[ Page 5761 ]

CONTENTS

Oral Questions

Safety in highway construction. Mr. Cocke –– 5761

Mr. Lauk

B.C. Hydro lighting subsidy. Mr. Williams –– 5762

Island Pacific Breweries. Mr. Blencoe –– 5762

Ocean Falls. Mr. Lockstead –– 5762

Centralization of information functions. Mr. Howard –– 5763

Licence plates. Mr. Lockstead –– 5763

Ministerial Statements

Rachel Sharma. Hon. Mr. Nielsen –– 5763

Mr. Cocke

Medical research centre. Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 5764

Mr. Nicolson

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

On vote 17: minister's office –– 5764

Ms. Brown

Mr. Davis

Mr. Rose

Mr. D'Arcy

Mr. Cocke

Division

Provincial-Municipal Partnership Act (Bill 25). Second reading

Hon. Mr. Ritchie –– 5777

Mr. Blencoe –– 5777

Mr. Howard –– 5782

Hon. Mr. Ritchie –– 5783

TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 1985

The House met at 2:04 p.m.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I'm sure that the members of the House are all aware that Mr. Steve Fonyo has passed the Great Divide and is now in British Columbia and tracking west. I'm sure that all members of the House wish to extend heartiest congratulations and welcome home to a very brave and dedicated young man.

MR. BLENCOE: I have a number of people to introduce to the House today: Richard Tallboy, president of the Gulf Islands Teachers' Association; Warren Munch, president of the Saanich Teachers' Association; Mavis De Girolamo, president of the Greater Victoria Teachers' Association; Carol Pickup, chairman of the Greater Victoria School Board; John Young and June Whitmore, trustees of the Greater Victoria School Board; Gail Gotto, vice-president of CUPE Local 947; Terry Smith, secretary of CUPE Local 382; and Laura Acton, president of the Confederation of Parents' Associations of Victoria. They are all here to listen to the debate on the Education estimates. Would the House please make them welcome.

MR. REE: I have the pleasure today to introduce ten young, positive, free enterprise people from Nanaimo and Cowichan who are in the gallery above you. They are future leaders of this province. There is Jason Morton, Kevin O'Donnell, Les Barclay, Darien Tisseur, Jim Drummond, William Wiersma, Vic Collins, Jonathan Kinney, Richard Wiersma and Lisa Redding. I'd ask this House to welcome these young people to Victoria and the chamber.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the opposition we would like to associate ourselves with the remarks of the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations respecting the bravery and the success of Steve Fonyo. We only wish that one of our members had been there to greet him as he came across the border.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the House to welcome a special person today, though he is down here to listen to the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Heinrich). He is Mr. John Bergbusch, the president of the Sooke Teachers' Association. I would like the House to give a special welcome to him, as he is one of the newly elected aldermen for the city of Colwood.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, I'm informed that Mrs. S. Harry and 28 grade 8 to 10 SHAFT junior high school students from Ioco are in the House today. I would like the House to welcome them, and I hope that I'll have an opportunity to meet them after question period.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, there are going to be 65 grade 11 students in your gallery around 3 o'clock this afternoon. Half of these students are from the St. Thomas More school for boys and the Marian High School for girls in Burnaby, and the other half are from the Charlesbourg school in Quebec. I would like the House to bid them welcome.

Oral Questions

SAFETY IN HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I'm asleep. [Applause.] And they all agree.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to direct a minister.... I'm just proving it every second.

I'd like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. The government's favorite contractor, J.C. Kerkhoff and Sons, has had two serious accidents at two different worksites on the Coquihalla Highway project. Has the minister initiated any review of the safety practices of Kerkhoff Contracting?

HON. MR. SEGARTY: I thank the member for his question, Mr. Speaker. I have asked the Workers' Compensation Board to ensure that safety in the workplace be important to all areas of construction and the workplace in British Columbia and to carry out the necessary safety inspections on each and every project in the province.

MR. COCKE: At one of the accidents the worker was injured, but no first aid attendant and no ambulance were present. Is J.C. Kerkhoff Contracting entitled to operate without these safety features?

HON. MR. SEGARTY: Again, I thank the member for his question. To answer the question: no contractor in British Columbia is entitled to special privileges. All of them will comply with the rules and regulations of the workplace.

MR. COCKE: One last question: if the minister has obviously asked for a report with respect to this — the situation in the workplace vis-a-vis contractors and so on — will the minister make the report public when he has the report at hand?

HON. MR. SEGARTY: I will give that some consideration.

MR. LAUK: A supplementary to the same minister. The accident that involved these large girders that fell down.... It was only by sheer coincidence that no workers were in and around the area; otherwise, serious or even fatal injury would have occurred. Am I to take it that the minister has asked for an inquiry into that specific accident and asked for a report back?

HON. MR. SEGARTY: I think my comments to the member for New Westminster were very clear. I will give that some consideration when the report is available.

MR. LAUK: Has the minister asked for a specific report on those girders falling down?

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. LAUK: To the same minister. It's no good to have inquests after these accidents happen, and to say: "Oh, dear." Has the minister asked for a specific report on those girders falling down? That was my question.

[ Page 5762 ]

HON. MR. SEGARTY: Mr. Speaker, if the member for Vancouver Centre had any experience in the workplace, he would understand that all accidents are investigated in British Columbia, dealing with worker compensation matters.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, I was present when 28 workers at the Second Narrows bridge were killed, when many complaints about WCB safety and engineering faults were reported prior to the accident. I would not like to see that happen in this situation. Can the minister inform me that he's taking personal interest in this case to ensure that such a tragedy does not occur?

HON. MR. SEGARTY: Mr. Speaker, if the member would relate to my work record and history, he would know that I've taken a personal interest in safety in the workplace ever since I arrived in Canada, and before.

MR. LAUK: The minister still has not answered my question, Mr. Speaker. Is he refusing to say that he is taking a personal interest and has asked for a direct report on that specific accident?

HON. MR. SEGARTY: Mr. Speaker, I guess the member is having a problem with my Newfoundland accent. I don't know how I can put it any clearer.

B.C. HYDRO LIGHTING SUBSIDY

MR. WILLIAMS: B.C. Hydro announced special subsidies or cut rates for lighting up empty buildings in downtown Vancouver during the pre-Expo period. Can the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources advise whether he has approved this program?

HON. MR. ROGERS: An application was made to B.C. Hydro on behalf of the Downtown Vancouver Association to know whether or not B.C. Hydro would cooperate with the Downtown Vancouver Association in their program to light up buildings in the city of Vancouver. A special rate for supplying power to those people who were involved in this pre-Expo celebration of lighting up these buildings was proposed to the board of directors of B.C. Hydro, who approved it and sent recommendations to the Utilities Commission. It was approved by the Utilities Commission, and such rate structure is now in place for people wishing to participate in the program.

[2:15]

MR. WILLIAMS: Would the minister consider a similar request from the unemployed of British Columbia for reasonable rates from B.C. Hydro? There are those who are more in need, Mr. Speaker. Could the minister comment on providing help to those who have far greater needs?

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, I think that question begs a great deal of discussion which might be more appropriately placed during my estimates. I did answer the question regarding a specific rate which is quite common and has been done in this province before as part of centennial celebrations. It is in that light that this special rate was put in place only for that portion of electricity which is used in an illumination process, and there is a sunset clause in its rate structure that expires at the end of Expo.

MR. WILLIAMS: A sunset clause with respect to the unemployed might be when we are down to something like 5 percent in the province, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: This is question period, hon. members.

ISLAND PACIFIC BREWING

MR. BLENCOE: Victoria has a question for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Victoria has in the last few years been establishing cottage industries, reacting to the high unemployment in this area. One industry is Island Pacific Brewing. At the time they negotiated to establish a brewery on Vancouver Island, the government indicated it would review its policy and consider allowing small regional breweries to sell draft beer in restaurants. Will the minister advise whether he has completed that review and that these regional breweries will be guaranteed some degree of success?

HON. MR. HEWITT: I am pleased that the member raised the question, because just recently Island Pacific Brewing opened for business and did so under the current rules and regulations of the Liquor Control and Licensing Act. I have had discussion with the principals, and at the present time the policy is that draft beer is not served in restaurants. That matter is under consideration but has not yet been resolved, nor has the policy been changed.

MR. BLENCOE: I wonder if the minister can indicate to us when that policy will indeed be changed, because next week Island Pacific Brewing will have to start laying off staff. Can the minister advise whether indeed he will soon be permitting such regional breweries to sell in restaurants, which is critical in order for these small cottage industries to survive and, I would say, a real alternative to providing meaningful employment in so many regions?

HON. MR HEWITT: I appreciate your comment; it's quite valid. But I wanted to say that the cottage brewery, Island Pacific Brewing, incorporated and commenced business under the present rules and regulations. They have that ability, and I'm sure are marketing their product in a bottle; they can contract with local licensees to supply Island Pacific products in restaurants. They're asking for the policy to be amended to allow them to sell draft beer. Until this time that has not been allowed, primarily because other licensees — i.e. neighbourhood pubs and hotel pubs — have had it as their domain to serve draft beer. The concern always has been that you may turn a restaurant, whose prime service is serving food, into a drinking establishment serving draft beer, keeping people in there drinking beer and using it as a refreshment area as opposed to an eating establishment.

But the matter is under review, Mr. Member.

OCEAN FALLS

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland). A former Minister of Forests, Mr. Ray Williston, says he could turn Ocean Falls into a hub of forest activity if he had his way. Is the minister prepared now to explain to this House why he is standing in the way of the rebirth of that community of Ocean Falls, and

[ Page 5763 ]

why he refused the other day to answer questions from the member for Vancouver East on this same matter?

MR. SPEAKER: The first part of the question is in order.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, I am taking no action or failing to take action where it may be required or in any way standing in the way of any activity at Ocean Falls, and to my knowledge I have not refused to answer anyone's questions.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Supplementary. The licence holders in the central coast area are exporting high-grade timber at a cost of local jobs. What consideration has the minister given to allocating timber in the central coast district in a manner which will stimulate local employment? I'm sure the minister knows what I'm discussing.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Anyone who may be exporting timber is doing so under the regulations which now govern the export of timber from British Columbia. The member knows there is a procedure whereby timber has to be advertised for sale in British Columbia. It has to reviewed by the Log Export Advisory Committee, and only after it being demonstrated that the timber is not currently required or needed by the local industry can it be approved for export.

A small business enterprise program is providing considerable opportunity for small operators and businessmen in the logging business on the mid-coast to acquire cutting rights to Crown timber. I've only recently added 100,000 cubic metres of undercut from established licensees to the small business enterprise program in that area to make sure that adequate volumes of timber are available.

CENTRALIZATION OF INFORMATION FUNCTIONS

MR. HOWARD: I'd like to direct a question to the Minister of Environment, and ask the minister if he was in agreement with government policy.... Was he announcing government policy when he said that the government's decision to centralize the information function of all ministries seriously impacted a communications program of the Ministry of Environment?

HON. MR. PELTON: The question comes as a big surprise to me, because I don't ever recall making that statement.

MR. HOWARD: Could I ask the minister another question then? Was he relating government policy when he said, with respect to the transference to the government information services of all advertising and publications within the ministry, that "this resulted in major staff reductions and in the ability of the ministry to respond to information demands."

HON. MR. PELTON: Once again, I cannot take any credit for having made that statement. I'm sorry. I would like to know where the hon. member got that from.

MR. HOWARD: I would ask the minister another question then. I wonder if he would mind inquiring within his ministry then as to who it was that was responsible for putting those words in the minister's mouth?

Would the minister inquire into his ministry as to the statements that I have just read out to him which he himself made?

HON. MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to look into the whole matter if the hon. member would provide me with the source of his quotes.

MR. HOWARD: The quotes are contained within the annual report of the Ministry of Environment, 1983-84, which that minister tabled in the House not too long ago.

LICENCE PLATES

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I have a question to the Minister of Transportation and Highways. Will the minister confirm that four different colours are required on the new licence plates for next year, including not one but two shades of blue, and that this attempt at sophisticated advertising has caused the plates to be shuffled around the country, in and out of various printing operations? What is the extra cost of this bungling in your ministry?

HON. A. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, to the member for Mackenzie, I'm not sure what he asked, but it was something about licence plates, We're going to have the nicest licence plates you ever saw. They'll be out shortly.

RACHEL SHARMA

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I have a short ministerial statement. I'm sure all members of the House will be pleased to learn today the confirmation that young Rachel Sharma has undergone surgery at the UCLA hospital. The surgery began at approximately 5:00 a.m. today. The surgeon advised us the operation was expected to last between seven and nine hours.

As you would know, Mr. Speaker, Rachel is a four-and-a-half-year-old youngster from the Island who has been waiting for two and a half years for a suitable donor liver for a transplant. The youngster was rushed by air to Los Angeles to receive the surgery, which had to be undertaken within six hours of the death of the donor. Ministry of Human Resources is assisting the family with financial support for travel, hotel costs and babysitting. A local private fund is also contributing to assist with expenses. All costs of surgery and hospitalization will be borne by the Ministry of Health through the Medical Services Plan and hospital programs. These costs are estimated to be approximately $100,000 U.S. British Columbia, in conjunction with the federal government and other provinces, is studying the best way to provide organ transplants. We're hopeful that in future, cooperatively with the other western provinces, the services will be provided closer to home.

Mr. Speaker, we will be in contact with the family. I'm sure everyone wishes the youngster well.

MR. COCKE: On behalf of the opposition, we also wish the youngster well. We also would like to have a fuller discussion on this whole question under the minister's estimates, vis-a-vis who we pay for and who we don't pay for outside the province, and the amounts that we pay. One thing we've learned from these cases is that a significant number of people are not bothering to place either on their driver's

[ Page 5764 ]

licence or whatever or instruct their families that their organs should be available for transplanting if they should meet with an unfortunate death. I think that that's something that we should all be pressing for in this country. It bodes well for U.S.-Canadian relations in that it seems to me that people are free-flowing back and forth across the border for these very important operations. I do think that that's marvellous, but we should also contribute to the extent that we can as a smaller nation. That should be pressed for.

MEDICAL RESEARCH CENTRE

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to make a brief ministerial statement.

Yesterday the government of British Columbia, in conjunction with the Welcome Foundation from the United Kingdom and the Terry Fox Medical Research Foundation, announced the establishment of a biomedical research institute to be located at the University of British Columbia, financed by approximately $31 million which will come from the Welcome Foundation, from scientific research credits, from a repayable loan from the British Columbia Development Corporation and from the Terry Fox Medical Research Foundation to create in our province a new institute, staffed possibly by as many as 100 scientists and research staff, to investigate new methods for the treatment of cancer, viral diseases and other illnesses.

I should say that as an ancillary outcome of our development of this project, British Columbia will have in the future a significant presence in the pharmaceutical industry. We anticipate that a product licence application for interferon which will be the main pharmaceutical line for our company, Pacific Isotopes and Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of the Terry Fox Medical Research Foundation, will be made possibly within a month and probably within two months. It's an important day both industrially and for medical research in British Columbia. An international scientific team has been assembled to choose the director of this institute, and we anticipate that it will be one of the most powerful investigative institutes in the world to took at new treatments for cancer.

[2:30]

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, the New Democratic Party welcomes the announcement of a new bio-medical research centre, but we would hope and caution that the government remain firm in its commitment, unlike other announcements. Announcements are very easily made, but commitments are more difficult to keep. I would hope that this government would keep the commitments that have been announced here today.

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.

MS. BROWN: I want to speak to the minister specifically about the role and the importance of education in the lives of women, and see whether he can answer some specific questions and respond to some very specific recommendations about how this can be improved.

With the increase in unemployment and the tight economic times, we are finding that more and more women are returning to community colleges and to training institutions to upgrade their skills or to acquire skills so that they can be better able to support themselves. It seems that this is the worst time possible for colleges like Kwantlen College and other community colleges to be cutting back on some of these very important courses which women need. As the minister will remember, the women's access program, which was introduced by his government into the system some years ago, operated as counsellors and gave guidance and assistance to women in terms of what kinds of courses were available to them and how best they could use these courses. Most of those women's access programs have disappeared, and now we find that the Employment Alternatives for Women program at Kwantlen, one of the few remaining programs, is also in jeopardy.

I know the minister is going to respond that the decision about whether to eliminate these programs or not is made by the universities and colleges themselves. However, in every instance we are told by these institutions that they have no choice; that as a direct result of budgetary cuts they find themselves having to eliminate these programs. So my first question to the minister is whether he has considered any way of protecting these very special programs in terms of reintroducing the women's access programs and looking at programs such as Employment Alternatives for Women at Kwantlen to see if there is some way that the programs can be protected from cuts when the institutions are trying to stay within their budgets.

The second question that I want to put to the minister has to do with the scholarship scheme which was reannounced in the throne speech of this year. At that time it was said that this scheme would reward students with merit and achievement. I'm wondering whether built into the criteria for the program are any safeguards to ensure that women applying for these scholarships are treated equally in terms of their proportion in the population; in other words, in view of the fact that there could be something in the neighbourhood of 52 percent to 48 percent of women to men in the school population, whether that's taken into account when the scholarships are being awarded.

My third question to the minister — and I'm pleased that he's writing these down so that I'll get a response — is that this province is the only one in Canada that has an all-debt student assistance program. Statistics Canada reports that women have a much more difficult time utilizing such a program because they are primarily poorer and therefore are limited in terms of their loan repayment capabilities. I don't know whether the minister has taken that into account or not, but I'm wondering whether as one way of marking the end of the United Nations Decade for Women the minister has decided to make special provisions in this all-debt student aid scheme to ensure that the financial barriers to women having equal opportunity to this scheme are eliminated.

The fourth question, Mr. Chairman, which I'd like to put to the minister has to do with the access that women in receipt of income assistance have to colleges and universities. The

[ Page 5765 ]

rules and policy regulations of the Ministry of Human Resources are that if such a person enters university or a community college they are no longer eligible for income assistance. This is a very short-sighted policy, Mr. Chairman, because it seems to me that the government would be better off to continue to pay income assistance to a person who is trying to acquire skills so that they can get off income assistance, than to deprive them of that opportunity by saying that if they attend a college, university or some other training institution, they no longer will receive their income assistance payments. When one looks at the statistics and sees how many of these women are single parents, and how important and vital the income assistance payments are to them, it seems that they are being penalized rather than being assisted to become full contributing members to our society.

So my question to the Minister of Education is whether the Ministry of Education has discussed this matter with the Ministry of Human Resources, or whether the Ministry of Education itself has devised some means to make it possible for single parents or even single women without children — widows or whatever — who are presently in receipt of income assistance and would like to upgrade their skills or acquire training or education...whether there is some system whereby they would continue to receive assistance from the government, either through the Ministry of Education or through the Ministry of Human Resources.

Those are my four questions as it applies to women,

Mr. Chairman, I think my colleague the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) raised a number of questions about the situation in School District 41, the Burnaby School District. However, I had the opportunity last Saturday to spend a couple of hours with 12 grade 11 and grade 12 students, and they raised some concerns about the impact that the education cutbacks were having on them, and I want to share those with the minister. Insecurity was the number one issue which they raised — the fact that it was possible to register for a course, do a couple of weeks in the course and then be told that there were too many students registered and therefore a number of them would have to leave that course, and the period of time that was put in would then be lost. And the other side of the coin: to register for a course and after two or three weeks be told that since there were only 17 students registered for that particular course, it wouldn't be eligible for a teacher, and therefore the course would be discontinued. The students said they found it very difficult to involve themselves in any sort of long-term planning in terms of university entrance or further education because of the insecurity of not knowing whether a course, once introduced, would be continued.

The other point the students raised was that the courses which would prepare them for entering the labour market on graduation were the very courses being cut by the school system. The courses in the clerical area, in industrial education, vocational courses which would mean that on graduation from grade 12 they could immediately move into a job search and hopefully into a job: those were the courses cut. They wondered whether the ministry took that into account and had any way of building any security or protection into these courses.

They found that the backup resources which they needed in many instances were no longer there. Certainly they were finding that the increased number of students in the classroom, contrary to the comments made earlier by members on the government side, was having a negative impact on them: they were not able to get as much of the teacher's time as was necessary in some of these very difficult university entrance courses they were taking. So they asked me to share those views with the minister.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, with respect to the opening comments by the member for Burnaby-Edmonds, I'm not in a position.... I was just waiting for one of my officials to come in, involving the access of women in receipt of income assistance to a post-secondary institution. As I recall, there was a program, and I don't remember it being abandoned or discharged or eliminated. I've forgotten exactly how much money was involved. This is one of the particulars I'm waiting for, so I'm not really in a position to answer, but I will answer more fully later when he arrives.

On the first item involving Kwantlen College, the answer I will give is obviously the one you expect me to give. I'm not interfering with the courses being offered at the colleges. I've made mention before that something like 34 percent of the core is directed by the ministry. All of the rest is a matter of administration and direction by the college board. So if they happen to have dropped a particular program — and I believe you referred to it as a women's access program — it may very well have been that the demand was not there.

The problem which has been advanced to me on innumerable occasions by college administrators is the matter of the problem which they have in filling, collectively, a good number of courses which are offered throughout the entire regional college system. When enrolment is down, they are going to readdress the necessity for delivering some of those subjects.

The other item. It is true that we eliminated grants to students. What we did provide were interest-free loans for a considerable period of time, and they are not subject to repayment until, I think, six months after graduation, which I think is fair enough. Also, the rules have been relaxed, and one of the reasons that I did relax the rules was that as far as the provincial participation in the loan scheme was concerned, we had put it at 80 percent and not at 60 percent as it had been. The reason for it is that sometimes it's difficult for those who are enrolled in a program to take more than three courses. In other words, four courses is pushing a full-year load, and many who wish to take three would take those three and probably often be employed elsewhere. So their timetable would be filled, both going to school and working.

[ 2:45]

1 think that it must be remembered that as a result of the provincial role it did not affect in any way whatsoever — including eligibility — the amount of funding which was made available through the federal loan program. I know that to be a fact, because of the demands which were coming in and the amount of money which was in fact loaned by the federal government. The figures which I had in 1982-83 were that 18,900 students received approximately $31.3 million in federal loans. In the following year, 1983-84, there were 18,500 students — a drop of 400 students only — and the amount they received in federal loans was $47.7 million. So we know that the students were taking full advantage of the loans which were made available. The only difference is this: the loans which were being taken down from the federal government increased considerably, and I think that increase was due only partially to the fact that we had eliminated the grant portion in 1983-84.

[ Page 5766 ]

1 recognize that the member met with some students, and you raised some of the points that they were concerned about in Burnaby, but I'm wondering if the cases to which you were referring were really rather the exception than the rule. The reason I raise that is this. Burnaby, as we all know, is an area that has suffered a significant decline in enrolment. It's gone from approximately 19,400 in 1981 to today.... The September enrolment for 1984-85 was slightly over 17,000, and even for the September 1985 enrolment we're projecting a reduction again. Even the PTR in the Burnaby School District for 1984 was 17.1; and of course that is well beneath the provincial average. So my concern is this: a PTR that small often reflects quite a significant spread within the school district. Also, a PTR of 17.1 would indicate to me that there are a significant number of staff members. So the average which we're looking at in 1984 is really at the low level in British Columbia. I'm wondering whether or not the concerns which they have were isolated cases.

The other item which I would think about is that it's my understanding that school administrators, particularly on the education side, spend a great deal of time planning, and it's not just month by month or semester by semester, but over a period of two or three years. I think that that type of planning is essential because of the very nature of the programs which are being offered. Many students are relying upon prerequisites from one year to the next, and that should remain in place.

If the member just.... One moment; I want to get a response to that question.

The concern that we had on women's access with respect to women's coordinators.... The funding that we provided was for a period of three years, and after that the decision was left to the local board. If they wish to fund, as boards will make determinations in the rural part of British Columbia to fund a satellite college campus, that's up to them. The amount of money added to each college board this year was $2.4 million. The allocations obviously depended on the size of the institute and the number of people attending their courses — the 1 percent based on the original 95 percent budget. So there may very well have been funds for them.

It seems to me that the cost of employing a women's coordinator would not be a very significant portion of the budget, as with any particular instructor. If they wish to make it available, that's entirely up to them. I am told there have been discussions with the staff of the Ministry of Human Resources, but there has not yet been a solution involving the matter of those in receipt of income.

I would like to tell the member that I'm going to follow that one through, and I'll tell you why. You have advised the House that somebody in receipt of assistance would not, as a result of enrolling at a post-secondary institution, be qualified to receive that assistance. If that's the case, it's something that I think I ought to have a good look at. What are you going to do? They're not working, so they're in receipt of assistance. Because they wish to take a course, or two or three, and get a second shot at a career or life, I find it difficult to understand why that wouldn't be available to them. So leave that one with me. I'm going to take an interest in that.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, about the last issue, I just want to tell the minister that this is not a new problem at all. This is how I made my living before coming into politics: working as a counsellor at Simon Fraser University with people in receipt of income assistance who wanted to go to university. As soon as the ministry discovered they were in university, they were cut off. My responsibility was to draw up a financial fact sheet to show the then Minister of Rehabilitation and Social Improvement, Mr. Gaglardi, that it would cost the government more to turf them out of university and keep them on income assistance until their kids were old enough to support themselves, rather than permitting them to finish their courses.

So this is something that's been going on for a number of years, and it's never made any sense whatsoever to me. However, I've heard both sides of the argument, which is that when you're on income assistance you're supposed to be out looking for a job or something; you're not supposed to be trying to improve your academic qualifications. If you can run that one past the minister and resolve it, I think you would save the government a lot of money out of the income assistance budget, and it would certainly benefit a lot of people.

Just very quickly in response to your statement about the students I met with, they represented six different schools. I asked for representatives from different schools. In fact, when you look at the pupil-teacher ratio in Burnaby, you find that it has been getting worse. Even though enrolment has been going down, the staff have been cut at a faster pace. In 1981 it was 16.4; in 1982, 16.8; in 1983, 16.8; now it's up to 17.2. As a matter of fact, the "School Talk" brochure tells us that the average elementary class size is at the highest level in nine years. So compared with the rest of the province it may not be so bad, but compared with what Burnaby used to be, apparently it's worse; the pupil-teacher ratio and class size is worse than it was in 1976. The result is what the students are saying: that some of their classes are too large, and some of their classes are too small. They register for a course, and they never know from one week to another whether the course is going to continue.

The final thing about the women's access program is that the answer you gave me is exactly the answer I knew you would give me, because it's the same answer I've got from other Ministers of Education. What I'm saying is that the ministry has to aggressively protect these programs. They can't be treated exactly the same as other programs, because, of course, the boards will cut them; when there is a budgetary squeeze, they're going to disappear. What I am asking the minister to do is make some kind of commitment to do more than just what is required and aggressively protect these programs, taking into account that it's one of the only avenues that women have to get out of the kind of poverty cycle that so many of them find themselves in.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I would just like to raise a couple of items with the member. I understand that we did something with the program to which you are referring. We took parallel measures with the Unemployment Insurance Commission. Officials of the Ministry of Education worked out a program with the federal government so that those who are on UIC could go to school. But I understand that there was some limitation on the time for which somebody could be enrolled, which makes some degree of sense.

The other item is, I think, a little bit different, and it's something we should look at. I understand that the issue to which you refer must have been in place for a long time, because you went back to referring to....

Interjection.

[ Page 5767 ]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: No, I wasn't. It goes back some way, and I'm just wondering why there has never been this change. Now that you have raised that, it seems to me there was a golden opportunity.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I give you a commitment that I'm going to look into that matter again.

Mr. Chairman, could I point out just one closing figure on this? Burnaby has had a difficult problem. There were 23,000-plus students in 1976. The PTR then, by the way, was 18.08. In September of 1984 we're looking at something in the order of 17,000 students, and we've got a PTR of 17.1. So it has been difficult for the Burnaby School Board. It has been difficult because they have addressed the matter of school closures. You know, that's never an easy task at the best of times. But they have done so, and it seems to me that there have been nine instances where they have done it — and I think they're to be commended. It's just a function of enrolment. It has declined considerably. I think the greatest decline in enrolment on a school basis, percentage-wise, probably occurred in Burnaby. You may be competing with North Vancouver as well. But even when we look at Vancouver, where there has been, I think, a decline of something like 12,000 or 13,000 over a similar period of time, percentage-wise, you've probably experienced one of the greatest....

[3:00]

MS. BROWN: I'm sorry: 1979, not 1976. That's all.

MR. DAVIS: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to speak briefly about special needs. Various statements have been made in the Legislature, principally by members opposite, to the effect that special needs, particularly those of the mentally handicapped and including those of some of our native children and those for whom English is not a first language, require smaller class sizes; and because smaller classes have to be created for that purpose, we can't use the global parameters, the student-teacher ratio, as some measure of the moneys that school districts should otherwise receive. In fact, as I understand it, there is a well-defined program covering students with special needs, and, as a broad generalization, three times as much money is provided by the ministry for special-needs students to look after those requirements. In other words, a school district with a high number of special-needs children, whether their handicap be mental or physical or geographic, does receive more money, does receive roughly three times as much money as it would otherwise receive for a typical student. Therefore to claim that, first, the special needs of certain students is ignored is wrong, and secondly, that more money should be flowing to some of our school districts on account special needs being ignored is faulty. It isn't true. Special needs are covered.

Roughly speaking, 6 percent of those attending our provincial schools are classed as special-needs students. A large proportion of those are ESL or English-as-a-second-language students. I gather there are some 15,000 of those in the province, 10,000 of whom are in Vancouver city. There are some 15,000 native Indian children whose educational costs are funded by the federal government; they're also in that category. In the order of 0.5 percent of the special-needs children are in the category of mentally disadvantaged. It is a category, and it is recognized. These special needs are recognized; they have been recognized in the past ten years. They've been recognized specifically by the ministry and by the government since the present government returned to power. This is after the period in which the New Democratic Party were in office. They didn't have programs of that kind specifically defined and financed through the provincial treasury. I simply wanted to make that point.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Changing the subject to teachers' salaries, the North Vancouver School District 44 trustees were in the building today. One of the concerns they have — this concern must be common to all other school districts — is the manner in which teachers' salaries, indeed all salaries related to primary and secondary education, will be determined in the future. Historically there were negotiations between the school districts and the various employee groups on a district-by-district basis. There was arbitration in cases where there was not agreement otherwise. Latterly, with the introduction of the provincial limited compensation program, these negotiations, while they've occurred and produced nominal increases, have been denied by Mr. Peck and his office. Of course, the question is now being asked, and it's asked with some force in an editorial in the Vancouver Province today: why go through all these motions when no increase will be allowed after all the negotiations have taken place? I'm sure the minister has ideas in this connection. I'm certain that the government, over the next few months, will come up with an answer to that question.

I might point out, in passing, the problem that the school trustees in North Vancouver face. Up until 1981 the school trustees, in concert with the mayor and aldermen of North Vancouver city and district, negotiated the wage increases and conditions of employment with CUPE employees jointly. After 1981 they went their separate ways. As a result of the recent rulings of Mr. Peck, the employees of the school district are falling behind in rates of pay, even though they perform similar and in many cases identical functions, services or jobs, and there is now of the order of a 4 percent disparity in North Vancouver. That situation does present problems for our school trustees when they come to negotiate compensation again next year. I thought I should mention that problem.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to say a word about foreign students. Statistics Canada tells us that there are some 8,000 full-time and part-time foreign students attending educational institutions in British Columbia today. Of those some 2,000 are at our universities. First I'd like to know basically what the policy of the ministry is with respect to foreign students. I'd like to know particularly what the policy is with regard to public schools — those financed totally by our British Columbia taxpayers.

I'd like to draw the members' attention to a recent release from Vancouver Community College, which I believe is fully funded by the government. This release says:

"In March Vancouver Community College took part in an educational fair in Hong Kong, along with 31 other institutions from Canada, the United States, Switzerland, England and Australia. The college's director of international education, Norm Henderson, reported more than 16,000 visitors attended the three day fair. This fall, for the first time, the college will

[ Page 5768 ]

open its doors to about 50 overseas students from Hong Kong, who will take high school completion through the college foundations division of King Edward campus. In addition, overseas students can now compete for positions in other college programs. All programs for foreign students are offered on a cost-recovery basis. That is, there is no government subsidy to offset the tuition paid by the individual."

First I'd like to know whether that is government policy. I've heard that the school trustees in West Vancouver are interested in filling up some of their classes with students from overseas, the condition being that these students pay average cost; in other words, that they pay in full for their tuition in grades 11 and 12 — certainly grade 12. A number of private organizations are now operating in the province. One example is New Summits University College, which says in a recent release that its fees are somewhat less than those proposed for Vancouver Community College. It says that like Vancouver Community College, the courses will carry the same provincial government examination requirements and university transfer credit standings as those conducted by the public colleges: namely, colleges like Vancouver Community College.

I, for one, am for offering tuition to foreign students. And I'm not talking about landed immigrants. I'm not talking about those who have arrived and requested Canadian citizenship, but foreign students pure and simple — if we have extra space and if there is no additional cost to the taxpayer. But that is a condition: they must pay average cost, or indeed should pay incremental cost if there is any incremental cost involved. The door is opened in an interesting way to cheaper education for these young people, because the great majority of them intend to go on to university. I know that a sizeable number have come in and paid average cost at our private institutions for grades 11 and 12 — some of them just for grade 12. They buy a B.C. high school diploma and then in effect disappear into the woodwork. They become British Columbians; they enter our universities; they pay our low university fees. If they continue to claim foreign status, they still pay only a fraction of cost at the university level.

So our public schools — public and private, government-owned and otherwise — can have a field day. They can shop around the world and say, "Yes, we'll charge average cost for grade 12," but the big deal is to go to our universities at a fraction of the true cost of education. B.C. is thereby advertising to the world that you get a university education at a bargain basement price, as compared to the cost of tuition at most universities in other parts of the world. Private universities naturally have to charge average cost. Universities in western Europe, almost uniformly now, charge average cost for all foreign students. A Canadian wanting to go to one of the universities in western Europe typically will pay at least $10,000 a year to attend courses at those overseas institutions of higher learning, whereas a foreign student coming to British Columbia can get by with $1,500, or something of that order — an amount over and above what B.C. student pay, but only a small amount over and above what they pay There is another consideration. In many countries, very few of those leaving grade 12 or form 4 — whatever the relevant level when one completes secondary school — can get into the local universities. There is limited capacity. In Hong Kong there is room for 2 percent at most of those graduating from form 4 to get into university. But they can skip across the Pacific to British Columbia, and if indeed their form 4 certificate in Hong Kong is not good enough, they can get a B.C. certificate in short order and then get into our universities, et cetera — which apparently are begging for more students — at a fraction of cost.

So I would like to end by asking the minister what is really the policy of his ministry. Are we insisting that foreign students pay average cost — grades 11 and 12 — and is there any monitoring whatsoever of these people as they go on to our low-cost, highly subsidized post-secondary institutions in this province?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, I ask leave to make a very short statement with respect to the youngster.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: We have just been advised by the UCLA hospital that young Rachel Sharma came through the operation. It was deemed to be a success and she is reported in satisfactory condition.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I think the member for North Vancouver–Seymour has made some valid points — some valid to the extent that I would agree; others I am not so sure about. One of the things I could never understand was when I saw the vitality and the strength of the economy, and the tremendous commerce which is occurring in Singapore and in Hong Kong. It's beyond me, with the amount of capital captured in those markets, why they cannot provide more institutions of higher learning for their own citizens. It's totally beyond me. Is their policy not to train as many as they have the financial capability of doing, or are they doing to us what we as a province did to our own people who wanted to take vocational training and become journeymen in any of the crafts?

It would seem to be easier for us in British Columbia and in Canada to pirate from Europe, primarily, our journeyman than to train them at home. It was easier and it was cheaper, and you could get the commodity that you required post haste. That doesn't justify what occurred. But I don't think that we are really without fault in the overall spectrum.

[3:15]

The member made reference to a meeting which he had with his school board today. I have said before that collective bargaining — or one step further, should that not succeed in resolution of an agreement.... Arbitration is available, but arbitration is not mandatory. We were faced with this particular problem in the choices which we have. This is one of the reasons why we've had such a wide debate throughout the community in the last few months. Our teachers, to have full collective bargaining.... Implicit in that is that they would come under the Labour Code of British Columbia, and therefore the right to strike.... Or is there to be compulsory arbitration?

We can't have it both ways. If there is to be compulsory arbitration, we as a government said that we cannot continue to afford to pay the arbitrated awards which were coming down the pike; hence the introduction of the compensation stabilization system. That's what we're faced with. I think that we're going to have to see, after a great deal of thought is given to the problem this spring and summer.... I'm interested in seeing what the report will suggest, because that report is to contain a reflection of the views of our community at large.

[ Page 5769 ]

On the colleges, with respect to foreign students, the policy is that any foreign student who attends one of the regional colleges pays the full cost. That full cost is paid for usually by the government of the country from where that student comes. There is an exchange relationship as well, if we have students from here who wish to go to another country. The policy is that the government.... As a matter of fact, there is a pilot program, and I think the member referred to it, at Vancouver Community College, where, I am advised, they will be paying the average cost — and that's the full cost — of instruction. In the college system I think it is probably around $4,900 a year. I will not make comment on universities, because that does not come under my portfolio, but the colleges do.

There is another policy which we have as well, and that is that even a foreign student who wishes to enrol in one of our colleges cannot bump a Canadian student.

In the school system, under our legislation, a school board is obligated to provide instruction to any bona fide resident, as defined by the federal law in those supporting regulations. If a student appears at the school board and claims entry, this is allowed. Boards do not have administrative or legal capacity to determine legitimacy of residency. They don't have it. So it's left to the federal government.

I think there's something that perhaps we ought to keep in mind as well. I know that there is considerable cost involved, particularly in parts of British Columbia where there is a heavy influx of immigrant students. I suppose it comes down to a matter of social policy. It seems that if the most senior level of government is prepared to open the borders and allow entry to our country, we as a provincial government must provide those services to students of immigrant families. There isn't any question that there is a cost involved, and it's a significant cost. But I would like to think that we are a country that has some degree of wealth and a standard of living which is quite acceptable, and I think it's obligatory upon us to provide service to those students.

I think that covers the items on here. On one of the items with respect to special needs, the amount of money — and I've said this before — which is going into special education is well in excess of $200 million annually. It's treated separately; it's funded separately. Interestingly enough, when we look at the service levels under the fiscal framework, you will find that they take into consideration in some detail the needs of a special category of student. It's a very expensive item.

By the way, to the member for North Vancouver–Seymour, when we take into consideration the learning assistance programs, in addition to those which most would just look by visibly viewing — those which require special needs — the percentage is probably closer to 10 percent to 12 percent than it is to 6 percent. I don't think there would be any benefit to going through the service levels on special needs right now, but if the member is desirous of a copy — perhaps he already has it — of the service levels which we have published through the public school system, I'd be quite prepared to leave it with him.

MR. DAVIS: Just one point. Statistics Canada annually carries out a survey of the origins, wealth, destination, courses, etc., taken relating to foreign students in Canada. The great bulk of the foreign students coming to Canada come from well-to-do families. They are not on government scholarships; they are not on government grants. They come here because they can get into our schools, and particularly into our college and university system, and they often come because their parents have similarly benefited in the past from overseas education. We're not talking about special needs students in the sense of their being disadvantaged in any way. They are the well-to-do. Around the North Shore where I live, I could name at least a dozen locations where numbers of foreign students live, and they drive Mercedes, etc., to the university, and so on. They are not poor students. So the great bulk of the foreign students, as distinct from landed-immigrant students, come from well-to-do families.

MR. ROSE: I would just like to comment on a couple of things mentioned by the member for North Vancouver–Seymour. According to the information that I have — at least in one college — at a recent PDK conference attended by the assistant deputy minister and I last Saturday morning, one of the sessions was given by the head of Malaspina College. He made a big point about the entrepreneurial nature of the internationalism in Malaspina. He made the point that they make $50,000 to $100,000 per year on their international services. I asked him whether or not he wasn't concerned that the more money he made the more he would lose from the Ministry of Education by carrying on that way. He might get so competent that the Ministry would get off the hook entirely, just as it has with universities, and get all its funds from the kids or the feds, which would be a delightful dream. I imagine the Minister of Education would enjoy that.

I won't go into all the things that they did, because this whole debate bristles with so many topics that we haven't even really touched on. We haven't really touched on ESL. I haven't really touched on the colleges, and there are a great number of other things. Maybe we tend to gravitate toward those things that tend to be more dramatic, but there are all kinds of things.

I receive briefs all the time from districts talking about the effects of the cutbacks within their district. I know that the lobby groups that come here are rather anxious that I put these into the record. It's impossible, even though the minister knows that we've been at this for a little more than a week now. Total number of sessions isn't very much. The total number of hours for such a budget for public schools, which amounts to $1 billion and another $500 million on the various colleges, is probably not too much time for an opposition and government to talk about these things.

A journalist — a newsperson — suggested this morning that a lot of good things have come out of this debate, and I said: "Well, that's interesting. How come you haven't printed any of them?" So I thanked her. When I left her, I said: "Well, keep up the fair work."

There are all kinds of other things that we could talk about. The psychologists have sent me a brief showing that because of very difficult social concerns and lifestyle problems — not only ESL but unemployment, single-parent families and all the rest of it — there's a crying need for child psychologists. Youth suicide rate is up and youth drug participation may be up. I don't know. Anyway we're way below. The American psychologists' organization says you should have one psychologist for every 2,500 students. In Vancouver today we're running about one to every 3,193 students.

You can go through all kinds of things and make comparisons like that. But there are a great number of people out there in the constituency — and I'm talking about the general public — interested in education, mental health, human

[ Page 5770 ]

rights and anti-discrimination, and a whole myriad of people are really anxious and look to the schools for some help. So it isn't just the schools' duty or obligation, as the minister and his officials there well know, in today's society to teach the three Rs. There's a much greater load in terms of socializing and mental health and a number of other things, even including nutrition and food, that the schools are asked to do today, for a clientele that goes up in terms of retention rate. I believe, it is around 92 percent who go right through school, compared to say 20 percent or even less than that in my day.

There are lots of things we could talk about. I would like, though, to make a little correction to what the minister said this morning. My researchers tell me that contrary to what the minister said, that B.C. has fewer school-aged children than any other province, my information is — it may be a little bit picky — that Alberta has fewer, and most of the provinces have a very, very similar per pupil school-aged children. So to say that you could justify the cut in educational expenditures on the basis merely of the numbers I don't think is justified.

[3:30]

The Canadian average of the budget spent on education is 21 percent. B.C. is spending 15 percent. If the minister wanted to know the average population of school-aged children for each of the provinces, he's welcome to it. I won't attempt to read it into the record. But I did want to make the point clear that B.C. is not significantly lower. As a matter of fact, it isn't even the lowest; it's second to Alberta. But the averages are roughly the same. They're all in the low twenties or thereabouts.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Yes, but most of them are under 30 percent. But the budget cuts have been about 20 percent. I don't know how you can relate those two, and I haven't had time to think about it.

I want to ask the minister, though, about a few things. Some of us are concerned when we look at the flow sheets of the department over the years. There seems to be a change away from the department emphasis on programming and school services and social services and educational services into the number crunchers, an emphasis on those people whose primary concern really is educational finance, not education itself. If you look at the flow sheets you'll see quite a change.

In 1981 in the old department we had a management operations department with five subsections, a school department, field services, special ed and teacher services. The post-secondary one had responsibilities for colleges and continuing education, an educational finance department with the ADM being the ministry's chief financial officer. In 1983 the organization has changed. The management operation, educational finance were now a two-headed hydra losing their separate identities. In 1984, more propaganda machine for information services reported directly to the deputy minister along with an internal audit branch. Then in 1985, the educational finance function was taken over directly by the deputy minister's office under a new umbrella called policy and planning. Well, that's interesting. I would recommend that to the department, policy and planning. I don't think we've heard enough about that. We've heard all kinds of things about money, but we haven't really talked very much about educational policy and planning — save, in effect, the new grad requirements which contradict the "Let's Talk About Schools", "Do we need more diversity".... The minister and the department are taking away diversity in the schools. It isn't adding to it, unless diversity can only be under the umbrella of separate or independent schools. But within the high schools, within the public system, there's less diversity, not a greater amount than there was five years ago.

Anyway, I'm concerned that the new organization is much more highly politicized than the old one, and I think that they have to bear a lot of responsibility for the box that the school boards are finding themselves in and the conflicting space standards contained in the new schools facilities manual. I can go on and on about that.

But the box that the boards are in is a very serious one, and to this date no board.... At least the Victoria board just reported to me a half an hour ago that they had not received any instructions from the ministry as to how to grapple with the catch-22 which I talked about yesterday between the Curtis directive, the minister, the responsibilities under the contract with their teachers and also the responsibilities under the School Act and whatever role the Compensation Stabilization Commission takes in this whole mess.

So I think that maybe a little policy and planning might be in order there. Here the Shuswap teachers ask, since Mr. Heinrich has suggested that they want more money in the classroom.... I want the minister to note this, and maybe he can answer it when he gets up. Should a district manage to reduce its administration expenses, would the money saved be available to retain teachers? For example, if an assistant superintendent went on leave of absence, could the school board use the superintendent's salary to retain classroom teachers rather than hire temporary replacements? That wouldn't downsize the system, though.

That answers the question. I don't know if it went into Hansard, but the minister answered in the affirmative: yes, they could use it for another purpose in the school.

The ministry has published the new school buildings manual, and I would like whichever one of Larry, Moe or Curly over there who is responsible for that side of it.... Well, that's better than yesterday. You know what you were yesterday, or at least what you suggested you might be if the minister really did run that house that I accused him of, or of being the piano-player anyway.

The ministry has published a school buildings manual. All the drawings showing the class sizes, arrangement and sizes have been removed. All the sizes of the arrangements of rooms and drawings have gone. And so what we have instead is some rather contradictory standards. I'd like to talk just a little bit about those, and here are the ones. Sections 2.23 and 3.8 say that the area of each main classroom shall not be less than 80 square metres. Section 3.8 also says that in an elementary school there should be 2.8 square metres per student. But section 3.8 also says that while the local school board has discretion, each main classroom should be capable of accommodating at least 35 pupils. Problem: if you have 2.8 square metres given to each elementary student, then only 28.6 students can fit into a standard 80-square-metre classroom, or if 2.8 square metres is to be allowed each student, then 98-square-metre classrooms must be provided. If 40 students are to be crammed into a class, then 112 square metres must be provided. Well, I don't know what the message is from the ministry. If we insist on 2.8 square metres for each elementary student, should school boards ignore this

[ Page 5771 ]

and cram 35 more students into the classroom? Well, you see these are the confounding things that the boards are going to be up against.

AN HON. MEMBER: Translate that into rods and furlongs.

MR. ROSE: Well, I can't do that; I can't even fathom it.

I'd like to know whether the 35 which is suggested by this thing — whether this edict relates to the fiscal framework. I don't know what the next revision in the fiscal framework will be, but maybe it's going to be allowing 35 students in the elementary school for one teacher, which is a cut of 30 percent. So if the deputy minister wants to get this little note that I read for the reply, he's quite welcome to come over here and get it, if he's allowed on this side of the House. We're not allowed any experts over on this side of the House except the speaker.

Here's another one for policy and planning. Here's an impact of new graduation requirements on small secondary schools. Now here's the problem. Small secondary schools are not able to teach all the course options available compared to larger schools. That's obvious. Maybe that's the reason why we have fewer and fewer course options available. Ministry officials do not understand the problem, claim some people. If a student has a single course conflict or deficiency, that student may not be able to graduate.

Listen to this: The ministry recommends that in a business program, take academic English and history 12. This may be too difficult for some students. The ministry recommends consumer ed 11 be taken in the grade 12 year. It gets more electives into grade 11, but if the student fails this one course, he can't graduate. How could the ministry program this student into organization and management 12 without a grade 11 prerequisite — either business 11 or marketing 11, according to the graph circular? How could the student be programmed into both typing 12 and office procedures 12, since there are no such courses as typing 12...? This was outlined in the minister's letter.

"Office Procedures has now replaced...." How can the ministry say that communications 12 is acceptable for entering into most community colleges, when the colleges refused to confirm that — allowing communications 12 as acceptable — as recently as two weeks ago? How can high school teachers help the students plan their careers when the ministry itself — and I have the letters and the documents — doesn't understand the implications of its own programs? If the minister would like a little confirmation of this, I can give him that as well.

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to deal with one other aspect before I sit down, and I don't know if I can do it in the one minute. I'll do it though; I'll try.

I'd like to ask the minister whether or not he's aware of the fees charged in some school districts.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: What?

MR. ROSE: User fees for certain courses — up to $80 in Langley. I'd like also to know whether he's aware that the free-of-charge provision applies only to courses or activities in which the student is required to participate. There may be charges for optional courses or activities, providing these charges are specifically approved by the school board. But what kind of courses are being charged for? Is it really an option for a student to be charged fees for business education when that student is majoring in business education? That's happening. Is it really an option for a student to be charged fees in industrial education if that student is required to major in industrial education? I'm not just talking about wood for a cupboard for mama or a dress for a girl or a young student. I'm talking about this.... I think it's illegal. I think they're in conflict, because when is an option really not an option but a requirement?

HON. MR. GARDOM: This morning when I made a few remarks, Mr. Chairman, I did mention there was one additional topic that I would like to discuss, and that is just to have a few general words and a few specific words about curricula content. Again, harkening back to the message that the hon. minister relayed to the assembly — that he's looking for a White Paper and more public input into the general area of education — perhaps during those considerations there would be more public and parent input into curricula formulation.

As the hon. minister well knows, ever since I was elected in 1966 I've been long interested in and concerned about the lack of effective instruction regarding democratic concepts and the rule of law in our secondary education curricula. Over the years, regretfully, there seemed to be quite a degree of resistance — or perhaps lethargy is a kinder word — on the part of the educational community to bring that about. In an excellent paper entitled "Law in the British Columbia Secondary School Curriculum" of October 1983, Miss Wanda Cassidy stated and located a quotation: "The subject of law does not lend itself to pupil activity as do most subjects." That apparently was taken from a Ministry of Education law 11 guide in 1975, I'm told, at page 9.

I disagree with that premise completely. I say that the subject of law does lend itself to pupil activity, as do most subjects, and I'd say the general public agree with that premise as well. The point that I wish to make is that democracy is a fragile thread, and so to an extent is all of our democratic law and our democratic order. These principles not only have to be taught but require nourishment. They cannot become neglected, it cannot be thought that because they were here yesterday they will be here today. There is no way. These types of things require daily effort, and they have to be worked upon.

I think it's trite to say, but it bears repeating that democracy and the rule of law are not philosophies or ways of life for the lazy. Freedom has been mighty hard to come by, and only at a price. For those who have paid that price, surely we have the responsibility to maintain it, say what it is, how it came about and how we live under it. It's my plea, Mr. Chairman, that these basic concepts of democracy, our democratic institutions, parliament, legislatures, courts, freedom of the press, the administration of justice and the rule of law, with its principal components, rights and responsibilities, all have to become more extensively taught.

All of our students, in my view, in all of our provinces in Canada, should be educationally exposed to these subjects before they graduate from high school. It's something just far too precious to be left to osmosis. No one is suggesting, Mr. Chairman, that the school curricula should become loaded with legal complexities or intricacies; just that our educational system teach enough of the basics to give our young

[ Page 5772 ]

people, upon leaving high school, a good grasp of the philosophy, the concept and the subject, which after all does manage all of our human activity in Canada.

What we're seeking is neither novel nor new. It has been the consideration of a number of learned groups, even one as far away as the Scottish royal commission on legal services, which, when I was the Attorney, I had the pleasure of spending a little time with when they visited British Columbia. Here are a couple of quotes from their 1980 report, Mr. Chairman. I think they're pretty cogently articulated, and I would like to refer to them.

[3:45]

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

"Providing some element of legal education in the school curriculum has obvious attractions, because we do not think that people are fully fitted for adult life if they lack basic knowledge about how the law affects them and how to use legal services. Indeed, it seems to us a proper task for the schools to ensure that school leavers have a basic knowledge of how laws affect them and how the legal system is a key part of society.

"We think that pupils leaving school should have acquired an understanding of the distinction between civil and criminal law, the work of the courts and the role of civil law in regulating disputes in the community. We also think that they should have an understanding, in broad and simple terms, of a few of the absolutely basic concepts of the law."

Well, Mr. Chairman, I cannot but totally agree with those sentiments. As Miss Cassidy said in her paper in 1983, only one course, law 11, really falls into the pure law category, and it is a mighty popular course. Again, I am quoting her report. "The course attracts students from all streams, not just those academically inclined, and is...one of the most popular of all secondary school electives.... A recent study shows that approximately 11,000 students enrol in the course per year" — and that of course is an elective.

I want to commend very much, if I may, the efforts of the Canadian Bar Association, its interest and support nationally — I say, with a degree of regret, only over the last three of four years, but provincially since the late 1970s. I'd certainly like to recognize the efforts of ex-president J.J. Camp of the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association, Mr. Les Little, the current president, and of course special mention to Miss Wanda Cassidy and Kevin House. Also to the Law Foundation's Mr. Norman Severide, who would be providing the funding from Law Foundation dollars to the University of British Columbia and to Simon Fraser for support to teach teachers how to teach law.

Mr. Chairman, in concluding I would very much like to commend the hon. minister and his ministry for being prepared to accept and take a new line. I think they have effectively listened to and recognized a requirement for what I have been talking about, and I think they've responded well to the advocacy of the Canadian Bar Association. I think what they're proposing will certainly be accepted by all British Columbians, because what we wish to have in the new social studies curricula is a good product, and one that can do the job. In all likelihood it's going to be in place for another 20 to 25 years, and not to have the topic that I'm talking about as part of the mandatory instruction I think would be pure folly.

During late December, my colleague the first member for Vancouver–Point Grey and I distributed in our riding of Vancouver–Point Grey a mailer, and we posed the following question: should school curriculum include instruction in basic concepts of our democratic institutions, parliament, legislature and the rule of law? I'd say the response was overwhelming: yes, 94 percent; no, 6 percent. I know some colleagues might be interested in the numbers in question — this was in response to a questionnaire. The numbers were 241 to 15. I think if that question were posed to every citizen in the province of British Columbia, we'd say to the hon. minister that 94 percent of us are now totally in support of what you're proposing to do. I thank him for it and congratulate him for it.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Chairman, I have only a few remarks to make as we close out the education estimates, but in keeping with what the member who just spoke had to say, I have some concerns that I want to express to the minister about class size exactly in relation to the kind of basics that the member for Point Grey was just talking about.

To give you an example, Mr. Chairman, in the secondary schools, and there are four of them in my riding, the actual average class size is in excess of 22 at the moment. Next year it is going to go to 24. In all probability, because any surplus funds will be expended by the time the 1986 school year rolls around — even with no further cuts in funding and even with no salary or wage increases — the average class size in high schools is going to go to 26.

Now this is going to have an even greater effect in the core programs — and that's the official word for what the member for Vancouver–Point Grey was calling the basics — because the fact is, as the minister I hope is aware, that you can't easily increase class sizes in such areas that require shop work, lab work, computer work, kitchen work and so forth. So what happens is that the class sizes will increase radically — will impact radically — in areas such as English, social studies, math and science. Those areas are already in most cases approaching 30 students. They are probably going to go into the neighbourhood of 35 or even more as a result of this average increase in class size. What you can't do with those kinds of classes is give proper instruction, or the same instruction that people are getting now, in these core programs or, to use the common terminology, in the basics.

I also want to relate this to elementary school class sizes in my riding right now. It's about 25 on the average, next year it will go to 27, and in 1986 if nothing changes it will go to approximately 29. In addition to that, now the number of split classes is going to increase. For instance, in the Trail district there are already 28 split classes at the elementary level. That's going to go to 36 next year and probably to over 40 the year after that. I would like to point out that this is a fairly urbanized district. We're not talking about a widely-scattered district; we are talking about an urbanized district which has in fact closed two schools entirely in the last few years, totalling, I believe, almost 25 classrooms. To say that the district hasn't said, "Gee, we're going to try and cut down the number of splits by closing schools" is incorrect. They have closed two schools right within the city of Trail in order to save money but also to avoid the necessity of having split classes. Even so, by 1986, in all probability, the number of split classes at the elementary level is going to exceed 45 percent of the total number of elementary classes in that district.

[ Page 5773 ]

It is very difficult especially to look after students with special needs, whether they be gifted students or students with learning problems, at the elementary level when over 40 percent of your classes are already split classes and the average class size is in excess of 29. That's the situation they're going to be facing.

I just want to make one other note here, and that is that in addition to the class sizes growing and the number of split classes growing, there has also been an even larger drop in the level of support services. In other words, even whatever support services are there — when it comes to teaching aides, maintenance staff, librarians, secretarial staff and so forth — are being spread much more thinly than it would appear simply by the numbers that I've given in the chamber here this afternoon.

I would hope that the minister is listening, not just to this member but to all the members in the House who have raised these concerns. The fact is that it is getting more and more difficult for the school system to deliver those core programs — let alone the special programs — which the Minister of Education and I think everybody in this chamber agrees are absolutely essential with these drastically increasing average class sizes which we see this year and will see even more next year and even more the year after that.

MR. COCKE: Just a few words on Douglas College. Douglas College I think probably is one of the examples of just how great the college system is in British Columbia. It is and has been right from the outset a real contributor to the community of New Westminster and its environs and the outlying areas as well. Douglas College is continually developing programs, and I was sad to see some of the programs over the last few years begin to wane because of the fact that there couldn't possibly be the support by virtue of the fact that there was a reduction in terms of their budget.

Their productivity has increased 40 percent over the past two years through larger classes and enrolment increases. The grant is down $900,000. They were expecting $500,000 plus in program cuts, hitting part-time faculty, service reductions, and combining classes and courses; $110,000 has been cut in their general nursing program and $70,000 in their social services program. That includes child care and so on. So the class sizes are considerably larger.

Mr. Chairman, I know the minister is going to indicate that there was $1 million more in the program, but that was because they moved the psychiatric nursing program from BCIT to Douglas College and took the $1 million with it. So actually if you net it out, the grant is down $900,000. I think we're really barking up the wrong tree for a college such as BCIT. We should be reinforcing that level of training. Instead of that, for some reason or another we're making it more difficult for them.

There is some argument whether or not Bill Day's suggestion that there were no service or staff cuts recently.... What I see is some service and staff cuts. So I'm just not going to get into an argument along that line. But I will say that Douglas College is a very important aspect of our education system in B.C. One of the reasons I say that is because they are continually acting as a catalyst in the community. For instance, the program that they have going right now is a program that's trying to create, through their cooperation with the business community, a consciousness of the need to expand that business community, particularly in New Westminster. It's been very badly hurt by government policy vis-a-vis the waterfront, which has been badly hurt because there's a lack of understanding of what that community is to B.C.

Recently the college met with a group of Conservative MPs, and I'll just give you a summary of the suggested changes they were asking for at that time. They were talking about support to smaller enterprises — to employ students and to share in the training process through cooperative education the reintroduction of student grants, targeted at our most vulnerable students — investments in our human capital.

Those student grants were cut off by this government. Heaven only knows why, other than the pecuniary aspect of it. But certainly the government must recognize that as a society we in B.C. cannot compete with other parts of the country and with other nations of the world unless we assist in the best possible way we can. I believe — I'm not positive about this — that we're about the only jurisdiction in the country that no longer has grants.

MR. ROSE: That's right.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: You know, Mr. Chairman, that's the kind of elitist proposition I would expect to hear from the minister of science and technology: if you do well and excel, you can get some remission and so on and so forth; if you don't do well you can go to hell. Look, as far as I'm concerned, I'm talking with the Minister....

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Shame is right. Shame on that kind of elitist attitude.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. All members will have a chance to participate if they wish.

[4:00]

MR. COCKE: That's right, and all members should be sitting in their seats when they're yapping across the floor.

Anyway, to go on, Mr. Chairman, they want a reintroduction of the student grants, and further, assistance to long-term unemployed people to get training adequate to compete in the market. "Cooperative education programs are especially promising in this regard." They want to encourage "the rate of formation and survival of small businesses through training and education centres at the local level." That's the kind of thing that colleges do in communities, particularly a college like Douglas, where they try as best they can not only to be an educational institution but also to be a catalyst in the community — to provide the kinds of services they can, and to provide the coordinated effort to make things happen. I feel that Douglas College is suffering to the extent that I think it's going to reduce their effectiveness in our community and, from that standpoint, for the whole province. So I hope that Douglas College is looked upon more favourably than they seem to be heretofore. Certainly I think that the ministry should remember that Douglas was one of the most active in the early areas of the colleges.

[ Page 5774 ]

I just want to ask the minister a question. Is there any truth in the rumour that PVI and BCIT are going to merge? If so, why?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: With respect to PVI and BCIT, I mentioned in the House.... I think the question was up yesterday. We talked about it. The member for Okanagan North (Mr. MacWilliam) raised the question, and I thought I gave a full answer then. I have received countless approaches on the possibility of bringing those two institutions together, and I'm giving consideration to the proposals which have been made.

MR. ROSE: I hope — and I imagine it's a fervent hope shared by all members of the House — that I will in this next session be able to complete my remarks on this debate; and if I manage to do it, I would like to thank the minister and his officials for being here. I don't think this holds a record for an education debate in terms of length, because we've had it on some short days as well. Nevertheless, I think that no one could complain that we haven't had the attention of the ministry and the minister to our remarks or not had ample time to ventilate a lot of topics. There are a lot of topics that I haven't touched, and I feel guilty about that. I don't know that we could ever do them all, such a large and complex industry is the education industry.

I guess I would like to break up this 15 minutes that I have into three segments. The first one I'd like to talk about is just a general idea, the revision of the School Act. Next I'd like to talk about levels of service. In the final five minutes or so I would like to talk about what I see as needed in the coming years for the next generation, in terms of education, and how I think the ministry's direction is somewhat wrong-headed.

First, the minister keeps talking about a new School Act. I notice that he's softened his words a little bit recently. He guaranteed a School Act a little while ago, in his earlier remarks; now he talks about a White Paper, or a draft act, or a School Act. Some of us think that it's already written; however, the minister has assured us that he's keeping an open mind on all this, and that his School Act is going to be a result of the deliberations of the "Let's Talk About Schools" committee. I'm not sure.... He also tells us that he has an arm's-length relationship with that committee and its deliberations. I don't know how he explains that with the fact that his own deputy chairs the committee, but that's some sort of tortuous logic known to the minister and unknown to me.

Nevertheless, the School Act revisions have a long and glorious history. It started in 1979 when the then minister, McGeer, established a committee to revise, and even had researchers and a lawyer from UVic on it to do the committee. Then we had Mr. Smith, who was the next Minister of Education. He shelved McGeer's committee. He kept stating that they had had a draft act but intended to put out a mandate statement that should be a sort of preamble to the discussion of this act; for that, we had Smith. Then Vander Zalm shelved Smith's work, talked about a new School Act and put out a list of deregulations for the schools; that's as far as we got with him. It seems to me that Mr. Heinrich, the present Minister of Education, shelved Vander Zalm's work and published this "Let's Talk About Schools."

Some people think it was merely to confuse the public; that he'd already made up his mind as to what he had determined. The minister doesn't like to hear that. I said that some people think that. I think sometimes, though, some of these things are done for cosmetic reasons. I feel that "Let's Talk About Schools".... I'd like to get into details about that at another time, because I think there are lots of things you could say about the questionnaire and the various kinds of discussion papers. There's lots of critical stuff on that. I haven't echoed those in here. As a matter of fact, I urged people to participate. That was my approach to it. I suggested that maybe it was a cosmetic thing, but if we were silent on the whole process we would be accused of sins of omission; that we really had no excuses left if we decided to boycott the thing. Nevertheless, I think a lot of confusion is the result. I think the whole thing was discredited by the fact that the superintendent of Burnaby wouldn't go on it, the fact that the research executive director of the B.C. School Trustees' Association declined — he said he was too busy — and the fact that the former vice-president of the BCSTA, Joy Leach, found that she was too busy. That really discredited the whole process, at least in the eyes of the public. So I don't know how much credibility there is in that now.

That really is the history of this School Act thing. It will be a real miracle if this minister delivers a new School Act. I suggested earlier that our approach to that same thing would be to publish a draft act and then go around the province with a parliamentary committee to hear submissions. Whether we'll have an opportunity to do that in the near future, I think, depends on whether the minister persists in his attack on the schools. I really believe that there is a genuine attack on the schools. I don't need to be unpleasant about it. We don't have to be outraged at one another, but I think the direction is absolutely wrong-headed.

Look at what's happening. Here is just a quick list, and I know these shopping lists are really boring for people, but I think it indicates what's happening: 47 percent of all elementary students are in oversized classes in Burnaby; 46 percent of grade 10 classes are over 30 in Vancouver; 93 secondary classes are over 40. I'm not going to read the whole list of it, but you take even a place like West Vancouver — a rich area like West Vancouver — where 31 percent of kindergarten classes are oversize; 39 percent of primary classes are oversize; and 66 percent of grade 4 classes are oversize. There's no excuse for that in a community like West Vancouver, none whatever.

Then we have people like the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) getting up and saying: "There's no statistical evidence to indicate that large classes make any difference to learning, and there are other more critical things, such as the ability of the teacher."

I agree that the ability of the teacher is crucial, but there are teachers and teachers, just like there are lawyers and lawyers. Some of them are extremely capable of handling large classes and other aren't. The point that I know is that if I were an English teacher, and I was marking classes for 40 or marking classes for 20, I would see that individual attention was given to the smaller classes just from a straight mathematical division of my minutes by each child.

Here is Langley. It has the highest PTR in the province. Class sizes are the third worst in B.C., next to New Westminster and Vancouver. Teaching staff was reduced last June by 3 percent despite increases in district enrolment. Elsewhere we hear the same thing. Langley talks about levels of service. Levels of service have shrunk. In one of these communities — I think it's Surrey — they've lost one teacher for every 6.5 drop in student enrolment. It may not be Surrey;

[ Page 5775 ]

part of my notes are missing on that score — at least I don't see them before me,

The point is well made that a place like Langley, which has always had a tradition of parsimoniousness in educational spending — let's put it that way — is suffering, although it was granted an increase or a relief under the equity system. Langley, I said before the last break, is charging fees for a terrible variety of things. I don't really think that they should be doing that, but the same story occurs everywhere you go.

I've got all kinds of comparisons of levels of service — pre and post this year. Here's a Vancouver survey done by a man by the name of Ronald LaTorre. He talks about programs and courses, and says that multiple-program classes have increased; modified classes have been eliminated; field trips are reduced; music programs have been cancelled; PE programs, such as swimming, are eliminated or reduced; learning-assistance programs are reduced; special-needs programs — here's special needs and learning-assistance — have been reduced; counselling programs are reduced; written assignments are far fewer; drama programs are cancelled; transitional ESL classes, reduced; art programs, reduced; economics 12, cancelled; German 11 and 12, cancelled; Latin 11 and 12, cancelled; data processing, earth sciences, office practice, marketing, social sciences tutorial are all cancelled.

You can't say that's providing diversity. "Let's Talk about Schools." Is that providing diversity in education when you take all these options? This isn't in a little school system. This isn't Vanderhoof; this isn't a small high school. This is a big urban situation. I can go through the same thing about the class sizes in terms of the various grades. They are all up at least two to three in number — every one — and they are up from the previous year too.

Let's talk about maintenance. It's the same story there. Maintenance and school supplies are down 11 percent. Art education supplies are down 10 percent. Field studies, curriculum, outdoor environmental education are down 13 percent. Libraries.... Somebody approached me at the BCTF convention and said: "Mark, don't forget to talk about libraries." Their libraries are being decimated. Well, maybe that's a little strong. Maybe he didn't mean that; that's what he said. But he said: "Don't forget, this is really the heart of the school, and we can't teach library skills if we've got to enrol classes in there and still do a decent job as a librarian." That deals with some of the funds.

Emotionally handicapped children, down. What are you doing for special education? Down 9 percent. Emotionally handicapped, down 2 percent. Elementary learning assistance centres, down 5 percent. So the depressing story goes and goes, and there's no getting away from it. How you can claim that you can maintain the quality of education when every bit of evidence is to the contrary, I don't know. I don't know how you look in the mirror and say those things without blushing. I just can't understand.

[4:15]

The Surrey situation is just the same. I'm not going to read that depressing list. Here's another survey of Vancouver elementary schools — the same thing. Here is Victoria: elimination of programs, outdoor ed, various secondary electives, and they've got another series of horror stories right there. So there you have it.

It's a very, very serious thing. It doesn't even make sense economically. I can cite the evidence if you like. You can talk about California and Silicon Valley. You can talk about areas that are attracting people. We're talking about the lower proportion we spend of our GNP. We've gone over that. But here is a study done by Mr. Bertram: Staff Study No. 12 for the Economic Council of Canada, June 1966. It's an oldie but a goodie. He makes the point or attempts to make the point and documents the point that the reason our income and our economic activity and our earning power has remained persistently one-quarter below the United States since the turn of the century is that we have failed to spend the money on public education that the Americans have done.

MR. R. FRASER: I don't believe that.

MR. ROSE: Well, I don't care if you believe it or not. You're an engineer. You make bridges that fall down. Just because somebody has some expertise in one area....

MR. R. FRASER: On a point of order, the member has made a personal suggestion that I help bridges fall down. I don't think he really meant it, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I guess it can be considered a personal remark against another hon. member of this House, although it doesn't really offend parliamentary procedure. The member may wish to withdraw it.

MR. ROSE: Yes, I don't mind, if I have offended the member. I know he didn't make that bridge, but I'm just saying that because a person has some professional expertise it doesn't mean that he knows all the answers about everything. If he doesn't believe this, he's entitled not to believe it. It's an assertion; it's a monograph. But as an educated man he should really examine this before he makes such strident remarks.

I wonder if you'd consider the member as an intervening speaker, Mr. Chairman. You wouldn't?

MR. CHAIRMAN: It was a point of order.

MR. ROSE: He certainly was an intervening speaker. No question about that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We'll give you another minute.

MR. ROSE: Did you add a minute to my time? You might provoke me into speaking more, you know. I might have another intervening speaker.

Anyway, this Mr. Bertram of the Economic Council of Canada says:

"Part of the explanation of the neglect to analyze education and human capital as a factor in economic growth may be in an unwillingness to regard education as an investment in human beings. Theodore Schultz has argued, however, that wealth exists only for the advantage of people, and human capital or wealth does not contradict this concept since people can enlarge the range of choice available to them by investing in themselves."

That's what a lot of teachers have done, much to their own chagrin.

I think that the whole concept or philosophy behind the government cutbacks, as the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) pointed out yesterday, is to cut education about 1 percent this year after roughly 5 percent in the previous

[ Page 5776 ]

years, plus another 13 percent, adding up to 18 or 19 percent across the board, while the provincial budget has grown 14 percent. It's obvious that education has been targeted. While the minister said that he believes he is the advocate for education, if he fought for education, then he lost. Or else he believes in what he's doing, and that's even more terrifying. Not that he isn't a hard worker or affable and agreeable; nobody is making personal charges to the contrary like that. But as the Assistant Deputy Minister of Education might recall, I made some remarks at the Phi Delta Kappa conference on Saturday about my view of what education should be.

If I've got a minute.... How much time do I have? Thirty-five seconds? Well, I can't complete it then. Perhaps I could have an intervening speaker so I could just wrap this up in about five minutes.

MR. HOWARD: I think that's a very, very enlightening speech that we've just heard from the member, and I'm looking forward to a little bit more of it.

MR. ROSE: I would like to thank the member for Skeena for his intervention. Anyway, I think that there's a large hunk in "Let's Talk About Schools" of indoctrination and training rather than education, but that maybe will be a debate for another time. But I'd like to share with the House.... I even hate that phrase "share with." I'd like to say to the House that we've got certain challenges facing education, and I think the first challenge is to try to restore the kind of investment in education that we once had.

Yes, I think it's important to examine it. I think the minister has made an important contribution by going through and analyzing the various components and the various functions within the educational framework. I don't like his inflexible imposition of those, but nevertheless I think that the work has been a valuable one — the examination of the various functions within the school. I think there should be guidelines; I don't think that they should be prescriptive. But nevertheless I think the analytical work has been useful. It's certainly going to be a lot of help to secretary-treasurers who like pigeonholes like that, except that I wish that maybe the pigeonholes were more elastic than they are. Instead of being made out of steel, they might be made of something a little bit more flexible.

So I think we're going to have to get the cutbacks restored so we can have the kind of investment we can afford to do in this country. I feel the cutbacks in education about equal the expected deficit of Expo, so that education in this province has paid for the Expo debt, as far as I'm concerned. Now whether we get a return on that is open to question.

I think we're going to have to return local autonomy too, because I think that it's much better to have as many local decisions made as possible by those people who are going to be affected by the decisions. You don't achieve that by controlling budgets and controlling a flexible curriculum, a core curriculum that has all core and nothing else, with students not having the options they need. Nor can we afford to offer them in many instances, in small schools for reasons we've gone over, and in larger schools — and I just mentioned it — because of the restraint program.

But I think the thing is, what kind of an education should we have for the next generation? I'm convinced that what we need is a broad general education with lots of different kinds of options, and it should have a broad liberal kind of base.

That isn't to denigrate at all the vocational or the technical. But the narrow specialty is a very dangerous thing, because jobs are going to change and society is going to change, so we need people with an education to provide them with the ability to accept change, to analyze, to criticize and to not be swayed by propaganda or false advertising — probably not the aims of the government. A narrow kind of special education is what I think you're embarked upon.

On the other hand, a lot of thinkers tell us that we're not really going to know what kind of an education is going to be needed, and therefore a more liberal one.... So you can have a genuine education, a liberal general education upon which you can build specific skills and the ability to change as those jobs become dead-ended or disappear. That has to do with the changing nature of society. If you think of society right now, or since the turn of the century, as diamond-shaped with a lot of well-paid middle-class people clustering around its centre and the very few very rich and very poor at each end, that is changing, because with technology the automation is making a lot of — immature industries especially — those high-paid unionized jobs in steel, in forestry and in automobiles disappear. They're disappearing, and they're going to be replaced by automation.

So what you're going to have then is not very much of an increase in the high-tech kind of necessity, because you need only a few of those. You don't need many people to run word processors. They don't have to be highly skilled people. So from what we can see the real projection of what is going to be needed in the twenty-first century.... And the jobs that are expanding.... The ones that are shrinking are the ones that are highly paid, the middle-class kinds of jobs in mature industries, and the ones that are growing are the low-scale ones — in high-tech as well. They're not creating jobs. There are going to be more janitors needed, more building superintendents, more waitresses, more people at McDonald's Hamburgers — unfortunately.

What does that mean for education? Well, it may mean what I think is happening right now in education. I have a little problem. I don't know whether you guys over there are smart or dumb in what you're doing — whether it's Machiavellian or whether you're not concerned or aware of what is happening to society. That's what bothers me — all right? If you recognize that you're not going to need as many skilled people, then you'll do what you're doing. You'll cut down the number of kids that are going to graduate on university programs. You're going to make your high schools more academic, and you're going to raise your standards to the point where few can pass them, so there will be a large number of dropouts. If you do that, and then also couple with that what you're doing in your junior colleges — playing down your university transfer programs so the colleges like Douglas are going to be turning away 500 people next year — then you're going to have fewer people prepared to knock on the doors of the universities, which is fine with the Minister of Universities, because he thinks universities are too big and too costly anyway.

So what you've planned then is a de-scaling of society. Now if that is your aim, you're going about it the right way. If that's not your aim, then I would want to examine very carefully the wisdom of what you're doing. And that worries me, quite frankly; it really does.

So in conclusion, I would like to thank the minister and I recognize all the things we didn't talk about including independent schools and ESL and all the rest of it — for his

[ Page 5777 ]

courtesy and his efforts. I'd like to close with a motion that vote 17 be reduced by $1.

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 17

NAYS — 28

[4:30]

MR. NICOLSON: A point of order. I noticed there were a few people in the gallery who stood up as well, Mr. Chairman, so perhaps the vote was a little closer.

Vote 17 approved.

MR. ROSE: On a point of order, under the new rules and I can't give the citation — we are permitted to say: "On division." On vote 17 I shouted, "On division," and I'll be doing so on all these votes, unless we have a standing vote.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You're absolutely right. In any voice vote a member may ask the Chair to announce to the House or committee that the motion in question was carried or defeated "on division" — that is the term — without an actual division being taken under standing order 16. Upon the Chair so announcing, the Votes and Proceedings shall record the fact accordingly. We did have an actual division on the amendment, but it is the request of the member that practice order 16 be put in place with respect to vote 17. The Chair announces that vote 17 passed on division. Thank you.

Vote 18: management operations, $24,238,265 — approved on division.

Vote 19: public schools education, $1,064,554,825 approved on division.

Vote 20: post-secondary colleges and institutes, $312,105,535 — approved.

Vote 21: independent schools, $27,105,867 — approved on division.

MR. REE: On a point of order, just for clarification, I notice that you have been saying "On division" when members have left the chamber since the last count in division.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's a different process, hon. member. I would commend to you page 36, practice recommendation No. 1, of our new standing orders, and upon perusing that you will understand what we are doing here. It is a new procedure. I think it's working very well, and we'll leave it at this point.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

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

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: Second reading of Bill 25, Mr. Speaker.

PROVINCIAL-MUNICIPAL PARTNERSHIP ACT

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Speaker, I take great pride indeed in standing to make very brief comments in respect to Bill 25, Provincial-Municipal Partnership Act. It's quite obvious that if economic renewal is going to take place out there, it's going to take place at the local level. I would like to report to the House that the response to this program has been overwhelming. Workshops have been held in Penticton, Parksville and Kimberley. Surrey's was held today, with a full house. Indications are that in excess of 80 municipalities have expressed their sincere interest in the program. Those municipalities represent all those with a population of 7,500 or more, representing approximately 94 percent of the municipal population.

Also, it really gives me a great deal of pleasure to report to the House that my critic, the second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe), has also expressed his support for this program. Hopefully he will be true to his word that indeed little time will be taken up in passing this legislation, knowing the importance of getting things moving at the local level and assisting us in getting people back to work.

I now move second reading.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

MR. BLENCOE: I have a few things to say about this legislation. I don't anticipate going beyond the half hour, Mr. Speaker, but I indicate now that if I do, I will be the designated speaker.

First let me say that for some time now, we on this side of the House have been calling for proper consultation and recognition of local government as a major factor in economic recovery — or economic reconstruction, as we term it — in British Columbia. If the members opposite recall, a year and a half ago now, I guess, I spent some time in this Legislature detailing how I thought local government could participate in economic recovery; how their talents and their expertise could be a part of economic reconstruction in the province. Given particularly that it's our belief, and the belief now of well over 60 to 65 percent of British Columbians, that this government has proved itself to be incompetent and has

[ Page 5778 ]

mismanaged the economy of British Columbia, they are now waiting for a change in government. We have indicated many times how we think positive reconstruction could happen in British Columbia.

I am pleased that this government is finally paying attention to local government. I have to say, however, that some of the attention they're paying is most unsatisfactory. They continue to centralize operations in Victoria, into the provincial government. I once again say, before I start specifically on some sections of Bill 25, that we believe in the autonomy of local government. We believe that they have the ability to participate if the programs are decent and will help them in recovery. We believe they can be an important component in economic reconstruction in the province of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, before us we have legislation that unfortunately is the only deal in town for local government. It's the only thing they're being offered. I have taken time, as other members of our side of the House have done, to listen to local government's views about this piece of legislation. In my estimation, it is a minor piece of legislation. It's basically a public relations stunt to try to convince local government that the provincial government is serious about their problems and their concerns and the financial responsibilities they face today.

Suffice to say then, Mr. Speaker, that I don't intend to spend much time on this piece of legislation. I think there are flaws in it. I don't believe it does the job that local government requires today. I believe that all evidence from other jurisdictions is that when local government gets into giving tax breaks through the back door, they run into serious problems down the road.

[4:45]

Mr. Speaker, I believe there is a far more positive agenda for local government, one whereby all the various infrastructure problems they have been facing over the last few years have to be faced by senior government and in particular provincial government, and we need to take a look at front-loading our support for local government. If there was ever a time for a positive megaproject in the province of British Columbia, it would be spending our time and our effort and our resources rebuilding the municipalities.

All studies indicate, Mr. Speaker, that where they are having problems today is in ensuring that their infrastructure and their plants and their operations are maintained properly, and they have the finances and the dollars to ensure that their municipalities are healthy physically, environmentally, economically and socially.

Mr. Speaker, this piece of legislation is only one component, and a minor component, in ensuring that local government is healthy. On a scale of 1 to 10 it would be number 10, because if you're looking to attract new industry to a town or a village or municipality, industry doesn't look just for tax relief. They look to the general welfare and the general health of that community. All the evidence shows that when industry moves into a community or into a province, they want to know that the general community is healthy. They want to know that the education services are intact and not being ravaged or cut back. They want to know that the universities are intact and are supported and the political climate is good for universities and therefore research and development to help private industry. They want to know that the cultural attributes are healthy and the recreational system in good shape.

Mr. Speaker, in British Columbia those very aspects that go towards making a healthy community are not in good shape. In the last two or three years we have seen this government ravage those very aspects that make a community healthy, particularly in the education, health, cultural and social areas. I'm saying that those items I'm listing are the other ingredients in attracting industry to any province or any community, and a few tax relief dollars out the back door are not going to bring the industry that you want or the captains of industry that you think you can attract. We have to have a climate that is conducive to bringing those people to our province. You take a look at why industry moves into certain parts of California. The state of Texas spends reams of money on universities, far more than British Columbia does, and yet that's considered a very right-wing government.

What I'm trying to say to this government is that if you're going to bring economic development and economic reconstruction to the province of British Columbia, a minor component is tax relief. Unless we have a healthy province in all the other aspects that I've outlined, you're not going to get people to come here. They're going to stay away from British Columbia. Mr. Speaker, the perception of the climate today is that British Columbia is not a good place to go; it's not a good place where you want to invest your private dollars, if you're a particular company. It's a place you stay away from, because the political climate that has been created is one of confrontation, not cooperation or conciliation.

Those ingredients must be part of any program you introduce to bring developments or industry into the province of British Columbia. I happen to believe that local government can be a serious part of that, but I don't think forgoing taxes that those local governments are going to need to maintain their operations should be a long-term objective of any government in the province of British Columbia.

However, it is the only deal that this government is putting forward, or the only opportunity for local government to participate in anything this government has offered in the last close to two years. As a consequence, it is not our intention to oppose this legislation, as I have already indicated; it is not our intention to obstruct the government in its attempts to do something for local government. God knows, local government needs some kind of support from this government, because every time I attend any conference, association meeting or UBCM meeting, the overwhelming response to me is: "When is this government going to recognize that we are an important factor or ingredient in the fabric of the social and economic health of this province?"

Last week we were debating the Islands Trust; this week we are talking about the government's cooperation program. It is somewhat hypocritical, to say the least.

AN HON. MEMBER: Order!

MR. BLENCOE: Somewhat — an understatement. Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, I don't think local government believes that this government wishes to cooperate, and I believe they are going to find that when they do get into this legislation or do become part of the program, they indeed are going to run into some problems.

Let me outline very quickly what some of my concerns are with this legislation, because the legislation currently states.... Individual municipalities are only offered the program. There is nowhere currently in the legislation where a region or a group of municipalities can try to cooperate, to

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decide who is going to do what and what industry is going to move where, and inject an atmosphere of cooperation and conciliation into this process.

My deep concern is that, because under the legislation municipalities can forgo taxes to industrial assessments of between 50 and 100 percent, you are going to get what I have termed a discount war. I know it is already starting to happen because I have already spoken to mayors and aldermen across this province who are saying: "Well" — and this is the analogy I will use — "the municipality next door to me says they are going to go 55 percent forgiveness; I guess we are going to have to go 60 or 65 percent."

That is not conducive to trying to get some sort of cooperation on where industry should be located. Why have municipalities fight each other over these particular things? Why not allow on a regional basis for some kind of cooperation and regional decision-making over new industry and where it should be located? The fact that you get a discount war.... The whole system breeds inequalities in the particular program. Those municipalities that maybe have reserves or are in a better financial position to attract industry can of course forgo more of their taxes.

It's our position on this side of the House that programs should be as equal as possible and as universal as possible, and that there is a sharing of the wealth, and that you don't through the back door create this competition and this fighting among each other in those smaller rural communities. It's not necessarily just rural communities who cannot afford to participate or who have to ignore or turn away this program that's being offered to them, and which I have already said I don't think is worth particularly much anyway.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

But why do that? Those municipalities that are the poorest often are the ones that need the jobs. They are the ones that are in desperate need of new employment or new industrial opportunities. This very program is discriminatory, and it will ensure that those communities that are in most need of new jobs and employment opportunities will not be able to participate because they will not have the dollars or the reserves to be able to forgo taxes.

You will create municipal competition and fighting among each other. I know the president of the UBCM, Mr. Mel Couvelier, has already indicated their concern, and I think it is a very justified concern. Tax-discounting competition could simply redistribute manufacturing investment without creating any jobs.

A discount war with their neighbours may force municipalities to offer industrial incentives simply to protect existing jobs. That's another concern we have to think about.

What about what I believe is an inefficient incentive — touch-down industries? I know that in my riding and in many ridings we have industries that have struggled through the current recession and have tried desperately to stay in business and protect their employees. I think many of them in British Columbia have done an admirable job staying in business.

MR. WILLIAMS: With these guys as managers....

MR. BLENCOE: With these guys, it's amazing; with this government, it's incredible. I believe that the first priority in British Columbia today should not be touch-down industries but the entrepreneurs who have given to this province for 50 to 100 years, have protected our industries and have tried to stay the recession and put up with this government for the last few years. They are the people who should be getting the priority, not touch-down industries that may come in, take advantage of the tax relief and take off again out the back door. That's where the priorities should be. British Columbian business first; not touch-down industries first.

That's one of the major inefficiencies of this particular program. What are you doing for existing British Columbian entrepreneurs? Are you forcing them out of business? Or do you just want the fly-by-night Filipino industries here who pay minimum wages? Is that what you're after? It's time to do something for existing British Columbian industries.

Interjections.

MR. BLENCOE: However, you've driven many of them out of British Columbia.

Interjections.

MR. BLENCOE: I throw them out of Victoria! I was asking the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) today to do something about a little cottage industry here that's employing six people and has the opportunity to employ many more, and he won't deregulate. He's supposedly a free-enterpriser. Mr. Speaker, this is not a free enterprise piece of legislation we have in front of us. It does nothing for the free enterprise businesses of British Columbia today. All those B.C. entrepreneurs who have struggled through this recession and put up with this government for the last few years, what do they get out of this deal? Nothing. They get a gold watch from the Premier after they go bankrupt.

Interjections.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, they never like to hear the truth. This particular piece of legislation will only encourage touch-down industries.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. The second member for Victoria has taken his place in debate, and he will continue.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, my concern with these tax incentives, which basically are a PR number, is that they may not provide the long-term, stable investment that municipalities need today. In the range of factors which encourage an industry to invest, relocate or expand, a time-limited tax reduction on new improvements is just one variable among many. But as I've already indicated, there are so many other variables that this government has abandoned.

I believe this is an inefficient way to attract industry to the province.

Interjections.

MR. BLENCOE: Well, I haven't heard of any municipalities in this area that are going to participate in this program.

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I've already indicated how unfair it is to indigenous British Columbian industry here today. I know the concern of local councils is that if they do participate in this, and they give someone else who moves into town the tax break, and the old industry — the sawmill, or whatever you have — gets nothing.... Can you imagine the animosity that will create in that municipality? It will be deep-seated animosity. And this government is bringing in legislation that will guarantee such animosity, guarantee such discrimination, guarantee lack of support for our B.C. entrepreneurs who have struggled through this recession and this government.

[5:00]

Mr. Speaker, there is another area that I know is a concern to local government if they participate in this particular piece of legislation. This government is saying: "Well, all the local government will be losing is new tax money." Well, unfortunately this government isn't being truly candid with local government when it says that. If a new industry is going to move into a community, there are all sorts of infrastructures that have to be established: servicing costs, roads, and an industrial park, if they don't have one. And there are ongoing costs of maintaining the services associated with that new industry: police, fire, sewer, water, and many others. I think what's happening in many municipalities — and I know it's happening — is that the number-crunching they're doing is seeing that the costs down the road far outweigh the benefits. You see, Mr. Speaker, this legislation does not pay attention to the deep-seated financial problems that local government faces today. It's giving money away when local government is so desperate for resources to maintain its infrastructure that they are very doubtful about this particular program. The costs are unknown. Without fair taxation these must be paid for by other taxpayers.

Something I want to hear the government talk about is that there is a feeling, certainly on this side of the House, that what we may have here is a fundamental shift in who pays taxes at the local level. It is certainly a philosophical indication that this government is prepared to befriend its corporate friends by giving them tax breaks. But as I have indicated, the down-the-road costs in terms of maintaining the infrastructure around those new industries will have to be paid from somewhere. You know and I know who's going to get the burden: it's going to be the homeowner. The homeowner will pay for this program. The homeowner will have to take up the slack. We have a very subtle shift of the tax burden from the corporate sector onto the little old homeowner, who also has put up with this government, its policies and the recession. I see no tax breaks for the homeowner in the province of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, the lack of universal benefit, as I've already mentioned, is a very important component of our concerns about this particular piece of legislation. Other economic development programs are unavailable unless a tax-cutting contract has been signed. Think about that.

The legislation allows for certain other things to happen: "Program grants will cost-share to 50 percent on municipal and economic development officers to a maximum of $25,000 annually; expenses of local volunteer economic development committees to a maximum of $1,000; economic development promotions to a maximum of $5,000 per project; market research on economic development to a maximum of $5,000 per project." Now there was much interest in those particular aspects of this particular legislation. But guess what, Mr. Speaker: under the current legislation the blackmail clause says you have to give tax cuts before you can participate in these so-called positive items.

It's my intention — indeed I'd like to give notice now during the committee stage to move an amendment to this particular aspect. I don't think there should be any blackmail in this legislation. Although it's minor legislation, at least we're going to try to spread the wealth a little bit. Municipalities should be free to participate in these programs without being blackmailed into giving tax relief. The point I make on this is that those very municipalities that cannot afford to give tax relief because they're not rich municipalities or don't have the reserves are the very ones that should be participating in economic development, and hiring officers, and getting economic development committees together.

This bill is full of so many inadequacies. It's a poorly conceived piece of legislation. Obviously it was quickly thought up by the minister and whoever else is around him — a PR number, I suppose, for the Newcombe Auditorium, with the 35-millimetre cameras rolling so they can show in their ads all these mayors and aldermen saying what a great deal it is. Yet, Mr. Speaker, those very municipalities that are in need of economic activity are having to give money away out the back door so they can participate in these so-called positive parts of the program. That's blackmail, and it's decidedly unfair and discriminatory.

Open it up. Allow the small communities who don't have the base to give money away to participate in the so-called positive part of this program. Open it up. I will move an amendment in committee stage on that particular aspect.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things missing from this legislation is often missing from governments of right-wing bent. The legislation is basically going to promote and benefit the private sector at the expense of the public sector; there are no clauses in the legislation vis-a-vis public protection. There is no requirement of jobs being created in this legislation — no requirement to guarantee new jobs.

The reason I bring that up is that there has been some concern that an existing business can apply for some tax relief, under the guise that they're going to construct something new in their plant, but they could use that money to technologically change that plant and put people out of business. I happen to believe that this legislation may see jobs lost because of that aspect of the bill. Indeed, under this legislation you could have a net loss of jobs, because those industries that exist will be able to apply, will be able to get some funding to change their plants so that they put people out of work. We all know that's happening, and I do not think that the public want to support such legislation.

I believe that there should be worked into this legislation some requirement that those industries that benefit from the public purse have to show the public that there has been some net gain in employment. That, I think, is a contract, and I think it's time in British Columbia and anywhere else in Canada that when the public purse is prepared to give something up, there has to be some guaranteed return from the private sector that is benefiting. Shipping the money out the back door, without any restrictions or any mechanism whereby the public can be protected or assured that they get new jobs, is not in the long-term interests of British Columbians or Canadians. There should be some requirement that jobs are created. Unfortunately, under this legislation that doesn't happen.

Mr. Speaker, local government is very apprehensive, I believe, about this legislation. No one is really enthusiastic

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about it. Nobody is jumping on the bandwagon. As a matter of fact, they've managed to convince the mayor and council of Trail to go for the program, but I know there is apprehension in Trail, which supposedly was going to be the first on the bandwagon. They know it does not deal with the basic problems they have in local government.

In my estimation, Mr. Speaker, what should have happened with any kind of cooperative program is that the minister or this government should have developed the program with local government first before announcing it. All those people came to Newcombe Auditorium; 99 percent knew nothing about what they were going to be told, and the minister said: "If you don't like it, we don't want to talk to you. We've developed this thing in Victoria; this is what we want to see happen in local government." Boy, that's real cooperation and consultation.

It's not the right way. It is Big Daddy government telling little governments exactly what they can do and have. That attitude has got to change. There has to be mutual respect between local government and senior government. There has to be a feeling of equality in developing the programs. This program has not been developed with local government in mind. It's not been developed with local government participating in the development of these programs, Mr. Speaker. It's been developed by the minister and his honchos somewhere in the back rooms, and it's dumped on local government, and they say: "Take it or leave it; if you don't like it, we don't want to talk to you."

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Interjections.

MR. BLENCOE: You don't even know how to spell "equality" or "cooperation" or "consultation."

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Comments should be directed through the Speaker's chair.

MR. BLENCOE: I would suggest that if this ministry is serious about cooperation and consultation it will go back and sit down, as I've suggested, and motions that are on the order paper currently.... It would go back to UBCM and say: "Look, let's develop the programs together." You haven't developed them together. Everybody I've talked to says: "Well, at least they've got something in the legislation that says 'municipalities,' but it's not what we think we can do best; it's not what we need."

Interjections.

MR. BLENCOE: The minister refers to my attending in Kimberley. Yes, he knows I was in Kimberley, he knows I addressed and talked to many people up there, and he knows I will continue to do that. Over the next two months I will be travelling in this province, speaking to local government, consulting and listening, and treating them as equals in a real process of consultation and cooperation on behalf of the New Democratic Party. We are serious about local government. We respect local government, unlike you. You develop the programs here and say: "Take it or leave it." Give away money out the back door, and all the programs I have indicated are going to come home to roost.

[5:15]

The Union of British Columbia Municipalities has tabled umpteen briefs telling this minister and this government what they require; very important pieces of information that tell them: "Look, what we need is not giving away money out the back door. We need support for our municipalities. We need to see that they're important, and we need to see that this government is prepared to spend the resources on local government." It's like a tree: if the roots of your province in a community are not healthy — and the roots of our province are local government — then whatever you do at the provincial level is going to be jeopardized.

I would suggest that this government and this minister go back to square one and take a look at exactly what local government is asking. It's asking, for instance, that you reverse the formula on sewer and storm drain grants.

Interjection.

MR. BLENCOE: You're saying that you want to see industry come into a town, Mr. Minister, but if they can't afford to maintain the services because you've reversed the formulas, except if you happen to be in the Premier's riding.... That's what local government wants this government to talk about. They want them to look at the upfront problems, the financial problems, the problems of real property tax and the inadequacies and inequalities in that property tax. They want the government to expand existing progressive tax fields for local government. Why can't they have a greater share in income tax, a greater share of the wealth? We contend that if local government is not in good shape, and the communities are not supported, we are building the future of our province on very shaky ground — quicksand, if you will.

I believe that if local government is going to be able to participate in economic reconstruction, there are many other things that this government has got to take a look at. The basic problem of local governments today is not that they can't attract industry; it's that they can't afford to maintain what they've got. They're not being supported by this government in all aspects of community life that will attract the industry which supposedly this government wants to see in British Columbia. I happen to believe, and our side of the House believes, that what we should be doing is lifting the priority of local government. We should be trying to achieve what we do with forestry, although we haven't got the agreement signed. We took to major federal-provincial agreements on the rebuilding and restructuring of local government in the province of British Columbia. We need to give a higher priority to local government. If those communities are healthy, if they are rebuilt and people are back to work actually rebuilding them, if the schools, the universities and the health system are intact, then you will start to get your captains of industry in other parts of the world saying: "Yes, maybe we'll go to British Columbia." Until potential investors have confidence in British Columbia, any PR legislation like this can only be seen as minor legislation, window-dressing, and really not in the long-term interests of the province.

Mr. Speaker, it's our belief that this government is not really serious about cooperation. It is creating, as I have already indicated, incredible inadequacies and inequalities in

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its approach to local government in this particular program. We have deep reservations about it. All jurisdictions, particularly in the United States, that have gone the route of tax relief have come to grief. The minister, if he does his homework, if he will get some of his people to do their homework for him, will find that it's absolutely true. Their advice is: don't go the tax relief way. Put the money up front; rebuild the schools, the parks and the health facilities; create the atmosphere for the captains of industry in other jurisdictions to move into the province of British Columbia.

When there's an atmosphere of confidence and feeling good in British Columbia, then we'll get the investment, then we'll get the opportunities created. But not right now, because until the basic problem we have is removed — that is, the Social Credit government — there will be no major change in the province, and industry knows that. They know that this 35-millimetre piece of legislation that is....

Interjection.

MR. BLENCOE: The day I worry about Peter Pollen is....

Interjection.

MR. BLENCOE: Yes, the mayor of Victoria will be running in Oak Bay.

AN HON. MEMBER: Bye bye, Brian.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Would the member be relevant to Bill 25...

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, I was distracted.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: ...and would other members give appropriate recognition to his position on the floor.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, the UBCM — local government — knows that this is not serious legislation. They knew that when they were brought to the Newcombe Auditorium, when they saw the 35-millimetre cameras whirling, they were going to be used for a PR number, for advertising on television to try to convince the people of British Columbia that local government supported this government. Well, local government is very tired of this government's attitude to local government.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately the only piece of legislation or program being offered to local government is the one we have before us. And so in the interests of those who believe that they have to bite on this to get anything at all, knowing the dangers and the black holes they might be getting into, it is not our intention to vote against this legislation.

But I have indicated where I think the real traps lie. I have talked over and over again about where I think we should be putting our efforts into local government. The first thing to do is develop a process whereby there is respect between provincial and local government, and an atmosphere and a methodology whereby programs can be developed by both sides. Ask 99 percent of local government officials about this legislation — you really ask them — and they will tell you quite honestly that they don't see it doing very much for them. They believe that unless their communities are healthy in all the other areas I've indicated today....

Vancouver is rejecting this way. Vancouver has gone the way of upfront infrastructure-rebuilding, trying to make sure their facilities are intact and that it's a healthy, liveable city — an environment conducive to families, to children, and therefore with good support systems for that. Vancouver rejects this method, and other jurisdictions that have gone this way now totally reject them. But this government knows that this is not the long-term program that is going to rebuild our local governments and our province. It is basically minor legislation; an attempt to flimflam a few people into thinking they are trying to do something. And one day, very soon, there will be a government that will be prepared to work with local government to develop the programs that they require based on the excellent briefs that have been forwarded. I'm not going to go through them again, because I've done it many times — where the priorities lie. It's going to take a New Democratic government, obviously, to rebuild local government and the province, and to create the faith and the ability to get this province back on the road. Because this is not going to do it, and if this is the best you can offer, the people of British Columbia will clearly turn against you and vote against you.

But because it's the only thing local government's got, we will support it.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I just have a few remarks about this bill. I want to deal with the methods of the government in having dealt with and developed this piece of legislation, rather than the substance of it.

If there's one action or attitude that identifies this government in the public's mind over the last number of years, it is that this is a government that believes in confrontational tactics. This is a government that has no time for the cooperative, consultative stance in this province and no time to pay attention in a prior way to the desires, needs, hopes or aspirations of people. The method used to prepare this bill and to deal with it proves once again that that's the only thing on the plate of the government: confrontation.

Here is a piece of legislation, conceived who knows where by some unidentifiable parentage, but developed in the secrecy of the cabinet room. There was no public debate or public conversation or input, just that small coterie of people who happened to be in the cabinet room at those times when this was developed. Out they came from the cabinet room and confronted — and that's exactly what happened — municipalities with a fait accompli, confronted them with the bill and said: "Here it is. Take it or leave it." That's what they said. They implanted the bill.

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD: I know the minister has press statements and press releases over there. I'll get to that in a minute. I'm talking about his confrontational attitude, which is the only thing that he knows.

Mr. Speaker, this Legislature established a Municipal Affairs and Housing Committee of the Legislature. I haven't even seen a notice that that committee is going to meet, even to elect a chairperson, as yet. But that committee could have been the focal point of the development of legislation that would have been really meaningful.

[5:30]

[ Page 5783 ]

A year ago in May the government and the Premier shut down the Legislature and kept it locked up for a period of nine months. Nine months is significant, I think, in the approach to the way legislation should be developed. During that period of time there was ample opportunity for the Municipal Affairs Committee of this Legislature to have been meeting with municipal officials and to have been discussing with them and asking for input from elected municipal officials, responsible mayors and aldermen in this province, on their ideas on how they perceived things might work for the betterment of this province. But the government had no truck or trade with consultation or with cooperation. A nine-month lockout and the consultative process ignored completely.

The government, by this stance, is indicating that it knows it all, that there are no other intelligences in the province except those residing in the heads of this cabinet. That's what they're saying. Nobody else in the province has any brains except this government, and therefore that government, with those brains that it has, sat in the secrecy of the cabinet room, developed something, came out and said: "Here it is." This is a government which has admitted its own absolute incompetence in being able to deal with this economy. This is a government that knew it all a few years ago, and said: "Oh, you just elect us and we'll fix everything. Everybody will be back at work. Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be on their way. We'll do it because we know it all. We know how to do it."

The minister today, with his commencement remarks, admitted abject, absolute failure in that regard. He admitted he doesn't know it all and that his government colleagues don't know it all. In fact they know very little about the affairs of the economy of this province. Here is a government that by its fiscal activities and its philosophic blindness brought about the recession in this province, aggravated an already tense economic situation and added fuel to the fire of unemployment and of bankruptcies. Through excessive expenditures on the part of government, through a fiscal policy that saw 20 percent increases in budgetary expenditures for a couple of years in a row, grabbing taxpayers' money and squandering it all over the place on heaven knows what....

Interjections.

MR. HOWARD: Well, there's the loudmouth from South Peace River muttering again. The hon. empty barrel from Peace River knows more about squandering public money than anybody in this chamber — world-class, first-class traveller, all over the world. He accomplished not a single thing except squandering the taxpayers' money. That contributed to this recession — a measurable contribution. And now an admission of failure — not only an admission of failure, a loud-mouthed admission of failure on his part.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Possibly the member could be relevant to bill 25 in his debate, and other members could restrain themselves from interruptions. All members should pay attention to the debate in the House.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, with respect, people who pay attention to the procedures in the House should also realize what's going on. Those who want to deal with the rules should draw those to the attention of the hecklers and the empty people over there.

But here is a government which by excessive taxation, excessive squandering of taxpayers' money, coupled then with a followup restraint, made the recession in this province worse than in any other place in Canada. Admitted absolute failure. And now the Minister of Municipal Affairs.... He's the new blood, you may recall, that came into the cabinet, the new blood that the Premier talked about. Now he comes in and says: "It ain't our responsibility any more. We are going to confront municipalities. We're going to shift the burden of responsibility for economic matters onto the municipalities." That shifting shows all the more need for a sense of cooperation and consultation, and a sense of respect and admiration necessary to apply to local government if you want things to work, not a sense of confrontation.

Because of this government's contribution to the recession, people in this province are in a desperate mood and in a desperate state of affairs. Yes, they will grasp at almost anything — and that's understandable — that looks like it might hold out a promise of some economic activity and a promise of some job creation. This desire to grab at almost any straw is why the minister is now able to hold up sheaves of newspaper clippings that say people are going for this. Yes, I don't....

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD: Listen, if I were an elected officer in a municipality I'd be looking at this and saying: "What's in here, and how can we use it?" Certainly I would, and that's what municipalities are doing. That does not in any way sanction the process and sanction the method. That's what I'm getting at. I said I didn't want to deal with the substance; I just wanted to deal with the method. The method is confrontational attack, refusal to cooperate, refusal to have input, and a shifting of responsibility to others for the bungling of this cabinet and this government with respect to the economy over the last few years.

I am very much afraid that no matter how, in a substantive way, this bill is constructed, no matter the details, no matter how much it is refined by regulation or other way, it will not be able to escape the capacity of this government to bungle things.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: I can be very brief closing. In doing so, I would like to inform the last speaker that indeed this minister did consult quite extensively over the past year and a half. I believe I have visited in excess of 90 municipalities and personally attended their meetings, and some of them on a number of occasions. Almost all of the regional districts and almost all of the municipalities have visited me in my office. I think the record will show that in September of last year, as a result of all of these meetings and this communication, it was decided that if indeed there was going to be economic renewal, it was going to take place at the local level. It was going to take place in partnership with the municipalities, with the chambers of commerce, with local business groups, with workers and with the provincial government.

Mr. Speaker, in September of last year, with the cooperation of UBCM, we introduced a program called New Directions. That program spoke about the need to create a healthy economic climate at the municipal level. That program is still travelling throughout the province and has been extremely well received. I can assure you that the UBCM has been very

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cooperative indeed in working with us in developing the entire program.

It's also interesting to note where the second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe) indicated that Vancouver were opposed to it. Mr. Speaker, I have on file a copy of a letter to our Premier from the mayor of Vancouver, Mike Harcourt, commending our Premier and our government on the program. Oh, certainly he does indicate that one part of the program isn't necessarily going to be helpful to them, but this program is very flexible indeed, and I think that as far as Vancouver is concerned the letter from the mayor speaks for itself. They do support the program.

Mr. Speaker, I could go on through paper after paper here: "Council Offers Tax Breaks"; "City Joins Victoria's Partnership Program"; "City to Join Partnership"; "Nanaimo Offers Industry Tax Break." I am getting letters every day from various communities reporting on a positive approach by councils and chambers of commerce toward this program.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to read into the record a letter to me from one district that I think says it all.

"Thank you very much for the time you and your assistant were able to share with the district of Chilliwack. As you are aware, we in Chilliwack are most enthused by the New Directions and the innovative partnership approach initiated by yourself to encourage further development in our province and hopefully in our own community.

"As mentioned to you, we will shortly be undertaking some very dramatic changes in our planning department to further complement the spirit and intent of your legislation. Our mandate in all departments will be how we can make it happen — in other words, rather than impose regulatory roadblocks, provide personal assistance and advice in a business environment of one-stop shopping. We look forward to further developments to continue to encourage an open-for-business environment in our province.

"Again, thank you very much for your generous allotment of time to our community and the regional district."

The letter has been signed by Mayor Jansen.

It was also mentioned that municipalities could not work together in this program. Yes, indeed, they can work together; they can come together in the interest of their communities. Where singly they couldn't justify the cost of an economic development officer, they can indeed come together under this program and combine those resources.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

The member also said, in spite of the fact that he hung around the meeting last Thursday in Kimberley.... Obviously he wasn't listening. Regional districts can be involved in this program. Regional districts are there for the purpose of serving municipalities, as well as the unorganized areas. I have indicated throughout this province that where municipalities decide to join forces with their neighbours, they may, on their own decision, use their regional district as a vehicle to carry out the program.

Oh, yes, they talk about competition; that this is going to create some competition in the province. Competition built this great country, and competition is going to make it even stronger.

It has also been indicated that there is nothing in here for the small communities. Yes, indeed, there is. I think Golden is one good example of how a small community can work and fit into this program. In Golden the council decided to do something about unemployment. They appointed one of their council members to work with a committee of the chamber of commerce, which has done a marvellous job in encouraging industry to their community. That is going to be happening throughout this entire province. I'm getting notes of praise from all over the place about this program.

I mentioned earlier how many meetings we have had. All meetings have been positive. Oh, there's the odd one that picks some sort of flaw in the program. But, Mr. Speaker, the reason for getting out there and meeting with all these people is to discuss the program with them and to invite them to make any suggestions that they may have that could be incorporated into this program as time goes along. And we have indeed been listening to that, and no doubt we'll be talking about that whenever the bill comes up in committee.

Mr. Speaker, again I move second reading of this bill.

[5:45]

Motion approved unanimously on a division.

Bill 25, Provincial-Municipal Partnership Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:50 p.m.