[ Page 7753 ]

CONTENTS

Legal Profession Act (Bill 21). Hon. Mr. Smith

Introduction and first reading –– 7753

International Commercial Arbitration Act (Bill 20). Hon. Mr. Smith

Introduction and first reading –– 7753

Oral Questions

Ministry of Forests advertising. Mr. Howard –– 7753

Financial Disclosure Act. Mr. Reynolds –– 7754

Prince George NSR land. Mr. Howard –– 7754

Alleged violation of oath of office by mayor of Vancouver. Mr. Mowat –– 7754

BCSTA convention. Mr. Rose –– 7755

Motion 61 (Extension of acting ombudsman's term of office) –– 7755

Mr. Parks

Mr. Cocke, Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Lockstead, Mrs. Dailly, Mr. Howard, Hon. R. Fraser, Mr. Lauk, Hon. Mr. Nielsen, Mr. Nicolson, Mr. Williams

Mr. Parks

Division

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Post-Secondary Education estimates. (Hon. R. Fraser)

On vote 62: minister's office –– 7762

Mr. MacWilliam

Mr. Davis, Mr. Nicolson, Mr. Rose, Mr. D'Arcy, Mr. Williams

TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 1986

The House met at 2:08 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, earlier today on behalf of all hon. members I had the privilege of accepting from the Wilkinson Sword company a ceremonial sword which will be worn by the Sergeant-at-Arms on ceremonial occasions. Present at the ceremony were Mr. John Hagerman, president of the Wilkinson Sword Company, Mr. Terry Johnston, Mrs. Johnston, Mr. Peter Andreassen, Mr. Frank Caldwell, Mrs. Joyce Caldwell, Mr. Martin Saunders, Ms. Theresa McGregor, Mr. Doug Townsend, Mr. Ken Williams, Mrs. Alice Williams and Mr. Ian da Silva. I would hope that the House can express its appreciation to these people for their participation today.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, seated in the visitors' gallery today is Mr. Doug Baird from the Burnaby-Willingdon constituency office. I would ask the House to bid him welcome.

MR. PARKS: Mr. Speaker, I'd ask the House to join with me in welcoming two young ladies from Vancouver, Miss Jan Doiron and Miss Karen Kantelburg.

Introduction of Bills

LEGAL PROFESSION ACT

Hon. Mr. Smith presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Legal Profession Act.

HON. MR. SMITH: Briefly, Mr. Speaker, this is the redraft and enactment of the Barristers and Solicitors Act, the act that governs the legal profession. The purpose of this bill is to enhance the process of self-government and encourage greater accountability to the public within the legal profession. The act has not been amended in any major way since 1955, but in the 30 years that have ensued the practice of law has changed dramatically and become far more complex. As a result, the benchers of the Law Society took the initiative in 1982 to develop a draft bill that would address emerging issues of public concern. What you see before you is the product of their draft over about four years, a great deal of work in the profession of the Canadian bar and some changes that I made as well, as a result of meetings. So this is the culmination of many years of internal examination, consultation and consensus-building, and I think that the final result will commend itself to both sides of the House.

The four principles underlying the bill are these. First of all, it ensures the primacy of the public interest — that lawyers do act and are expected to act in the public interest. It encourages and enhances the authority of the Law Society to set high standards for members and for students. It provides for the effective enforcement of rules relating to competence and discipline, and improves the efficiency of the operation of the society.

Major provisions of the act relate to upholding the public interest, revising the powers of the benchers, the governing body, clarifying the roles of disciplinary committees and other committees with credentials, competence and so on and proved authority over members' financial responsibility and other related matters. It is a major redraft.

Bill 21 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL ARBITRATION ACT

Hon. Mr. Smith presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled International Commercial Arbitration Act.

HON. MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to introduce this bill. This is the companion bill to legislation that the House passed in the last session allowing for the enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. This bill will provide the modern progressive legislative framework to govern international commercial arbitrations in British Columbia. The bill is based upon the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law which in June 1985 adopted a model law for the purposes of conducting international commercial arbitrations.

British Columbia today is pioneering in the introduction of this bill, this model law. We will be the first jurisdiction in North America to have a law for international commercial arbitration, and with the opening of our International Commercial Arbitration Centre on May 12, this bill will provide the framework to attract that arbitration business from around the world. I commend this bill for your consideration, and I know that my friend opposite is very supportive of it.

Bill 20 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral Questions

MINISTRY OF FORESTS ADVERTISING

MR. HOWARD: I'd like to direct a question to the Minister of Forests. The question relates to the advertisements — recent and probably current — which star the minister in them as a participant, and in which the minister makes misleading statements about the reforestation program. I'd like to ask the minister whether he could advise the House if the public treasury paid for those advertisements.

[2:15]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The ads, I would presume, are paid for by the province of British Columbia. I find it somewhat surprising, to be very candid, Mr. Speaker, that the member would find any statements which have been made to be misleading. If he does so, I'd be quite prepared to entertain his comments.

MR. HOWARD: I suppose it's too much to ask that the public get the truth.

Interjections.

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

[ Page 7754 ]

MR. HOWARD: In the minister's radio ads, he makes reference to the planting of seedlings. I wonder if the minister would be prepared to recommend to his colleagues that public funds also be used to run some additional ads employing the services of experts in that field so that the full story can be told.

FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE ACT

MR. REYNOLDS: I have a question for the Attorney General. Can he advise this House whether he has laid charges against the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of British Columbia, Mr. Peter Pollen, for violating the Financial Disclosure Act, and if not, why not?

HON. MR. SMITH: The answer is no. The reason for that is that I quite expect that he'll lay charges against himself.

PRINCE GEORGE NSR LAND

MR. HOWARD: I'd like to ask another question of the Minister of Forests on a different subject than the one I asked him earlier. Inasmuch as the forest and range resource analysis put out by the ministry, dated 1984, shows an enormous increase in not satisfactorily restocked lands in the Prince George forest region — something in the neighbourhood of a 116 percent increase over the last five years — can the minister advise the House whether he has decided to set a target date by which that enormous amount of backlog NSR land in that forest region would be restocked?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I am very much aware of the areas of the province which are not satisfactorily restocked. I recognize that the Prince George TSA has the largest percentage of NSR lands, and it is something which I intend to address. With respect to a game plan, there are a number of ideas which I have. I can assure the member that it's a matter which must be addressed. I thought that perhaps with the increase of the amount of money set forth in the Ministry of Forests budget this year, together with the federal-provincial agreement and full funding under the forest stand management fund, some of these areas will be addressed.

I think it is important that we remind ourselves that the federal-provincial agreement was set up primarily to address the NSR lands within the province. The largest area which requires some of that happens to be the Prince George TSA. I further recognize that a recent guru in the academic world has made reference to the fact that there is not adequate reforestation being conducted in the Prince George TSA. Those comments were made about a week to ten days ago. I am aware of it, and I have every intention of addressing the issue.

MR. HOWARD: With respect to the federal-provincial agreement to which the minister referred, the agreement which was signed last year, isn't it a fact that the commitment of the provincial government — the best the provincial government would do in signing that agreement — was to say that over the five-year life of that agreement there would be no net increase in NSR land? In other words, the commitment the provincial government made under that federal-provincial agreement last year was to stay in the same place.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, I can't answer that particular question, but I will take it on notice. I'm not aware of any comments made sometime previous to my assuming the portfolio. But I'm quite prepared to take that question as notice, and determine whether or not.... I can tell you offhand that the $300 million over five years will not be adequate to address all the NSR land within the province. I know that. That's why there was a significant increase in the Ministry of Forests budget this year. That's why we've introduced a forest land management fund this year. The silviculture fund has increased considerably.

MR. HOWARD: Why are you spearing your colleague?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I'm not spearing my colleague at all.

ALLEGED VIOLATION OF OATH
OF OFFICE BY MAYOR OF VANCOUVER

MR. MOWAT: I have a question for the Minister of Municipal Affairs. Mr. Minister, section 143 of the Vancouver Charter contains the oath of office which the mayor and each alderman is obliged to swear prior to assuming elected office. The oath states in part that the elected official "will not allow any private interest to influence my conduct in public matters." Last week in a televised news conference the mayor of Vancouver described the Premier of British Columbia in terms that all British Columbians find offensive. Residents of Vancouver are especially embarrassed by the mayor's remarks. The mayor of Vancouver has twice been a defeated NDP candidate in a provincial election, and is currently a nominated candidate for the New Democratic Party in Vancouver. Is it not obvious that the mayor has violated his terms of office, specifically the statute prohibiting any private interest from influencing his conduct in public matters?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Speaker, due to the interruptions from the other side, I didn't get all of the question. Would the member please repeat the question portion.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, the repeating of a lengthy question violates the most basic terms of question period. I'm sure that if there is a brief question the minister didn't hear, the member could sum it up in just a few words.

MR. MOWAT: Is it not obvious that the mayor has violated the terms of his oath of office?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Speaker, in response to the member's question, I do not believe the depth which the mayor of Vancouver reached just recently in describing the Premier and myself offends that section of the Vancouver Charter dealing with the oath — section 143 — but I do believe he has offended many proud British Columbians. Quite often a product can be judged by its cover, and we will allow those people to judge what we have there.

Interjections.

[ Page 7755 ]

HON. MR. RITCHIE: No, it's not that. I believe we must be tolerant of the mayor of Vancouver because he is a very frustrated fellow....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. I feel that this particular line of questioning must now be concluded and we go on to other questions. I thank the minister.

BCSTA CONVENTION

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a non-political question to the Minister of Education, fresh from his triumphant visit to the BCSTA convention. Last weekend the B.C. school trustees released a survey showing that the public was fed up with fights between governments, teachers and school boards, and urged the minister and the government to get back to the task of educating students. Has the minister decided to consult local school boards and teachers rather than to continue to announce policy on a unilateral basis?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, the survey that the member talks about was one conducted by the B.C. School Trustees' Association, and it did indicate that the public was concerned about the ongoing dialogue and the what I guess you could call confrontation that has taken place. They would like to see us work through communication and consultation.

Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that since I've been appointed, I've attempted to do that. In meeting with school boards and teachers, I've had some very good meetings. Two things have been accomplished in the last two months. Firstly, school trustees identified quickly that they had a problem and a concern with textbook funding, and I was able to get additional funding of $6.1 million for textbooks this year. They were also concerned with the fiscal framework and the shortfall in the figures we had sent them as of February this year. In meeting, I guess, approximately 20 school boards and teachers' associations, they indicated to me that there was a shortfall in the budget. I told them that I would investigate that, and I did. Last Friday I was pleased to be able to announce that I got them an additional $19 million in funding for this year.

Mr. Speaker, those two decisions were a straight result of sitting down with people in the education system in this province and responding to their wishes. As I said to the president of the BCSTA last Friday, I was pleased to have been able to take the first steps in an ongoing dialogue to ensure that the media doesn't get headlines due to confrontation, but they'll get positive headlines so that the young people and their parents in this province will know that we're working together for the best for our children.

MR. ROSE: I notice the minister, in bragging and boasting about the money he gave to the textbook fund, didn't indicate that he stole $11 million from it, and when he got caught he gave back $6 million. He didn't say anything about that.0

What consultation took place and with whom over, say, Bill 12, which removed the sunset provision from the interim finance act and betrayed an agreement between the former minister and the B.C. School Trustees' Association? What consultation took place before he established the Excellence in Education fund, which is a slush fund taking the spending away from the local decision-makers and putting it into the pork barrel in Victoria?

HON. MR. HEWITT: I don't know. I guess his items are prepared for debate in this House by somebody who sits over in an office in Vancouver and dreams these things up in order to continue the confrontational approach. I heard all this dialogue last Friday, when a few people stood up at the BCSTA convention and read exactly the same questions. They were probably members of your party; either that or frustrated candidates who are going to run for office.

Mr. Speaker, it is rather humorous, because this guy is so far off base it's not even funny. But anyway, let me tell you about Bill 12, because....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Order!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'm sorry. I wish you had brought him to order, Mr. Speaker, because you're right, during question period we cannot debate legislation that's before this House.

The other one was the Excellence in Education fund: $110 million this year and another $490 million over the next years. The total is $600 million. That really is a fund that is available for the people who work in the business of education — the educators, the school boards — to come forward and say: "Here is a new concept, a new idea, a new program, in which we think we can get the best return for our education dollar." An excellent approach for the best for our young people in this province. Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that we have had a considerable number of applications already that have come in, because they have ignored the political dialogue that you keep throwing up and they say, "It's a good approach and we're prepared to use it," and they're doing just that.

[2:30]

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, once again the Chair must call to the attention of members that there are some very broad and general lines of debate that can be applied in question period, and I would once again urge members to take just a few moments of their time in both preparing their questions and addressing their responses, so that they may in some small way fall into those guidelines.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I would ask leave to consider Motion 61, standing under the name of Mr. Parks, which reads: "That pursuant to the provisions of the Ombudsman Act this assembly recommends to the Lieutenant Governor that Mr. Peter Bazowski be reappointed as acting ombudsman upon termination, pursuant to the said act, of his present appointment to the office of ombudsman."

Leave granted.

MR. HOWARD: The member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot) and I said yes.

[ Page 7756 ]

MR. CHABOT: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I take exception to this member who is usually slippery and deceitful in his remarks...

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. CHABOT: ...and I really want to make sure that I am dissociated....

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, we, as members of this chamber, have a certain command of the English language. At no place or should we be more apt to use that command than when we are engaged in debate or in points of order. Therefore I would ask the hon. member for Columbia River to withdraw the word "deceitful" in reference to another member.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. CHABOT: No, I didn't. I thought I used the word "devious."

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. CHABOT: But, Mr. Speaker, we shouldn't have double standards in this chamber, because the member for Skeena...

MR. SPEAKER: I would ask the member to withdraw.

MR. CHABOT: ...when he was asking questions to the Minister of Forests, said "misleading statements from the minister" and also said: "Be more truthful." I think we have to have one standard in this chamber.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. We're going to very shortly have a very firm standard in this House. I will be more than pleased to demonstrate that standard to members who refuse to come to order when called to do so by the Chair. Now the second member for Vancouver East also raises a point of order, but before hearing him, I would ask the member for Columbia River to withdraw the word "deceitful," which the Chair heard in reference to another member. Does the member so withdraw?

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, if I used the word "deceitful," I withdraw it.

MR. SPEAKER: I thank the hon. member. Does that conclude the point of order? Thank you.

On the motion.

MR. PARKS: With respect to motion 61, it's unfortunate that when bringing this motion before the House we get into that type of acrimony when we're discussing the position of ombudsman.

I'm pleased to report to the House that, to this juncture at least, the all-party committee of this House has striven for and, I believe, accomplished an apolitical working relationship, and I think our efforts to date are going to be rewarded by taking that approach.

It so happened that this morning the subcommittee of the select committee met and received a report from the consultants whereby the search process has been reduced to that of the final five candidates. It's unfortunate that the committee is not going to be able to table its final report in the House before the term as set out in the statute expires — which I believe will be either this Thursday or Friday, depending upon whether or not the House sits tomorrow — and consequently the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council is going to have to reappoint the position of acting ombudsman.

I'm very much concerned that the public perceive that action as being in effect a stall technique. I think it's incumbent that the House go on record and recommend that Mr. Peter Bazowski be reappointed. Of course, that appointment will automatically terminate with the appointment by this House of the new candidate. The committee would expect, with respect to the final interviews, which will be commencing next week, that we hopefully would be in a position to table our final report within the next three or four weeks. So the message is that we obviously have to reappoint an acting ombudsman, but hopefully that term will be for a very short period of time.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I, along with my colleagues in the opposition, feel that it is most unfortunate that we are placed in this position — as the member suggests — at least, that it's unfortunate that we deal with more riotous moments here a few moments ago and then suddenly go to the ombudsman. Let me say this, Mr. Speaker: as far as I'm concerned — and also many of my colleagues in the opposition caucus — we should not be at this juncture. We should be nowhere near this juncture at this precious point of time.

In the first place, the committee has not met continually, the way it should have. The committee has from time to time met in a steering committee, but they have not met to the extent that they should have in order to get this job done. Now we've had some time to do the job, but we have not had that job put before us.

The fact that we're in this trouble now is because the government was playing foolishly with this whole question in the first place. In 1978, when they brought in the Ombudsman Act, it appeared to us that they were really serious about the whole question of having an ombudsman and having it be an ongoing office and so forth. They waited until days before we lost the ombudsman to even structure a committee. Then the committee that they did structure is led as incompetently as I can imagine. Incompetence to this extent: that once we knew we were behind the eight ball, we should have been meeting continually. We had ample opportunity, between the time the committee was structured and now, to have gotten a lot further than we have. We were late getting out the ads; we were late in everything we did because there were other things to do. It's absolutely true that we did not get the proper leadership. As a result we're now, according to the Ombudsman Act, in this position where we, the Legislative Assembly, have to make a recommendation to the Lieutenant-Governor about an extension of office for the present ombudsman. Totally the fault of the government,

[ Page 7757 ]

totally the fault of the person they put in charge of this committee.

But even before that, to wait so long before structuring the committee! Any of the government members with a memory would remember that we had months in session when the committee wouldn't have had to have been paid any kind of reimbursement at all; they could have been meeting during that last session. Instead, they wait until we're virtually ready to adjourn and then.... That happened to work out nicely with their program: the minute you adjourn, the government makes the appointment by order-in-council. However, the way I interpret the act, had the committee been meeting during the period we were in session, then it would have had to have been — as we're doing now — a motion from the Legislative Assembly that appointed an acting ombudsman or a successor for the time being.

The government had made up their mind that they wanted to get rid of the incumbent at that time, Karl Friedmann, and that's....

AN HON. MEMBER: Speak to the motion.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I'll speak to the motion the way I see the motion. The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks) will have ample opportunity to reply, when we get around to it, because he moved the resolution. If he had called the committee meetings he wouldn't have to be bugging me now.

I think this situation is a very sad one. I don't think we can go very much longer without a full-time ombudsman, but here's our problem as well. We have, I understand — I've just been told so in this House — five names. Final list. What if none of them are acceptable? I'm not making any prejudgments, but I am saying that we're not necessarily out of the woods.

There's a lot of work to be done by this committee — or there was a lot of work to be done by this committee — and it has not been doing the work. That's all there is to it. The steering committee has met from time to time; once in a while the ombudsman's committee has met. As a matter of fact, I went uninvited — well, I finally got an invite, but it certainly was an afterthought — to a steering committee meeting where they were discussing names and what was going to happen in the future.

I just suggest that this has not been handled well. Also, I'm reluctant to vote for the incumbent. I have nothing against him particularly, other than the fact that he has been a government employee for so long. How can a person in the position of ombudsman be objective after having been a faithful public servant for the length of time that he has?

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: What do you mean? I'm not knocking civil servants; I'm just saying that in my opinion it is impossible for that person to be objective.

Getting back to the whole question, we're now being asked to do something that we as the Legislature should not be asked to do. Today we should be standing here, or even earlier in the session, moving a resolution from the unanimity of a committee to name a new ombudsman. But no, we're not doing that. We're not doing that because of the total incompetence of the leadership of that committee and the fact that the government stalled on calling it in the first place — period, amen. Nothing short of that. As I see it — and I've watched parliament for a number of years — we were manipulated in that situation, and I don't appreciate that manipulation. I don't think this House today should be dealing with what we're dealing with here. We should be dealing with a permanent appointment, but we can't. We can't because of the fact that we were late getting going, and now we've been incompetently led right through the piece. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is.

HON. A. FRASER: You're holding it up right now. Sit down.

[2:45]

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, is there a doctor in the House? Louis was just reborn.

The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam says he's concerned — and I'm going to paraphrase him a little bit — that the public will perceive that we're not moving on this question. Well, the public should perceive that we haven't moved on this situation, because we haven't — properly.

Mr. Speaker, with that I must confess that I have to stand here and say that I will not vote for this resolution.

MR. REYNOLDS: It's a pleasure to get up and announce that I will vote for this resolution. I don't think that I can let this go by without saying a few words about the acting ombudsman, Mr. Peter Bazowski, and the great job that he has done in the last few months. He took over a department that was in chaos, run by a man who we've since come to find out just didn't do his job properly. I couldn't help but get up and say that.

It's interesting to listen to that member for New Westminster talk about leadership. He couldn't even vote for the right guy at his own convention. He wants to stand up in this House and make personal attacks. It's unfortunate that that member has to use those personal attacks against other members of this Legislature.

It's also interesting to note, when he talks about time and not being invited to meetings, that he was invited to the subcommittee meeting this morning and he didn't show up. So here's a member who wants to stand up and knock our chairman of this great committee, and he doesn't show up to the meetings.

MR. COCKE: Come off it — I was not invited.

MR. REYNOLDS: You see, Mr. Speaker, he has got a very thin skin.

He talks about taking too long to structure a committee. How long does it take to structure a committee in this House? Not very long. It was done. They put their members on it; they should sit down and work with our chairman, who I think is doing a great job working with the acting ombudsman — who's doing a fantastic job in this province, has got that office totally cleaned up, and what a great position that's going to be for the new man we appoint. [Applause.] I'm so glad to see the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams) agrees with me.

MR. COCKE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound indicated that I was invited to a meeting this morning. That is absolutely

[ Page 7758 ]

incorrect. I had no invitation to a meeting of any sort this morning in this legislative building.

MR. ROGERS: I thought it might be appropriate during this discussion of this motion if there was some debate that was in order. Therefore I thought I would enter the debate in the time that....

Interjection.

MR. ROGERS: The motion has nothing to do with your committee; it has to do with the reappointment of a temporary ombudsman.

During the time that I served as a minister in the government I had a number of dealings with the acting ombudsman. I had a number of dealings with his predecessor. I think it's unfortunate that the acting ombudsman has not allowed his name to stand as a candidate for the permanent job. I think he has demonstrated to people on both sides of the House, and certainly to members of the public, that he has taken on this job and conducted it with great distinction. In my opinion, he captures the entire spirit of what an ombudsman is supposed to be. He is not apologetic to anyone. He is certainly not apologetic to members of the government. He is fair, but he will also dismiss trivial matters. I hope that in their deliberations the committee — which I am not part of, and I'm somewhat pleased that I'm not part of the committee — are able to find someone as distinguished, as well qualified and as thoughtful as the present acting ombudsman to replace him as a permanent ombudsman.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I'm going to be brief and not discuss personalities, as some members have been doing — believe it or not — except to say in defence of, first of all, a person I don't have to defend, the previous ombudsman for this province.... Dr. Karl Friedmann, in my view, served this province extremely well, and the present ombudsman, who is temporary, was appointed by cabinet — and that is precisely the point of my remarks.... It's my view that the cabinet and the Premier — and I can't substantiate this — decided consciously to not strike the committee, which is now the ombudsman committee, until late June of last year. The cabinet, in my view, Mr. Speaker, had ample opportunity to strike that committee, with the appropriate motion before this House, in February '85 when this House convened, knowing very well that Mr. Friedmann's term expired June 30. As a consequence of this government action, we are now faced once again with a motion before this House, voting for or against, or whatever the case may be, a person who was not selected by a committee of this House by unanimous consent but was in fact appointed by the cabinet. It's my view that the cabinet purposely did not strike that committee until June of last year, knowing very well that under sections 6 and 7 of the present act, the cabinet, once the House adjourned or recessed.... The cabinet then had the power to appoint. I think that was a conscious decision on the part of government.

I had other notes here, but I think it's been pretty well said. Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you that I deem it to be an honour and a privilege to have been appointed as a member of that committee. I only regret that it's taken us close to 11 months and we still do not have an ombudsman in this province selected by committee. Hopefully that will occur within the next three weeks to a month.

MRS. DAILLY: I am on the subcommittee. In the subcommittee, when this matter came up, I supported the motion to bring it forward to the House. In my opinion, the House has no alternative: it has to deal with this motion. However, in the whole interest of parliamentary tradition, I think we're all well aware that motions such as this can be voted against on the opportunity to express one's concern about matters that surround the motion, and that is the position I find myself in. I protest strongly the government's slowness in bringing us to the situation where we had a functioning committee, because I think the longer one stays with an acting ombudsman.... It does a disservice to the whole concept of the office.

So in voting in this House against the motion, I'm expressing my concern about the original intent of the government in not taking enough responsibility for the importance of getting this committee well underway in good time. I look forward, as do all others of the committee, to hoping that we will come to a positive, unanimous selection of an ombudsman finally.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I suppose when a person's name is mentioned in a motion, as is the case here, there is a tendency to relate to and deal in personalities. That's regretful. It's regretful that it took place this afternoon. I'm not one of those who has any vendetta, as was the case with one hon. member in this House, with respect to the former ombudsman. But that was his choice to do that, and he maybe had some reason for doing that.

I want to deal with the substantive matter of the office of ombudsman, without regard to the person who happens to hold that office. I have no brief for or against or with the former holder of that office, Karl Friedmann, nor for or with the acting ombudsman, Peter Bazowski.

I wasn't here in '78, Mr. Speaker, when the Ombudsman Act went through the Legislature, but I did read the debates about it. I read with admiration the lofty ideals that were expounded in pursuit of seeking an ombudsman and about the office of an ombudsman, the near-poetic terms used to describe the objective, the idea that it was almost a sacred obligation of the Legislature and of the government to be unanimous in choosing an officer of this Legislature.

The office of ombudsman is not a public servant in the ordinary sense of the word that it is an office which serves a ministry. The office of ombudsman is an office of this Legislature, and the ombudsman an officer of the people of the province of British Columbia, all of them without regard to politics. Regretfully, against that backdrop and that background and the fine uplifting speeches that were made in the House in 1978, this government here, upon the termination of the office of the first ombudsman, sought to connive and manipulate the situation so that it got to the point of not having the Legislature in session at the time that the original appointment of Dr. Friedmann — a six-year term, I believe it was — expired.

Pursuant to a provision in the act, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council was then given the right to appoint an acting ombudsman, which it did. But that was as a result of a deliberate conscious attempt on the part of the current government to break its trust with the people of this province, to break faith with the people of this province and to politicize the office of ombudsman and to make a decision in cabinet, a political decision, a political choice for an acting ombudsman because cabinet didn't have the courage and the guts to deal with the question face on.

[ Page 7759 ]

If it did have, it would have dealt with this question at that time. The committee seeking to find a replacement would have been struck and set up long before it was, and the ongoing process of having unanimity of the committee seeking to find a replacement or to find an ombudsman to fill that office at the expiration of the term of the first ombudsman, whoever that replacement might be, was circumvented because this government never does deal with questions on the merits. They always deal with them on the basis of what political gain the government can make out of it.

Because that trust was violated, because that faith with the people of this province was broken by all those hon. members in the cabinet, excluding the newcomers, who broke that faith and broke that trust and violated an honoured tradition of relationship between government and the people of the province of British Columbia, we have to vote on this motion on that basis. It has nothing whatever to do with who happens to hold the office. It is a simple question of conscience.

While there may not be any conscience resting in the government in this regard, there certainly is on this side of the House.

HON. R. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, I would just add a short statement with respect to the committee — on which I serve, in fact. I would point out that while there may be members here wishing to decide on the motives of the cabinet, certainly with respect to this particular motion today, the reappointment of the acting ombudsman, I would say simply that it was my view all along that to take a little more time and to make sure the job was done well was the principal thing, not to rushing it through.

I, therefore, will be supporting this motion.

[3:00]

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, this is a very gentlemanly debate. I don't feel particularly gentlemanly about the issue. It is my view that the government has not only deliberately dragged its heels but has defeated the whole and fundamental purpose of an ombudsman in this province.

The committee in 1978-79 conducted the same kind of search in a much shorter time. They acted with alacrity and with unanimity in the appointment of the first ombudsman, and the hon. member who is proposing this motion says: "Look what happened." This is the degree of objectivity being expressed by the government, Mr. Speaker.

They were upset for a variety of reasons, and that is why we had this motion here today. It is late, criminally late for the people of British Columbia who have legitimate inquiries to make with respect to the bureaucracy in this province. What were they upset about? What was the member for West Vancouver-Howe Seymour upset about?

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: Oh, pardon me. West Vancouver–Howe Sound. I so seldom refer to him, Mr. Speaker. He may not wish me to refer to him at all, but I am about to.

The attitude expressed by that member is at least an open and candid one, as opposed to the secret and sleazy attitude expressed by the government through their deliberate delaying actions, their dishonourable action, in not reappointing the first ombudsman, who was only doing his duty.

What upsets these people? What upsets the member for West Vancouver-Howe Sound (Mr. Reynolds)? The inequities of bureaucracy and the actions that are detrimental to citizens, the discrimination, the unfairness, the incompetence, all that was brought out by the previous ombudsman and his staff.

And when there was inaction on the part of the government, which was the rule not the exception, the ombudsman quite rightly and according to law made his findings and his recommendations public. He was an activist, and the definition of an ombudsman is not to act like a judge, who in the old days, before the Charter, was required only to interpret the law according to precedent. He was a quasi-judicial activist who, when made aware of a complaint or an injustice, would pursue it with vigour. But the government of the right, Mr. Speaker, does not like justice. They do not discuss justice. They don't understand justice. They don't have a concept of justice, except when it concerns themselves. They are exquisitely sensitive, as the member for Vancouver South indicated...and the outcome of his very brief appearance before the courts of this land.... They are exquisitely sensitive to their own needs.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, you began your address by informing the House that this was a very gentlemanly debate. Since that time you have used the words "criminally late," "sleazy," "dishonourable" — hardly the remarks of a learned member of this chamber.

MR. LAUK: I thank you for the lecture, Mr. Speaker, but I point out to you that none of the words that I used in reference to government action and policy is out of order. I've always been very careful about that. As I rose to speak on this debate I indicated to the House that I did not feel very gentlemanly about this issue, and I'm expressing that point of view, because the people who are suffering at the hands of an insensitive bureaucracy in some cases, and from the very what I would call venal policies of this government, have no time to wait about to be gentlemanly about it. This is not a gentlemen's debating club. We're discussing issues that affect the livelihood and the justice and the even-handedness of government policy with respect to ordinary citizens.

The chairman of that committee, someone suggests, is too slow. Someone might suggest he may be incompetent for the job, but not me. I think he is ultimately competent. He is handling the job exactly the way the government wishes him to handle it, and that's to drag his feet. The appointment of Mr. Bazowski is, as I've said in this House before and will say again.... He is not an impartial man. He is clearly a bureaucrat born and bred and raised under the umbrella of Social Credit policies. He is not an independent ombudsman, and it's a travesty to maintain him any longer in that position. I say to all members of the committee: "Get on with the job and get us an even-handed, fair-minded and activist ombudsman."

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I couldn't help but respond to those very temperate comments by the member for Vancouver Centre, only to the extent that I simply want to speak on behalf of the acting ombudsman because I think it is improper that this House not record comments other than those inconsiderate, in my opinion, comments offered by that last member — not in great defence, but in fairness. To suggest that some other person who may be waiting in the

[ Page 7760 ]

wings is going to have all of these attributes of impartiality and fairness and a sense of justice, and to suggest therefore that the acting ombudsman does not have these qualities.... I simply can't permit that to go unchallenged.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, I'll make it very quick. When a person serves his country in the manner in which Mr. Bazowski has — when he has held such positions as deputy commissioner of the RCMP and deputy minister in at least two ministries within this province — to suggest that that person in his many years of public service has not exhibited an understanding of justice, even-handedness and impartiality, I think is just very unfair to a person I consider to be a most distinguished Canadian. I'm not suggesting that the member has no right to offer his opinion. Of course he has. But I think it's just slightly unfair that a person whom I have great respect for is not provided with at least some opinions from one member of the House which would disagree with the member.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, if, as the minister who has just spoken says, we are being unfair to Mr. Bazowski, I will submit that that government has been unfair to Mr. Bazowski in placing him in the position of being acting ombudsman. If they cannot see that there is a lack of perceived impartiality in someone who has been a bureaucrat and someone to whom people have appealed on occasion and been turned down and had to resort to an ombudsman in previous times — that such a person can serve then as an ombudsman — then we are really in a bad state of affairs. I will say this: when people come into my office and want to create an appeal on some matter, I will suggest perhaps we can take this to the minister, perhaps we can take this to this person, or in this ministry there is a resort to a tribunal; those things failing, we can go to the ombudsman. There has been a distinct lack of enthusiasm on behalf of the constituents of Nelson-Creston who come into my office to go to the ombudsman as a last resort. They feel that if they've been turned down by the minister or by a tribunal or some other form of appeal within a ministry, when those things have failed, there is no sense in carrying on further. That has been my experience. I have urged people in these circumstances to go on anyhow and appeal to that office, but sometimes my powers of persuasion are not sufficient to see that they get their full day in court, that they get their full measure of justice.

You can say what you like, and you have good reason to defend that person. He has served you very well, Mr. Minister. But if you wish to serve that person, you will not subject him to the responsibility of holding this office one day longer.

MR. WILLIAMS: I think the member for Nelson Creston made it pretty clear. This job of ombudsman is not properly served by somebody who has been a senior bureaucrat. The problem is the victims of the bureaucracy. That's the concern. This man is very much the successful bureaucrat. The idea that the narrow police mind is the mind you want in the ombudsman's office is just amazing, from that member from Richmond. It is. It's a narrow police mind, in terms of viewing these problems.

When we had an ombudsman appointed by this Legislature, we had a person who questioned the bureaucracy and the actions of ministers that were contrary to law, and quite rightly did so. Ask the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Heinrich). We had episodes like Shoal Island, where nobody checked the timber going through for six years. We now have a court case in this province that's carrying on right now. It is now clear that the Forest Service of this province for six years did not check or measure the timber that went through one of our biggest timber facilities, at Shoal Island. But Dr. Friedmann blew the whistle on it. Under court hearings and examinations right now, we are finding that the only time a senior Forest Service bureaucrat attended Shoal Island was to attend a cocktail party at the opening. Never, never again did they check the wood going through that facility. Millions of dollars were lost to the public purse.

I assure you that the narrow bureaucratic mind of the person we have in the office now would never deal with an issue like Shoal Island. He would be protecting his masters, the people he'd worked with for years. That's what we would have had. That Minister of Forests has a major job on his hands. He has the Augean stables to clean up in the Ministry of Forests, and only a part of the stable has been measured by the former ombudsman.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

MR. WILLIAMS: Only a part of the stable in terms of the stench in the Ministry of Forests has been dealt with by the ombudsman. You can be assured that the new one won't touch that stable at all. The member for Mackenzie hit it right on.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The House will please come to order and not interrupt the member who is speaking. I'll advise the member speaking that the resolution deals specifically with the appointment of Mr. Bazowski, not other items.

MR. WILLIAMS: Indeed. The member for Mackenzie hit it right on, Mr. Speaker. He said that what's been going on on the part of government is subterfuge, in a sense. You've been determined to get your boy in that office. That's what you've been up to over the last year.

He's a guy that knows how bureaucracies work. He knows how you can isolate people within the staff and make sure that no correspondence reaches their desk. He can make sure they have no assignments for a year. He can make sure that they have nothing to do. He can make sure that through his friends in government he can get increases in allocations — as he did. The former ombudsman, who I assure you was working far harder and digging into important things like the Ministry of Forests mess, couldn't get extra money. But your boy got extra money.

In a bureaucracy, the way it works is penalties and rewards, and every little bureaucrat understands a penalty and a reward. A servant of this Legislature, a person that's to be a servant for all the members of this House, is able to allocate penalties and rewards within his staff on his terms, which are desperately close to your terms. You've finally got your boy into that office, in terms of dealing with what you want in his small bureaucracy. You can be sure, Mr. Minister, that this man you work so closely with has delivered the penalty-and-reward system in that office. You're happy to have him there

[ Page 7761 ]

now. You're happy to have him continue there, because he can continue to do your work.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, could I just have leave to make an introduction?

Leave granted.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I'd like the House, during this moment of reflection, to welcome some visitors from my constituency, from Langley Central Elementary School, to the Legislative Assembly.

[3:15]

MR. PARKS: I guess it goes without saying that each and every member chooses what if anything they wish to add to the debate in this House. I have, quite frankly, been extremely disappointed by the thrust of the comments from the members of the opposition side, with the particular exception of the hon. member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly).

The whole idea of the office of ombudsman is extremely important. It is a concept that I think any sincere, honest parliamentarian should take to heart. It's meant to complete the legislative and governmental process, and if we support it, it will. It has in the past, it is presently doing that, and I trust that in the future it will carry out that function.

This House established an all-party committee to go about the onerous task of choosing a successor to Dr. Friedmann. Some members might well wish that that process be done in an expeditious and perhaps a careless fashion. Well, it so happened that at one of the early full committee meetings we discussed the various procedures that this committee would follow. The full committee decided upon a procedure that would have the subcommittee first of all determine the role of the ombudsman. In fact, the subcommittee would be vested with the responsibility of determining, examining the role, which that subcommittee did. Although invited, no members of the opposition saw fit to join the subcommittee, which went to Edmonton, met with the incumbent there — the former ombudsman — with the legislators who were part of the selection procedure in Alberta, and with the legislators who were part of the standing committee. They came back, and they tabled a two-volume report.

Interjection.

MR. PARKS: The member — on this occasion I'm afraid I cannot refer to him as the honourable member — for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) made some chirping remark....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, all members are honourable in the House.

MR. PARKS: Obviously, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that, but from time to time I believe we have the option of adding the prefix "hon." or just choosing to leave it out. In this case, I choose to leave it out.

With respect to his comments about sending the committee to Samoa or elsewhere, he forgets that this subcommittee chosen by the committee — its procedure endorsed by the committee of which he is a member, which he voted for — has done everything by way of unanimity. We have not used the mandate that perhaps the government members have been granted. Not once has the perceived or threatened heavy hand of the government-controlled members of this committee or subcommittee been used to stifle any requests, any debate, any comment, of the opposition members. The very motion which we are now debating came about because the hon. member for Burnaby North perceived a concern, voiced it in our subcommittee, and the subcommittee unanimously endorsed her concern — a most realistic concern.

The subcommittee, very diligently in my opinion, after tabling the reports, embarked on a nationwide advertising campaign. Because a number of people clearly understand the importance and the challenge of this office, some 600 applications were received by our subcommittee. Now that five-person subcommittee has taken the effort, has been concerned enough, to review each and every one of those applications. Needless to say, it is no easy task, but an extremely time-consuming task.

After that process was followed and after those 600 applications were reviewed — and that took a number of weeks, and it took a number of weeks longer than we originally expected that process would take — your subcommittee could only narrow down that list to some 23 or so short-listed individuals. We recognize the importance and the challenge of that task, so we have retained consultants....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, at this point I must advise you, as I advised the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams), that we are on a specific motion at this point to reappoint Mr. Bazowski, and we must relate our debate to the motion before us.

MR. PARKS: I certainly appreciate those comments, Mr. Speaker, but the Chair saw fit to allow the member for New Westminster great latitude in questioning "the competency" of this member, and I feel obliged to assist that member in remembering what he took part in and what this House took part in. With the Chair's indulgence I shall continue.

This very morning, the subcommittee met with our consultants and received their final report, and we have decided on the five finalists. At last Tuesday's subcommittee meeting the hon. member for Burnaby North requested that the other members — the other opposition members in particular — of the committee be asked to join with us this morning. She was, once again, not stifled by the government members but was encouraged to go ahead, if she wished, and invite them to this morning's meeting. Mr. Speaker, one of those members did attend. That is what occurred this morning, when we had the report tabled.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. Again, I would advise the member to speak to the resolution.

MR. PARKS: Well, I believe the procedure is now understood, even by the member for New Westminster. Speaking to the motion, the motion is very simple, Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the diatribe that has flown from a number of members of the opposition. As the member for Nelson Creston (Mr. Nicolson) noted, he may have had some difficulty in referring people to the office of the ombudsman, but he did not tender one bit of evidence or advice that anyone who has gone to the office of the ombudsman, while the incumbent is acting ombudsman, has had any difficulty with the office of ombudsman. It is a fallacy, a cheap political trick, very cheap, to suggest that the present office of the

[ Page 7762 ]

ombudsman is not acting in a very effective way for the people of this province.

The acting ombudsman is doing his duty most efficiently. In fact, the problem perhaps is that he is so efficient that we're not hearing about how that office is being run. Somehow that member suggests that for an ombudsman to be doing his or her job properly, there has to be some great noise in the media or in the House. That's not the way the office was envisaged. We don't want to have an ombudsman tabling reports one day and then apologizing to the House the next day. That's not how we want the office to run.

Mr. Speaker, we have hopefully but a few short weeks before our committee will be in a position to table a unanimous recommendation before this chamber. It would be folly, in my opinion, not to have the office of acting ombudsman filled for a week or two in that interim period. I regret that any members of the opposition see fit to use a negative vote as a form of protest. But, Mr. Speaker, I think that if the House reflects on the procedure that has been followed, the subcommittee's sole guiding feature has been to ensure that we have the most competent person selected for this most important office. We will take as much time as is necessary, and to ensure that we don't have to rush any more than we are — and I can assure all members that we are rushing — we have someone who is very familiar with the job continue on for some very few short weeks. I trust all members will reconsider that position.

[3:30]

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS – 27

NAYS – 14

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
POST SECONDARY EDUCATION

(continued)

On vote 62: minister's office, $141,717.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Just prior to recessing in the morning sitting, the minister and I traded some comments regarding international students and education. I just wanted to take an opportunity to go over a few points that were left standing at that time.

The minister seemed to indicate that increasing educational opportunities for foreign or international students would in fact make the system even more inequitable, as it presently appears. I'd like to suggest to the minister that perhaps he has taken the concept of educational free trade in maybe too narrow a context; I think we have to look at increasing opportunities for foreign students in B.C. post-secondary facilities.

In addition, I'd like to suggest to the minister that we should be looking at utilizing our trained professionals and educators as a marketable commodity, if you like, on the international education market. It therefore becomes a kind of two-way street. Not only are we opening up windows of opportunity for international students; we are also opening up opportunities throughout the world for the marketing of our educational and professional expertise. So I guess what I'm asking for is an increased commitment for two-way participation and multilateral exchange in terms of education.

I took the opportunity to read a brief that was submitted to the minister by the hon. member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis). I must admit, he's put a lot into it. I think there's a lot of valuable information in that brief, particularly as it pertains to comments I have just highlighted: the idea of increasing education trade, recognizing it as a marketable commodity; also the recommendations that he makes for a scholarship program. I'd like to advise the minister that there's a lot of good material in there and it would be wise to have a look at it.

I previously made some comments with regard to the situation where international students come into British Columbia and obtain two years of education at a junior college, and then, attempting to get into a post-secondary institution, find their way blocked, at least in terms of access at the University of British Columbia. That is not the case in UVic and SFU, the other two institutions. I'd like to bring to the minister's attention some facts that were in a recent Sunday edition of the Province which I think highlight the importance of this question. If I could read into the record part of the article, what it is basically saying is that.... Actually it's a number of articles trying to highlight the fact that many of the schools — both secondary schools and the junior colleges — are getting into this international market and aggressively trying to attract these international students.

"Publication of some advertisements in Vancouver newspapers over the Easter weekend marked a milestone in public education in British Columbia. The ads placed by Vancouver School Board called for 'international students' to apply to complete their secondary education in city schools. VSB is the first B.C. school district to do so. Other public school districts may well follow Vancouver. The B.C. government and educators are catching on that education can be a valuable export. There are potentially hundreds of millions of people in the education 'market.' It's a market already being exploited by privately owned profit-making 'visa schools' in B.C...."

That's one article. Another article goes on to talk about West Vancouver School District and its desire to have a residential Asian-Pacific program. It comes to light through these articles that there's a lot of interest in attracting these international students.

"Malaspina College in Nanaimo has an office in Tokyo, and Vancouver Community College has one in Hong Kong. And the new — and long overdue —

[ Page 7763 ]

Ministry of Post-Secondary Education has an international education branch. Earlier this year director Dr. Robin Ruggles led an eight-member team of college presidents and other senior officials on a two-week tour of Japan and South Korea to drum up some business. The B.C. government has at last grasped that education is a saleable service, perhaps the highest value-added thing we can sell in export markets."

I could go on, but I think the article speaks very plainly and very clearly and, to some degree, to the credit of the ministry that it is recognizing post-secondary education as a marketable product. I want to use this to highlight what I think is the importance of this issue. If we're marketing this, if we're going out through the Pacific Rim countries and through Europe and Asia and saying to those students, "Come to British Columbia, obtain your post-secondary education here; utilize our facilities," we're attracting these students, charging them top dollar for their education, they get here, and lo and behold after spending two years here at a junior college, for example Okanagan College, these students find that the University of British Columbia will not accept them.

Some of these students are interested in programs that are only offered at the University of British Columbia. I'm not saying all of them, but some of them are. Those students are being sold short. They're being sold a bill of goods that we cannot deliver. The present policy at the University of British Columbia — and I've highlighted the fact in my previous remarks — is discriminatory, and if you look at it in light of the new Human Rights Act, it is in apparent violation of section 3 of that act.

The minister has made comments that I have asked him to try to dictate to the university. That is not the case. I appreciate and philosophically believe in autonomy of the universities. However, I think it is the minister's responsibility to point out to the university that that policy is regressive in terms of the marketing directives of the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education. It's counterproductive. In addition to that, it is, quite bluntly, discriminatory, and as I suggested before may well be challenged.

I'm not asking the minister to dictate to the university, but I think that if we are going to sell post-secondary education as a marketable commodity — and I well think we should — and use this as a means of trade and barter in a rapidly changing technological age, then we have to make the facilities duly available to those consumers that are purchasing that service. If we don't do that, we're selling them short and we're selling them a bill of goods which we really can't deliver.

HON. R. FRASER: Mr. Chairman, I would say again as I said this morning that I do not intend, as the minister, to dictate to the universities whom they shall take, nor do I think that visa students should be able to dictate to the university whom they should take either. We can certainly advise colleges that they must tell their students what their transferability rights are.

As you said this morning, depending on what country you come from, your rights will change. For example, if you come from a highly developed country where post-secondary educational opportunities are abundant, then you will have more difficulty than if you come from a country where they are non-existent. I think they should make that obvious to the people who attend the colleges.

With respect to marketing, I'm glad that you've discovered the ministry is working very hard on enrolling students in full-cost-recovery programs. There are some specific programs of short duration — for example, English language training. Obviously, if we can advise other countries of our services and they like what we offer and they buy at full recovery cost, then that's fine. I don't have any problem with that.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I don't want to continue going back to this, but I want to emphasize that that is just the point: if you're going to market something, you've got to be able to deliver the product. Presently that simple statement in the regulations of the University of British Columbia is affecting the ability of this province to deliver that product. If the students come here, attend college for two years and cannot get into the University of British Columbia because of that discriminatory piece of red tape, then we're not able to deliver what we're suggesting we can, and that is a full post-secondary education for these students. The reason I feel it's important that you bring that up and that you try to convince the university of its importance, far beyond the legal and human rights matter, is the fact that it compromises the ability of British Columbia as a province to fully enter the education market. It's as simple as that. If they can't get access to the University of British Columbia, they're not going to come, and that's going to compromise the good work and the efforts of the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education. So again, if you're going to market the product, you'd better be sure you can deliver it. Right now you can't. It's being compromised, and that should be changed.

MR. DAVIS: Mr. Chairman, this morning I said that education, and particularly post-secondary education, can provide us with an ongoing useful, productive export industry in this country, and I'm glad to hear the member for Okanagan North endorsing that thought. It currently is being pursued by a number of schools, and not simply now the privately owned colleges but also a number of our secondary school institutions, school trustees, etc., across the province — West Vancouver certainly, the city of Vancouver definitely, and so on. In other words, we are endeavouring to sell our excellence in education, to sell excess capacity, because in some instances we have declining enrolments and so on. I think that's all to the good.

Where I perhaps part company with the member for Okanagan North is that I would insist that all students who come, other than on our own scholarship program, pay full cost. Indeed, I would require those who go abroad to sell grade 11 and grade 12 instruction here to also sell university education here, but sell it on the basis of full cost recovery. I believe that the minister should endeavour to develop a scholarship plan — one which would, let's say, be developed on a fifty-fifty basis with the federal government. Simply to use round numbers, if the federal government contributed $10 million a year and the province $10 million a year, we could have a $20 million foreign student scholarship plan. Those scholars coming on the basis of ability, and using the criteria of need, would be in addition to those recruited otherwise by our education system, be they from secondary high schools, privately owned colleges or even our universities looking abroad for students to fill up our classrooms. I would have our subsidy, if I can call it that, limited to those in need — excellent students abroad who could not otherwise afford to

[ Page 7764 ]

come. I would certainly charge those who can afford to come and who do not win our scholarships full average cost.

[3:45]

There are only one or two other points I want to make. First, statistics. One of the problems I've had in discussing this matter with our university presidents, for example, is that they come up with a much lower figure for foreign or visa students — these are not landed immigrants or Canadians — at, for example, UBC. UBC continues to produce a number of the order of 500. Employment and Immigration Canada tells us that there are roughly 1,100 as opposed to 500 visa students at UBC. Neither of them include what I believe to be a fairly significant number of illegal immigrants. There are perhaps 100,000 illegal immigrants in Canada, maybe 20,000 in British Columbia. Surely a few hundred of them are at universities — at UBC, for example. So there are three numbers: 500 as reported by UBC, 1,100 as reported by Immigration Canada, and perhaps a larger number because some of them have entered illegally and have concealed their actual status as foreign individuals. Somehow that has to be cleared up. Certainly those in addition to the 500 are not paying the differential fee which UBC and others claim they're charging foreign students. I think that should be sorted out.

Finally, one particular matter. Capilano College is in North Vancouver- Seymour. Capilano College badly needs a gymnasium. It doesn't have any indoor recreational facilities at the present time. It has a plan underway whereby the students and faculty will raise a third of the capital cost, the private sector on the North Shore will raise another one-third, and they're looking hopefully to the provincial government to raise the remaining one-third.

Now this is precedent-setting because facilities of this kind in the past have by and large been provided 100 percent by the provincial treasury, or on a shared-cost basis in some instances with the local school boards. So perhaps this is a precedent. I certainly hope so — one-third, one-third, one-third, with only a third of the cost being borne by the province. But I would urge the minister to endorse this project if he can possibly see his way to doing it. I think it will establish a benchmark for other colleges and encourage them to also recruit local support, financial and otherwise, for endeavours of that kind.

HON. R. FRASER: Just a quick comment about the Capilano College gymnasium. It is a most impressive scheme, not unlike ones I saw when I was far younger and money was raised for educational projects. Indeed, I look to that with great favour and would like to think that something would come forward, which of course we can't announce until it does.

MR. NICOLSON: I might as well prolong the debate on foreign students. I'd just like to say that it's been my experience with foreign students, particularly from the Pacific Rim, that we seem to be setting up some young networks of people. I see evidence of it certainly in the microcomputer industry, where people who go over to places like Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, are helping to bring together some small manufacturing and assembly and helping to keep us in a very competitive industry in providing some of the jobs in the lower mainland that might not be too visible but they are certainly there.

I think that if only a third of them go back to the country of origin to share their skills there, those who remain here have network connections and I think it's serving us quite well. It's certainly not part of a recognized government program, I don't think, but I think that in many respects we are the beneficiaries.

Earlier in the debate, the minister referred to a proposed increase of 14.2 percent in the Winnipeg school board budget and that they were facing this. I would think that what he meant by that was that something like an increase of 14.2 percent to the taxpayers was a very large amount to absorb in one year.

I would like to ask the minister what he thinks of the trend in student tuition fee increases, which for the past three years at the University of Victoria have been 59 percent. That's close to 20 percent per year, so if something in the order of 14 percent is a big increase, does the minister anticipate more catchup? Does he anticipate a continuation of these outsized tuition fee increases or has that day passed? Has the adjustment been reached? What's in store — cuts, very modest increases below 5 percent, or are we going to continue to see double-digit increases in student tuition?

I'd also like to talk a little bit about student assistance. The minister mentioned the loan remission program. The loans remission program probably helps rural students more than just about anyone else, so if you're looking for a maximum case of benefit you could look at the case of a rural student. But we should look at the kinds of expenses that rural students encounter.

Some research done at the University of Victoria indicates that a student needs an average of $607 per month to cover rent, food, utilities, transportation and miscellaneous. By comparison, government recognizes only $552 per month, or a $55 per month shortfall, for those eight months, which creates a deficit of $440. Then costs involved in return transportation for rural students are sometimes staggering. Students from Chetwynd or Dawson Creek or Fort St. John would pay $768 for two return trips by air, while students from Fort Nelson would pay $1,036 and those from Cassiar, $1,178 for a return trip. Shipping of personal goods to and from their home town, as well as the setting up of housekeeping, which includes purchase of second-hand furniture and other costs, averages about $4,400 more than for urban students.

Total costs for single rural students range from $6,700 to $7,850 per year, according to those studies, and I am sure they bent over backwards to be fair and objective. So since the maximum loan available is $5,360 for single students, and since students from low economic social backgrounds rarely have more than $500 to contribute to their costs, a wide discrepancy exists between total costs and available funds.

So there is that problem in terms of not meeting the need. Now the evidence in the participation rate again is that there continues to be a widening gap between the participation rate of non-metropolitan and metropolitan students, in terms of university freshmen as a percentage of grade 12 population in the preceding year.

There are a lot of other changes that are taking place in universities. There is a whole change in the demography. I understand that the actual full-time enrolment out at the University of Victoria is probably less than 3,000 students out of the many thousands of students that they have, which shows that maybe average students are not freshmen leaving grade 12 and proceeding through four years of university.

[ Page 7765 ]

There are some tremendous changes. But if we try to compare some of the trends which reflect traditional demographies, we see that there has just been a continuing gap. In fact, if the trend continues — and it could be argued whether it is linear or some kind of a hyperbolic function — as a linear function, we would have no non-metropolitan students probably by the turn of the century. We'd be down to zero if we were to continue at present rates, and assuming linearity in the function here.

Also I'd like to mention a little bit about the loan remission program. It is helpful to rural students. Anything is a help, but to say that we have removed the barriers to participation of non-metropolitan students through the loan remission program would be absolutely not true. If a rural student borrows the maximum $5,360 annually for four years and, keeping in mind that I said that a student's needs are a few thousand dollars more than that per annum, the student ends up with a debt of $21,440, of which.... So out of that $21,440, $8,000 is a provincial loan and therefore eligible for maximum remission of $2,664.

Well, the total debt for that student is still $18,776, even if they qualify for the maximum loan remission, and in fact this does not take into account the fact that this maximum loan doesn't really cover the costs for a lot of those rural students. So at a 12¼ percent interest rate over ten years, the student will repay $32,178 in total interest and principal.

Coming back to what I said in my opening remarks, in the good old days when we went to UBC together, it is just absolutely.... Not you, Mr. Chairman, but the minister; maybe we did too, I don't know. But it has changed. It really has changed, and I think that if anyone were going into this with their eyes wide open, you would almost have to have the optimism of a Nelson Skalbania to engage in such debt and go into it willingly and gleefully and positively.

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: Yes, that's right, and I guess if you have that kind of mentality, well, that's fine.

But really it is, I think, a tremendous deterrent. The trends continue. I know that because of the lack of job opportunities, a lot of students are going back to university or to other forms of training in the past year or two. But I think that the overall trend.... If we can solve some of the unemployment problems, the overall trend will still see this widening gap between the participation rate in the metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas.

So I would like to hear from the minister. Maybe the minister could give me an estimate of the point in which.... Right now the loan remission program is not costing that much. It is going to build up; it is going to become more and more in the future. I'd like to ask the minister where the crossover is when what you're paying out in loan remission would equal what you might have paid in straight upfront grants.

HON. R. FRASER: If this is the last question, it's one of the more interesting ones. I'll save it until the last.

[4:00]

Interjection.

HON. R. FRASER: Arithmetic, geometric or perhaps exponential, but not hyperbolic.

With respect to the Winnipeg school board, the 14.2 percent increase which I talked about on the way out, what struck me was that they were doing it simply to keep teachers on staff. Apparently it had very little to do with educational opportunities and the school board. As I went on to say further, that seemed to me the wrong approach.

Tuition rates historically have been held down low in B.C. There have been some adjustments. I personally don't see much in the way of great increases coming on there, but that of course is a university function, as you know. They appear to be quite reluctant to do much about raising fees, and in my view it's good of them to think in those terms.

Yes, remission to rural students is higher: 33 percent versus 25 percent for urban. So there is a recognition of the extra costs that rural students have.

First, with respect to university entrance, it is apparent that the rural students are not going to university directly after high school. Many of them are going to the colleges, which in the view of most of us is proof that the college system is working very effectively, and which was one of the reasons it was developed in the first place. Secondly, with respect to the remission program, since the top 10 percent get half their fees back, it would be virtually impossible to tell when the remission program would equal grant. What you're suggesting, I suppose by default, is that we should be asking the federal government to have a federal loan remission program on top of the provincial loan remission program, and I'm not certain whether that has ever been done.

Interjection.

HON. R. FRASER: We have grants in a different way. We have achievement grants, scholarship grants — call them whatever you like. It's money that the student doesn't have to pay out.

MR. ROSE: The minister must be aware that his replacement of remissions and bursaries and that sort of thing is nowhere near what used to be achieved or required in 1982-83, when it was changed. In 1982-83 the budget for direct grants for student aid was $15 million; then there was a supplementary estimate granting another $7 million. Therefore $22 million in grants alone was available each year for post-secondary education students. It was changed, and for the last two and a half years there have been no grants. Even the former minister, his predecessor, said we have the worst student aid system in North America, if not the world. That is what this means.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair.]

In the two and a half years, you've really saved at least $50 million, and you're putting back into your program this year a piddling one-fifth of it at most — 4.7. Probably steal some money from the excellence fund and get the rest that way. The point is, compared to a student in Ontario, which has grants, students in British Columbia taking the full load of loans will find that their BA — or bachelor's degree — costs them $15,000 more than in Ontario. Mr. Minister, that's not fair, and that has to be addressed.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Chairman, I'm certainly glad to see the minister and his able advisers in the House. It would be a lonely place if they weren't here.

[ Page 7766 ]

I want to talk very briefly to the minister about Selkirk College. Very recently they received their budget, and I want to make the point that while there was a I percent increase because of, shall we say, uncontrolled inflationary items, the college is in a situation where they have to absorb about $350,000 into their core programs; out of their core programs, I guess would be the best way to put it. The basic reason for this — and I'm not arguing for or against this — is that within the collective agreements that they have, largely with their instructional staff, there are a whole bunch of increments that have to be paid. I suppose there's potential that some of this could be offset by Excellence in Education grants. I happen to think that all programs there are excellent and should be eligible for assistance.

I don't think it's new to point out to this committee — but I'm going to do it again — that a lot of inflationary items are simply uncontrolled by the institution. A major one, especially in recent years, has been textbook cost; another is utilities. In the case of both the Castlegar and Rosemont campuses, we've got plant structures which are close to 20 years old now, and no matter how well constructed or engineered, when plant facilities get close to 20 years old your maintenance and repair costs start to go up.

My concern, which I want to express to this committee on behalf of Selkirk College and the students and the faculty there, is that I don't want to see any further cuts in programs. There have been major cuts in programs in the last few years due to the various restraint measures, and of course as we have discussed in past years there was the necessity of the college budget absorbing the costs of operating some of the courses that were inherited by the demise of David Thompson University Centre and the Nelson school of the arts — some of the courses, as I say; most of the courses from those institutions were lost, but some were absorbed by the college with very little extra funding to make those up.

So I would like the minister and his administrators to take this under consideration when applications, especially for Excellence in Education grants, come before them, because if that does not take place, I want to stress to the committee and to the minister that some of the valuable technical programs and the very valuable academic programs offered by that institution will have to be cut even more than they have been in the last few years.

The minister has just conceded, in answering the member for Nelson-Creston, that one of the important functions of the college is to provide education; and the improvement of job training opportunities in the kind of economic atmosphere which we are in right now, and the ability of this particular institution to even maintain existing technologies and existing academic services, is severely strapped. So I would hope the minister would consider that. As I say, the situation of the collective agreements requiring increments to be paid out is having a severe effect on the 1986-87 budget as approved by the ministry.

MR. NICOLSON: There are other questions which I think are being asked, and they are being asked at all three of the major universities in British Columbia at the senior administrative levels. In meetings with various university presidents and with administrative staff over the past year, and in checking just very recently, the same message holds true, and that is — and it's I think one of the most major complaints from the administrative point of view — that there is no planning. There is no long-term planning. There is nothing more than almost a moment-to-moment type of planning possible, the way things are being handled financially between the ministry and going through the Universities Council to the universities.

I am informed that they have no information on what the budgets will actually be. They are assuming that they are at 95 percent of the base budget for last year. The base funding is frozen at last year's level, but they have lost a $14.9 million special adjustment fund for 1985-86 which was one-time money and is not recurring. In its place, they have some share of the $110 million Excellence in Education fund. So far the three universities are certain, I think, of some $13.1 million, and they may compete for more. But right at the moment this means a cut in non-recurring funds and especially in constant dollars. We've really been going down.

So the Excellence in Education funds do not help the operation of the universities. They are not built into base budgets, and there is no guarantee that these funds will continue. Thus they may be used to start up new programs, but it isn't known whether there will be continuing funding for those programs. I see the minister shaking his head, because I am sure he's heard this before, and he's probably tried to patiently explain it to university presidents and senior administrators and so forth. But this really is the case, and the questions are, for instance.... Suppose they wanted to start a faculty of business administration at the University of Victoria, or to start some other faculty which might sound like it is in keeping with some of the aims and objectives of the current government. It might also meet the test of needs in the marketplace. It might have the support of the business community and some of the leaders that are currently government appointees to the various university bodies. How can they undertake these initiatives based on funding which certainly is not projected beyond three years? How can they be assured that there will not be a repeat of the uncertainty which has plagued the engineering faculties at the University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University? How can the universities proceed with some kind of confidence that when they embark upon a program — yes, they'll be given money for it — they will not be told a little bit down the road to take the money for the continuation of that program out of other things, such as fine arts, or music or Slavonic studies or whatever program might be considered by government as a possibility for some paring?

HON. R. FRASER: Firstly, your comments were taken about Selkirk, which I didn't note at the time, but you made sure that we heard them.

Secondly, with respect to long-term planning, it has long been the thought of people involved with universities that there should be long-term planning, and there has been a great cry from organizations such as the Universities Council for universities to do long-term planning.

As result of meetings that our Premier had with universities, the creation of the three-year funding came forward, the longest they've had. As you said this morning, there is recognition of the need for long-term planning at the university level, and they should do it. You would think that the university would be one body that would have been in the long-term planning circumstance for years.

Thirdly, your suggestion that the excellence fund would not be used for operating budgets is a guess, but only a guess, so there's no assurance that that is not true or true.

[ Page 7767 ]

MR. NICOLSON: Perhaps the minister should refer to the documents called the "basis for proposals for the fund." I find some of the things in these proposals rather interesting. Some of the initiatives would have to get the support of, in terms of universities.... For adjustments, for instance, in the regular operating budgets of universities, governments will identify each funding element and seek the advice of the universities and the Universities Council in making an allocation. I guess that's straightforward, but I noted in other areas in these guidelines where....

You have a process now in terms of making these education funding allocations where you're going to be consulting business and other agencies and the general public. Yet I'm wondering if in doing that you are not showing a lack of faith in the government appointees that you already have on the boards of governors and such and on the Universities Council — people like George Morfitt, Wes Black and other people you have appointed to represent the ideas and the advice and input of business and the general public. Why do we have to create yet another kind of an institution in order to bring about these funding priorities?

[4:15]

HON. R. FRASER: I find your argument kind of interesting, because it strikes me that it's the opposition member who's always crying for more and more input from all sources when it doesn't seem to be required in every instance. The fact is that submissions will come through the universities and we are not going to restrict the opportunity of universities to be excellent just because we're going only to one source. If people have good ideas they should come forward with it, as they would anywhere.

MR. NICOLSON: One would hope that you aren't just going through one source. One would hope that you're making use of the opportunity to appoint so-called lay people to the various boards of governors and to the council and other institutions. I'm wondering if the government has lost confidence in those people because those people have been saying many of the same things to you as the official opposition has been trying to say.

I think we are all interested in post-secondary education and university education. It's rather funny that in spite of the fact that Wes Black was a Social Credit member of the W.A.C. Bennett cabinet for 20 years, I have some reason to believe that he's been trying to say some of these very same things about ongoing funding — the lack of certainty, the lack of educational opportunity. The government appointees seem to falling up on the job — you know, falling up to expectations rather than just being.... They might be meeting too many of the public expectations, I suppose. So now the government is seeking some other way of muddying the waters with some kind of a consultative process, which is not really spelled out but alluded to in these documents. I find it really disturbing.

Now I want to ask the minister what he thinks is going to be the consequence of the trend which we have established here in British Columbia, whereby the average university professor in British Columbia is earning about $6,000 or $7,000 less than he would get for an equivalent position in Alberta or Ontario, and probably Saskatchewan and some others — and these are, I think, pretty comparable and pretty nearby areas. I asked the universities what the extent of the problem is with faculty leaving. It's a complex problem. It's complex enough that you can hide behind the complexity of it and not address the real problem. But faculty are leaving, and it is muddied by personal decisions — family — and by other stresses and forces. But when you come down to it....

For instance, one person who recently left is David Parnas, who left the University of Victoria. He is going to get $20,000 a year more at Queen's University. This is one of the most outstanding software development people in North America, and yet it seems like we can just afford to lose him.

This brings me to another question, and that is: whatever happened to some of the intentions of the previous minister – some of his great ideas? What happened with the advanced systems institute which was proposed by your predecessor? Is it going to start up in the fall? Is it going to have the funding? Will it be at the Burnaby discovery park? Is that on track, is it abandoned or what? There we were talking about paying up to $100,000 a year to attract people who might be just about as good as Prof. Parnas, who, if we had been paying a decent and reasonable salary.... What does this minister feel about the gap that has occurred here, and does he feel that we are really well served when...?

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: Yes, we are sometimes successful in attracting some very good young professors here, and we make deals with them when we get them here at less than the going rate. But if they stay, all of their promotions and increments are sort of based on that starting level. The only way they can really break out of it and realize their true market worth — and it is a market — is to leave.

I'm speaking in terms of realizing that, maybe politically, talk about ever raising a professor's salary.... My goodness, they're supposed to already be overpaid. In the real world they are not being paid at the market rate, and we are paying for it. As I say, you could probably take every outstanding person like this — like Len Bruton, who left last year and is only just now going to be replaced.... It has taken over a year to search. It's tougher to find a replacement for the faculty of engineering at the University of Victoria than it is to find a replacement for the ombudsman. The search has been going on a whole year, without that leadership in a fledgling faculty. What does this minister see in terms of recognizing the realities of that marketplace and maintaining the excellence in university education which we've had to this date, and of which both he and I are the beneficiaries?

HON. R. FRASER: To answer your three points, first, there is no lack of confidence in the existing boards. If there were, they would be replaced. Secondly, with respect to university salaries, they have averaged about I percent less than Ontario in the last five years, I am advised, and it strikes me that for I percent I would rather live out here, too. Or for I percent I wouldn't go back to Ontario — put it that way. Certainly the advanced systems institute planning is still going on. It hasn't been totally put together.

MR. ROSE: I'm intrigued by the minister's statement that he seems to have all kinds of confidence in the boards he has appointed under his powers under Bills 18 and 19 — when the indirect elections were removed, and entirely malleable yes-men and — women were appointed to those boards, friendly to the government.

[ Page 7768 ]

Through the last three years there have been many horror stories having to do with education. Everybody in the province knows it, and the reason for them have been relatively vicious cutbacks and an onslaught on the education system on the grounds that we can't really afford it. Our budget has been going up every year for other things, but down for education, or at least scarcely maintaining its level. Even this year the same thing is true. The boards are up to $130 million short; that is, the school boards. So there have been lots of outcries, and they've used lots of ink in the paper, and there's been lots of conflict and lots of tension. I think everybody is aware of that.

There hasn't been one word from a college board member, to my knowledge. There hasn't been one word of criticism of the government policy on education that has come to me....

HON. MR. HEWITT: Where were you last Friday?

MR. ROSE: Are you speaking about the B.C. School Trustees' Association?

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. ROSE: Well, I don't know where you were last Friday. I happened to be travelling at the time, but I do know this: in the three years that I have been critic of colleges, I have not heard from one board member or a board chairman or the chairman of the chairman — not a sound, complete deathly and utter silence, not a bit. If you heard anything, please let me know, because they've been really quiet. They've been running around in Hush Puppies ever since they were appointed. They're not going to make any noise.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Are you back again?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: You want confrontation, do you?

MR. ROSE: How would you know? Why don't you go back to the frozen north? Stick your head back in the snow, where you usually have it.

Mr. Chairman, an internal report was quoted in the Vancouver Sun on March 27, headlined: "College Board Called Weak. An internal report on Vancouver Community College suggests it is 'overadministered and underled,' has a weak government-appointed board and should offer more than mere job training." Now I can go into the details of this report, but this is the kind of thing we're getting in an internal report on Vancouver Community College.

Some of the points: staff.... Well, anyway, there is something just ahead of that that I will quote:

"There is a widespread perception on campus that the VCC board, composed since 1983 solely of appointees of the B.C. cabinet, has failed to take a strong role in standing up for college interests."

I'm not saying this. This internal report says this.

"Many also thought the board represents only a 'narrow spectrum of the community.' Staff and students believe 'political and social pressures' are forcing the college to overemphasize job training."

That's the same criticism I got when I was up in Prince George a couple of weeks ago, that job training is overemphasized compared to the pre-university aspects of it, that university transfer funding was about half what was received by.... I was about to say something. I retract even the thought of it, because I was going to refer to one of the civil servants, and I don't want to do that since he has no way of protecting himself — at least here.

But anyway, there is a widespread feeling that the university preparation side of the program has been underfunded, starved. Classes are large, and it has been really discouraged or downplayed.

It said that there should be substantial increases in student financial aid. This is VCC: "There is an urgent need to expand campus facilities.... Langara is used by 5,900 students even though it was built for 3,500." Anyway, that's not an unusual criticism. The latest StatsCan figures show that if B.C. had even the same proportion of young people going to college and universities as other provinces have, instead of having 50,000 or so students at colleges, we would have 24,000 more. So we are underrepresented, and its participation rate is at fault.

There are a number of other things. I would like to ask the minister a direct question. The minister is new on the job. I congratulate him for it. I especially like the quote in the paper that I read that he was going to be an advocate for colleges and universities, and I really think that that is a very nice and very positive approach. I felt in the past that ministers of education and post-secondary education have almost, instead of defending their people, used their office to attack them and demean them and downgrade them.

The first question is: has the minister taken any steps to improve access to colleges since he has taken over, or has he thought about it? I would like to remind him that the black hole, as it is called, system of college finance.... Enrolment has to go up 5 percent each year before any more funds are generated by the formula. So they have larger and larger classes sharing fewer and fewer resources and people. What's he going to do about that black hole? I would like him to talk a bit about any new thoughts he has had about the formula, how restrictive it is. We've just heard about the increment part of it here a little earlier. And then I'll sit down. Maybe we can have a series of brief exchanges here, rather than long-winded speeches and inflammatory rhetoric — from me.

[4:30]

HON. R. FRASER: I think we would all have to agree that in the recession that struck British Columbia in the last few years the educational wing of public funding has done extraordinarily well. I think that you would agree that it would be a useful thing to do to invest in the future. The only other side that did any better was health care, which in fact went up.

It's my distinct impression that the educational institutions, the faculties, the students, boards and everybody else connected with them did a very good job in trying to contain their costs, as they would responsibly do, when in fact there was less tax money coming in because of the circumstance that was imposed upon all of us.

Now I don't know why they're not phoning you. I presume they haven't lost confidence in you, but they must be phoning someone else for some reason. You talk about the criticism of VCC, which complained that the courses were job training oriented and all those other things. There's no

[ Page 7769 ]

lack of interest in having people take the humanities and expand their minds and their educational opportunities or their thought processes. Very often, though, you'll find that the courses are driven by the students who wish to enrol in courses that will get them a job as soon as possible. So it's not the colleges driving the students; it's very likely the students driving the colleges.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

With respect to participation rates, again the historical participation rate is something we can argue about depending on what age group you want to use to classify students in — 18 to 24 or 18 to 30, whatever. But in spite of the fact that we've had good years and bad years, the participation rate has been reasonably constant, except it is now going up. What we do find is that the academic role in colleges is increasing, undoubtedly transferring to universities. So it looks to us that the colleges are indeed doing their job very well.

MR. ROSE: Well, I just don't understand this. I think that we're really talking.... We seem to be on a different planet. This bit about $300 million taken out of the school system, if you count inflation over the past three years.... I'm talking about the college system. But the college system this year — its budget is down as well.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I beg your pardon? Mr. Chairman.... Come on, in constant dollars. Let's talk about living in the real world. I've got the total post-secondary participation rates, and it doesn't indicate that British Columbia is about the same as everybody else at all. It indicates the Canadian average is about 23.1 percent for total post-secondary participation, and B.C. Is roughly 17.0, second from the bottom. See? So I don't understand.

I asked the minister what he was going to do to increase the participation rates based on the assumption that they're down. Of course there are a number of people knocking on the doors of colleges, because in times of high unemployment — and we think the unemployment rate is restraint driven, to some extent if not the major extent.... When I ask him what he's going to do about this, he stands up and says everything's wonderful. How can you argue from that basis? I can't. I can't even attack the argument.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Pollyanna?

Mr. Minister, if you intend to increase the participation rate, if you think it's not high enough — but maybe you do — it seems to me that you want student access. Seven percent of rural students go on to post-secondary institutions. Those are facts; they're not my assertions. For urban students, it's about 15 percent. I'm talking about universities here. How do you increase that if you feel it should be increased? I think it's discriminatory and unfair if students from the rural areas don't have the same chance as people from the urban areas. It has nothing to do with meritocracy, nothing to do with whether they've got any brains or not. It has to do with their access — whether they live close to a university — and if they don't, can they find it in colleges?

The minister counters by saying: "Oh, yes, but they can get a lot of this pre-university stuff at the colleges." I think that's a wonderful idea; that's what they were there for. I'll go further. I think there should be degree-granting institutions throughout the province, whether they should be some sort of subsidiaries of the major universities, as Victoria College once was of UBC, or something else. I don't know the pattern. But I think it's blatantly unfair for the kids from West Point Grey and places like that who can go to university in much larger numbers and percentages than the rural kids. I think that'll always be true, but I think the gap is far too wide.

I mentioned a little earlier the difference in cost, because of the lack of student aid, of a degree. It costs $15,000 more for a BA on loans. If you've got money, it doesn't matter. We know that enrolment in universities discriminates in favour of the affluent and against the below average incomer. But if you want to increase the participation rates and the fairness, it seems to me there are a number of things you have to do. You have to improve your student aid package. Maybe you need to reduce fees. My information is that the fee structure for universities in terms of the total cost is roughly 20 percent, and you might say that the general public is subsidizing post-secondary institutions or universities by approximately 80 percent of the cost of teaching and learning.

There were special grants to Northern Lights College of $50,000 last year because of their remoteness and extra snow and all the rest of it. I'm told by their principal that it wouldn't even pay the phone bill. These things have to be.... Instead of being ridiculous, these things have to be a bit more closely related to the cost.

So I'd like to know if the minister intends to alter the framework at all to take care of some of these inadequacies and anomalies including increments, population distribution, cost of course delivery region to region, and northern costs which are excessive — snows more and more heat. Is he planning to bring out a new and more equitable formula?

HON. R. FRASER: The member is suggesting that the ministry should always look to improving the system of delivery. That is true, and we always will.

MR. ROSE: The minister is new on the job, and I can understand why he would be noticeably reticent about this. An indication that he is always looking is kind of interesting, but doesn't make us all that hopeful.

AN HON. MEMBER: You're boring.

MR. ROSE: Why don't you go away and hide like you usually do? All you do when you come in here is sit and heckle anyway. Why don't you go out to Abbotsford? I understand you're very popular out there these days. They love you in Abbotsford.

Here again is a question based on an assumption the minister won't accept. I maintain, and so do many others — and we're not all dunces merely because we happen to have this view — that the college system as well as the school system has really suffered and jeopardized a great deal of possible economic recovery for this province. I'd like to know from the minister if he's aware of what proposition 13 did in California a few years ago, and how he intends to restore our system. Maybe he plans to do it the way California is doing it. California is doing it in their school system by importing Canadians — 200 last year and perhaps even more

[ Page 7770 ]

this year. The headhunters are coming here, I believe, next weekend. I want to know what he is going to do.

The question is: how long before we can boast here of a first-class college system again? If we have that, it attracts investment and jobs, instead of these phony municipal partnership agreements that we see everybody.... Photo-ops with the minister smirking out of every local newspaper. Disgusting!

HON. R. FRASER: We do already have a first-class system, and we have a most unusual system in British Columbia. We have probably the best system in all of North America when you put all the units together. That's recognized by everybody.

Secondly, when it comes to job creation there are a number of initiatives out there, as you know: the business development centres, etc. etc.; the spinoffs from the universities that are creating lots of new companies such as the ones we mentioned this morning. So there's no doubt about it, education is an economic renewal tool, and it's being used that way.

MR. ROSE: The minister is aware, I'm sure, that the college system has experienced a cut of about 25 percent since 1982. I don't know how a system can maintain its value, its efficiency. There are all kinds of words for cutbacks. It's called efficiency, productivity and all that nonsense, but a cut is still a cut. The government is very fond of saying from time to time: "You can't throw money at problems and expect to solve them." Well, you can't starve the system and expect to solve those problems either.

I want to know something about Kwantlen College in Surrey. They've claimed over the years.... That's a catchment area for my riding as well — Kwantlen as well as Douglas. I want to know when the new campus is going to be announced. Is it going to be announced soon, or just before the election, or is there going to be a new campus there? When can we expect to hear about that? Or is it too soon to say, because it will spoil a good election promise? I think I can buttress.... Maybe a supplementary question is: why doesn't it have it now? It has a huge catchment area in terms of students, and it is grossly underfunded. Will the minister comment on that? Is there any hope for Kwantlen to have a new building soon — a permanent campus?

HON. R. FRASER: Mr. Member, as you know, every campus needs renewal funds from time to time, and Kwantlen is certainly no exception. I'm well aware of the very good work done out in Surrey by the two MLAs who represent that constituency right now, and the thousands of signatures they've garnered in support of a new capital program in that area and for that college. But this is not the time to make announcements, because we're not ready to make announcements yet; we're still working on it.

MR. ROSE: Percentage of the population. Douglas and Kwantlen have 11.3 percent of the population and 7.5 percent of the funding. That's terrible. Percentage of students not in local colleges — the highest in the province. No, not quite. Northwest is even worse — 38 percent. Kwantlen:14 percent of the B.C. population — that's why it has the third member now in Surrey — and 6.9 percent of the college funding. That's grossly unfair. That's just outright discrimination. I can understand why you do it to New Westminster: because of my friend here. But I can't understand why you do it to poor old Surrey. Ernie Hall has been gone a long time. Except for a collection of shacks, it is the only campus, of all the colleges, without a permanent campus. It's not the time to talk about that.

I wonder if the minister has ever, talking about efficiency and productivity, considered the number of press releases his office issues. I just thought I'd give him a few little stats. Last year we had this.... As a matter of fact, the father of the health fund, the excellence fund and the forestry fund.... The ministry subtracted some $12 million bucks from the budget and gave it out under the minister's orders. So we had all these outfits competing for the scarce bucks that had been withdrawn from the college funding. But these all provided many photo ops and lots of press releases. If you can get 42 press releases, and God knows how many pictures and ribbon-snippings, out of $12 million, the question is: how many can you get out of $110 million? Can you do that simple math — I understand you're an engineer? Does the minister intend to perhaps reduce the workload on his poor beleaguered staff by limiting the tremendous number of press releases? The elephant laboured mightily and gave birth to a mouse.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I don't know. Over last year, 42. It's a record.

[4:45]

HON. R. FRASER: We should address the more serious aspect of your presentation, which was the funding of a college on a regional basis — which is an unrealistic way to fund a college, as you know. We do not fund colleges on the basis of the population of the area. We fund colleges on the basis of the population of the students at the school. This will mean that students in Surrey can go to Kwantlen or BCIT or SFU, or wherever else they want to go. They're not obliged to go to school in Surrey if they don't wish to. If they have educational interests that are beyond the Kwantlen campus, such as at BCIT or Pacific Marine Training Institute, they can go there — which adds more fuel to the argument, because some institutes serve the entire province, and therefore, to fund them on a regional population basis doesn't really serve the student. What we're trying to do is serve the student by funding the colleges on a demand basis or a need basis or a per-student basis, so that when a student goes to a college the funding is there. It's not by population in a region. It's population per college that really counts. That's why it's done that way.

MR. ROSE: It's almost like saying that the students who live in Surrey and New Westminster are by nature more nomadic. They're like the Arabs folding their tents and moving to another oasis, because their local oasis has been befouled, or the waterhole is insufficient or has dried up. I wonder who gave the minister the information that those people from Surrey and New Westminster take great delight in travel. I mean, they don't have ministerial travel permits. They have to go and spend hours on buses.

To be realistic and fair, I don't expect every college to offer everything the same. You can't do that; it's like endless duplication of expensive machinery at hospitals. It's just not sensible; it's not credible. But certainly the basic courses should be, and the vast differences between the funding

[ Page 7771 ]

related to population in one area I don't think can be argued. The minister's argument is half-reasonable. By saying the minister is witty, I think that perhaps we could say he's half right. That's a half-truth there, all right.

No, I don't agree with that. I think you're discriminating against two members of your own party, and I wish you'd cut it out. Build a campus over there and fund them up to a reasonable level, and I'm sure if there were decent transportation systems, then that might be an attraction to move out. But I think that they would rather stay closer to home. Certainly I would, rather than travel hundreds of miles to school.

I wanted to know finally — and this is the "finally" for this particular series — if the minister has any intention of changing the system imposed under Bills 18 and 19 in which the ministry has full power, rather than the local community, to appoint the college boards rather than through indirect elections, and whether or not he intends to maintain his right as a minister guaranteed under Bills 18 and 19 in 1983. I don't know the names of the acts; I just recall them as bills. They basically did those two things. They gave the minister a right to fire all the indirectly elected local community people and substitute instead his own appointees. Does he intend to alter that in light of the need for greater democracy and community interest and control? And, two, his powers to establish or abolish courses centrally in Victoria rather than leaving that expression of need up to the local community.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The first question would anticipate pending or future legislation or legislative amendments. The minister may wish to speak to the philosophy.

MR. NICOLSON: The minister certainly has dodged some of the questions that have been put, and I'd like to maybe put them in terms that a civil engineer or mechanical engineer can understand. Well, I can't use words to do that; I'll have to use a graph. All members of the Legislature received a series of graphs from Asst. Prof. Eric Sager of the University of Victoria a little while back. The first one of those was the cumulative percentage change in provincial operating grants to universities over three years, 1982-83 to 1985-86. It shows that British Columbia is the only province in which there has been negative growth. I think that's a euphemism, isn't it, to talk about negative growth? That's putting it the best way possible.

In Newfoundland there was a growth of 9.1 percent; in Nova Scotia, 16.6 percent; Prince Edward Island, 19.2 percent; New Brunswick, 17.8 percent; Quebec, 13.9 percent; the highest growth in Ontario at 20.2 percent; Manitoba, 17.4 percent; Saskatchewan, 15.7 percent; Alberta, 16.3 percent; and British Columbia, — 9.7 percent. If you look at the least increase of any of what I think are the comparable provinces — and that is Ontario westward through the Prairies — the swing compared with the least performance of any of those five western most provinces is Saskatchewan at 15.7 percent. That means that we have actually fallen behind in percentage terms by over 26 percent.

I talked earlier, and the minister didn't respond directly to the fact that it's estimated now that comparable faculty salaries are, as compared with Saskatchewan and Ontario, running some $6,000 behind. We have situations where top faculty are leaving for $20,000 increases at other universities, and at the same time we have this other proposal by your predecessor where he's talking about spending up to $100,000 a year for salaries and focusing this on just a very few people. Talking about the necessity and the desirability of that, the minister says it's still being studied now, although it was supposed to be introduced in the fall of 1986. It would seem that if we were really going to go ahead with it, we would have taken some more concrete steps by now. But here we had the press release and the glowing report by Vaughn Palmer covering this initiative. We also had some of the reaction to it. I think the consensus in the academic community was that if this was a good idea, it was certainly not a priority at this time.

So on the one hand we have the former minister really saying that if you want excellence in education you've got to pay for it, you've got to do something very special. We have the evidence that we have fallen behind every province in Canada over the past three years. We have people like William Hamilton, now on the board of governors at SFU, saying in the Vancouver Sun of February 26 that the government has not adequately funded the university and that the board unanimously passed a resolution calling on the government to recognize the extreme financial burden currently borne by students who cannot rely on parental support for their university education. It demanded urgent re-examination of scholarships, bursaries, loans and grants programs for students.

These are your appointees, Mr. Minister. This is Bill Hamilton, former spokesman for the Employers' Council of British Columbia, former Postmaster-General in the John Diefenbaker government. These are the people who are saying this. Everybody in British Columbia knows that we have fallen behind, and certainly — well, maybe in the case of some of the college boards which are not too outspoken — these appointees of yours are being outspoken. I think that is pretty strong language. Certainly if we were in the position of being government and some of our government appointees had spoken out in such strong terms, it would give me some concern and cause me to think very carefully and re-examine government priorities.

In view of this, what does the minister see in terms of base funding for the universities for the next three years? Is it going to continue to remain static? Is it going to be cut 5 percent per year again and again? What is going to happen with that base funding? We're going to have this so-called Excellence in Education fund; is the base funding going to remain static for the next three years?

HON. R. FRASER: I'll address the more salient points in the argument. The Sager graph isn't correct, because it doesn't include all the funding that went to the universities. That graph should be revisited by you.

Secondly, with respect to salaries, I'll give you some hard numbers which will go beyond the comments we made before. In the four years from '81-'82 to '84-'85, UBC's average salary was only I percent below the four-year average of the U of T, UBC, Western, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba, which compares very favourably. And as I said to you, I wouldn't move to Ontario for I percent.

Thirdly, when it comes to the comment from your colleague who said boards never speak out, I thank you for bringing it to his attention that in fact they do.

Fourthly, student programs....

MR. NICOLSON: Do you listen?

[ Page 7772 ]

HON. R. FRASER: Of course I listen, which I intend to convey as well.

Fourthly, student programs are being revisited. There's no doubt about the fact that some of the students need more help than others. There's no doubt about the fact that you can't do everything you might wish to do. But that does not mean that we will not look at student needs.

[5:00]

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to talk to the minister about another topic. I make I suppose one might say infrequent — maybe annual or semi-annual — visits out to the University of British Columbia and slightly more frequent ones to the University of Victoria, and maybe about an annual visit to the Simon Fraser University campus.

I would like to draw the minister's attention to the appearance of the University of British Columbia campus. The fact is that on some of the buildings such as the physics building, there are cracks and crevices. There are plants growing out of the very building. There is evidence of a general deterioration of the services. Some of this results from implementation of a report which was undertaken by University of British Columbia. I am not suggesting that it is the duty of the Legislature or the minister or the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education to set the fiscal priorities of the university, but again I think it shows what happens when you have severe cutbacks. Whether the minister wants to include the one-time funding, the $14.9 million of last year or whatever, and take issue with the Sager graph, the Sager graph still paints the correct picture.

But one of the manifestations of that is that the administration is forced to take some kind of action, and at the University of British Columbia they hired a firm from Beverly Hills, California — Ritchie and Associates — who received $1.5 million in British Columbia tax dollars from the University of British Columbia for a study which they did on a no-savings, no-fee basis. The so-called potential savings from the reduction of staff which they recommended were accounted as receivables to the departments which they studied and which were in turn charged and made up that fee.

The recommendations in about ten of the departments was to cut staff by 20 percent to 30 percent. Now this has been looked at. There were claims from the university administration that there were no jobs lost, and there were no layoffs. But in fact, as staff left, they were not replaced. They were down some 16 positions, and a lot of work has been contracted out to personnel agencies. In purchasing they are down by five positions, and there are those manifestations.

But one of the things that has happened is.... I think that before I heard about this Ritchie study and some of these cutbacks, I noticed the deterioration just visibly. I was just kind of really taken aback by it. I think that if you don't maintain plant, you pay for it very dearly. We went through that experience right in this very legislative building, when for years and years staff used to go up above this chamber, where there were tents of plastic to catch the rain that was coming through the slates that had not been repaired for maybe half a century. Whenever it rained, we had a job intensive project of having staff go up there and empty buckets that collected the accumulations of rain and so on.

You can kid yourself by ignoring maintenance for so long, but eventually the day comes and you pay, and you pay heavily. We ended up paying far more in restoring this building than it ever cost in the original instance. In fact, I see the same manifestations at the University of British Columbia, where some of the buildings that were built shortly after the Second World War have been allowed to deteriorate. Some of it is very obvious, but I am more concerned about the things that might not be as obvious but might be some real serious structural problems that might be occurring.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair.]

This kind of cutback has resulted in a lowering of the quality of service to students and faculty. The campus buildings are not as clean as they should be, although the cleaning staff is working harder than ever. Campus mail is now erratic, and journal circulation, the lifeblood of the academics, is being delayed by several weeks. Urgent messages are now being run across campus because service is so slow and unreliable.

Students and hourly staff are not being paid on time. Purchasing services are in chaos and departments will pay more than they should for goods and services. University employees are under stress and fearful for their jobs, and morale is at an all-time low. These are the summary findings of a report which is done by Donald Gutstein on behalf of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. I think that it should be looked at very seriously. The minister should not smile at the source or who paid the piper for this, because on the one hand, you hire somebody like Ritchie and Associates and on the other hand, we have a British Columbian undertaking this particular study.

I think that one thing that should be looked at is the experience of another firm that hired Ritchie and Associates. That firm was Wardair. They built a reputation on service, and anyone who has travelled on Wardair will remark on the fact that they are treated almost as a first-class flyer at an economy-type fare.

Wardair, as a result of another Ritchie report.... You know, you don't have to hire Ritchie. You could almost have predicted it. Their reports are so predictable; they just recommend mass cutbacks in instance after instance. I guess if that's what you want, then you hire them, and you know the kind of report you're going to get. They did this for Wardair. As a result, there were cutbacks — I think two people on their 747s and two people on their DC-8s — and a loss of service. Wardair eventually came to the conclusion that this was hurting rather than helping business and they have restored those positions on their planes, not as a result of any kind of pressures from unions or anything, but I think they came to the realization that some things just could not be cut; that it was to their loss.

Unfortunately, in a public institution it's a lot easier to ignore this kind of a loss. It doesn't hit owners or management or shareholders in the pocketbook in quite such a direct way as it does a corporation like Wardair. Nevertheless, it does end up reducing the service to the public that we all pretend to serve, hope to serve and intend to serve in this province. I'd like to bring this to the minister's attention — not so much that the minister should interfere in the administration of the University of British Columbia, but realize that this is another symptom of the underfunding and the desperate attempt to satisfy the political masters, to anticipate the political masters of the government and cabinet who send out these very confused messages which sometimes are misinterpreted. In that misinterpretation, they serve neither the people, the students nor the government. It brings discredit to

[ Page 7773 ]

the government, I think, for people who are alumni of the University of British Columbia to see the campus as it is today and to compare it with the way we remember it. I think that's a political liability for this government. I don't think this government should allow that to happen. I think politically it is a real mistake.

So again, the minister can get up and.... It really isn't the right answer to get up and say that maybe the Sager graph didn't include the special funding for last year or something; it still paints that picture. There's a heck of a swing. The fact is, in British Columbia we have really frozen and cut the base-line budgeting. I warn the minister not to make the mistake.... It's very helpful to have advice in the House, but you'd better look into it, and look into it yourself. You'd better use the skills that you have and do the work, and not just accept everything that's whispered in your ear. That's my advice as an ex-minister of the Crown.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just before recognizing the minister, I can assist the member for Nelson-Creston. It's DC-10s, not DC-8s.

HON. R. FRASER: With respect to the care and maintenance of buildings, it's my observation that that would be correct. In fact, BCBC staff have put together a report suggesting that maintenance of existing plant is a worthwhile objective, and I support that objective. I don't think anybody with any sense would do otherwise.

I have no knowledge about the Ritchie report, having never heard of it. So I can't comment on that.

I would submit for your thought that irrespective of when the Gutstein report was written, it's now out of date. My impression of morale at the post-secondary institutions is that it's on the upswing, probably as a result of the recognition that the hard, hard days are gone; no doubt a recognition of the fact that the excellence fund exists and there's opportunity for increased funding. So I look forward to happier days at the post-secondary institutions.

MR. ROSE: Part of the raison d'etre for estimates is, I assume, not only to ventilate the minister and his officials and their spending proposals but also to bring to the minister certain kinds of information and to ask questions. I welcome this chance to do that. I've got three quite different items — some of them I've covered partially before, and one I haven't — that I want to raise. The first one is that it's all very well to say that we have no student aid or virtually none or an inadequate amount — and I've gone over the figures there; the minister knows my views on that matter — but I wanted.... That's kind of impersonal. It's kind of abstract just to use stats here.

I got a letter here yesterday — as a matter of fact, from the son of an old friend of mine, and he writes this to me:

"Last year I graduated with a bachelor of fine arts and theatre from UVic. This, combined with my two-year media course at Cap College, has me in various states of employment and $16,000 in debt" — for a bachelor of fine arts.

"The B.C. portion of the loan of $1,000 is being paid, but the $15,000 federal loan requires more than $350 a month, most of it in interest."

This is a kid just out of school.

"I cannot pay this at the moment, and venture to say that for the next few years at least, while I settle, financially this loan will be beyond my means."

So this is how seriously students are put into debt by the fact that we don't have a grant portion here, compared to many other jurisdictions. He's willing to pay it. He knows he owes it. He's very grateful for the opportunity to have it, and I know he's not alone.

The last time I looked, when I was critic of culture and broadcasting, or whatever — Secretary of State in the federal House — there were 15,000 defaulters across Canada, some of them deliberately, but others beyond their.... You know, it's just that the payments, because of high interest rates.... If you're not acquainted with the student loan, I'd just say briefly that it's a government-backed guarantee to the banks, and the banks do the lending. But it's a very serious problem. And this, when I looked about five years ago, amounted to, I think, about 15,000 defaulters. I was able to get some remission for them and sort of spread out the payments by the then Secretary of State, the Hon. Serge Joyal.

I could read more of his letter, but it's not really necessary, because it's kind of a tear-jerker. If you're carrying that kind of a debt that you can't pay, I think it would be a bit nerve-racking, especially if you have no income. So I wish the minister Godspeed if he intends to do something to.... Even return it to what it was before '82-83 or '83-84. Even if he went back to the $15 million plus $7 million per year. But in terms of the need, $10 million isn't enough. This kid's opportunities.... If I haven't said it already— I just thought about it again — he can't.... The sort of downturn in the economy over the last...and the high interest rates put him in a terrible position.

[5:15]

Next is this — and this might be kind of a tear-jerker to some. It's an approach that we had as a political party when we held some hearings, and this came from the adult basic education people who would like to be part of the adult basic education program. For the minister and anybody else who might be reading Hansard — at least two or three might read Hansard; I don't know what the readership is, but for this debate it probably won't be very high — adult basic education.... For those people who have left school — dropouts — there is about a four-course program which gets them up to adult basic education and skill development. So it provides a second chance for those people, many of whom are on welfare. They claim that the present college fee structure is just impossible for them. They'd like to go back to this sort of program. To me, when I looked at it from my point of view and my earning power and my perspective, it didn't seem insurmountable. But as my friend the first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes) found out when he tried to live on $350 a month, what we consider to be adequate or satisfactory is just impossible for many others. They say they have very low income to begin with. Many of them are on welfare. Many are single parents and many are unemployed. They say they can't survive on that or do what's necessary to drag themselves out of their condition, because they can't afford to do it. So I'd be interested to know if there could be — even if it's on the basis of some sort of a means test — some remission of fees or some sort of subsidy of fees to those people who qualify. I don't think that's going to be a very costly program. I don't think that to be a little bit generous is going to be particularly unhelpful.

[ Page 7774 ]

The final thing that I want to talk about is the fact that the universities.... I know they're autonomous bodies, and I respect that; as a matter of fact, I encourage it. I wish the colleges were more autonomous and less accountable to the minister and more to their communities, but I've already discussed that. There's a study here that I received the other day that I'd like to make reference to. It's called "Women's Participation in Universities, 1979-82." While that may appear to be a bit backdated — I think that some of the figures may have been updated.... I'm not going to read the figures, anyway; I'm not going to go through the tables. But apparently women on faculties represent only 20 percent at universities — of course, higher in certain particular faculties than in others. The women in universities, as in many other forms of employment, are clustered at the lower end of the scale, the low-pay part of the salary range. I was interested in knowing the minister's attitude. Presumably he's not going to interfere with the universities, because they are autonomous, but he can provide some sort of moral leadership and urge the universities publicly to consider a more equal distribution of male and female jobs or faculty appointments for senior or faculty university positions. Does he support this concept? Some people would call it a mild form of affirmative action. That's moral leadership, you know; no regulations, but just perhaps guidelines and suggestions from the minister in his great eminence, in his recent achieving of the seat of power over the universities.

HON. R. FRASER: On the points raised, there can be very little doubt that we do not want students to graduate with huge debtloads and find themselves unemployed and unable to pay their loans back — let alone the interest — and in a total state of depression. Nobody would want that. Your numbers sounded kind of interesting: $350 a month interest somehow didn't add up to the debt of $15,000. But whatever the numbers are, the point is that this is not a desirable conclusion to a university or college course. There is no doubt about that. There are some efforts being made to help students in those circumstances — spread the payments out and that kind of thing. Some steps are being taken.

With respect to adult basic education, Camosun, for example, in recognition of the fact that the adults who are lacking in basic education are probably at the low end of the earning scale, have cut their fees. There are some other programs that are available to people in those circumstances as well, so they are not totally without help, even though it may be minor or modest.

Interjection.

HON. R. FRASER: Are you getting tired? Might I need a watch?

Now the next thing you want to talk about is women in the faculties at universities or colleges or whatever. I would guess that your first priority would be that the most capable person applying would get the job, irrespective of gender. Certainly, if you knew that all of my children were female and that I would give them the greatest expectation possible, then you would have to believe that my personal commitment to equal opportunity would be high.

MR. WILLIAMS: The participation rate in terms of people going into college or university in the hinterland versus the metropolitan area strikes me as a major area of inequality in the province. When we see that it's something like, what, 5½ percent from the hinterland now — i.e., non-metropolitan — versus 16 percent-plus in the metropolitan area, that begs a policy response. What we are saying is that two-thirds of the able young people from the hinterland, the interior and the north of the province are outside the system. Somehow we're not providing them with what's needed to participate.

My learned colleague on my right here tells me that in terms of lawyers, for example.... I wouldn't recommend a legal career particularly to anybody, but the figures that he advises me of are even more shocking. Of the 6,200 of our lawyers in the province, 1,200 are outside the metropolitan area. It's a modest amount. What it tells us is that citizens from these regions generally can't aspire to the senior occupational opportunities in their own regions, so that too often the people in Prince George are going to have lawyers that are not part of their citizenry. On and on it goes in terms of the rest of the professions. That's a tremendous difference. If there are three times the number of kids coming out of grade 12 in greater Vancouver going into college and getting professional training compared to Prince George or the Kootenays or the far north, or elsewhere in the province, it is begging a policy response. I ask the minister what kind of policy response he has for these kids who are not getting these opportunities in these outer regions of the province.

HON. R. FRASER: I'm sorry the member hasn't been here for the entire debate on....

MR. WILLIAMS: I am too.

HON. R. FRASER: I'm sure you've been feeling very upset about it as well. Well, you can always read it.

Interjection.

HON. R. FRASER: Oh, my gosh, there's confidence for you.

The fact of the matter is that the college system was built to serve the needs of those who do not necessarily live in the lower mainland. As we said earlier today, and will repeat around the province, and you will also, the participation rate in urban centres is going up in the college system, and particularly in the academic stream, where students will transfer after college into the university. There's no lack of opportunity there. What you might lack is not necessarily the opportunity; you might lack the persuasion of the family of the student who may not encourage him or her to go to post-secondary institutions. You may not be able to transmit to the potential student the fact that there are good and justifiable reasons to go to post-secondary institutions.

There was a thought some years ago, when the economy was really booming, that students from the hinterland didn't go to universities or colleges because they could get jobs paying lots of money, and it didn't matter whether they had post-secondary institutional education. For whatever reason — and I think it's because students are recognizing the changing society that we live in — there is now a small increase in participation rates in academic stream in the rural areas. It's as much a matter of the attitude of the town or the family or the community, and maybe more so, than it is an opportunity. The opportunities are there. There are lots of opportunities.

[ Page 7775 ]

MR. WILLIAMS: If you gave me some good sociological data and studies by social planners and the rest to back up what you are saying, I might feel a little better.

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: Just about. It would be par for the course.

There are the trend lines. The top trend line here....

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: No, Buster, with you guys, everything is downhill.

The top trend line there is for the metropolitan areas; and that's running about 16.5 percent now. The trend line down here is the non-metropolitan areas; that's running around 5.5 percent, downhill. Bad trend. Not the kind of trend you're talking about, Mr. Minister. I don't believe for a minute that the parents of kids in Prince George are not smart enough to say: "You can make a better living if you're a lawyer, kid, than being unemployed in the forest industry." I think they've got that kind of smarts. I just don't see it, you know. You are suggesting that a modest change, I presume, in the academic stream....

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: You're talking about the high schools? In the academic stream? Come on, come on.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. For the sake of the people at Hansard that are trying to transcribe this procedure, it would be better if we could just wait to interject. The minister might appreciate the admonishment from the Chair.

MR. WILLIAMS: I'm sure the Hansard staff can sort it out.

But the graph, I think, is very clear. We have two standards operating in British Columbia. We used to have an administration in this province that saw the hinterland in a different way. Much of the funding of this administration has been geared to the lower mainland. The major projects, all kinds of them, have been in the region I come from, and less and less in terms of dealing with the imbalance between the small towns of British Columbia and that big town down there. The big town, Vancouver, can look after itself to a very great extent, and does so, in my view, with a more capable government and certainly with a more capable bureaucracy as well. They pay more for their senior bureaucrats than you guys do.

So they can look after themselves, but for the young people coming out, that pattern is there. They need extra help. There is not a university in Prince George. It is a significant urban, northern regional centre. If we thought in a broader way, and if we saw education as a significant industry, we would be doing things differently than we presently do.

I was in Boston last summer, and the number of colleges there is almost overwhelming. When you start looking around, you find that the major industry of the state of Massachusetts is education. You have outfits like Harvard, of course, which is world-renowned, MIT and the other universities and colleges. They are using that as an engine of growth in their state. Here we're limited to these metropolitan institutions essentially, so that the opportunities aren't there.

[5:30]

There are very significant added costs for these kids from out of town, and they need different programs. They need programs well beyond what is being provided now. In case you hadn't noticed, Mr. Minister, we have an abysmal economy in British Columbia. You look at the figures. If my memory serves me right, the official unemployment levels are running at about 18 percent in Prince George and the northern interior right now, and the Kootenays are running at 20 percent. Those are darned tough economies. You're not going to get parents able to help the kids in funding post-secondary education. You're just not going to get it.

If we really want to rebuild this provincial economy, part of the job is in this industry that you're responsible for. The way things are now, you're closing off opportunities, and you're really limiting the development of human capital in this province. That's showing up right there in this graph. The kind of human capital that the modern world requires is not being produced in the north, in the Kootenays, in the Okanagan, on northern Vancouver Island or elsewhere.

You're limiting their potential by your present policies, clear and simple. Their future earnings are going to be limited. Their future in the economy will be limited, because you don't have a policy that deals with it. Do you have any thought about some changes in that area so that we can change the direction of these graphs?

HON. R. FRASER: You would have to know that if anybody in this room liked graphs, it would be me. My graphs are obviously different than yours, because they include more people. I presume that you've just got one sector involved in your graph, whereas in my graphs, we put all the students in it, and the enrolment in colleges is up — and that's interior — over 12 percent in all sectors from 1982 to 1985.

I agree that education is an economic force and a renewable development tool for the province. So does the government. That is why we have done the kinds of things in colleges and universities that are being done: the business development centres, for example, where the expertise at the colleges and universities can be used by local business for the development of the business enterprise and to acquaint the business community with the academic community to make it work on behalf of those who have no connection with either, if you want to do it that way.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

There's no doubt about the fact that this government wants the province to regain its position in the economic world and is striving very hard to do that. The rates are up. The last few years have not been easy, but things are improving. Participation rates are improving no matter what your graph says. The total picture is better. Education is an economic force; we know that and we're working with that. I appreciate your comment.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, last year in the estimates I spoke about the new recognition, I guess, of the place of the arts in terms of its lasting educational qualities and the things in the arts that kind of make it an enduring skill that has maybe survived a lot of the fads in terms of education and the various types of training that have been much sought after.

[ Page 7776 ]

But it's funny how the arts seem to come back time and time again as being the most enduring basic kind of saleable commodity, in addition to being of very great value in recognizing the maximum potential in one's life.

We mentioned that a little bit last year in the estimates, and this year, on February 18, in the Toronto Globe and Mail there was an article headlined: "Arts Grads Are Sought as New Employees, Placement Body Says."

"Graduates in the class of 1986 will find those with arts degrees are sought after more than students of computer science, agriculture, forestry and people with masters' degrees in business administration, the executive director of the University and College Placement Association says. This trend runs against predictions made in the seventies, says the executive director, James Duncan."

This article talked about:

"...the reawakening of interest in liberal arts graduates is a direct result of layoffs and hiring cutbacks in the early eighties, when employers were forced to look closely at their staffs to stretch the resources among them.

"Employers found that graduates from arts and social science studies appeared to have a broader base of knowledge that made them easy to train and better equipped to transfer their skills within the business, he said. As well, a liberal arts education tends to bring about stronger communication skills through its emphasis on written and oral presentations. As a result, the graduates' 'social perspective' makes them better able to deal with clients and colleagues, Mr. Duncan said."

Of course that was followed up by an editorial in the Vancouver Sun the following day which said much the same thing and added some comments and some of the warnings that were given by Dr. Saywell. They say that's what Dr. Saywell was talking about when he warned in a Vancouver lecture last October that:

"...specialized technical training no longer guarantees a job in a time of innovation and change, and that Canada will never gain a competitive edge if its universities fail to place the specialist's work in the context of other kinds of experience.

"The trouble is that what Mr. Saywell called an 'aggressive challenge' to the relevance of an arts education in a time of severe budget restraints has forced B.C. universities and colleges to make deep cuts in arts programs. Whether the message is getting through to the provincial government remains to be seen. Premier Bill Bennett has expressed a new-found desire for excellence in education, but its emphasis is not yet clear. The policies of his former universities minister, Pat McGeer, strongly favoured science and technology over the humanities. The new Minister of Post-Secondary Education, Russell Fraser, has announced some additional funding for the universities this year, but whether it is enough to start restoring some balance in educational priorities is another matter."

Mr. Chairman, I would like to refer again to the proposals and goals in the document that I referred to a little earlier today. When it is talking about goals for the fund, it makes a lot of hints at what the actual goal might be. I don't think that the goal is really spelled out in this document. But it says:

"Local trustees, boards and officials will be responsible for initiating proposals, possibly in partnership with private industry. Government will assist in developing proposals and will be responsible for evaluation of proposals."

It also talks about giving priorities for upgrading and expanding existing services, redeployment of resources to more successful programs and introduction of new services. It says education program proposals should be consistent with the provincial economic strategy of strengthening basic resource industries while encouraging development of new manufacturing industries, the service sector and the emerging information economy.

Also we talk about productivity increases and that institutions will propose measures to stretch the dollars by investing in cost-reducing technologies in education. I don't know if that means that we're going to computerize all instruction, or what. But really, in terms of looking at some of these goals, and also at looking.... The same thing about the goals for the universities: to provide the technological and entrepreneurial edge to maintain the competitiveness of our basic resource industries, to create knowledge and skills, to support emerging industries, especially the service sector — are we not falling into the same trap? I would like to ask the minister: are you not falling into that same trap? Are you looking for the specialized kind of ephemeral educational objective which will not stand the test of time? I read this as if we're going to be reallocating funds which are currently dedicated to liberal arts to some new specialized technologies, information technologies for our basic resource sector industries, and so on.

I want to get very clearly from this minister whether he looks upon the arts as an area from which we can reallocate resources. Or are the arts one of the fundamental areas that must be built up and strengthened in our university and education system? The minister looks like he's ready to respond to that.

HON. R. FRASER: In response to the member, one would always expect the humanities to play an important role in education. Certainly we all know people who are very effective businessmen who have arts degrees, and they work in areas where one would expect more technical degrees. You would obviously expect to have a combination of wide- and narrow-band educational opportunities. I would really rather have a doctor do surgery on me than an arts graduate, so I would expect that we would have some training in medicine, some in engineering and some in law.

Interjection.

HON. R. FRASER: I have no objection to expansion of education in the humanities. In fact, I'm sure the member will agree that education doesn't stop at the end of the formal circumstance; one is encouraged to read and think and travel and do all that other mind-expanding work that helps you enjoy life. One of the things I always told the first-year engineering students when I was counselling them on what they might do was that the most important course they took in engineering was English. Of course, I would now have to say English and French and others, but language, if you wish to use a more generic term — communication — is important, because if you can't get the idea from your head into somebody else's head, obviously you don't have an idea. So arts are important.

[ Page 7777 ]

When we talk about education in general — certainly post-secondary education — rather than looking back, I think we all want to look ahead. We have new opportunities with this new ministry, and with the better economy we have more money. As I said before, I look to great opportunities in post-secondary.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, the minister does not answer two of the basic questions that I put today. One is, what is going to happen with the base-line funding? For the past five years I guess we've known it was going to be cut 5 percent every year. It was very clearly stated to anyone who wanted to listen. I know a lot of people didn't believe it when you people said it, but that in fact is what happened. What is going to happen with this base-line funding from now on? Is it going to continue to be diminished? Is it going to stand still? Is it going to see some kind of increase? We really have known for about the past five years; there was a sort of five year plan. It wasn't a very well-received plan, but there was no secret about it if anyone wanted to listen.

[5:45]

The other thing is, he hasn't answered the question as to the role of liberal arts. In terms of your proposals for the new kind of funding scheme, are the liberal arts to be looked upon as a resource for financial reallocation or are they to be looked upon as one of the fundamental career-oriented opportunities, in addition to being an opportunity for enhancing the quality of one's life and lifetime skills? Are they to be given the kind of accord that Dr. Saywell is talking about, that the university and college placement association is talking about, that James Duncan is talking about?

HON. R. FRASER: Of course the humanities play an important role; everybody knows that. We encourage people to take educational opportunities, but I don't want to tell them what course they should take. Based on their own skills and desires they will naturally flow into a course that is suitable to them. Now I think those who are in medicine could easily transfer into engineering or vice versa. I think you'll find the more technically oriented people will flow from one technology to another at whatever level you go to. The humanities people will probably stay in the humanities, and certainly from an economic point of view those in the humanities will probably go into the burgeoning B.C. film industry and work there; they're already doing that. So there's no slight on the humanities. In fact the humanities are recognized as a significant part of education and always have been.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to bring up something that's a bit of a constituency matter I suppose, but I'd like to talk a little bit about the closure of Notre Dame University and the subsequent opening of David Thompson University Centre. I'd like to point out that Nelson lost more by the sort of on-again, off-again decision of the government to fund Notre Dame University and subsequently David Thompson University Centre, than simply accomplishing in the long run the closure of Notre Dame University. What in fact happened was not the closure of one of the institutions that existed back in 1975 and flourished, but two. The other one was the Kootenay School of Art.

The Kootenay School of Art enjoyed a very fine reputation. It used to attract a great number of students from all over the province. It was an educational opportunity in a very attractive rural or small urban environment. I know that when this side of the House walks over to the other side and takes over as government they're committed to reopening David Thompson University Centre. But I would suggest that this new minister should very seriously look at the possibility of reopening the Kootenay School of Art at that David Thompson campus, as a client with the city. The city is taking over the campus, but it doesn't preclude any client opening up some kind of educational opportunity there. There are student residences. There are, as well, already many instruction rooms which have been converted and adapted to teaching graphic arts.

One thing that really was missed in the whole shuffle, and I think it was sometimes missed by some of the local leaders even in Nelson, was that in the final analysis Nelson did not suffer the loss of one educational institution, it suffered the loss of two institutions. The government, or some of the advisers to government, perceived that Notre Dame University's being a largely academic institution created some problems for Selkirk College. But there was never any suggestion that Kootenay School of Art created that kind of a problem. I would like to ask the minister if he would look into this history in a little more detail than I've outlined here, and in view of the fact that the last graduates from the David Thompson University in the various arts programs almost all found jobs in a very difficult economic year. They found jobs, certainly much more so than the chemical engineering graduates at the University of British Columbia did that year, and many of the other departments of engineering.

This has to be part of the wave of the future. In terms of graphic design, it lends itself to whole new areas, with even computer-assisted design and all kinds of things. It's a very technological thing. It's something that we could certainly lead in. This could be opened up again. I should stand here and tell this government how they might be able to redeem some of their image in the Nelson-Creston area. I mean I....

MR. WILLIAMS: It's got a long way to go.

MR. NICOLSON: Yeah, but it could, you know. Sometimes people forget very easily with a few good moves.

MR. WILLIAMS: Wait till you see the next guy.

MR. NICOLSON: Yes, you'll be wanting me back when you see my.... If you want to see a combination of somebody with the linguistic skills of Abe Lincoln and some of the more persuasive people that have been in this House as well….

Interjections.

MR. NICOLSON: Oh, he does make sense. He will drive you people crazy.

Mr. Chairman, I really and sincerely would suggest to the minister and to the government that that is something they should really look at in that whole very charged debate: the decision over DTUC by the previous minister responsible for the funding aspect. It wasn't the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications that really cut off the funding, but it was the Minister of Education.

Now that everything is under one roof, there is no power struggle. It is something that really should be looked at, because Nelson paid a pretty heavy price in losing not one but

[ Page 7778 ]

two institutions, and certainly the very viable fine arts institution was always very highly looked at and considered.

As the minister has said, now that there is an Excellence in Education fund, now that he has said that the lid is off a bit, that we're going back up, I would suggest that this is one project that really should be initiated, and I would like the minister's reaction.

HON. R. FRASER: Well, let me remark that it is not the intention of this minister to turn down anything out of hand without due consideration.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, I am sure that even that much encouragement is all that some of the people in the Nelson area, with the initiative and the dedication and the hard work that they have always put into maintaining those institutions since 1950, will be taking as something positive. I am sure that you will see some proposals forthcoming.

MR. WILLIAMS: You know, that's encouraging. The minister is saying he will seriously look at a new art or school of design in the interior of the province. Is that what he is saying?

You know, I've thought about the question of things like furniture design and furniture production in this province, and I spent a bit of time in Scandinavia, particularly in Finland, looking at what they do in that particular field. In many ways Finland is an interesting model for us in British Columbia, because it's a relatively small population — about double our own — and it is a forest-based state, as we are to a great degree. They, however, are much more creative than we are. They don't have the richness in natural resources that we do, and we've tended to squander ours.

AN HON. MEMBER: Like exporting logs.

MR. WILLIAMS: Yeah, you've got part of it — another fast learner over there.

But when you look at what the Scandinavians have done in this area, it really hits you that what they've done is use design capability. What we're really talking about is artists. I'm not talking about engineers, but artists. Some of the communities in Finland, like Lahti, are most impressive, with tremendous design capabilities there.

I can't help but think that schools like the Emily Carr school in Vancouver have the potential in terms of developing this. But there is a real need, as I said earlier, in the hinterland. If we're really going to get seriously into the business of adding value to wood products, it isn't just a production question and it isn't just an engineering question; it's a broader cultural question, and requires capabilities beyond what we've tended to foster in our educational system. And much of it is design.

There's an architect in Finland, whom I met, by the name of Alvar Aalto, who is one of their great designers — and in Finland they tend to honour their brilliant people by creating projects for them. So many great buildings throughout Finland are the product of this one genius. We tend to honour our geniuses like Arthur Erickson by banishing them for ten years to search for projects elsewhere. That has happened under this administration. It's very different than the treatment of Aalto in Finland. Erickson is recognized by somebody like Katharine Hepburn, when she visited here, as one of our great assets, but not by this government.

What I'm saying is that we should be fostering that kind of talent. We can only do it through new schools of art and design, not the traditional kinds of academic institutions we've had in this province. We have a notable school of architecture in Vancouver, and they've certainly produced some fine graduates. We really should be expanding in that tremendously creative area, which could then relate to our natural resource materials. As I say, I think the Finns have given us a clue as to the direction we might go, as have other Scandinavian countries. Look at Ikea in Richmond, a huge retail operation and a large warehouse — incredibly successful. But it's essentially a design matter. We have not cultivated those design capabilities. That's where the long run future jobs are in this province.

So I'm encouraged that the minister has said he's quite willing to look seriously at the evolution of a new school of art in Nelson...

HON. R. FRASER: I didn't say that!

MR. WILLIAMS: ...which has long been abused by this administration. I will carry that to Mr. Corky Evans, who will carry the message through the Slocan Valley and all those parts of the Kootenays that desperately need this kind of help.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I wish to withdraw a notice of motion tabled on Monday last.

Pursuant to standing order 22, I wish to advise the House that we will be sitting tomorrow.

Hon. Mr. Nielsen moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6:00 p.m.