go back to first principles: determination of the cost per student and the recognition of the true costs, found within the school district. We have to go back to those. The whole funding formula was established on that basis — that is, try as much as possible to bring equity between school districts.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Chairman, I think it's the first time I've actually heard someone say that the commercial and industrial base was taken away from the local school boards and brought into the hands of the government to protect them from the ravages of the local school boards. Perhaps that was one reason, but I don't think I've ever heard anybody stand up and say: "We brought them into our fold to protect them."

Mr. Chairman, it wasn't this minister who did it, but when the water licence fees were increased by some 500 percent, were they still trying to protect those same people who were being hit by that increase? Or were they thinking: "If anybody else is going to gouge them, we'll protect them; if we're going to gouge them ourselves, then it's okay, but we're going to take them away from anybody else who might have any kind of a way of getting at them ?

I'm still worried about this.... The minister didn't really answer — I think he gave me some figures, but I'm not sure. I want to look those up in the Blues and also in the documents. My concern is that it's going to be almost impossible to get a referendum passed. He said that 92 percent of the funding for local school districts comes from consolidated revenue.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Maybe you said consolidated revenue and the other sources — 8 percent local and 92 percent from other sources, mostly consolidated revenue.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: I'd better let you say.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The breakdown is fairly close to the following figures: consolidated revenue in the last fiscal year represented 51.5 percent; commercial industrial, also called non-residential, represented about 34.5 percent; grants in lieu of taxes, shall we say, represented between 4 and 5 percent; and residential tax base provincewide represented about 8.5 percent. The figures were, as I recall: $662 million for non-residential; and about $157 million residential — net of homeowner grant.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Chairman, the minister did say 92 percent before for something, but it doesn't matter. The point is that the total base was producing 43 percent when the local school boards had access to commercial, industrial and residential. Just by adding these figures, it comes up to 43 percent. It is conceivable that with that kind of tax base a local school district could get more funds to do something in its local area. But with a tax base as small as 8.5 percent, it's going to be awfully difficult for any school district, I would think, to get a referendum passed.

And this business of averages — well, the minister points out that it is just an average. I'm reminded of the old story about the person with his feet on a block of ice and his head in an oven, and the average temperature is okay. Perhaps there are a few school districts on the right end of that scale who could get away with doing something; for the others it's hopeless.

What the minister has done, really, is to deny school boards any authority to raise funds from any source other than what the government is prepared to give to them. The practicality of getting any funds from this source is very remote.

[4:45]

MR. PASSARELL: Seeing that it's my birthday today, I'm going to be soft on the minister.

Interjection.

MR. PASSARELL: Why? Look what it's done for you. We'll get onto that another time. On to Education.

It's good to see the minister's able staff behind him. It's always a pleasure to talk with Mr. Jimmy Carter. He's always been helpful up in the north. I certainly hope that the minister doesn't pay him peanuts. He's a good man to have in the ministry.

On the constituency issues, first the Dease Lake school. It was a pleasure that this minister acted so quickly in bringing about a positive response for the community of Dease Lake in bringing in a new school. It should be completed, if I'm not mistaken, in September of this year It was a long time coming. The minister acted quickly on it. I think the residents of Dease Lake appreciate — I know I do — the minister's response to their plea to get a new school in there, because the previous school was in pretty poor shape.

Second is an issue that I have discussed privately with the minister, regarding a full-time superintendent and secretary treasurer for 87. At last year's BCSTA conference they passed a resolution concerning a full-time superintendent and secretary-treasurer for the Stikine. If I'm not mistaken right now it's 0.5, and I have received numerous requests.

In School District 87 there's one school that will have to have some major work done on it in the near future. That's Lower Post, right on the B.C.-Yukon border. It is in drastic need of some kind of work. I'm sure, seeing the quick response of the minister on Dease Lake, that there will be something positive coming for Lower Post that the people can count on.

Interjection.

MR. PASSARELL: That I'm not sure of, in regard to Lower Post. They used to have the residential school there. They moved into supposedly temporary quarters at the time.

In regard to School District 92, I certainly hope there are no cutbacks in the Nishga program, particularly the language program. I know the minister has put a high priority on the district in regard to the programs that the Nishga people administer for their own nation and children in that area.

I have a question about the closing of the school in Good Hope Lake. That was the school I used to teach at before I was elected to this monoseum — mausoleum....

[ Page 5741 ]

Interjections.

MR. PASSARELL: Museum, yeah. Hey, the most popular politician in all of Canada. Thank you very much. He's got some fan clubs over in Africa, I think it is. But the last time my correspondence came in I think my fan club over in Bulgaria was up to 150 people.

What's happening to the school in Good Hope Lake? I read in the Cassiar Courier last month that the school was being closed because of declining student enrolment and population. Is it going to be a permanent closure? I know when I was there the school was built and the wheels were more or less left on underneath the trailers that were moved onto that new school. That was eight years ago. Is the Good Hope Lake school going to be pulled out of Good Hope Lake and brought into Cassiar? The children will be bused into Cassiar, but I'm wondering about the structure.

AN HON. MEMBER: How far is it?

MR. PASSARELL: Oh, it's about 24 miles. Is the school going to be brought in? Is it going to be used by district 87 in Cassiar, or is it going to stay in Good Hope Lake? If it's going to stay in Good Hope Lake with no students going into it, it's going to be an expense to the school district and to the government to keep it heated in winter when the temperatures drop down to 45 below.

Another question I have is in regard to the Klappan project. This spring there will be more families moving into the area. Is it the direction of the government that the new students, the children who will be moving into the Klappan coal project area...? Will they be going to school at Iskut, the federal school, or is there some kind of program that the government is looking at to deal with the Klappan coal project? Or are the children going to be going to the federal school in Iskut? There isn't a public school per se in Iskut; the closest public school is at Dease Lake.

The fifth question is on the school at Kitsault. I saw bids put up for tender to pull that school out. Has that project been completed? Is the structure of Kitsault...? It was School District 88, if I'm not mistaken — Terrace. Has that structure been taken out of Kitsault or will it remain?

The minister touched on talking to the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) regarding the Stikine when we talked about the referendum, and I would just like to question.... I mean, you have to have some kind of plan, and I know that the referendum isn't going to work up in the Stikine. I think the minister understands that and the government understands that. But what are you going to do for rural school districts? You say 8.5 percent of the property taxes go to the school. What are you going to do with something like the Stikine or even School District 92, which would be more relevant — the Nishga School District? How are you going to generate moneys for the public schools, particularly in districts 92 and 87?

Those were approximately seven questions that I ask the minister. As I said, I was going soft on him today, and I'd like to hear his.... I know he's been filibustering his estimates. I just have the seven local constituency questions to ask the minister.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Regretfully, Mr. Chairman, a number of those questions I'm really not in a position to answer. First of all, I've asked my colleagues in the ministry whether or not they have had any correspondence involving Good Hope Lake. I tell you, I have absolutely no information at all, so we will follow that one up.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I am advised that the problem in Lower Post is a serious one. There are portables now for that school. I don't know whether it's possible that we could get the school from Kitsault and truck it to one of the others. But, you know, it's a school board decision. If the enrolment has disappeared at Good Hope Lake, the school board is going to make the decision as to whether or not the school ought to be closed. All school boards do is.... If we've made a decision and they forward a request to us, and if the board makes that decision, you know, I'd be very reluctant to intervene and deny the board's request.

On the Klappan coal, I can't answer that question either as to exactly where the students are going to go to school, but there may be some correspondence at the ministry involving that. I have no idea what the demands are going to be and whether or not they can be accommodated. There's a public school nearby.

MR. PASSARELL: Dease Lake.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: How far?

MR. PASSARELL: Sixty miles.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Gee, okay.

On those items, Lower Post we're aware of, and Klappan coal.... I'll have to get back to you as the member for Atlin. On Kitsault and the closure, where that particular school.... No sooner was it built and ready to go than the mine closed. Now if there's no possibility of the mine reopening.... That was molybdenum, was it not? I noticed in the paper that the price of molybdenum has gone up. What is it now — up to $4 American? So maybe there's going to be some opportunity for two or three of the moly mines to open again. But if it's going out, I'd like to know where that facility is going to go. If it's going to be torn down, can it be moved?

Now as far as the referendum concept is concerned in Stikine and Nishga, I'm as aware as you are. What we were planning on doing was implementing a taxation power equalization grant to accommodate something like this, because in the trial run which I did on the potential revenues which could be raised through a 2 percent increase in the local budget.... In order to get 2 percent, I did a run, and of course the impact in Stikine was way out here. Everything was down much lower, so we would have to take that into consideration. But I think what we ought to remember, too, is that the cost per student in both of the school districts is very high. I'm not arguing with the cost, but I think what we should recognize is that the funding formula does take into consideration the high cost of local delivery of service, and that's all looked after.

So I will get back to you with respect to Good Hope, Lower Post and the potential impact of the Klappan coal project.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Oh, excuse me, you're right, the other item.

[ Page 5742 ]

Despite what my colleague the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) happened to say the other day, there are certain small school districts which will continue to exist as far as I'm concerned. The reason is, just who are you going to hook them up with? In the case of Stikine, they were hooked up with Fort Nelson at one time, and it was by government design that they were split off so that there could be some administration. The distances were far too great. I just want you to be aware of my views on that.

Within the fiscal framework in small school districts, the funding was that any school district which had an enrolment of less than 1,000 would receive funding to accommodate the cost of half a superintendent and half a secretary-treasurer. Interestingly enough, I found one school district in British Columbia — Gulf Islands — where the superintendent and secretary-treasurer are one and the same person. It was a small school district of 1,200 or 1,400 students, as I recall, and it could be accommodated. When I was traveling the province and visiting all the boards — and I visited a number of small districts as well — this point was repeatedly raised. So I thought that in fairness I would fund them on a graduated basis. If a school district has 900 students, they would receive nine-tenths in both categories. That was well-received. The problem in Stikine is that we have 577 students, and so you are really no better off. If you had 600, you're better off by 10 percent, and that's causing, I guess, some difficulties.

That was one of the amendments which I brought into the framework as a result of the tours. Let's just see what happens after we get the budgets closed for 1985-86. I only have so much money to distribute throughout the province, and for this year the funding available is the funding they will receive.

MR. GABELMANN: I'm delighted to hear the minister's views on small school districts. The fact is that the smaller the school district, the bigger they are.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Yes.

MR. GABELMANN: Certainly it's true in my riding where the school district in one case has approximately 1,000 students, and....

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: That's right, and it has a very big and difficult and diverse area.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I found that out.

MR. GABELMANN: Yes. At least the minister had a chance to go in in a helicopter. It takes the rest of us a week.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: No, I didn't use a helicopter; I drove all the way.

MR. GABELMANN: I apologize for that error. I was told that he went in by helicopter.

I'm not going to take a lot of time in these estimates, Mr. Chairman, nor am I going to give the rhetorical political speech that I feel should be given. If I thought the minister were in control of the policies of the government with respect to education, I might do. I have a hunch that I could say a number of things and have the minister in agreement with half of them, but Treasury Board and the powers that be in government would make sure that those half he might agree with me about wouldn't ever have a chance of implementation.

It must be that way when you see the minister going around as he did, having very polite and nice and amiable meetings with various people and promising all kinds of things, and then form letters with his signature arrive weeks later with new directions and new approaches and new everythings. I can't believe the minister knew from one week to the next what was going to be coming down in terms of the way policy seems to have been developed in education in the last few years.

[5:00]

1 wonder, too, how much of a conversation the minister had with the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) before that minister made his statements a couple of weeks ago — just around the Easter break, I think it was. So I don't see much point, frankly, Mr. Chairman, in attempting to persuade the Minister of Education that he is on a wrong course, and that rather than improving education in British Columbia, everything he has done and that has been done on his behalf has in fact had the opposite impact. Education is now approaching the levels of standards that we heretofore had thought were only visited upon the maritime provinces in this country of ours.

But I am not going to make that kind of political speech, nor am I going to appeal to him to recognize that we need to spend considerably more money in education than we are spending now. If he can't get that considerably more money from Treasury Board or from the Minister of Finance he should do the honourable thing and tell them that they can stuff the job, because frankly he is not doing education any good at all by trying to persuade us all that the funding levels that are in place now and will be in place in 1985-86 are sufficient for appropriate education. It's just not the case.

I go through schools and meet with teachers, trustees, parents and support staff fairly regularly, and I try to keep up to date with what's going on. You see equipment not being maintained, Xerox machines not being used because there is no paper. There's a parents' committee in Port McNeill right now going out raising money to buy Xerox paper. One of the reasons they need a lot of paper is so they can copy textbooks so the kids can have the textbook.

These aren't isolated cases any more. When I first started raising these kinds of things in the House several years ago, they were more isolated. They are general now. I know of cases where there are three classes in a particular subject and enough textbooks for one class. So the books stay in the classroom and the kids come in and each book gets used three times, in effect. Workbooks for young kids in elementary schools that are really essential if the parent is to know what progress the child is making are having to be purchased by the parents. Many parents do not know that they have to purchase these books. Little things like this have profound impacts on the delivery of education.

Incidentally, today I had a unique experience. Delegations of teachers, support staff, trustees and parents arrived from two school districts with the same brief, the same presentation, and all in the same group, all with the endorsement of their respective groups. I have never had that happen before. So if the minister has done one thing in the last few years that he should be commended for, it's to bring the local educational community — both the deliverers of the service

[ Page 5743 ]

and the recipients — together in a way that they have never been before. That is perhaps a useful contribution.

One of the parents was telling me about her eight-year-old child, whom I happen to know because I know the family and have worked with them on other issues. I have no reason to disbelieve this, as she is a very active woman who would have no reason to make it up. To put it into context, this kid used to live in a town that was closed down and razed. The child at that time had a lot of insecurity and had a lot of questions about how the world worked. When they moved to Port McNeill the question from the kid was: "Can we stay here without this town closing too?" Well, this kid comes home expressing to his mother concerns about whether or not he's ever going to be able to get a job. This kid is eight years old. That's what's being talked about in the schools because education is not seen any more.... I use this example, and I hear it so many other places too. Education is not seen any more as that way to break out of your class, out of your history, out of your economic stratum. That was one of the great things about public education in North America: it did more than anything else to prevent the kinds of class structure that exist in Europe. That's the place it has made its greatest contribution, and that is starting to break down. You see it in these little ways where kids at various levels in our system are now concerned about whether or not the system can help them to break out of the life that their family or their grandparents' families have lived in over the years. It's not seen as a liberating force for that any more. And that, if it were to continue, would have profound sociological implications for this country in terms of class structure, which I don't think is particularly useful — the kind of class structure that exists particularly in Great Britain.

A public education system that is open and accessible in the fullest way from beginning to end can be the greatest contributing factor to preventing our breaking down into that kind of structured society where everybody has their place and they know that that place will be maintained for generations. I'm not saying we're at that stage yet; I don't want to be misunderstood on this point. I'm just saying that you hear echoes of that kind of thing from professionals all the time, and now I hear it from parents. I guess they hear it from their kids, and it's of some concern.

In one of the discussions that I had with a group of elementary teachers, a lot of things were said. A lot of things I discarded because I thought it was exaggeration; if not exaggeration, it was not something I was prepared to advocate. But one comment has stuck with me ever since. A grade 1 teacher who has 30 kids in her class, if you can imagine, said to me: "How many of your constituents do you think would throw a birthday party for their six-year-old and invite 30 other six-year-olds, and that birthday party would last for five hours?" She said: "Can you imagine a parent anywhere inviting 30 six-year-olds to a birthday party, even for two hours?" In a sense, I hadn't really thought about the 30-kids-in-grade-1 issue in that way before, but can you imagine trying to.... At a birthday party, all you have to do is feed them ice cream and keep them entertained, I guess, and you can probably find ways of doing that; but in grade 1 they apparently should be trying to teach them something at the same time. Most of us wouldn't take on those 30 kids for two hours and just feed them ice cream, much less try to teach them to read and write and everything else.

I don't know what the precise number should be, but I would guess that it shouldn't be far off 15 in the first few grades. I would also guess that that's where our best teachers should be. I just make that point in passing, because I get quite concerned about what happens to the kids at either end of the ability scale in those kinds of situations — the kid who needs extra attention, and the really bright kid who needs extra attention too. We're going to be teaching those 30 kids by aiming at the 18 or 20 who are in the middle; the other 10 or 12 are going to be left by the wayside. The educational problems are going to be pretty important, but in my view the social implications of that are going to be profound in coming years.

A grade 11 English teacher gave me a list of the number of students he has to teach in a year. Not the number of kids in each class — he has about 30 in each class — but the number that he has to teach each year. He had been teaching for a couple of years in the Cariboo, and the numbers there ranged from 143 to 167 students per year. In 1973 he went to Campbell River. The number of students — these are papers he has to mark, grades he has to prepare, and all the various things — has always ranged between a low of 104 and a high of 160, but generally it's in the 130 to 150 range. This year he's got 190 students. He's got an extra course to prepare as a result of this. No time whatsoever, he says, for preparation. He spends all of his time, weekends and evenings, marking, trying to remember which kid is which. Seven and a half minutes per kid per week, grade 11 English. It's just not reasonable. It's not appropriate.

That particular school district, the Campbell River district, has about 6,000 students in it. They have gone from 372 full-time equivalent professional teachers in 1982 down to 303 this September, given a zero percent increase in compensation for teachers. That's a drop of 69 in three years. It's almost — not quite — a 20 percent drop in full-time equivalent teachers in the course of the last three years, and the enrolment numbers are basically the same — in the 6,000 range.

The minister makes a lot of the fact that enrolment is dropping and therefore we don't need as many teachers. But here's a case where we have a 20 percent drop in teachers; we have class sizes of well into the twenties for most elementary.

I forgot all about the new rules. The minister might want to comment, then I'll get up again.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I would just like to point out one thing with Campbell River. The PTR is 17.64 estimated for '85-86.

[5:15]

MR. GABELMANN: Interestingly, in that school district.... Let me just back up a little bit for the minister, Mr. Chairman. I was not saying that every English teacher or every high school teacher had 190 students; I was citing this particular case. Nor was I making a general statement about the grade 1 teacher with 30 kids in her class. Those were two isolated cases and not to be misconstrued as meaning everything was like that, because it's not. Nevertheless they're high.

Then I was making the point that if the minister wants to argue that it's because enrolment is dropping that we have to drop the teacher numbers, that doesn't apply in Campbell River, because, with a 20 percent reduction in teachers, we have a basically stable student population. But if the minister wants to make a different argument, and if the minister wants to set objectives — and I guess this is the major thing that I

[ Page 5744 ]

want to say this afternoon — and wants to go back to some standards or some levels of PTR that existed before.... I understand — and other people have heard him say — that the 1976 PTR levels are a target for the ministry.

[Mr. R. Fraser in the chair.]

I just want to.... And I'll acknowledge where this comes from; the letterhead is the board of trustees, but it's a brief to me which the minister has a copy of in his office today. He won't have seen it yet, I would think. This is from the board of school trustees, the teachers and a district parent representative; the parents are now organized in that area. One of the points that they make in this presentation is really useful in terms of the debate about whether we go back to the old PTR levels.

I'm just going to read the list of things that they say have changed since 1976 in respect of the board's obligation to deliver education in Campbell River. Since that time they have had computers introduced; they've had to purchase equipment for that, and they've had to have instructors available for computer education. They've had government examinations in some cases, which involves more administration and more material costs. There've been declining work opportunities; therefore more kids have stayed in school, which requires more of those extra courses that kids who stay in school who might otherwise have gone on to a job require — work-study, work experience and learning assistance at the secondary level that might not have been necessary if these kids were going out to the job market. Speech therapy, the same thing; a lot of these kids are staying in school now, and on top of that there have been speech therapy programs in that district brought in with ministerial approval, as these things have to have been. Another is physiotherapy, in this particular school district. I'm not arguing about whether all these things are essential or whether they're important — I'm not making any value judgments — but these are programs that have been introduced with the ministry's approval, since '76, that didn't exist before.

There are also these: child development centres; services for behaviourally handicapped students; new administrative procedures re special education which have all come in since then; teacher's aides for physically, mentally or behaviourally handicapped — the mainstreaming thing that we've done; French immersion and the French Cadre programs, which have been immensely popular in Campbell River and have all come in since that time, requiring extra costs, extra teachers; elementary music specialists — an attempt that they have made in that district, as I'm sure others have, to put an extra amount of attention on music, which is, in my view, an essential element of a good education; and changed graduation requirements.

Among the changed graduation requirements — which they don't list in this document, because it is very brief, but which I know about — is the compulsory consumer ed course now in grade 9 or 10, which in many cases was taken in grade 11 or 12 to allow kids to back up and catch up. So there's an extra compulsory course there. This year Math 11 has become compulsory, as I understand it — one program or another of Math 11. Next year, I gather, if the development can be done in time, Science and Technology 11 comes into place as a compulsory course. I'm not arguing that these things shouldn't happen. In fact the idea of everybody getting a little bit more science at that level, even as general as that course is likely to be, is one that appeals to me. But when we load all of these additional things on, as we have — and I've just named them without making all of the comments that could be made about each of these long list of items — you then don't have the same situation that you had in 1976. To go back to the PTR levels of that year, or at any time in the seventies, is throwing extra burdens on the system that they can't handle. What will result from it is that conscientious districts will make sure that these special services continue to be provided, and they'll load up the general classes, the ones that they hope can be taught with larger numbers. We'll have these situations where English 11 teachers have 190 papers to mark, 190 essays to read, 190 grades to prepare. It's just not a possible situation.

I think we've made great progress in understanding that education is at least as important — I was going to say more important; it's a hard judgment to make — a benefit to the individual who is at either end of the spectrum in terms of ability. It's of benefit to those kids to have a good education system that is open to them and that offers them the special programming that allows them to stay in the system and allows them to come out of it with some kind of personal growth and some learning. We've made monumental progress in the last decade; I can't speak for the rest of the country, but certainly we have in this province. We've begun to lose a lot of it. A lot of the frustration that we hear from parents, from teachers and from trustees, apart from the bureaucratic frustration of not knowing from one week to the next what the rules of the game are, is that they see that the gains, especially in special ed — to call it that and mean much more than just special ed — that have been made in those areas that have enabled the mainstreaming of disabled kids, that have enabled others to stay in school longer, rather than going out and being a bum, as would happen in this economy, are now threatened in a very real way.

There are always attempts to blame somebody for the problems, in terms of people in the system. You hear the Minister of Finance basically trying to set up a situation where teachers will be blamed for all the ills. But everything I've talked about today, in terms of the impact in those two school districts, is based on zero across the board. More teachers — 29, I think, is the figure — in the Campbell River district will be let go this year before September, and that's with a stable enrolment.

I say to people now: yes, you should write to the minister; yes, you should lobby; yes, you should do all of these things. But my basic advice to them right now is that the only way this is going to be improved is by making sure they vote the right way at the next election.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I accept and appreciate the comments from the member for North Island. Could I take ten seconds and just leave a couple of figures with him? I think, if you've got a pencil, you might be interested.

The enrolment in Campbell River has not dropped appreciably, but it has dropped — let's ballpark it — by roughly 100 students since 1981. Under our funding, that is worth a minimum of four teachers.

I want to point this out to you because of the interest that you raised on special needs. In 1976 the number of teachers in that school district was 299. The PTR was 19.3. Under the funding for the present framework, we fund 334 teachers, as you know. My point is that we fund for an additional 35

[ Page 5745 ]

teachers to accommodate the items which you are talking about. If you were to add another four, because of the decline in enrolment, you have roughly 38.8, or 39, additional teachers, which would accommodate the items to which you refer.

That is in there, if you want to compare. You went back to compare the 1975-76 figures, before mainstreaming occurred. I just point out to you that roughly 39 additional staff are available under the funding to accommodate them. I accept the comments that you make on the other points.

MR. GABELMANN: I don't quarrel with the figures; we agree. I guess if I want to leave an impression, it is that there is a lot more happening in those schools now that is good and should continue to happen but is threatened. When they go down to 303 teachers in September, as they anticipate....

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: Oh, 304; we're talking about decimal points when you get down to the numbers. The impact on those programs will be monumental. I might say at this point, as well, that if my memory serves me correctly, 13 years ago that school district had six full-time non-teaching administrators. Ten years ago they had five. They now have three full-time non-teaching administrators. They're not overly administered. The money's going into classrooms.

The minister might say: "Aha, but principals and viceprincipals are just a classroom or two." I checked, because I really believe principals should teach. In fact, I believe principals should teach full-time after they've been principals for three or four years. That's been a hobby-horse of mine for a long time. I think the minister might agree. I think it's crazy that you become a principal and stay there. I think five years is the most, and then you go back to the classroom for at least five years before you can become an administrator again.

But that aside, in that district they've gone a long way toward accommodating the current system that we have, by making sure that the principals and vice-principals are in fact in the classroom a considerable number of hours. They don't have any fat there in an administrative way. You can always find something somewhere if you look hard enough, but there's not very much there. That's not going to solve any of the problems.

The minister will remember that over the years — the last six years, since I've represented that area — I have always talked in the estimate debates about Island West and Island North, and very little about Campbell River. I've always said, either by implication or sometimes directly, that Campbell River's done fairly well, and they can look after themselves. I think I used those words last year. But I raise it this year.

I think the minister should take note of the fact that I haven't come in here and just sort of presented to the House whatever I've heard. I've been very careful to make judgments about what I wanted to present and what I didn't want to present, because I didn't want to lose the necessary change by talking about change that isn't so necessary, if the minister can get through that convoluted language of mine. But you know what I mean.

This year for the first time I raise some very serious concerns about what's happening in the Campbell River district because of the budget allocations. That's not to say that the same problems don't exist elsewhere. I talked earlier about the Island North district. Both of those districts, incidentally, with lots of small schools, one-room schools, remote schools, are within $100, I think, of the provincial average of educational costs. I may be out a few dollars, but they're close to the average in cost — $3,500 per student. Island West, of course, is much higher — for good reason. But both of those districts, with a considerable number of small, isolated one-room schools, are lean, and now the system is mean. That's the point I want to leave with the minister.

[5:30]

MS. SANFORD: I raised a number of issues with the minister the other day when these estimated expenditures were under debate, and I can only echo what my colleague from North Island has brought to the minister's attention: that is, what is happening within the classrooms of the province in terms of deterioration of the quality of education. The other day I only got started on this, because the red light came on and my time was up, but I wanted to point out to him what happens with these split classes. Within School District 71 in the constituency of Comox, the Courtenay School District, many of the classes in the elementary school system are split, which makes the high numbers even worse to handle for the teachers involved. It's a very difficult thing — I don't know how to impress this upon the minister — to try to handle split classes when you have large numbers in an elementary school system. I gave him some of the figures the other day. I think maybe I will read these figures into the record; there are only two classes that I want to deal with.

Within School District 71, Mr. Chairman, there are 28 classes of grade 2 students. Of these, 17 are split classes. That is deplorable for a grade 2 situation in terms of the kind of education they're going to receive. Fifteen of the 17 exceed the recommended maximums, and 7 of the regular classes exceed the recommended maximums. So we have a situation which I think is totally unacceptable: a very high number of split classes. That's the only way the school board has been able to adjust the numbers and adjust the various students at the schools in order to meet the criteria set down by the minister with respect to budgeting.

Let me give you the situation in the grade 5 classes in that constituency. There are 23 classes. Of these, 16 are split classes. There again, Mr. Chairman, when you have 16 out of 23 classes split, the ideal education climate does not exist, and those students are bound to be adversely affected by those splits. But I won't dwell on that any more. I did a lot of this the other day, and I want to do a followup with respect to the college campus at Parksville.

The minister, in his response to my comments the other day, indicated that the campus at Parksville was a drain on the system — that these small satellite campuses were a drain on the college budgets. I would like to know what criteria he has used in closing these various college campuses. In other words, if they're within so many miles of the major campus, do they get closed? Is it dependent on the number of students who attend?

The other question I would like to pose to the minister relates to the $12.6 million that was made available to colleges and institutes. He issued a press release on April 2 announcing how $5.8 million of that $12.6 million would be spent. One of the things that he says in that press release, Mr. Chairman, is that $2.4 million will be set aside to help maintain levels of service at the colleges and institutes.

[ Page 5746 ]

1 appealed to the minister. I wrote him a letter, and I must say I thank him; I got a response today. I wrote to the minister saying: please make sure that of that $2.4 million set aside to help maintain levels of service at the colleges and institutes — as contained in his press release on April 2 — moneys are set aside to keep the Parksville campus open. It's only $91,000 that we're talking about to maintain the operation of that facility. Now the minister has responded to my letter and has indicated that the college campus there was closed because it's a satellite campus and so on. He also says that "those services for which there is a strong and continuing need will be deemed to be of a high priority by the college board and will be funded within the base budget of the institution." In other words, we're not reopening the campus.

But the other thing he says, and this is what is really important, Mr. Chairman.... He says in his letter: "The development fund in the amount of $5.8 million which was announced is not to be used to simply provide the same services that have been provided in the past." Yet his press release says that the moneys are to be set aside to help maintain levels of service at the colleges and institutes. If you are maintaining levels of service, Mr. Chairman, then it seems to me that the Parksville campus would qualify. Yet he says in his letter that it's not simply to maintain the same services; it's for some sort of new services. His press release does not square with the letter that he's written on this. I really would like the minister to elaborate on the Parksville campus — the reasons, the criteria that are used for closing it down, and the fact that his letter does not coincide at all with what his press release states.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, the $2.4 million was a result of increasing from 95 to 96 percent the amount of money allocated to colleges for their operating budgets. The other funds have all been marked, and they are all within the college budgets, with the exception of $5.8 million. It is entirely up to the college board to make a decision as to whether or not they wish to keep the campus open. I can give an example where one particular college, which is not receiving specific funding for satellite campuses, has made a decision as a college board to keep a particular campus open. As a matter of fact, it's probably very close in size to Parksville. It's very small, but they made that decision, and they're not being funded for it.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

The point is that maintaining services is entirely up to the discretion of the college board and their administration. I am not going to put that out to them on that 1 percent of the $2.4 million and say: "Well, you've got to do this, this, this and this with it." Many of the colleges have felt that, not only with respect to a small satellite campus but to certain programs which are being offered. They said: "We have to make choices. There are certain priorities. Demand down there has somewhat waned; therefore we're going to make a decision." That's really what it's all about.

The statement with respect to the press release not squaring with the letter is really, I guess, a misunderstanding. It's very clear as far as I'm concerned. The amount of money which went out — that additional 1 percent — is to be handled by the colleges the way they would handle their entire operating budgets. It's entirely up to them.

With respect to the $5.8 million, that is for new programs of interest. Of all people, it was the principal of Malaspina College who made a particular point of coming to see me after the meeting where we made the announcement, saying that he thought it was a splendid idea and would give us an opportunity to do more within the community to see whether or not we could come up with programs of particular interest in the community where the college is located.

If one college board makes a decision to keep a campus open, that's up to them. If they want to close it, that is up to them as well. But the funding for the satellites were of some magnitude. That was the decision. I can't really comment any further. I know the member for Comox is not pleased with the response, but I think that if the people in Parksville can make a case, they ought to be placing that case before the board of Malaspina College.

MS. SANFORD: Yes, the people in Parksville have been before the board on a number of occasions and were before the board again just last Thursday evening. As a result, the board is now seeking another meeting with the minister. I'm hopeful that that meeting will take place.

But I didn't get the criteria. You were the one who talked about shutting down these satellite campuses. You were the one who said last week that they were a drain on the main colleges. What criteria were used to ensure that a campus like Parksville wouldn't be eligible for any funding, as the Powell River campus was, under the same college? Why didn't Parksville...? What were the criteria that were set up to ensure that Parksville received no money under that program to keep remote campuses open?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, the use of the word "drain".... These are concerns which are being brought to the ministry by the college of principals and also by the boards. You can rest assured that the views of all of them have always been that they're somewhat concerned about money going into satellite campuses, because it takes away from the available funds which they have for the main campus. There isn't any question about that. When I talk about a drain, I'm talking about a financial drain or a pull. They feel they can use those funds and get a better return for them, I presume, with respect to the number of students those funds would assist in a more central location. That's their decision.

Now, for criteria on the Powell River issue, here's a campus, and there's a body of water; I presume that was something that was taken into consideration in that regard. I would be interested in knowing what the college board has in mind with respect to the utilization of the funds which it has available to it. But it's up to them to allocate, and if it's their decision to keep the campus open at Parksville, that's up to them, But I don't think they should be coming to me for the utilization of further money, unless they have some particular program which may qualify under the $5.8 million amount — a block of funding which all colleges will have an opportunity to participate in, depending, I guess, on the nature of the program. It remains to be seen exactly what they have to offer.

MS. SANFORD: I have just one more question. It relates to the $83,000 that was received to keep the college campus open at Powell River, under the jurisdiction of the Malaspina College, as well. My understanding is that that was a special

[ Page 5747 ]

fund allocated through the ministry; it was not allocated by the college itself. It was under some special funding formula, allowing extra moneys to go into various campuses — I think there was $600,000 that went into Okanagan College — to fund various campuses around. What I want to know is: what criteria are used to ensure that the extra $83,000 from the Ministry of Education went to Malaspina to keep the Powell River campus open — I certainly approve of that — but kept out the Parksville campus in terms of any funding? Is it the distance from the main campus? Is it the number of people attending? You mentioned a body of water. What criteria are used? This is funding under the ministry.

[5:45]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The total amount of funding — the total block of it — I think came to something in the order of $1.4 million. The decision was to place this money in certain parts of the province where there were satellite campuses. I presume that the emphasis made on behalf of Malaspina College was to preserve or make sure the $83,000 was available for the lease at Powell River. That was their request. That was all there was to it, if you want.

I have to go back to the other point. It's entirely up to the boards to make the decision if they are not being funded for a particular campus. I can ask this question. I didn't particularly like the fact that you've got one in your riding. I happen to have one in my riding that I would very much like to have funded, but it wasn't funded. It is a satellite campus. It involved Mackenzie. I suspect that it's like Parksville. It may be a bit bigger. In fact, there are around 6,000 people living in the community. But there wasn't any special funding for it. There's an example of a college — and there are many others — that was not particularly pleased.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The decision was made with respect to a number of campuses. It was felt that the Powell River campus is something that ought to be handled. There's access....

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Who? I made that decision.

MS. SANFORD: That's what I'm asking. What are the criteria?

HON. MR.HEINRICH: I've only got so much money which I can push into the community colleges. I can tell you, as far as the Okanagan was concerned, I think the total was about $430,000 to cover two campuses — Penticton and Salmon Arm.

MR. ROSE: The minister, in his responses to some of these things, always says that somebody else is responsible; he's not responsible. He's a bit like the piano player in the bordello: he pretends he doesn't know what's going on upstairs, and also pretends he doesn't own the bordello. It's all very well to blame somebody else for this.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I don't know why that should be so embarrassing to the minister. Maybe he does own a bordello; I don't know. All I know is that there is a "must" and a "may" list in terms of courses. There are certain courses that they have to supply.

That's really what's afoot here. There are all these little games about development funds and that kind of stuff. Are you aware that the plans for these local renewal and development funds are being carried on in secret? One campus doesn't want the other campus to know what it's planning, for fear they will steal it and they will lose their portion of the $2.5 million, or whatever it is. Anyway, it's part of this 1 percent. That's what's happening. It defeats the whole purpose of coordination. They're hiding from their own colleagues. How does that help coordination? They're so strapped for funds that they're afraid they're going to lose that sort of thing.

Criterion number four in that same renewal fund criteria is that it can be used to justify layoffs. I think we really should have a look at this. There's too much of that stuff. There's too much of that business — that the minister has various kinds of grants at his disposal that he could.... In the schools there are supplementary grants and special aids to districts. I'd like to ask a few questions about those things. Who gets them? Who gets the supplementary grants and special aids? Who got them last year? How much did they amount to? Why did they get them? What are the criteria?

The House Leader is urging me to conclude my remarks or my questions, so I would move that the committee rise.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:50 p.m.