[ Page 7949 ]

CONTENTS

Oral Questions

Chairmanship of public accounts committee. Mr. Cocke — 7949

Allocation of forest licences. Mr. Nicolson — 7949

Log export licences. Mr. Lockstead — 7949

Gasoline and oil prices. Mr. Parks — 7950

Ms. Sanford

Mr. D'Arcy

Tabling Petition — 7951

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Municipal Affairs estimates. (Hon. Mr. Ritchie)

On vote 59: minister's office — 7951

Mr. Blencoe

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

On vote 16: minister's office — 7952

Hon. Mr. Hewitt

Mr. Rose

Mr. D'Arcy

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 1986

The House met at 2:05 p. m.

MR. NICOLSON: It's my honour today, Mr. Speaker, to introduce Kevin Murphy, who has with him nine students from the Arrow Lakes School District near Nakusp. I wish the members would bid them welcome. They've come a long way.

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I ask the House to welcome Chris and Nigel Maund from Ontario, relatives of one of our fine researchers in the NDP quarters.

Oral Questions

CHAIRMANSHIP OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Premier. It has been a tradition in the Legislative Assembly for almost 15 years that the official opposition has the right to name the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. It was always a Socred when we were government. This tradition draws on a much larger tradition of parliamentary practice in other jurisdictions, including the Mother of Parliaments at Westminster. Why have the Premier and his government decided to break this parliamentary tradition and to withdraw this right from the official opposition?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, the Premier doesn't interfere in workings of the committee, nor do I give them direction, so I can't comment on what goes on in the committees of this House.

MR. SPEAKER: As the member for New Westminster knows, the area he is presently canvassing.… There is a very thin line between what he can address in this House and what must be addressed in committee. I'm sure the member appreciates the very fine line that exists.

MR. COCKE: I agree with that, Mr. Speaker. As the leader of the government, as the Premier of the province — and when we saw a very organized situation this morning with our own eyes — I just asked the Premier.... After they've destroyed the Crown corporations reporting committee, etc., etc., now they're trying to destroy the Public Accounts Committee. What are you trying to hide?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, again the Chair must decline the question, in that again this is a matter that should best be handled in committee. The member has, I believe, made his point in that regard.

ALLOCATION OF FOREST LICENCES

MR. NICOLSON: A question to the late-arriving Minister of Forests. There has been notice of tender for the sale of Smallwood Lumber Ltd. by agents for the receivers, the Bank of British Columbia. They advertised a sale of land, and on checking into it further, I find that they are even including the forest licence within the prospectus. Who has the responsibility for allocating this forest licence, the Crown or the corporate receiver?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I'm not too sure which receivership the member is referring to, but if you would provide me with particulars I'll take that question as notice and get back as soon as possible.

MR. NICOLSON: I'll let him take it as notice. On his request for particulars, I'll inform him that it's Smallwood Lumber Ltd. In Salmo....

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: I'm not afraid to answer questions, hon. member.

On a new question, while he's taking this on notice, could the minister inform me if he's aware of the terms and conditions upon which forest licences have been granted in the past few years, and whether or not it has been the practice of the ministry to require that they not be resold within 20 years?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: With respect to the matter of whether or not a licence can be transferred within a 20-year period, I'll have to find out some particulars about that and bring an answer back. With respect to the first part of the question, I understand there are a number of considerations. All of those factors are assessed before any particular timber licence is awarded, as recommended by the chief forester. The Forestry Act sets out a number of provisions upon which a licence is awarded, reflecting also the benefit to the community — one only.

MR. NICOLSON: I would ask if the minister is aware of the granting of a forest licence to Smallwood in June 1984. I would ask the minister if the deputy minister's recommendation bore any weight, and whether that would have been followed. He has just indicated that they would follow the recommendation of the chief forester. I'm not sure if there was one at that time. But would they then just automatically follow the recommendation of the deputy minister?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, I have to take that question as notice. I have no idea what happened. I think you mentioned June of '84. If you would provide me with particulars, I'd be quite prepared to look into the matter. But I can't do other than take the question as notice.

LOG EXPORT LICENCES

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Forests. The ministry recently approved log export permits to L&K Lumber of Gibsons for 50,000 cubic metres of raw logs. In view of the fact that L&K is presently in receivership, can the minister confirm that the prime beneficiary of this decision is the Bank of Nova Scotia?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, I would think that if there is a particular operation in receivership and being administered accordingly, the benefit of any particular production or sale would obviously be to a number of creditors. Perhaps the bank is one.

With respect to the export permit, or the standing green order-in-council, I can't recall exactly how many cubic metres were involved, but it was 50,000 for L&K — there were a group of them. Each of those orders came as a result of a recommendation made by the Timber Export Advisory

[ Page 7950 ]

Committee, and there is wide representation on that particular panel.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, I might remind the minister that the Bank of Nova Scotia is the sole creditor in this particular action.

In any event, a supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Local sawmill operators and small independent loggers are finding it impossible to obtain a timber supply for their operations. What investigation does the minister make of local processing needs before he signs logs into the export market?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, in the preface to his second question the member made reference to only one creditor. My understanding with respect to L&K is that there were a number of dollars outstanding in wages, and it was a term and condition with respect to the receiver that those back wages be paid. I further understand that the revenue generated from any particular sale was to be applied to that account first.

With respect to the second part of the question, all of those logs, to the best of my understanding, were placed on the market and advertised for sale, and there were no takers. Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, it's a matter of supply and demand. I have not yet had anybody come to me stating that they were not able to get logs for their operation. I have had nobody come in yet. I was sure I would have heard by now.

[2:15]

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, hopefully this will be a final supplementary, but perhaps not. In any event, one local sawmill operator, Suncoast, the local sawmill that supplies value-added products to a Japanese company, has not obtained promised financing for their operation because of the lack of timber supply in this very area where you're selling raw standing timber. Will the minister review that particular situation? They have written to you and your ministry.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, yes, I will. I would like to get the name.... Is this the sawmill at Gibsons?

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Suncoast, thank you.

GASOLINE AND OIL PRICES

MR. PARKS: Following question period, I intend to table a petition from the residents of my constituency, expressing their concern with regard to the price of gasoline in this province. As we're very much aware, in the last several months energy prices have declined in many countries. However, in some jurisdictions, one in particular, the price level of that energy has remained exorbitant. I have noted, and I trust other members of this Legislature will take note, that although the price of oil has decreased in excess of $10 per barrel, the price of gasoline in Australia has risen in excess of 12 cents per litre. My question — believe it or not, it's directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources — is: can the minister assure this House, Mr. Speaker, that gasoline prices for British Columbia consumers will continue to reflect the decreasing prices in the world energy market?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: The word "assure" may be a little bit strong, but I can tell the member. I think he realizes that there is about a 60-day lag from when the crude oil goes in until it shows up at the pump. Since the Western Accord, the world crude oil prices have been deregulated, so now the price at the pump is gradually reflecting the declining world oil prices. I have every reason to believe that they will continue to decline. At this point, since February I to about mid-April, I believe the average decline in the United States was 9.7 cents per litre. The average in Canada was about 9 cents per litre, and the average in British Columbia was between 11 and 13 cents per litre. So we've actually been ahead of the rest of the country on that.

As I think the member also knows, our Finance minister did cap the provincial tax so that it can now decline with the price at the pumps, but it cannot exceed the 8.64 cents per litre provincial tax. In discussions with the federal government, we have no reason to believe that they're going to manipulate the price of gasoline at the pumps.

MS. SANFORD: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. I would like to know from the same minister why the home heating oils haven't come down within that two-month period. We're talking about a two-month delay. They haven't come down. Why not? What is the government doing about it?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I'm sorry, I don't have the actual figures for the home heating oil, but I know about two weeks ago I was told by some people that the price of diesel hadn't come down. I checked and the price of diesel has come down, so I'm assuming the price of home heating oil will also be reflected in due course.

MR. D'ARCY: I want to thank the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks) and the minister for his answers on the gasoline price question. However, in the minister's answer he indicated that there was about a 60-day time-lag. It's now April 23; 60 days ago was February 23. The price of petroleum at that time was about $14 U.S. a barrel. And by using the industry's and the government's own figures, that indicates that the price at the pumps in British Columbia should be about 38 cents a litre. It's presently 44 cents a litre out there. I'd like to ask the minister if he has decided to do anything about that six-cent discrepancy in what consumers and industry are paying for gasoline in British Columbia.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: As I think the member knows, since the Western Accord we have tried to get out of government's setting the prices. It's now following the market. It is moving down. I did indicate that I expected it will go down further. And the 60 days is a continuing thing. They did not buy all the oil 60 days ago and then nothing since. They've been buying all along.

If the member is following the news reports, he realizes that the world crude prices have fluctuated anywhere between $9 and $16 a barrel. So at what day do you want your 60-day limit?

[ Page 7951 ]

MR. D'ARCY: I only quoted 60 days ago. In fact, in the intervening 60 days the average price of petroleum has been less than $14 a barrel. I did not ask that the government set the price. I asked what the minister was doing to persuade the industry to lower the price at the pumps on behalf of the consumers of British Columbia.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: As indicated in the averages that I suggested, 11 cents to 13 cents average decline, as compared to 9 percent in Canada, we have been talking to industry. We have urged them to move as quickly as possible to pass those prices on to the consumer, and we will keep talking to them in hopes that it will go down to the world prices.

MR. PARKS: Although I notice that you don't have the big green pouch by your chair, Mr. Speaker, I rise to table a petition — would you believe it, on oil prices.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS
(continued)

On vote 59: minister's office, $189,745.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Chairman, before we broke for lunch the member for Okanagan North (Mr. MacWilliam) was asking the minister some very important questions about sewerage facilities and sewerage support mechanisms and financial resources.

I want to finish on an issue that I asked the minister some questions about yesterday, but which unfortunately he did not answer, which is not unusual. It's an issue that comes up continually from both municipal governments and school boards. It's the question of municipal elections not being held when school board elections are being held. I know the minister has expressed some concern, as have we on this side of the House, that when there are no municipal elections being held we have some real problems in terms of school board elections: visibility — very few people know the elections are on; and incredibly low turnouts. There is, I think, a feeling....

HON. MR. RITCHIE: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman — and this has been going on now since Monday — the member is on the wrong estimates. He's talking about education and school boards now, and elections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It appears to be a relevant point of order. School board elections would be covered under the School Act and the Ministry of Education. We are on the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

MR. BLENCOE: We are indeed, and the minister has responsibility for municipal elections, and voting patterns, voting procedures and voting irregularities. The point I'm trying to make, Mr. Chairman, is that there needs to be some thought given by the minister — and indeed, I agree, the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) — to trying to pull together the elections of municipal governments and school boards. I know the minister has had some discussion about this and has expressed some concerns publicly, as we have done on this side.

I also want to ask the minister whether he has done any further research into some of the voting irregularities in municipal elections that have been reported. I have written to him about some of those on a number of occasions. We've found, for instance, people voting twice in municipal elections or school board elections because of the property vote. I don't have to go into the details, but people have actually admitted that they have voted twice in certain elections. Clearly that's an irregularity. The minister has come back to me and said that that's the problem of local government. I would suggest that that is also a problem for the Minister of Municipal Affairs. I'd like to ask him whether he has done any research, or his staff made any reports to him, on correcting some of these irregularities, in terms of trying to bring together elections for school boards and municipal governments — and some of the irregularities that I have reported to him. I'd like to hear some response on that this afternoon.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Chairman, if the member could identify the irregularities that he's referring to and also the municipality, then I could be more specific in my response.

MR. BLENCOE: I have sent a number of letters and reports to the minister over the last year or so. One in particular comes from an Oak Bay resident, if I recall. I don't have the letter in front of me, but an Oak Bay resident had it reported to him by somebody who clearly admitted voting twice in school board and therefore municipal elections, because of holding property.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Name names.

MR. BLENCOE: That's a favourite cry of yours these days. You want us to name all the people who've been evicted in Vancouver?

The names are there. The minister knows them, I think. I've written to him about that particular case.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Chairman, the member has made a serious accusation here, and I would suggest that he table the name in this House so that it can be pursued by the proper authorities.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Chairman, the minister has my letter on record with the names, including the people reporting the incident. Unfortunately I've had very little response or indication from this minister that he's going to do something about this problem. Here in this chamber is the public forum, I think, to express our concern to the minister and to ask for some response from the minister. He knows he has had other letters on this issue. I've sent him copies of letters I have had from other parts of the province about reported irregularities. I think it's a reasonable request. Is the minister doing anything about it? Are we going to see some changes in voting procedures or the things I brought up today?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: I repeat, I'm not prepared to move in such a way on iffy assumptions. If that member can back up the accusation he has made that someone voted illegally, then I will be compelled to take a look at it. But he must, now

[ Page 7952 ]

that he has made the accusation in the House, table the information, including the name of the person he's accusing.

[12:30]

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Chairman, I'm not making any accusations. All I'm trying to do.... The minister is very well aware; there are reported incidents. Councils have indicated their concerns and I've sent letters to the minister on a number of specific issues of people having, because of the property tax vote and other kinds of voting patterns....

How much discussion do we have to have on this? How many times does this minister have to...? For three days he has avoided answering questions in this House on some very critical issues facing local government. He has my letters on file. I've sent him letters from people who have voted, from residents in a number of municipalities. He knows he's got them; he has even replied to me in some vague two- or three-liners that he'll look into it. I am asking him if he has looked into some of these problems, and is he prepared to state that we really need to take a look at some of the issues I've raised this afternoon?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: All problems brought to the attention of this minister are looked after. You've been shadowboxing here for about three days now. I repeat, support your accusation with the name — with a document.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Chairman, it's totally impossible to deal with this minister. We have tried diligently for approximately three days to get answers on some critical issues facing local government. Consequently, I'm going to wrap up this part of the estimates debate.

It has been a frustrating two or three days. I know the minister has not wanted to be here debating these estimates. He wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible. If this minister would be candid and forthright about municipal and local issues, issues that are of current interest to local government, and answer the questions that the official opposition puts to him through the Chair.... Our job on this side is to learn the concerns and the problems that local governments face and put them before the minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: Don't panic.

MR. BLENCOE: Now there's a reasonable minister — not like this one. You can deal with that minister.

I want to state on the record that local government really wants some candid, forthright, respectful attention by this minister in terms of dealing with their issues. When local government reads Hansard and sees what a number of members on this side have tried to go through in the last two or three days in terms of trying to get some straight answers, some real answers, from this minister who constantly plays petty politics with the important issue of local government.... Petty politics.

Again, it's a sad year, a sad time, for local government in these estimates. As I, on behalf of our party, travel this province in the next few months attending various meetings, meeting with local mayors and aldermen and trying to ascertain their concerns — we'll bring those concerns before this Legislative in some form or manner — I know we're going to continue to hear the complaints that they haven't got a sympathetic ear in this minister. I've already indicated that mayors and aldermen have a sympathetic ear in terms of the staff that work for Municipal Affairs. I indicated this morning that they've had to put away many of their academic degrees on planning because we have a minister who won't realize we have an excellent staff that wants to plan and prepare for the future in municipal growth and municipal issues.

We have tried in this House over the last few days to raise, I think, about 15 to 20 issues. There are many more that we could raise, but my friend over here wants to get to his estimates. I want to leave it by saying that I hope in the next few months this minister will finally start to listen to the 1,400 or 1,500 elected officials who, over the last two or three years in his tenure of office, have tried to come to grips with some of the issues they face and have tried to put them on the desk of the minister. They are waiting for some respect, some candour and a forthright attempt at trying to resolve municipal issues.

We are very frustrated; local government is very frustrated, and they hope there will be some changes in these areas that we've brought forward in the last few days.

Vote 59 approved.

Vote 60: ministry operations, $6,471,496 — approved.

Vote 61: municipal revenue-sharing, $227,000,000 — approved.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

On vote 16: minister's office, $211,280.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to stand for the first time as Minister of Education to debate my estimates. I can advise members of the House that since February 11 I have had many briefings and have had many meetings with school trustees, teachers, administrators and secretary treasurers to attempt to understand the complexities of the ministry. I found that the major issue is funding, always a concern at the school board level and the teaching level.

I've tried to impress upon those I've met that there is a global funding problem not just in education but in government. This government, dealing in the 1985-86 fiscal year, ended up the year with an approximate $900 million deficit. In 1986-87, it anticipates a deficit for the operation of government of some $875 million. We're trying to indicate to those in education that we are not against education and we are not embarking on a tax on the teaching profession, but we just have a concern for the taxpayer of the province, who is also a parent in many cases, that we have responsibility to the province to ensure that we don't over spend to a point where we leave a legacy of debt for our children.

Mr. Chairman, the Ministry of Education budget this year is $1.185 billion, up from last year's estimate, which was $1.115 billion. Added to that figure of $1.185 billion is an additional $15.5 million that we applied for non-salary inflationary items, an additional $6.1 million for textbooks and an additional $19 million for adjustment to teachers' salaries last year which were not included in the fiscal framework for the Education budget this year.

Those adjustments or additions to the original budget presented in the estimates, Mr. Chairman, to a great extent came from consultation with the school trustees, the teachers and the administrators in the various visits I had with them. They attempted to show me and I indicated to them I was

[ Page 7953 ]

willing to listen to those areas of concern, and I'm pleased that we have made some adjustments to give them relief. As members know, there is also the Excellence in Education fund, which is also part of funding for education in the province.

A statistic that members might be interested in knowing is that there is a reduction in student enrolment anticipated in the 1986-87 school year of some 2,500 students. Mr. Chairman, although the reduction of students is there, there is still an increase in the budget for education in the province. Although the main issue is funding — and the question of whether it is adequate is put by both sides, the ministry and by the school board or teacher level — I for one think the approach to funding of education on the basis of a fiscal framework or formula is a good one. It treats the province equitably, as opposed to the old system where some communities had the benefit of an industrial or commercial tax base and others did not.

Members will be interested in knowing, Mr. Chairman, that the tax revenue for school purposes that comes in from commercial and industrial properties is redistributed via the fiscal framework formula back out to school districts throughout the province — equitably funding all students. I stress the word "students," because the reason we're here and the reason we're funding education is to give students adequate funding so they can get educated in their communities, whether it's a rural community or an urban community. The funding that we provide, Mr. Chairman, from the provincial level — and I didn't say from the provincial government; I said from the provincial level — is just a redistribution of the taxpayers' money. Through the provincial government we contribute approximately 88 percent of operating costs of school districts across the province.

As I said earlier, I think the fiscal framework is a fair and equitable formula to fund education. I can appreciate that there are areas that need to be fine-tuned, looking at the costs that are included in the formula. We have a committee that is structured to do that each fall prior to the new budget figures going out.

We have also provided for local autonomy, for the ability for a local school board to tax. That is under legislation, Mr. Chairman, so I will not dwell on that other than to say that with that ability comes accountability of the local school board to their taxpayer. I would hope that school boards looking at that ability would not go to their taxpayer, the residential property-owner taxpayer, without a lot of serious consideration as to the impact on that taxpayer, and that they would not be looking to increase taxes indiscriminately. I am confident that the majority, if not all, would recognize their responsibility as trustees and would attempt to live within the funding arrangement that is provided to them by the fiscal framework and the ability as they have had it in the past with regards to their portion of raising taxes at the local level. I don't believe that the provincial budget figures require any increase in residential property tax. However, if there are some unique services, programs or situations at the local level, then they could and should have the ability to raise the money locally while at the same time also having the responsibility of explaining to their constituents the reasons for the taxing of local property owners.

We also have the Fund for Excellence in Education, which is a fund that will total some $600 million over the next three years and will provide funding on request for those projects which will give the best return in education on the investment of the dollars from this fund. It is a challenge to educators and to school boards to come forward with new innovative ideas, ones that I hope will help our young people become better prepared for the workplace, the professions and the arts in the twenty-first century. These funds are available to them. Instead of waiting for Victoria to come up with new ideas and new concepts, the main thrust behind the fund for excellence is for those people working in the field to have the opportunity to say to Victoria: "Look, here is a new concept, a new idea, a new thrust, and we think it will work not just in our school district but in other school districts. We'd like to apply for the funding." It could well happen that if there is a great idea and it is funded for the local school board, other school boards will look at it and request for funding for it also, which we may approve. It may even go to a point where a concept in a local school board area becomes so good that the provincial Ministry of Education may look at including it in its fiscal framework for funding across the province. So there is tremendous opportunity for educators to come forward with new ideas.

[2:45]

In short, it is a three-tiered funding system that now is available in the province for education: the fiscal framework provides money from the province to all school boards, giving a base for education, and it is adequately funded, in my opinion; secondly, there is the local taxation ability of the school boards if they want to fund some unique course within their area; finally, there is the Fund for Excellence which they can look to for innovative ideas.

I hope to have continuing dialogue and consultation with the school trustees, the school teachers, the secretary-treasurers and the superintendents in this province to, quite frankly, take some of the heat out of education in this province. l think we're off to a good start, and I will continue to do my best to meet with every school board in this province and with teachers' associations to make sure that I understand their problems and, where the occasion requires, to act as their advocate to ensure that my government is fully informed and aware of some of the concerns at the local level.

Mr. Chairman, looking to the future, I have said publicly that I have structured a committee to bring forward the materials, the background information and the recommendations for a new School Act. We are appointing an advisory committee on computer education in the province, and we are looking to appoint an advisory committee on teacher education and retraining to assist those who work in the classroom in being updated on new technology. Those are three goals that I have set.

Another is one that I feel strongly about, the viability of small school districts in this province. There are many small school districts serving small communities, greatly dispersed operations, small schools. I think we have to have a close look at how we fund those local schools. I have met with a number of small school district representatives, and I am going to continue to investigate that area of funding to see whether or not we can fine-tune the formula to ensure that we aren't having an impact on small school districts. I'm hopeful that by next fall we will have come up with some new methods or some adjustments to the fiscal framework that will assist those who teach our young people in further reaches of the province.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, the last item I would like to comment on is child abuse. I'm also going to be involved with my colleagues the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith)

[ Page 7954 ]

and the Minister of Health and Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) in looking at ways to attempt to lessen this problem of child abuse — not just in schools but in our society, but in my case particularly related to schools. I'd like to see achieved an early warning system, if you will — a method of identifying and dealing swiftly with those who have abused children. I think it's important to the students and to the parents of those students, and other students, that we do have some system to give parents the confidence that their children are safe in our schools. At the same time, Mr. Chairman, I also feel equally strongly that I do not want to see a system develop that will, in effect, end up by seeing possibly innocent teachers accused and being victims of a witch-hunt; equally strongly, Mr. Speaker, I must ensure that those people who are charged with that tremendous responsibility of educating our young people are not caught up in a net of false accusation, where they are being penalized because somebody is upset with them because of whatever may have happened in the classroom. Mr. Chairman, that is one area where I hope my colleagues and I can come up with some conclusions that will put at rest all the concerns of parents in this province concerning the problems that have existed and have been made public in the recent past.

Mr. Chairman, with those remarks, I look forward to the debate on my estimates, and will attempt to answer any questions that the opposition may have.

MR. ROSE: I too look forward to the debate on the estimates. I would like to tell the minister that I congratulate him on his assumption of this high office, and hope he enjoys his time on the hotseat. Certainly education is a controversial subject, and it has become more controversial over the last three years, owing to the policies of this government. It got so hot that they had to remove the former minister and get a new one. They had to trade in the former minister. The leopard couldn't change his spots, so they had to change the leopard. After all, he had no credibility with trustees or teachers by the time he was finished. I wouldn't want anybody to think that that was a personal attack.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

MR. WILLIAMS: You're on the fast track.

MR. ROSE: Yes, you're on the fast track. I hope from this minister we'll get brilliance and even a polished performance. He raised so many interesting subjects, it's almost impossible not to try to hit those lobs all at once. I'm going to try not to do that. I'm going to try to keep this reasonable in terms of tone. I'd like to ask certain questions.

When he talks about a three-tiered educational system.... He already admitted that the big controversy is educational funding. I want to tell you something. They had a famine in Ethiopia a little while ago, and the rock stars got together and put out a rock video or a record. When you have a famine in education, instead of in Ethiopia, and he's talking about a three-tiered educational system, tiers are not enough — simply not enough. I wanted to tell the minister that if there's a famine in educational funding, as there was in Ethiopia, tiers are not enough. It doesn't matter whether you have three tiers or ten tiers.

The part that I think bothers me is that there's a lot of flimflam in this; there's lots of propaganda in this business. I think I'm candid enough to admit that it doesn't all come from one side. I'd be willing to admit this.

The fund for excellence is a shell-game. I can tell you right now where $60 million of it has gone. It hasn't gone to excellence projects at all, except if you're counting the universities. The other $540 million that may come makes great headlines. God knows what it's going to be spent on, but I know what it's been spent on up to now, and I'm not going to deal with this at the moment, because I'm not interested in going into this.

The provincial funds have steadily been reduced. The minister says he's pouring enough money into education. I'd just like to tell him a little bit about our analysis of the government's spending. Between 1983 and 1984 total government spending increased 11 percent, whereas total educational spending increased only 1.1 percent. In 1984-85, on top of the 11 percent, total government spending increased 5.7 percent, and education increased 1.8 percent. In 1985-86 total government spending increased 3.9 percent; education spending — that's last year — decreased 2.3 percent. In 1986-87, the year that we're looking at, the projections are for government spending to increase 5.7 percent, and God knows how much it has decreased depending upon how you count the slush fund. I'm sorry, I didn't mean that; I meant the fund for excellence.

AN HON. MEMBER: The pork-barrel.

MR. ROSE: Oink, oink — the pork-barrel aspect of it, so the minister and his cohorts can go out and announce various kinds of projects, smirk into the cameras, snip the ribbons and get a photo opportunity. This is the sort of thing that they've done.

If the minister is going to consult, I think that would be a welcome new experience for this government. I don't think there has been any meaningful consultation. As a matter of fact, shortly after he was appointed minister, what did he do? He announced the fund for excellence. There was no consultation about that at all. He slashed the funding for textbooks right in half, from $22 million to $11 million, until he was caught at it. He was caught with his hand in the till. Then he gave back.... Where did it come from? The fund for excellence. It didn't come from the textbook budget at all, but it was stolen from the textbook budget in the first place, which is a little bit like a little kid getting caught at stealing $10 from his mother's purse to buy her a birthday present. That's where it came from, no other place.

Up to now — and I give the minister full marks for trying to change the tone and the style of the ministry, and the way it operates — the government has played on the prejudices out there in the public, the anti-education prejudices that exist out there. It has tried to stir up a turmoil to justify decreasing and starving educational funds, and send our teachers fleeing somewhere else to look for jobs. There are 200 in California right now. This is becoming one of B.C.'s leading exports: teachers — and more to come. Each one of those cost at least $30,000 to train. For 200 of them that's $6 million. If 300 or 400 more go, then it'll be more millions, while we're strangling education on the one hand.

There's no consultation on the School Act yet. Here's another thing that we keep hearing about. We heard about it from McGeer. We heard about it from Smith. We heard about it from Vander Zalm. We heard about it from Heinrich.

[ Page 7955 ]

AN HON. MEMBER: Order!

MR. ROSE: I'm sorry. We heard about it from the current Minister of…. What is he now? Oh, yes, trade and industry. We heard about it from the former minister, who is now our Attorney-General. Is the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Segarty) pleased with this now? Is he happy that...?Can I call Vander Zalm Vander Zalm, because he's no longer a member of the House? I'll call him anything I like.

HON. MR. SEGARTY: You set the rules of the House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, please don't let that cheapshot artist over there heckle me, because you know how nervous I get when I get up to speak. I need your protection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair appreciates the assistance of the Minister of Labour.

MR. ROSE: There's been no consultation. He may consult. The minister may consult; I hope he does. But I don't think he's going to get any more money for education, so what's the point in sweet talk? He's going to go around and jawbone around the school districts. Jawbone Hewitt — Hewitt blew it.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, so far he has.

Look, here's the funding. Funding has gone up by $150 million, we hear. The non-resident grant, according to this, for 1985-86 was $576 million and a few — $0.3 million. The provincial grants were $570.6 million. In 1986-87 the non-resident portion is $491 million and the provincial grants will be $621 million. What's the difference? It's $1.144 billion in this year; the next year which we are budgeting, $1.112 billion — or nearly $1.113 billion. It's gone down — page 66. So funding is not going up; it's going down.

Hopefully this kind of new spirit will help an era of cooperation to return once more in the school districts. People talk about radical teachers. It's the policies of the government that have radicalized the teachers. If those teachers out there, including the minister's daughter, are not radicalized by now, then they're completely inert, and there will never be any hope for them.

[3:00]

The minister talked to the trustees about job creation — jobs, jobs, jobs. That's what we need the money for. But 3,000 teachers' jobs have gone. How many jobs has he created in the education industry? I can't think of very many. So tiers are not enough. We need some action.

What I intend to do now, rather than make a long speech on a particular topic, is examine some of the ideas that the minister may have for his ministry, and perhaps ask the minister to explain to us a few of his philosophical bents regarding education and some of his attitudes to it. I'd like to do an exchange with him on a reasonably prolonged basis. That doesn't mean that other people can't ask questions, but I would like to be able to do that because I don't want to make a long speech. Not that I couldn't. I think most politicians are pregnant with at least three speeches at any one time. So it isn't for that reason that I am not doing this. I would just like to have an opportunity to get his views. Here's the first one. What is the minister's government's philosophy of education? What do they see education doing for the children of B.C.?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, I guess I could make a half-hour speech on this government's philosophy of education. But let me just say briefly that the concern of this government — and, I think, any government — would be to ensure that young people get the best possible education to provide for them in their adult life.

MR. ROSE: What concerns me about this is whether the minister views the philosophy of education.... Should each child have a particular education suited to his talents? What does he mean by suitable to "their adult life"? That's a pretty vague term. I don't understand what he is talking about. Is the school education supposed to be vocationally oriented? Or is it to bring out some of the talents in the children? Just what, in his view, should the aim and the philosophy of the school system be?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, I think it is fair to say that in K to 12, my ministry's responsibility, we should provide our young people with a good grounding in education, regardless of where they go beyond grade 12. Our system should provide instruction to our young people, who may be tradesmen in their later life, who may wish to go on and become artisans or artists, or who may wish to become professionals and go on to post-secondary education.

We've got to start with the young child coming out of the home environment and take them through — give them self-confidence, the ability to reason and the interest to learn- to ensure that when they go through our system all the way to grade 12 they are excited about the education system, so that when one door is open for them in grade 2, they are excited about going through the next door, which is grade 3, and finding out what is beyond that door; that every time they come back to school in September they are excited about coming back, that they are excited about going to school in the morning, and involved with their teachers and their fellow students, so that they get a well-rounded foundation on which they can build, whether they become automobile mechanics, shopkeepers, lawyers, doctors, engineers or artists. We've got the responsibility from K to 12 to give them that foundation on which they can build.

We could say that it all relates to funding, which is where I keep hearing the problem lies. It goes far beyond that, Mr. Chairman. The funding is there, and I think that if we got beyond that issue of funding.... I have said before that the fiscal framework that develops the funding for education in this province from kindergarten to grade 12 provides the dollars for facilities, courses and teachers. Maybe it is not all that some would want. But as I said in my opening remarks, there is also the global responsibility of government to ensure that we don't leave a legacy of debt for our young people, whom I am trying to have educated to give them the ability to reason and the foundation on which to grow, so that they aren't faced with major social problems in the community in which they will live and work because government has been irresponsible in its administration in the global sense.

I don't doubt that the member opposite is as concerned about education as I am. He certainly has had far more experience, because, if I am not mistaken, his record shows that he was in education at one time — he was an educator.

[ Page 7956 ]

But I feel I am equally well versed to carry out my role as Minister of Education, because I have been a parent. I've seen my young children go through the system and I have a great deal of respect for teachers. I don't want to prolong the debate, but unfortunately....

MR. WILLIAMS: Is that the only qualification?

HON. MR. HEWITT: No, that's not the only qualification, but I won't bore you with the rest of my qualifications, just in case you want to consider me a high school dropout, Mr. Member. I have enough initials behind my name to qualify — going through the narrowing-up process, as you may call it.

The other thing in regard to the education system: we as a society have put a lot of our parental responsibilities on the teaching profession. Just think back 20 years, 30 years; a little more than 30 years maybe. When you were reprimanded in the classroom, I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, you knew that when you went home you were going to get reprimanded worse — tougher. The old man was a little upset if he heard that the teacher had trouble with you in the classroom. That's the way it used to be. The teachers had our children for a period of time, and we respected the amount of time and effort they put into teaching our young people. As parents we knew.... My parents knew that the key was to get the young boy or girl educated, because the key to success in business was to give them success in education.

Many parents went out of their way to ensure that their child attended school, and the parents were behind the teaching profession when concerns arose in the classroom. That's changed. In many cases the teaching profession has become the parent, the coach, the counsellor, the confessor, all to the young boy or girl in the classroom. I'm not throwing stones at parents or anybody else. It's nobody's fault; it's society. It's the way we've matured, if you will. Single-parent families; both parents working; drug and alcohol abuse; you can name a number of them that have caused the impact on the teaching profession.

Rather than prolong it, Mr. Chairman, I for one — and I say this as minister, as a parent, as a member of government — am not against the teaching profession. I have a great deal of respect for them. But I also identify with the fact that I have a global responsibility, which is that 1, as do my colleagues, have to manage the provincial affairs responsibly so that we don't leave a legacy of debt for the young people of this province to clean up after we're gone.

MR. ROSE: I find this is a recurring theme: that if we starve education it somehow is going to provide jobs or a better economy. Those just are not the facts. The facts are, if you continue to starve education, you ruin the economy. Who wants to come here and invest and work and...? As a matter of fact, you're not getting any investment. You're losing investments to Alberta, to Quebec, to wherever. You've taken money out of education funding and squandered it somewhere else. I've just gone through this. In the last four years you've cut education funding by 25 percent.

All right, let's agree that you don't solve problems by throwing money at them all the time — unless the problem happens to be poverty. If you throw a little money at that, it helps some. You could throw money at the food banks — which you've created through this government and its policies — and that might solve the problem, but surely you don't starve yourself into affluence either. That's absolute tommyrot. I'm surprised at the minister who said he had all those initials behind his name. I can think of a couple that I could put behind his name, but I'm not mean enough for that. I'm sarcastic but I'm not mean. I think that's ridiculous.

Does the minister think the child in grade 3 in 1986 — this year — is better served than was a grade 3 student in 1982, or in '75? And in what way are these children served better, since you obviously are going to improve the school system by starving it to death?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, I see we have some students in the galleries. Welcome. This is called debate. It just happens to be on the Minister of Education's budget...

MR. ROSE: Don't grandstand.

HON. MR. HEWITT: You'll have your opportunity.

...which funds the education system of this province. The member opposite is debating that it's not enough, and I'm trying to defend the government.

MR. WILLIAMS: You're lucky they can't vote.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Well, Mr. Member, I don't want to get into the number of years we've been elected as opposed to your party, but I think it shows in the record that the people support us more than they do you.

However, getting back to education — and I'm looking at page 30 of the 1986 budget if the member wants to follow along — just for the record, the estimates in the Education ministry for '86-87, $1.185 billion; the revised forecast to be spent in '85-86, $1.092 billion. I'm not sure how your arithmetic is, but I can tell you that that's ninety some odd million dollars more being spent this year than last year. Now add to that the $110 million for the Excellence in Education fund, which I will share with my colleague. That increases the funding even over the $90 million I mentioned. These are facts, Mr. Member. I'm not making these up; they're in a document presented to you some weeks ago by the Minister of Finance.

If you want to debate the issue about the Excellence in Education fund, which you and your colleagues call a scam, Mr. Member, will you not agree that the money that has come out of the Excellence in Education fund for non-salary inflationary items of $15.5 million, $6.1 million for textbooks and $19 million in last year's salary adjustments to teachers has gone to-the education system? Therefore we've increased the funding even further.

I'll agree with the member that when I came into this ministry the Excellence in Education fund had basically been determined. When I went out and talked to school boards and talked to teachers, one and two of the areas that I found were of concern were textbooks and the teachers' salary adjustments for last year.

MR. WILLIAMS: Oh, that's excellence.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Regardless, Mr. Member, if you want to call it excellence or not, what it did do was solve a problem which was of concern to the people in the education community — not your party, but the people in the education community.

[ Page 7957 ]

MR. WILLIAMS: Just give it an honest name.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Member, there's no sense debating with this man, because you're the man I want to talk to. Mr. Member, can I say in retrospect or hindsight that maybe we should have had an Excellence in Education fund for this year of $50 million to $60 million and increased the fiscal framework for the $50 million to $60 million which I have had to get for textbooks, salaries and non-inflationary items. I'll concede that point to you, for but heaven's sake let's not get hung up on this terrible thing that we've done. It has still gone to education; what is left can be used for the Excellence in Education fund for this year.

[3:15]

There is still $490 million in that fund in the next two years, stated in the Minister of Finance's budget, to be used in those years for those projects and programs that will originate in the field, with the educators coming to Victoria and saying: "Mr. Minister, I've got a good idea; this is the type of education instruction I want to put in the school classroom." If it is evaluated by professionals who have come from the field.... By the way, the majority of my people in my ministry, as you well know, are former teachers, former principals and vice-principals and former superintendents, all bringing with them the expertise of the field. They can evaluate and recommend to me how we can best use the money in the fund.

Let's not get caught up about the fact that the fund isn't a fund, and it's not for excellence and all those silly things that this member brings up. You know as well as I do the money was there and is being passed on to the school districts, and rightly so. What is left now can be addressed to deal with those specific projects that can come in from local school districts and teachers.

MR. ROSE: Well, I think the minister makes a very convincing argument to, perhaps, other Social Crediters, but he doesn't make a very convincing argument to me. Nor does he make a convincing argument to those school professionals who are out there called the superintendents.

I have a quote here from the Vancouver Sun. Their representative — and I won't name the person — on February 19, 1986, said: "...association acting president told the news conference that the association believes teachers' salaries, benefits and increments previously negotiated and accepted should be paid before any special projects are undertaken."

I object to the excellence fund on this ground. I believe that if there is a need for innovative ideas out in the field, then why not give the people in the field, on a base rate in terms of education funding, the kind of money that they need or the kind of tax base they need, to establish these? Who are you, anyway? Are you God or something, that they're going to go out there, and you are going to rule on whether or not this thing passes?

I think that is absolute.... If it's not madness, it's the height of egotism. It's more centralization; it is more control. What have you left them in their property taxes, which we haven't even passed? You left them with 8 percent of the tax base to raise the difference, after you stole all the rest and put it in the central pot. That's what you did — not you, not the current minister. That's what happened.

New money. You talk about new money to aid education excellence — $110 million. Let's not talk about the other $540 million, because who knows where that's going to be? That's pie in the sky. That's a commitment. We had a commitment to sunset the interim finance legislation. You went back on that not a month ago. Don't talk to us about commitments. Nobody trusts you anymore over there. You go back on your word all the time.

Here's where the money went. The universities, colleges and institutes adjustment fund, $27 million, cancelled. That's where you got $27 million for your aid to excellence. Underfunding of the public system over last year, some cool $65 million. You cut textbooks for children, until you were caught at it, by $11 million. If courses couldn't go ahead, new programs had to be cut. The same thing's happening now in your new French program. You haven't sent your kits out yet to the rural areas — kits and cassettes, things that are needed for exams. Cutting special initiatives, vote 64, $1.8 million.

There's $105 million. What have you spent it on so far? It's a shell-game. It's not new money. Some $24.5 million for non-salary inflation — that's excellence? On university operating budgets, $5.6 million taken out. Excellence at the universities? Nonsense; absolute tommyrot. College operating budgets, $4.4 million. That's what you gave to it.

Student aid, $6.2 million. Do you know the last time you had student aid how much you spent in a year- $23 million. You're going to give back $6.2 million in some sort of grant or scholarship or something like that and kid everybody that we're doing something for student aid? We've got the lowest participation rate in post-secondary in Canada, except for Newfoundland. It hasn't gotten better, it's gotten worse. This is excellence!

Textbooks. Where are the innovative ideas? I can't think of one here. Maybe this $3.3 million for programs at BCIT. That could be it. But remember that this doesn't go to the public schools; this goes to the colleges. It doesn't go to the schools at all. Think of that poor little kid in grade 3 that I talked about that you didn't even bother answering. What kind of excellence are they getting out of this? Nothing, so far. You haven't approved a thing for the schools that I know of. A $19 million big announcement the other day for salaries, for increment. We even think, as a matter of fact we know, that those people who gave salary increases last year benefited from that fund, and those who didn't, like Prince George — where is the other minister? He's disappeared into the forest, the ex-minister — they don't get any.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

You tell me where the excellence programs are. Let's cut out the claptrap and get down to what really counts in education. I know you've got a tough job selling these policies, Mr. Minister. I certainly wouldn't want your job — well, not with your budget; I wouldn't mind having your job, although I've seen very few winners come out of the Ministry of Education. That's even tougher than Agriculture, Mr. Minister.

I'd like to know what really happened to that poor little kid in grade 3. Is that child better served than the grade 3 student in 1982 or in 1975? In what ways, because of the policies of this government, is that child served better?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, it seems that we get on one track, and the member opposite gets on that track and I could say anything I want and he still won't be diverted, so I'm not sure that he really wants to listen to my responses.

[ Page 7958 ]

Mr. Chairman, I think the member mentioned more centralization. If you look at the Excellence in Education fund, beyond your political vision, you'll find that we're attempting to have less centralization. Your party would say, "This is how we're going to do it," and it goes out. What we've said in the Excellence in Education fund is: let's hear the ideas from those people in the field — the educators, the teachers in the classroom. Let's have their input.

Mr. Member, you'll be interested in knowing.... You're quite correct, there's been no project funded to date. But I do have, my deputy tells me, 30 applications as of today for that fund. Even with all the political rhetoric over there, the educators out in the field are looking at it and saying: "There's an opportunity here for us, and we're going to take advantage of it." I'm quite prepared to look at it.

Then you talk about the cutback in textbooks. You know that's not right. You know the leaked document that you got, Mr. Member. I have a copy of it, and if you read it out in its entirety, you know that what you say is not correct. You know that over the past several years there's been $11 million to $12 million per year go into textbook-funding, and it was this year as well. What you got in the leaked document was a list that said we need some additional funds for priority 1, priority 2 and priority 3, and the total of the three priority items came out to $22 million. Correct?

MR. ROSE: No.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Well, I'm sorry. You'd better read it again, because I know it's correct.

What I did do, Mr. Member, because I heard the concern expressed by the school districts and school boards, but primarily by the teachers whom I met with, was go back to my staff and say: "Look, I understand changes of curriculum." And you can appreciate, Mr. Member, that this was probably a week or two after I was appointed, and I was getting briefed, etc. There was a concern expressed by the school districts and teachers that with changes in curriculum they needed these additional textbooks. They said: "Yes, Mr. Minister, we feel very strongly that we should have priority one and priority two primarily because of the changes in curriculum." So we got enough — $6.1 million, I think it was — which brought the figure up to a total of $17.25 million for textbooks this year. That dealt with priority one and priority two on my staff's briefing document to me, of which you obtained, in the dead of night, a copy in a brown envelope. And you rushed to the press and had a big press conference and said: "Isn't it terrible. There have been cutbacks in education." Wrong — and you know it's wrong. You were fudging, or fabricating — maybe that's a better word.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's a....

HON. MR. HEWITT: Was that really close to saying that he was not telling the truth?

MR. CHAIRMAN: It's close enough, yes. Just a withdrawal of any imputation of wrongdoing on the part of the hon. member for Coquitlam-Moody will suffice.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'm sorry. I withdraw. He was exaggerating.

The one thing we didn't cover-which is still short of the $22 million — was priority three, which dealt with, I believe —and I could find the document here — the textbooks for math. The changes in curriculum flowing through will not take place until 1987, I believe, and the staff said: "No, that isn't a high priority item. That one could be delayed." And that was the decision that was made.

Mr. Member, you asked me a question that I must say I really can't answer. Given time, I'll be able to answer it. You asked me whether or not the little girl or boy in grade 3 is better served this year than in 1975. In general terms I'll say yes, that child is better served. She or he is better served, better educated, better prepared for education as we approach the twenty-first century. There's no question about it, because our teachers are being constantly upgraded — they upgrade their education. And new teachers come on with new ideas. If you address the question of funding, as you seem to always go back to, Mr. Member, I can only say that that debate will never end. Regardless of how much money I put into this budget, there will always be somebody who finds a reason that there should be more. But to answer your question, I'd say yes, that young person is better educated today than he was.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The member for Coquitlam-Moody.

AN HON. MEMBER: Be non-partisan.

MR. ROSE: Well, I certainly wouldn't want to raise any political questions in here.

What the ministry's document says about the various math programs that were supposedly priority three.... Actually, if you go by the list, things of lower priority, such as fine arts, were funded. The fact that you're short of textbook money didn't start just this year. I can give you a report of the Vancouver School District — not from the board — which indicates an appalling situation regarding textbooks in other areas. It says in the ministry's synopsis — I'm quoting from the document delivered to me in the dead of night in a plain brown envelope: "Math 3, 4, 5 and 6 needed nearly $4 million. Recent math assessments indicate serious concerns at elementary grades, which will continue to be ignored; embarrassment to the major publishers, who have rushed to meet the ministry's 1986 deadlines...." Cancelling of this was something that wasn't considered before about March, in my view. Otherwise why would the publishers rush to meet the deadlines? Why was the textbook thing of $22 million cut by 50 percent in March, shortly after the minister took office — and all of a sudden the money turns up again in the Excellence in Education fund? That's nonsense.

So short supply and some old math texts which are obsolete, "which we really do not want to purchase or are under reorder — major disappointment by districts whose elementary schools have been geared up for the new, more effective instructional methods." A million dollars for math 9 and 10 — same argument. Math 8: "Postponement of alternative math 8 choice will have little consequence, as Nelson math 2 text satisfies the needs of the majority of students." So that's all right — I think that I'm even-handed enough to admit that. Nevertheless, it was done at the last minute. It wasn't something that was planned for in any particular way at all.

[3:30]

So I would like to know what the minister feels, having to do with this grade 3 child and grade 2 children, or whatever, about the fact that funds for learning assistance have been cut

[ Page 7959 ]

in a mainstream classroom. Or if it is a multi-grade classroom, such as many small school districts have, how is that grade 3 child better served now than she was in '82, when ESL people have been fired; when classes in the lower mainland areas — at least 50 percent of them — exceed the class size that is required, or at least suggested, as optimal? What I would like to know is: what does the minister intend to do about increasing the aid in certain specialties so that we can reduce class size, give those children that have learning difficulties some assistance, and provide better kinds of education for many of those children whose first language is not English?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, with regard to special education, to a great extent, the member, I am sure, is aware that the request for funding under special education, which is function 3 in the fiscal framework — it gets very complicated — primarily is driven by the local school board or school district. In other words, my ministry responds to those who need additional assistance over and above the regular classroom. With regard to English as a second language, or ESL, there is funding in for those students. The numbers, as I understand it, are also generated at the local level. Again, the member comes back to funding. That funding for special education has not been reduced, but has been protected in the Ministry of Education's budget, but related to the numbers of students who require assistance through the special education program.

With regard to the evaluation process, the member mentioned grade 3 students and asked whether they are being better educated. I'm told by my deputy that the assessment program, which takes place in grade 4, shows there's been an improvement in both arithmetic and reading. That can only, I think, result....

MR. ROSE: Over what years?

HON. MR. HEWITT: From '75 to '86, so I'm trying to give you that comparison. We start evaluation in grade 4, if you will. If it's improved in grade 4, from '75 to '86, I think I can make the assumption — and you can — that the grade 3 teacher, and the grade 2 and grade 1 teacher, had a part to play in that improvement when the grade 4 student was evaluated.

MR. ROSE: All I know is that the ministry is currently very concerned about the increase in dropout rates. I would be very much interested in whether or not the trend lines are the same — '75 to '85 — as they are since the restraint program. You've got the withdrawal of services, job action and that sort of thing, low teacher morale, and fewer teachers in the system by about between 2,000 and 3,000. I'm not sure that that could be maintained. If you choose your years well enough, you can almost prove anything. People who have argued on both sides of fences know that.

I'd like to ask you another question. It really has to do with philosophy, Mr. Minister. I'd like to ask you whether or not you believe that each child, talented or otherwise, is entitled to an education according to his or her needs, and their interests, consistent with the province's ability to pay for it. Or do you still believe that your government was right to single out children — and you have — for cuts in service each year since 1982? It seems inconsistent to me to serve the needs of every person's child — talented, ESL, learning-handicapped, physically handicapped or otherwise — while cutting the program and slaughtering the institution of the public school by a total of 25 percent, if you count inflation, or over $300 million in the last three years.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, I think it's fair to say that the argument again is going to relate back to funding. We've attempted, first of all, to develop a system, through the fiscal framework, to fund all students equitably across the province. We also take into consideration the special education needs; we've done that, and we've provided the funding for it. Those rural areas are also given consideration, to get a proper education, even though they may be in a rural or remote area of the province. I can answer the member by saying that compared to 1975 — and that's the date he used; using that as an index, if you will — the number of pupils have dropped in the education system primarily because, of course, of the lack of new children coming along to fill those classrooms. So the student population has dropped, but the teacher population is still well above what it was per student in 1975. That would indicate to you that we have not, even despite our restraint program, reduced the number of teachers to what it was in 1975. When I say numbers, I mean relative numbers. I don't want to get caught in the actual numbers; I mean the relative numbers compared to student population.

We also have taken into consideration, as I am sure the member will identify, the fact that many young people were not given the ability in the classroom of working and playing with their peers. We are now attempting to put them in the classroom so they can work and play with children the same age, even though they may be handicapped in one way or another. Any social worker can tell you that that certainly has done a lot to bring them along a lot further than they would have been brought along had they been isolated.

So those are the efforts that are being made not by ministers or by government but by people in education, by my staff and by superintendents and teachers, in giving direction to how best we can provide an education for our young people. Mr. Member, again I just repeat that you and I can debate the issue of funding, because that is always what it seems to come back to, and I'll attempt to argue the rest of the day that our funding is adequate. If you can point out areas of major concern, I can assure you I will do my best to address them. But don't just start arguing about the fact that we've cut back in dollars. It's not true, Mr. Member; there are more dollars spent in education today than there have been in other years.

MR. ROSE: I don't think you can talk about that in terms of constant dollars. You can't ignore inflation. Inflation over the last three or four years has got to be at least 15 percent if not more than that; some people would put it at over 20 percent. So if you're talking about constant dollars, you're ignoring that whole inflation thing, and if you choose to do that, well, that's fine. I don't care. But the problem is....

Here is another paper. Here is a guy who I would think is a very thoughtful, moderate individual, a professor or a college instructor, and he is chairman of the B.C. School Trustees' Association. It took the ministry — not you, Mr. Minister.... It took eight months and a trouncing from our Premier to turn a mild-mannered, cooperative guy into a thumping militant. You did that. You turned this man who tried to cooperate into a man who is sharply critical of you and your whole approach now. What has it got to do with? It's not just funding. BCSTA says school funds talk is a sham. I

[ Page 7960 ]

don't think that a moderate would talk like that. Who politicized this man? He thought he could work with you. He was a Social Crediter. He may still be. But he is no friend of yours now.

It isn't just the radical left, the pinkos over here, who are making sounds like that. You've turned thousands of teachers against you as well. Some of them were your supporters. I could never understand why a teacher, being an intelligent individual, would be supporting you anyway, but aside from all that you have radicalized a lot of people. And you are going to radicalize a lot more, because for the first time — and I went through the wars between the trustees and the teachers — you've thrown these strange bedfellows into one another's arms. They are really concerned. You put them through all kinds of knots and hoops. You haven't changed the School Act. It still forces them to bargain, to negotiate and ultimately by the end of the year to go to compulsory arbitration. Then when it goes to Mr. Peck and he gives them a raise, the framework says, "I'm sorry, we can't deliver that kind of money," so they don't get it and that forces the school boards to break contracts they've signed with their teachers.

I don't know if that is going to be fixed up in the new Bill 12. But I don't want to anticipate legislation, Mr. Chairman; I am wise to your admonitions. I will not venture into that field again, although the minister did. He talked extensively about how he has restored the property taxing powers and that kind of thing. But I won't go into it in that detail.

The minister talked about — and we talked about — special problems in education: children with learning difficulties and how they've been mainstreamed and how they can go to school with their peers. I don't think anybody objects to that. I think that that is a perfectly sensible, reasonable and humane thing to do. I think the way we've shut them away in the past was cruel and inhumane. There's no question about it; if you've got a class full of nice, well-behaved and obedient children that are bright scholars, if there are 40 in the class you can probably manage pretty well.

But if you've got a lot of kids who can't speak English, or a lot of kids with learning difficulties, or a lot of kids with other kinds of social problems — like from single parents and all these other things — then you're in for real trouble. I hope the minister wasn't implying that we're opposed to this concept of mainstreaming. We say mainstream, of course; it's humane, it's decent, it's honourable. The kids are with their peers. No question about that. But what we object to is mainstreaming without the proper support services.

We don't even know how to assess learning difficulties in this province, because our teachers are not given, by and large, any means of even identifying a learning disabled, difficult child. A child with any kind of learning difficulty.... I heard of a horror story when I was up in Salmon Arm two weeks ago. In order to get a proper assessment — they aren't in the schools, they are not in the local health centres, they are nowhere — they have a private assessor in the form of a psychiatrist that comes into Kamloops.

Do you know how much it costs? It costs 700 bucks to get a child assessed. A parent came to me with a child with severe difficulties. They couldn't even get that child assessed because they didn't have $700. Cases like that I think shouldn't have to depend on the generosity of the local Lions Club. They belong as a responsibility of the school, because every parent pays taxes, and every parent has the right to have an education assessment suitable to the child.

I see the former Minister of Agriculture is looking at me. I hope I haven't kept him awake throughout this.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Very relaxed. The strongest man in the world, Doug Hepburn, once said: "Better a has-been than a never was."

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Yes, he did, to me.

It is a very serious problem, this business of learning difficulties. About six months ago, I was up in Cranbrook. I travel a lot, you know, Mr. Minister. I go around, and I consult with the people. I even talk to school boards. I've even been known to talk to teachers. One of the things that came out, and this is very interesting because this brief was presented to this NDP task force — or listening force or whatever you want to call it — from an active Social Crediter very closely connected with the former Provincial Secretary's office.

She presented this brief, and it says that 88 percent of juvenile delinquents are learning disabled. All right, you have kids with learning disabilities and you put them in those huge classes — 50 percent over what they should be in the lower mainland — and those kids are not going to be well treated. I don't care what you say about that average little kid in grade 2 or grade 3 or whatever about getting better education. Eighty percent of teenage suicides are learning disabled.

I'll give you a few more horror stories; I could read you the whole brief, but I'd rather read you the textbook thing most of the time. But anyway, if identification and remediation are in place by grades K to 3, there is a success rate of 86 percent. In other words, if you spot these difficulties soon enough, there are possibilities of remediation. If there is no identification or remediation in place until grades 4 to 7, then the success rate is 45 percent. If there is no identification or remediation in place until grades 8 to 12, there is only a limited success rate of 10 percent.

[3:45]

When you are interested in the numbers of graduates and the numbers of dropouts out of the B.C. school system, perhaps the lack of identification and assessment for kids with learning difficulties is a serious one and should be addressed. It has implications for lots of other ministries too: the Ministry of Human Resources — if a kid can't get a job, he becomes a disabled adult; the Attorney-General — they end up in the clink; Ministry of Labour — it costs you a lot more money to train kids that can't read.

It's a very serious thing and I don't think it should be ignored. I don't think that our department of education is doing nearly enough in this area. Unfortunately, it takes money, and it's as simple as that. I want to know whether the minister believes that each child, talented or otherwise, is entitled to an education according to his needs. The kids that are in the class of '85 graduating this year, to what future I don't know, were in grade 3 in 1975. That's when this government took over.

I think they're going to want to know why their education was sacrificed while we import skilled people. If you've only got about half the number — half is a little harsh — of graduates from post-secondary education at our colleges

[ Page 7961 ]

compared to other parts of Canada, it seems to me that the skill development there is going to be higher in other jurisdictions. We already know that it costs more money to go to university if you live in the rural areas. Therefore your participation rate is about 7 percent, and it's 15 percent for kids who live in West Point Grey, or Vancouver and the lower mainland.

But since we've got no student aid program worth talking about, really, if you have to go through school on a loans program, it costs you $15,000 more to get a B.A. than it does in Ontario. So it's got to the point now where people in British Columbia are sending their kids to post-secondary education.... Because you burnped the fees by 30 percent and you scooped off the money from the EPF so it didn't go to education, or at least not enough of it. That's arguable. Maybe you would like to argue about that. But if you don't have a proportion equal to that of other jurisdictions, when we come out of this Socred-induced depression we're in, who's going to get the jobs? It'll be those kids who have had their education at other places. And while we export our teachers, we'll be importing our skilled people in other areas. So what are you going to say to those people when they come here?

Finally on this section, I'd like to ask a couple of final questions. I'd like to know what the minister sees as the relationship between the school system — how it articulates with the post-secondary education sector. I'll give you a few hints about what I'm interested in finding out. Are you going to continue to let the universities dominate the high schools the way you have? I know the dropout rate is increasing because you've made the high schools in our province less open. There aren't as many courses or options. When you have every man's child going through school, you've got to offer those multi-talented people some different kinds of options than merely the academic, which all those profs want them to have.

There's an elitism in our school system. It's been there for a long time. But I think that our kids in school should have an opportunity to take a much wider variety of courses and still be able to go on. They need to be able to take courses in the humanities and the arts. Those aren't just frills. So I want to know his views on that.

Here's another stat: what's happening in the schools of B.C. that resulted in the participation rates increasing in post-secondary education less than I percent in B.C., where in other jurisdictions they went up 16 percent? The participation rates in B.C. In post-secondary education went up less than I percent, and in other jurisdictions they went up 16 percent.

HON. MR. HEWITT: When?

MR. ROSE: Well, between '80 and '85 are the figures I have here, but I wouldn't swear to it.

No coaching. Don't give him any help. He's doing fine.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, to go back and talk to some of the issues that were raised. Are we going to provide education according to the students' needs? I think if the member is familiar with the fiscal framework in function 3, he'll find that we've attempted to identify those special needs and fund them accordingly.

To give you some of the divisions within function 3, for example: trainable mentally handicapped, severe and profoundly handicapped, physically handicapped, visually impaired, hearing impaired, autistic, severely learning-disabled, mentally handicapped, severe behaviour problems. Then we go to English as a second language (ESL), Indian education, gifted students. We have those all identified as areas of concern, not by the politician but by the educator who has attempted to devise a system where we can provide additional instruction in the mainstreaming of the child who may have a handicap in some way but is still able to be with his or her peers. We have provided in the system additional funding related to the students, so that there can be a teacher, an additional part of a teacher, if you will — a teacher's aide — based on the number of students identified by the local school board as to what their needs are. That's not centralization. That's an attempt by my staff, in developing this document, to respond to the needs that originate in the local schools.

I agree with you, or concede the fact that maybe we have to look to fine-tuning these items. I gather that in the last few years since this formula was brought into being there is a review committee that meets in the fall of each year to evaluate the system, the formula, and make recommendations for change. My staff advise me that approximately 80 to 85 percent of those recommendations for change from the committee of educators have been accepted.

In regard to how we articulate with the universities, Mr. Chairman, I think it's fair to say that we've attempted to have a system whereby the student has to be evaluated, and examinations are now in place. Granted, they are a challenge to the student, but at the same time they are an evaluation to see whether or not they have been educated in the classroom to a level where they can be accepted in the university classroom so that we don't graduate young people that are faced with a major task of trying to catch up when they go into first-year university. As some university professors say from time to time, they have to re-educate them because they haven't been properly educated.

We have in the high school system....

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: No, Mr. Member, it is not getting worse. It is that we have changed the system, if my memory serves me right, which was identified in the NDP era: "Examinations, for heaven's sake! Don't deal with those things. Let's not have that terrible onus put on the child." You know as well as I do that in real life you are challenged from day to day, and if you don't learn to accept those challenges in the classroom, then it is going to be much tougher on you when you get out in the workforce.

We also identify in the high school through counsellors.... . We assist young persons to determine whether they wish to take the academic course so they can go on to post-secondary education, or whether they are looking at the arts or whether they are looking at a vocation. We've attempted to give them assistance in making their choices.

Mr. Member, I don't see a problem between us and the universities. If I do see a problem between us and the universities, I can assure you this minister can debate long and loud with my colleague the Minister of Post-Secondary Education

[ Page 7962 ]

(Hon. R. Fraser) or with university professors or with university presidents. I can see there may be times when I am going to have to say: "Look, if you want our young people to be prepared for post-secondary education, then we've got to work together." There is not going to be any pressure put on us from university professors, as you seem to think there is.

Just to correct the record, I am told by my staff.... This goes back a long time, and I apologize to a former Social Credit government. I am told by my staff that exams went out in 1970. I would have thought it was 1972 or 1973 or 19741 for one support having examinations in school. I think it is important that those exams are carried out, and I appreciate that they put pressure on young people, but that is part of education as well. I think it is fair to say that standards have improved, that results are being achieved because of examinations in the classroom.

MR. ROSE: It seems to me that you can't have it both ways. If standards have improved, then why do we need to reeducate the students when they get to university? I just find that argument inconsistent. I don't understand it, but I am a slow learner.

As far as exams are concerned, I don't think anybody objects to exams or that you need some measure of evaluation. Pedagogues, though.... There is a good deal of research to say this. They are not always the most practical people in the world, even if they are experienced experts who work for the Ministry of Education. Pedagogues and research generally have indicated that the best kind of assessment is really teacher assessment, but if you are going to use exams, don't have all your eggs in one basket. I don't think a child should stand or fall on the basis of one provincewide exam.

I would be interested to know too, speaking of exams, when the ministry is going to be able to report the number of people who have taken exams, what success rate or failure rate, whether they had to boost or alter the scores. I've forgotten the term for it now, I haven't done it for so long. I'd be interested in that.

Finally on this section 1'd like to ask the minister if he feels that there is a link between the cut in educational spending.... He doesn't agree that they've been cut. He says in dollars they haven't been. I say in inflation they've been cut about 25 percent, while enrolment, by the way, has dropped 10 percent. You slashed it about 25 or 20 percent in 1983. I understand the echo of the baby boom is going to change that somewhat.

But you're going to get into the California system pretty soon, where if you chase people out of the profession.... You're doing a pretty good job of it because there are relatively few young teachers in.... Only 377 under 25 are employed this year. I want to ask the minister whether he feels there is a direct link between educational spending and the declining real levels of investment in our province. Or does he blame it on something else?

[4:00]

MR. COCKE: On a point of order, I challenge the quorum.

[Interruption. ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair recognizes a quorum. Debate on vote 16 continues.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, the member opposite keeps commenting on the California issue, and the fact that representatives are coming up from California and hiring away our schoolteachers. They have absconded with his daughter and taken her down there so she can teach in California. Mr. Member, first of all, let me say that I am really quite pleased that our teachers are identified as having the quality to be in demand. People come up from California to interview them and possibly provide them with a job. Also, Mr. Member, I have to say that we compete with Toronto as well. Those same people who come up to hold meetings and attempt to recruit our schoolteachers are also in Toronto. They go to Alberta to do the same thing. I think it's fair to say that because of the growth in student population down in the state of California, there is a need for teachers. So they search to find the best teachers, and they have the opportunity to come to British Columbia, as well as to Alberta and to Ontario.

Of course, in British Columbia — and, I guess, in other parts of Canada — our student population has dropped off. As a result, you find a situation where you don't need as many teachers as you used to. I think Mr. Stables' report — the appointed trustee of the Vancouver School Board — indicated that between 1969 and 1985, I think it was, the population in K to 12 dropped from 75,000 students to 50,000 students — a tremendous drop.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'm sorry. I said Mr. Stables, Vancouver School Board. In the years 1969 to 1985 it dropped from 75,000 students to 50,000; that's a reduction of 25,000 students in Vancouver. Think of the impact on the teaching population in 15 years. There's no question that there may be more teachers here than are required, because teachers are driven by students; you have to have the students to have the teachers there in the classroom to teach. There's no sense having them in empty classrooms or classrooms with three or four. The taxpayer just can't afford that size of class.

Mr. Chairman, other comments were made. We are often criticized in regard to the salaries of teachers in British Columbia. As you know, the average salary, provincewide, is some $37,000; but California teachers start at $21,000, and they peak at $40,000. Our young people start at about $24,000 and peak at about $43,000. I don't know what the member's daughter makes in U.S. dollars when she lives in the United States. And don't try to indicate that those are U.S. dollars; when you relate them to Canadian dollars it doesn't wash, Mr. Member. I enjoy debating with the member for Coquitlam-Moody.

The other thing, Mr. Chairman, is that if we look back a little bit I think the member will remember that there was a time when we needed teachers and we went on a recruiting drive to hire teachers from England. We had a shortage. You can't have equal supply and demand. There are times when you're going to have more or less than is needed. The point is that it is the student population that primarily drives the number of teachers that you're going to have in the province.

The fiscal framework, if the member doesn't already know about it, indicates that there will be a teacher funded for every 25 to 27 students in grades K to 7, and one teacher for every 22 to 24 students in grades 8 to 12. Our formula identifies that, on average, if the class size works out to those

[ Page 7963 ]

figures, there's a teacher for every 22 to 24 students in 8 to 12, and then we have adjustments for special-needs children, English-as-a-second- language, etc. We've attempted to ensure that funding is there and is adequate to cover the needs of the children in the classroom on a basis that doesn't indicate that we need classes of 40, 45, etc. I can appreciate that some classes go up over 25 to 30 students, because we can't equally divide each class into common numbers of 25 to 27, but where there are some that are higher than those average figures, you can appreciate that there are other classrooms that are lower.

MR. ROSE: The minister's response just bristles with other kinds of questions and comments and is so inviting. He lobs them over here as big as grapefruits. He's suggesting, for instance, that the reason we have to export unemployed teachers is because of decline in enrolment. I grant you that that may be part of it, but since 1982 we've gotten rid of something like 3,200 teachers. Surely that isn't all enrolment driven. That's too much to ask, far too much — 3,200 positions have been cut out of the system. There might have been a drop of 10 percent in student enrolment since 1982, but I doubt if there'd be much more than that. The minister has got his number-cruncher over there and he's looking at these things, and I hope he'll come up with it.

The minister told the B.C. school trustees that there's no money for education because of jobs, jobs, jobs. This reminds me of Jaws III, our Prime Minister. The thing that he's really concerned about is the jobs — 3,200 jobs out of the system. How many jobs has he created in B.C.? The number of teachers under 26 years of age was 2,159 in 1979; in 1985, just 377. The profession is dying out. There aren't any jobs, and if the average teacher's salary is $37,000 a year, which is the average salary of a working family in British Columbia so the average teacher makes an average salary for British Columbia — then what I would like to know is how many jobs have you created, what are you going to do about jobs in education, and what do you expect the future's going to be for people?

Nobody wants to go into a profession that's constantly being attacked as "greedy," so you don't give them any salary raises for three years, "lazy," so you increase the size of their classes, and "incompetent," so you put exams on them to make sure and check them up. I have no objection to exams. I just don't think every child's future should ride on the basis of one exam, because provincial exams are notoriously poor indicators of future success in education or anything else.

Here's the number of teachers under 31 years of age: 8,000 or more in 1979; 3,000 now. The reason that the salaries are increasing on the average is because the young teachers, who are the lower-paid teachers, are not being hired and they're first fired — except if you live in West Van. The people who are being retained because of seniority provisions — under Bill 3 in 1983 — are the more senior ones and therefore are higher up in the salary scale. Your whole framework, since it's based on the previous years and their salaries, perpetuates increase without getting any more bang for your buck, really. You're just paying more and on average you're getting more senior teachers there.

As for the salary comparison with California, we went into this one before. The minister suggested that they weren't as well paid down there. He's changed his tune today, because he read the figures. I don't know if he got them out of the Vancouver Sun or where he got them. I have them here. One of the figures is wrong. It says that senior teachers in B.C. make about $36,000 a year. We know that a PA (max) makes about as much as an MLA.

MR. REID: You know that's not true.

MR. ROSE: I know. I just said it was. I said a PA (max) makes about as much as an MLA, which is about $43,000 a year. And we have very poor job security too, which makes it even worse.

MRS. JOHNSTON: They only work nine months of the year.

MR. ROSE: Are you back again? Oh God, George Burns and Gracie Allen have come back in here....

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. ROSE: Where are you when we really need you?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the hon. member direct his comments to the Chair.

MR. ROSE: I was responding to the heckling that I'm getting.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you respond to the heckling comments through the Chair.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, why don't you let the boards decide what they're going to do about how they spend their money? You have the framework. I have no objection to having a framework with guidelines suggesting certain things. This year your framework delivered funds that didn't even make up the status quo budget, equal to last year. It was a cut.

Equality is not equity, and there are certain costs in certain districts that are not equivalent all across the province. That's where I think you make your mistake — in your bureaucratic centralization known as the framework.

I would like the minister to indicate to me — and he never did get around to answering that question — whether or not there's a direct link between investment, which is declining, and the cuts in educational spending that we've undergone in the last three years.

[4:15]

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, first of all I compliment my staff, because they have a massive amount of material they provide me. I thought I'd use this one, because I think it's important that the member see the track record. This is dropouts as a percentage of September 30 net enrolment each year starting in 1971. I'll bore you with the figures, Mr. Member. In '71 it was 7.3 percent; in '72, 8.7 percent; in '73, 8.6 percent; in '74, 8.5 percent; in '75, 7.5 percent — probably a change there in administration; in '76, 7.9 percent; in '77, 7.9 percent; in '78, 7.8 percent; in '79, 7.9 percent; in '80, 7.9 percent; in '81, 7.9 percent; in '82, 6.5 percent; in '83, 6.3 percent; in '84, 6.95 percent; and I don't have '85. If I were to look back to 1975, which is the key year

[ Page 7964 ]

that the member continues to refer to, we are less than we were then. Our dropout rate as a percentage of previous September 30 enrolment is down. That's a good sign. I think both of us are pleased to see that. It would be nice to get it down even further.

Mr. Member, you talked about the aging of teachers. That's quite true. As in any industry, business or commercial activity, when you have a reduction of staff for whatever reason, usually those with experience are the ones who stay, and those with the least experience are the ones to go, and that happens to be the person on the job a little less time than the ones who are retained. There is also the issue of competency and ability in the classroom. The member opposite referred to it. There is one case where a school board said: "We are going to make the decision based on ability." I guess maybe I shouldn't be referring to it, but that issue is being challenged in the courts on its constitutionality, if I understand it.

So that's one statistic that you wanted and you've got. I think it shows an improvement. The difference in debate may well be, what is 1985? Is it going to be a disaster? I can't answer you that; we haven't got those figures yet. You can appreciate that the young people aren't through their school year. The other is that 6.95 percent is too high. I don't disagree with that, Mr. Member. I'd like to see it down to less than I percent, but I don't know whether we can achieve that.

And then you said: "Let the local school boards decide on how to spend the money." Mr. Member, that's basically what the fiscal framework does. They have the ability at the school board level to move funds to each function.

MR. ROSE: No, within the function.

HON. MR. HEWITT: No. Just a minute. I'm fairly new, but my understanding in talking with my staff is that it's through the functions, one to seven. My staff say that I am correct, Mr. Member, and you are incorrect. They have that flexibility of moving the moneys for various functions within the school district on the school board's decision, and that does give them that autonomy to do that. I think that's good. They should have that ability, because who has the best knowledge of what's happening in the local level if it's not the school district and the administration? So we have responded to your concern there.

MR. ROSE: I think that this is more doublethink. Surely, if the minister wasn't present.... But I was, when the Coquitlam School Board visited the minister, and so were the officials. When they tried to move $600,000 which they had saved from maintenance into salaries, they were refused the right to do that by the previous minister. I've got it in my own.... He's giving him the answer.

AN HON. MEMBER: He's got to check it; that's not a fact.

MR. ROSE: Well, just a minute. I know what was said. I was here in 1983 during the debates when the former minister promised the school boards precisely that — that they could move it among the functions, not just within the functions. But when they tried to do that — from maintenance to salaries — they were refused, and they were not granted that $600,000.

We also know what happened in Surrey, in terms of what the framework delivered in growth. It ended up that they had a thousand new kids in Surrey in the spring of 1984, and all the framework gave them was $1,000 less than they needed. So Surrey, because of the anticipated growth potential, needed an extra million bucks and had to get a special order to get it, because the formula and framework for growth were insufficient to meet those funds.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Hon. member, the member for Coquitlam-Moody has been recognized and has the floor. He should be the only person speaking, except for interruptions by the Chair. If the member for Coquitlam-Moody would direct his comments to the Chair.

MR. ROSE: Anyway, I think the framework is bureaucratic. I have no objection to guidelines. I don't see how the minister can argue that there really is local decisionmaking when the whole framework determines the budget, and the total of the budget is determined by Victoria, except for that puny little 8 percent of the tax base that the boards may be able to tax in future.

The dropout rate is a serious thing. To say it's declining....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Marginally. You said year by year. What does that mean? There are 12 years in a school life for most people. If 7 percent each year are dropping out, conceivably there's only 4 percent left at the end of the 12 years. You know that's not true, and that's hogwash. You mean to tell us that there's only 7 percent year after year? There's 0.2 percent between grades I and 7; but boy, watch it later on. I'm not suggesting that you intentionally mislead us, but you certainly confuse us and confound us with the suggestion that there's only 7 percent dropping out over the whole life of a school system, when you know and I know that that's not true. So it went down from 7 percent to 6.9? Isn't that really terrific?

The minister likes to indulge in nostalgia. He likes to look back to when life was simple. He wallows in nostalgia. I'm quite sure that he feels that he got a better education in the little red schoolhouse. He ignores the explosion in knowledge. Maybe it's because he hasn't absorbed any. How do I know?

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, Mr. Minister, you raised the issue. That's about all you can raise any more. But I want to tell you something about hair. It not only grows up, it grows down. Now if it grows down and hits grey matter, then it comes out grey. But if the roots grow down and don't hit anything, it falls out. Or so I'm told.

MS. BROWN: What does the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) have to say about that?

MR. ROSE: I don't know.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: That's rude.

[ Page 7965 ]

MR. ROSE: Well, he raised it. I wasn't going to mention it.

Let's get on to something else. Why don't we get onto something else? I was going to get a substitute. I thought the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. Michael) was going to get up for a little while.

I want to know, because I'm going to talk a little bit more in detail, Mr. Minister, about goals and curriculum in the second segment of my diatribe. I'm sorry if I'm keeping the Minister of Health awake. Or is it the member...? Oh, it's the member in the chair, the Chairman.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I'm not attacking the Chair. We have a shift system going on here. The second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) just decided to shift out. I'll miss him. Come back soon, because unless you provoke me I might run out of speech.

Mr. Minister, I want to know what the government decides in terms of goals for acceptable standards of literacy for British Columbia students. What level do you expect or do you anticipate? What is our goal for literacy standards? We know that in many societies in North America — perhaps we're somewhat better than the average for the States — functional adult illiteracy runs in excess of 20 percent, even 25 percent. So I want to know what the minister's standards are for acceptable levels of literacy? Is it passing grade 8, 9, 11, or graduating by grade 12? I would like to know what your aims are?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Two things, Mr. Chairman. I think, if you are looking at young people going through the school system from K to 12, there's no question that our goal is to ensure that when they come out of the school system they have a command of the English language. So that, I guess, would be a simple goal that we would be looking at.

If you are looking at adults who have come to this country, then I think the college and night-school courses are certainly important to make sure we give those new Canadians the opportunity to learn the language so that they can obtain employment in the marketplace.

I am just looking at an item here that I thought I would make the member aware of. The concern is out there. I want to relate that to a speech that was made by Lorne Bolton, president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia, who called on professions and businesses to work with educators and government in creating a mission for the education system. He expressed his grave concern, uncovered by chartered accountants in their examinations of young candidates for the profession. He said his group had identified three main areas of concern about young people attempting to become chartered accountants, and suggested that other professions and businesses were encountering the same problems. He said the first deficiency was in the written skills, the second in the lack of key thinking skills, and the third in the inability to work in an unstructured situation. Those are three concerns that the head of the chartered accountants' association of British Columbia has.

I am deeply concerned. If we have businessmen or professions in British Columbia who feel that young people coming out of the high school and post-secondary systems do not have an adequate command of the English language, then we certainly have to address that. I will certainly be dealing with that issue in my tenure as Minister of Education, to ensure that some of these statements made by heads of associations will not continue, that they will be satisfied with the quality of students graduating.

MR. ROSE: I am not always too impressed by the utterances and musings of the chartered accountants. I know that the minister is an accountant. I don't know if he is chartered, registered or certified — apparently there are three kinds.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'm not certified yet — I'm still registered.

MR. ROSE: I think there is some move to certify you, but I won't tell you what.

All I know is the story that the chartered accountants, if they get too many accountants, flunk a few on their exams — a sort of self policing, self regulating, self-fulfilling body. Anyway, I think their views are worth thinking about.

What I want to know then, if the minister is concerned about this — the level of functional illiteracy — is what plans, proposals and programs has he got to improve this level?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, what programs does the minister have to improve this level? I have the expertise of my ministry staff and the educators in this province — to give me their concerns and their guidance in ensuring that we address those problems in the educational system. If we have a problem, then I am going to be challenging my staff to address it, and to come up with how we improve the record if the record is not good. I don't have any "specific programs" that I can name to you across the floor of the House. Nor do you expect me to respond, and if I did you wouldn't listen anyway, because all you want to do is keep saying that whatever we do is inadequate.

[4:30]

Mr. Chairman, if the member wants to, in debate or in corresponding with my office, advise me of various concerns, I can assure him that I will take his concerns. If they are justified, I would certainly take action to see that they are corrected.

MR. D'ARCY: This may be something completely different — a la Monty Python — but I have some questions for the minister. First of all, I would like to congratulate him on his appointment and thank him for taking the time in the last week or so to visit with the school boards in my constituency and have a frank and open discussion with them. I'm not sure he was happy with everything they told him, or that they were happy with what he said, but the fact is he did make the effort to come into the area and discuss things with the duly elected school boards in Trail and Castlegar.

I wasn't going to talk in specifics; however, I do want to make a comment on one area. Earlier in committee this afternoon the minister mentioned that he took some pride in the fact that the student-teacher ratio is still lower than it was ten years ago, in spite of the economic restraint program of the government. I want to point out that we all, as the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose) said, can take specifics to suit our particular bias. I suggest that it's not whether the student-teacher ratio is greater or lesser than it was in 1976 or 1966 or 1956. The point is, there has been an ongoing

[ Page 7966 ]

evolution in the education system, and there are more students in the system today with special learning problems and special behavioural problems than there were 10 or 20, or even 5 years ago. Many teachers in both of the school districts, including the school in my own neighbourhood, have indicated to me that it's not that they have more students in their classes than a few years ago, although that's a factor. Nor is it even that they have more students with learning difficulties or behavioural problems, although that is also a problem. The real difficulty is that they have more students with severe learning and behavioural problems than they had just a very few years ago.

There have been other contributing factors to this difficulty in delivering quality education to the students, one being the simple fact that there is not the recess and noon-hour supervision that there used to be. Teachers used to take this time to provide special remedial and tutoring help to students with special needs. Now, because they're keeping order during the noon hour and recess, they can't provide that extra service — or at least they can't provide it to the same extent that they used to.

In any event, I had some local items, some questions I would like to discuss with the minister.

I don't know whether the school board in Castlegar brought it up with the minister, but they — as well as other elements in the community — have raised with me the issue of an application which they have sent to the Excellence in Education fund for assistance in establishing a Russian language immersion course in district 9. I gather this has been supported by other school boards and by the major group of people of Russian extraction in the area, the USCC, which is based in Grand Forks, in the minister's own constituency. I think the minister said earlier in his remarks that under the excellence fund program, they were looking for new quality programs in the classroom.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I submit to the committee that this is exactly within the guidelines which the minister gave to this committee earlier. It's also a pilot, in the sense that there may be other languages suitable for immersion in that region because there are other major ethnic groups. It is my understanding that the other major ethnic groups have in fact agreed that the first established immersion program in the area should be a Russian language program. I'd also like to point out to the committee that the school board which endorsed this has only one member whose ancestry is from eastern Europe, or what is now the Soviet Union. It wasn't the Soviet Union when these people left it; it was czarist Russia. So it's hardly a case of eastern Europeans or people from the Ukraine or what is now the Soviet Union having sort of taken over the school board. There are people of other ethnic extractions on that board, including Italian.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any Scots people?

MR. D'ARCY: There is now, Mr. Chairman. I'm sure I could find one.

In any event, from an economic argument I'd like to point out that one of our major trading partners in the Pacific Rim — when I say "our" I mean Canada, specifically British Columbia — which we don't discuss very much or think about very much is the Soviet Union. One of the major trading ports through which material moves in and out of the port of Vancouver is in fact the major Soviet port on the Pacific, Vladivostok. So we're talking about a major trade relationship as well. I would hope that the minister and the committee of cabinet, I presume, within his ministry that looks at these particular applications will look favourably on the proposal for Russian immersion as an established course in School District 9 starting in September of next year.

Certainly the board is not in a position to take funding from other programs within the district to set this up, but I would suggest to the minister that there is great deal of community support for this proposal from other groups as well. There are many families, as the minister well knows, that only have one parent of Russian background; many of those families are the ones that feel strongest about the possibility of having their children have the opportunity for a Russian immersion course.

Having got that off my chest, Mr. Chairman, there are a couple of other items I would like to talk to the minister about. They're not directly involved in education but involve his responsibilities as chairman of the Expo 86 legacy fund. As I'm sure the minister is aware....

Interjection.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Chairman, the member for Coquitlam-Moody is trying to get me declared out of order here.

MR. ROSE: Oh, no. I'm saying that it's okay, and he agreed.

MR. CHAIRMAN: He was questioning your debate, but we agreed that it's in order.

MR. D'ARCY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We have a number of applications from my constituency. There are two in particular which I know have involved letter-writing campaigns, because I've been written to and so has the minister on them. I was wondering if the minister could give us a progress report on them. One is the application for assistance for the Haley Park redevelopment in Trail, which has already received, at the local level, a substantial amount of community assistance, both municipal money, volunteer work and a substantial amount of public subscriptions of funds through door-knocking campaigns within the community.

The other proposal is the new library proposal from the Castlegar Library Board, which has also received substantial amounts of community support — self-starting, I might add — as well as good support from the city council of Castlegar, which of course represents all of the property owners and property tax payers in Castlegar.

I would like the minister to report to this committee as to a progress report on both of these projects, as we're getting very close to the opening of Expo 86, and all of us in the southern interior — indeed, I'm sure, throughout the entire province, outside the lower mainland — are looking to the government to come through on the indications that government spokesmen have made: that Expo 86 will have a continuing presence in terms of assistance for permanent capital developments throughout the communities of the southern interior.

[ Page 7967 ]

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, I'll try to deal with the questions as they came. Rossland-Trail and the comment that the member made with regard to pupil-teacher ratio. Back in 1975 it was 19.01 students per teacher. I appreciate that that took into consideration non-teaching administrative staff. But that was the figure I was working from, because the member for Coquitlam-Moody referred to 1975; that was his key date.

In 1985 it was 18.05, so we're less than what it was. We also appreciate that the special-needs students are of concern. You weren't in the House, but we were talking about that before. I guess we're attempting to put more money in that area. The request for dollars is driven by the local school boards indicating that they have handicapped or visually impaired, etc., students, and they need to classify them as special-needs students.

Our budget in 1985-86 was $203 million. In 1986-87 it will be $220 million; so there is an increase there of a little less than 10 percent in that particular category. Again, those numbers usually reflect the needs at the local school board level, and the increase indicates that we are responding to those needs.

Castlegar and the Russian language course. I met with the Castlegar School Board. They talked to me about it. They have, I think, kindergarten to grade I elementary Russian language, and they want to expand it to grades 2 and 3. They were talking about the Excellence in Education fund. However, I said that that was one of the areas that I felt was quite logical to look to the local residential taxpayer for funding for the expansion of that program, for two reasons. One is that it serves the local community. The children of that school district will have the ability to learn that language from kindergarten to grade 3. They also fund it now kindergarten to grade I out of the system that they have, so any expansion they could take from local taxpayers. They could fund it from local taxpayers. You also indicated it had community support. With those two key ingredients, it would seem to me that that would be one area where the school board could go to the local property tax payers, and say: "We want to do this unique to our area, because of the Russian background of the Castlegar area." I'm sure, if the community support is there, it would be approved without any concern or debate at the local level.

They indicated they would like to go to the Excellence in Education fund, but that creates something of a problem. First of all, it sets a precedent, which would mean that many school boards, looking at the ethnic background of the people they serve in their area, might come to us with a number of languages, and we would have to look at them all if we look at one. When you say, "What's wrong with that?" I don't disagree. That may be an avenue we wish to go down. However, where the problem lies, as I see it, is in the Excellence in Education fund being a three-year program. If they start getting it funded — and funding basically means providing teachers, etc. — at the end of the third year they would have those alternatives of either taking it over and going to the local taxpayer or, of course, demanding that the provincial government include it in the fiscal framework for education. I think there we would have a problem. Logically, I think it would be appropriate to go to the local taxpayer and say: "We would like to fund the Russian course through to grade 3." As you indicated, if they had local support, I think there would be no objections from the residential property owner to covering that cost.

On the Expo legacy fund, which committee I am chairman of, I know the Haley Park application is in, and I apologize that we haven't dealt with it. I will attempt to get a response to them as quickly as possible.

With regard to the library, when I was in Castlegar I had the opportunity to meet with the library representatives and with the mayor. I must admit that it is a pretty small library — originally built, I believe, from the centennial fund in Castlegar. Now they want to expand it. They have used every nook and cranny in that building to put books in. I think they have their photocopier in the furnace room, if I recall the tour of the building we did. That's an excellent project for the Expo legacy fund, in my opinion. I told them that I would be taking that application to the committee, and hopefully getting their support so that they could use that expansion as an Expo legacy project.

[4:45]

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, the educational excellence fund has some intriguing aspects. The question is: when there is a budget deadline — next Thursday? — and if the local board decides they have, to use the minister's words, a bright, innovative local initiative — and they have these — should they go to the excellence fund? How do they decide whether to do that or add it to their taxes, as the minister said? If it is an ongoing thing, it will probably have to be paid for locally, anyway, in the next three years. Can the minister clarify what boards should do in terms of including it in their budgets, if they have a dazzling new idea?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, there are the booklets and the brochure on Excellence in Education fund applications, which I am sure the member has. I don't disagree with him that timing is possibly a problem. If they are looking for seed money, if you will, or funding for a project under the Excellence in Education fund, it may be something that would fit in with the local funding of the classroom today. In other words, they don't need additional teachers; they're applying to the fund for, let's say, computer materials or for other materials which could go in the classroom without looking at any additional funding. So that should not impact on them. If they are looking at additional costs, you are quite right: the time-frame could impact on them. However, I don't think that should discourage them. I think they should apply. If they got the approvals before September, and they didn't need additional moneys over and above what they requested, then they could put it into place in September. If that wasn't possible, they could, of course, look at it in the following budget year, and then bring it onstream at that time. So I would say that there is the opportunity there for them, and they should proceed with any application they have. If they get the funding and they can handle it within their 1986-87 fiscal framework, plus the Excellence in Education contribution, they should proceed with it.

MR. ROSE: I'd like to go back to the subject I was dealing with before I had my little recess. The minister said that he was concerned about the level of literacy. I believe the figure is that between 15 and 20 percent of adult British Columbians are functionally illiterate. That means that they have severe difficulties holding jobs, they can't take other training. They can't even fill out application forms, and they have to fake it.

[ Page 7968 ]

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: The member for Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead) suggested that he might possibly be on the edge of that definition, but I've watched him over the years and I know that he's brilliant in many ways, including literacy.

I'd like to know if the minister is interested in improving literacy. He said he was, although he couldn't tell us the programs. He always accuses me of talking about money all the time, but if teachers have larger classes than they had before, if they have to face multi-grade classes for the first time in such large numbers, and if they have other problems — children mainstreamed into their classes — how does the minister reconcile the fact that he wants to improve literacy but the budget has been cut 23 percent in the last four years, and services in real terms? To me, it's inconsistent. How does the minister intend to improve literacy under these conditions? I just can't understand it. I'd like to ask him what he thinks about things like that.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, I think the member is inaccurate in his comment in regard to the fact that we aren't addressing the question. We've addressed those who have special needs in education, both in English as a second language and, as I mentioned, in function 3. Our funding has increased this year over last year. If you want to talk directly about funding, it's $203 million last year up to $220 million this year in special education.

Special education, as I understand it, means assisting those people who have needs. It could be a handicap, a problem with the English language. The local school authorities have identified that they do have this need, and we've attempted to provide funding for it and have, in fact, increased the budget.

We are concerned, I'm sure equally as the member is over there, with those people who are "functionally illiterate," and we're doing something about it. For those who are adults who have been identified as being in that percentage that the member talks about, of course there are also the adult education programs, both in the school system and in the college system in the province.

MR. ROSE: The minister says this, that he's given greater concern to handicapped children, but I don't know that it's all borne out by the facts. The minister claimed that function 3 showed a healthy increase, from $128 million last year to $216 million this year. Those are my notes, that you said that earlier.

For the first time, function 3 recognizes native Indian children and the severely learning-disabled. Is that not so? That's very commendable. I think you've done that at the expense of handicapped children. Last year the first handicapped child produced a teacher, then the ninth handicapped child produced a second teacher. Is that true? I think it is. Correct me if I'm wrong.

AN HON. MEMBER: You're wrong.

MR. ROSE: Under the new fiscal framework, it now takes eight handicapped students to produce one teacher. This doesn't matter much in large districts, but in smaller districts like Castlegar, Terrace and Peace River North, it's a problem. Since the minister conceded earlier this afternoon that excellence funds should have been in base budgets — if he didn't, he came very close to it — I think he now has to advise the boards like Terrace, Castlegar and Peace River North that the old formula is acceptable, and he has now to recommend that they fund the difference, the shortfall, out of the excellence funds.

I realize that this is kind of tricky. It has to do with the framework, and it's lots of numbers, but there has been a change, and the change means that your numbers are going to be quite different and certain districts are be disadvantaged. Could he comment on that?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, in just a general response, if he has that information regarding.... I think he said Terrace.

MR. ROSE: Yes.

HON. MR. HEWITT: If you pass that along, I'd like to look at it, because if that is the concern, I'd like to ask staff to research it for me. But just to correct a statement — because I think you mentioned something about: "For the first time the fiscal framework included Indian children and the severely handicapped" — I am advised that the framework has always included those, Mr. Member.

MR. ROSE: I'd like to get back now to the goals of education. We talked about philosophy and goals here awhile back. Intellectual development was the goal under the Chant commission. Under the present Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith) the goal of the school system — in 1981 — was to serve the needs of society. In "Let's Talk About Schools" the goal of the educational system is to assist young people in achieving their full potential. I'd like to know what it is today, because it keeps shifting. That may not be a bad thing, but I'd like to know which of those three choices.... It's a multiple choice question, Mr. Minister; you have one chance out of three of getting it right, or you flunk. Because you like exams; you say everybody has to live in the real world and meet challenges. So is it intellectual development, which is what Chant wanted in 1960? Or is it serving the needs of society, which Mr. Smith wanted in 1981 ? Or is it in "Let's Talk About Schools," where the author and capable chairman of the arm's-length study of educational needs in the province stated it was to assist young people in achieving their full potential? What is it today?

HON. MR. HEWITT: I think all those are good goals to strive for. Mr. Chant, who did a report, I think, in 1962, knew what he meant by those words. I think my colleague the former Minister of Education also knew what those words meant, and so did the "Let's Talk About Schools" author. All of them are very worthy goals. If I were to respond to you so you wouldn't be further confused, I'd say I agree with all three of them from my position as Minister of Education.

MR. ROSE: Well, I'm really pleased with the forthright answer of the minister; he came down firmly on all sides of the fence. I hope he doesn't have any problems with the pickets, but he might have.

I wonder, though, if those aren't contradictory goals. Supposing the needs of society were for more widget-makers, but supposing that the student really felt that he would like to do something further artistically; in other

[ Page 7969 ]

words, to develop his full potential playing the violin perhaps. I don't think necessarily, if the school is shaped as it's becoming to produce more widget-makers, that that would be consistent with achieving the full potential of the child. I'd like him to straighten me out on that because it appears.... Oh, another country is heard from. Here he is; welcome back to the club. I haven't seen you for days. But anyway, it seems to me that it's contradictory, and I'd like him to help me a little bit about that, because I am not sure that the schools' serving the needs of the society as their principal objective is consistent with developing the full potential of a youngster.

[Mrs. Johnston in the chair.]

HON. MR. HEWITT: Let me in four words try to identify the goals: intellectual development, vocational development.... I'm sorry, I'll say development of the student, in four words: intellectual, vocational, personal and social. If we can create a student who achieves in those four areas, we'll have a well-rounded British Columbian to perform on behalf of himself, his family and his society in the future.

MR. ROSE: Madam Chairperson — that's gender-neutral — it seems to me that with the imposition of the provincewide exams, the emphasis is going to be on knowledge, not on all those other lovely things like developing the human potential — the social, intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual and all those sides of it. I just don't think it's consistent, and I'd like to know.

[5:00]

The minister has adopted, while allowing and permitting and, as a matter of fact, demanding larger sizes — it's called productivity in education.... Schooling for growth and mental discipline makes these things highly impractical. Yet his exams indicate to me that his emphasis is on knowledge, academic knowledge mainly. Not knowledge of the artistic or humanistic or anything else, but highly academic-oriented — probably less attractive and less available to most students. Because we believe in standards. There's no problem with standards. Any idiot in the school system can make high standards. You can have exams that nobody can pass, but the problem is what you do with the failures. Where do you get a standard that's high enough to be reasonable and a motivation or a screen or a hurdle so difficult that only the very fleet of foot can hurdle it? That's the problem. I'd like to know where he stands on that one — on standards and knowledge. He appears to indicate — and I don't think he's thought about it too much — that the school is going to do all these things under a highly academic, rigid, exam-oriented system.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Madam Chairman, the standards in the examinations are there to test the student, but the member knows that where there are examinations in the field where examinations are required, the student is marked, I believe, 50 percent on the examination and 50 percent on classroom activity, so it's not all related to that. But I like the member's comment, and it's one that I'm certainly concerned about or would be concerned about. He said it very clearly: "What do we do with the failures?" I agree with you. That is of concern to me and it should be of concern to the educator, to the teacher. To be quite frank with you, Mr. Member, I flunked a grade. I also skipped one when I was in school. Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: No, no. I never achieved that high office, but before that, Mr. Member, I was a very bright child and in the public school system where I went they moved me — they jumped me literally one year. I missed a grade. Then a number of years later I flunked a grade. So I know the trauma that you go through when you get that final mark and it says: "You didn't make it, fella."

I think there's a real challenge there for the ministry, for the educator, to make every effort possible to get that young person back on track, because emotionally, regardless of what type of young person you are, particularly when you're in your teens, that's usually where you have the difficulty. When you fail, you can go the wrong way very quickly; you can become the "dropout" and be against everything. I think it's most important that we try to address the question of how to deal with the failure. How do we get back on track the young person who's enthusiastic about going to school, recognizing that it's a year they've got to repeat, but at the same time we give them encouragement to repeat that year? We don't treat them as a "second-class" citizen because they were a "failure" the year before.

So that's one area where you and I agree, Mr. Member. Through good dialogue maybe you and I might come up with some answers, and we can give some guidance to the ministerial staff and the educators in the province.

MR. ROSE: I'm looking forward to dialoguing with the minister. Unfortunately, what we usually get is a duet of monologues. It would be a great improvement if we could have a dialogue.

Since this is confessions day, I must admit that I was skipped too.

AN HON. MEMBER: But you didn't flunk.

MR. ROSE: Oh, I did. Well, l didn't; I ran out. I was a dropout.

AN HON. MEMBER: You skipped school.

MR. ROSE: No, I didn't skip school. I skipped a grade.

In my day we had all kinds of little gold stars for everything. We used to have a little certificate that you got at the end of the year for proficiency. I would like to show those to the minister. The ones I got most of all were for attendance. I had the worst attendance of anyone in my class because I was sick a lot. That's how I became so intellectual; I did a lot of reading.

Anyway, I don't think education makes a person smart, nor the lack of it necessarily makes a person dumb. I think that's a very foolish way to look at things. I've seen many examples — maybe just a personal example — of how education failed to make somebody smart.

What I am concerned about.... I don't think this is laugh time or joke time, although I think we sometimes treat all these things.... When you look at the war in Libya and all the other problems in the world, including the famine in Ethiopia, while this is very serious for some, to overkill on the seriousness of it probably doesn't put things in the proper perspective. Yes, people who drop out have severe disadvantages. Yes, we need to look for ways to make our school system better so that we have a lower failure rate and a lower dropout rate. I know the minister's department is concerned about this. The minister says, "Well, I'm a new minister,"

[ Page 7970 ]

pleading ignorance or innocence at the moment, and I think that's fair enough. To take over a big department like this, from his point of view and his background.

I think he is whistling Dixie if he thinks he is going to improve the service to students by continuing to slash educational budgets, while other budgets grow. Sure, I don't think education necessarily makes people smart; I don't think it necessarily makes people dumb. Somebody talked about a guy speaking on television with a $35 haircut and a 15 cent head. I think there are all kinds of examples of that.

At the same time, our society demands more and more education of people. Consequently it has been one of the engines of upward social mobility, and if those opportunities are denied to people, or they don't get the right kind of remediation or identification or assessment when they have learning difficulties because the facilities are not available, then that person's child has been failed. That person pays taxes just like anybody else. So I want to make sure — and I am sure the minister would like to make certain — that everybody gets a fair kick at the cat, and there isn't too much cross-subsidy where the working people pay for the education of the affluent, because we all know that happens, especially in post-secondary education. I understand that we are not talking about that now. We were talking about articulation of....

There's a tremendous explosion in knowledge. Every ten years it doubles. I would like to know whether the minister agrees that it isn't just knowledge that is necessary; it is people with the analytical ability to make sound judgments and people who are capable of assuming responsibility for their own needs — in other words, self-actualizing to use.... Is it Mazanowski? I don't think I am quite on, but I see one of the sage heads of the ministry nodding or wincing. I wasn't quite certain, since my eyes are....

I'd like the minister to comment on that. Is it one of his aims to educate students to meet the demands of the future so that they become self-actualizing, responsible individuals, and has he any plans to achieve this rather lofty aim?

Next question?

MS. BROWN: What does that mean?

MR. ROSE: No, he doesn't care to answer that question. Interjection.

MR. ROSE: My question, Madam Chairman, lacks the same clarity as the minister's goals in education. So I have the same difficulty with him as he has with me — the lack of clarity — and that's the major constraint on the system's ability to function. Once we establish the goals and philosophy of education, then the people who work in the system will begin to know. And I pointed out that in the 25 or 26 years since Chant, there have been three different philosophies or goals for education here.

I'd like to know what he's going to do about clarifying this. He got up and gave us a smorgasbord of goals. I just about choked on the smorgasbord of goals. They're repeating on me now. So I want to know what he's going to do about changing that, and clarifying. Or is he going to put it out to a study or a commission or something? Surely he can answer that.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Madam Chairman, I can answer that in commenting on the committee that I'm asking to review the School Act and to bring forward the material for a new School Act — not another study, but taking into consideration all those studies that have been done in the past to try to come up with a clear and concise direction in which we can go so we can mould a new act around that and present it to this Legislature, so that members such as the member for Port Moody will not be confused but will have a clear understanding of the goals and objectives in education in the province.

We have, Mr. Member, a few other committees that I commented on earlier: one dealing with high technology, if you will — computers in education — and the other dealing with teacher retraining because of the speed with which society and the workplace are changing. I think it's fair to say that if you look at where we are today in our schools with regard to the type of education our young people are getting, as opposed to where we were 25 years ago, we've taken some tremendous strides. If there are specific areas of concern or specific problems, I think we should address those. But I hope we don't get into lofty dialogue or discussion on: "What are your goals and can you specifically identify them?"

I gave you four items in regard to where I think we should go: personal achievement, social achievement, intellectual.... Those are areas. You gave me two or three statements made by former ministers as far back as the Chant report in 1962. All have application today. You may call it a smorgasbord, Mr. Member, in regard to what I've given you in response to your question as to what the goals are. I think any one of those certainly indicate the concern that government and adults have about where their children are going and how they get their education to prepare them for their adult life.

MR. ROSE: I think that one of the problems with a multifaceted-goal approach is the difficulty of evaluating and validating whether or not you've achieved your goals. How do you measure increased emotional stability or spirituality or social growth? That's the problem with it. How do you propose to measure those? What courses and what kind of attitudinal approaches in the school system have you got to edge you towards achieving those goals? I'd like to know how you're going to do that — or just some of your ideas.

I'll be frank, or maybe even ingenuous. I'll admit there is no such thing as the perfect school system, and if you were asked to design one tomorrow, it would be good enough for about tomorrow and the next day. I think things are moving so fast you can't freeze-frame them at all.

[5:15]

What I'd like to know is.... If all those goals are there, you're going to have to establish a curriculum; you're going to have to have the funds in adequate supply — which you haven't done so far. We're not spending as much on education. We're spending 15 percent of our provincial budget on education, and the average for Canada is 20 percent. Kids here are being shortchanged, and there is no way you can dodge that. Teachers are scapegoated, they are exported. Kids are not getting their fair share of the tax dollar because as you increase the provincial budget each year, you dock education.

So how you achieve these lofty goals is absolutely, as far as I am concerned, irrational. I just don't understand how you are going to measure that kind of thing. You say: "Okay, you

[ Page 7971 ]

can have a study." What about a royal commission? We haven't had one since the Chant commission. We had that cosmetic approach, that road show called "Let's Talk About Schools," which absolutely condemned the policies of the government, and it hasn't changed. I don't see any change. I thought it was an in-house tame-mouse approach to what people wanted, an opportunity to express their views on education, and it wasn't. I commend the people who were on it, including the deputy minister, because he is forced to carry out these policies whether he likes them or not. I don't think they come from here anyway.

I've said before that there's no point in talking to the monkey when the organ grinder is doing it all. But what I am saying is that "Let's Talk About Schools" was forthright enough, frank enough and honest enough. It was set up by the minister and chaired, at least initially, by the deputy minister to condemn the very policies of the ministry. What do we get? Do we get a change of direction? An improvement'? No, we get a change of minister.

There's no change. So I would like to know about that. Why can't we have a full-blown study on the education system — a comparative study, if you like, with other systems in North America on what they are prepared to do, or Europe or Japan even to find out what we need in this kind of a century. We know that the kids who start kindergarten next year will spend their working lives in the twenty-first century — if they work, if we don't make them redundant.

Again, I've said this before as well. The job growth doesn't look to be in the intellectual high-skill areas. It appears to be in the low-skill McDonald's hamburgers minimum wage areas. So I don't want the Minister of Post-Secondary Education (Hon. R. Fraser) to distract the Minister of Education. Have you considered the establishment not of a bunch of little study groups but a full-blown commission on education to study it from top to bottom? It hasn't been done for a generation.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Two items, Madam Chairman. The Excellence in Education fund, for the member's information, is in direct response to the "Let's Talk About Schools" project, where input was given by people who responded with regard to the quality of teaching in the classroom, with regard to computer education, high technology; those things were identified as concerns, and the Excellence in Education fund allows for a response to get upgrading of quality, if you will, of the instruction in the classroom, the latest information.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Well, we've just started, Mr. Member. Give us time. The year is just beginning. We're debating the estimates for 1986-87, and that's when the Excellence in Education fund applies. We have two more years to go. You know that the total amount of what's left is well in excess of $500 million.

That's a response to the concern expressed. I think some 25,000 or 35,000 written responses have come back in, and about 500 public meetings, where the people came and presented their views to the committee.

The member asked if I am considering a royal commission on education. The answer is no.

MR. ROSE: I certainly think that that answer was more direct than his answer on which philosophy of education or theme he believed in, a little while ago. The answer is no.

Let's talk about the School Act for a little while. Every Minister of Education, going back to 1979, the present Minister of International Trade, Science and Investment (Hon. Mr. McGeer).... When he was appointed Minister of Education, the first thing he did was appoint a committee to revise the School Act. Who was that man? That man was the present Minister of International Trade. Then the next one was the present Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith). He shelved Dr. McGeer's committee and kept stating that they had a draft act and intended to put out a mandate statement that would be a sort of a preamble to the discussion of the act, or a White Paper. That was his first announcement. Mr. Vander Zalm, now an eminent Christian nature garden proprietor — I hope he's got his shovel — shelved Mr. Smith's work and talked about a new School Act.

It's like Christmas: every time a minister is appointed, he talks about a new School Act. Actually, there's no point in ruining a good promise by fulfilling it. After all, you wouldn't be able to use it again. The next time the minister runs out of credibility and has to be replaced, since the last minister was replaced, what would he do? In 1985 the present Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Heinrich), the guy who got off the griddle in education.... Now his job is ruining — I'm sorry, running — the forest industry department.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: It was a Freudian slip.

Anyway, Mr. Heinrich shelved Mr. Vander Zalm's work and said, "Let's talk about schools again," and it's perhaps going to result in a revision of the School Act. This is all Socred ad hockery. We've had it for years. When does the minister expect to have the School Act review committee announced February 12 operational?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Madam Chairman, I requested names from the BCTF, the BCSTA, other organizations. We'll be including staff on that committee; also laymen, parents, people who don't have a connection with the Ministry of Education scene, maybe to bring some common sense to the discussion. I don't mean that in a derogatory fashion, but in the sense that they would come in and express their views as they see them. The committee will probably total about 13 people — not too large — and will be given the responsibility to prepare the material for a new school act. I have the lofty goal of thinking we can achieve that by the spring of next year. Knowing the track record over the past years, it may be wishful thinking.

I think all the material is available. I think all the studies and discussion have been completed. Now it's a case of sitting down and putting together a draft school act. We can then deal with it and present a bill in the House, hopefully in 1987.

MR. ROSE: Have all the members been named?

HON. MR. HEWITT: No, they have not all been named. I have not had responses back from all those organizations that I contacted.

[ Page 7972 ]

MR. ROSE: Will the members of the committee have any particular terms of reference and guidelines? Will they be able to examine just about everything, or is it a band-aid job on the old act? Just what are their terms of reference? How will the chairperson be chosen? Will the chairperson be similar to the one who chaired "Let's Talk about Schools," at arm's length from the ministry, chaired by the deputy minister? How's it going to be? How will the agenda be worked out, and the frequency of meetings, and all this stuff?

HON. MR. HEWITT: When the committee is struck, we will be sitting down and one of the first things to do would be to develop, in detail, terms of reference — and I don't want you to think by that comment that we don't have any sense of direction at this point. We do. I have, with my staff, certainly looked at what we're going to attempt to achieve. But instead of just giving this direction or terms of reference to the committee and saying, "There it is; proceed," I want to have the first meeting or meetings devoted to looking at the terms of reference and getting input from the committee members to see whether or not they're comfortable with what we've developed. If there are some changes, improvements, amendments to be made to those terms of reference, I'm quite prepared to listen to their input and probably, in most cases, take their comments into consideration and amend the terms of reference to give them that flexibility. So our first effort will be to establish that committee, bring them together, have some constructive dialogue as a group, and then firm up our terms of reference and get on with the job.

MR. ROSE: I'd like to ask a couple of questions, not necessarily related. I'd rather ask one than jump up and down constantly, so the minister can give an extended reply.

Is there a budget item for this, or is it in the minister's office? Does the funding for this committee come out of the minister's office budget?

Second, it seems to me that I'd like a little more information about whether or not various segments are going to be represented and who they are, and what segments there are. Since we're asking for common sense, will a member of the department of education be on this committee? That's another concern of mine.

I notice that the minister has some other problems — he's busy with the House Leader — but I'm interested to know the complexion of the committee. Is there a department of education person on it? I'm interested to know the budget, and would like to know why it has taken two and a half months to name the members of the committee.

HON. MR. HEWITT: First, in response to the last comment — why has it taken two and a half months — I mentioned to the member that I haven't had responses from all of the people I communicated with. I have asked my deputy minister to follow up to ensure that we get those names fairly quickly. I had hoped to have the committee appointed and on its way by the end of April, and we're running out of time. With regard to the committee's budget, it will be funded through our research and development account, our budget in my ministry. The third part of the question, would there be ministry representatives on the committee, the answer is yes.

[5:30]

MR. ROSE: I thought you were reaching outside for an injection of common sense. You said you were interested in getting people to bring common sense to this. What concerns me about having a ministry official on the committee is not that he hasn't got common sense; he might have uncommon sense. Are they going to be voting members on this committee, or are they just going to be what we in education circles call resource persons?

HON. MR. HEWITT: I hope they're very resourceful. I think the member would agree that you need to have input from the ministry level on that committee. I can assure you that the committee won't be weighted down with ministry representatives. There will be a representative on there. He or she will give guidance, and will be able to bring to the discussion the rationale for some of the things that are currently in the School Act; will act as a resource person but also enter into the debate.

I for one don't feel that the bureaucrat or the ministry representative is not capable of providing valuable input. I think they would probably be one of the most valuable members on that committee. There will be laymen as well, plus educators, parents, school trustee representatives, etc. A good cross-section, Mr. Member, and one that I hope will develop a school act we'll all be proud of.

MR. ROSE: I just received a mash note, and I was busy reading it — well, a machinations note; the short form is "mash note" — and I missed his litany of representatives. I don't know if he used 13 of them, but did he mention the schoolteachers or the BCSTA? Did the minister mention the schoolteachers' representatives under the BCTF? Do you have a representative, Mr. Minister, from the trade union groups that operate in the province? Do you have one from the various home and school organizations? You're going to have one from the ministry. You have 13. Have I left out any? Post-secondary?

HON. MR. HEWITT: A post-secondary representative would be on there, and a representative of the business community — I just can't remember the title of the organization; Mr. Matkin's organization....

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Employers' Council? I thought they'd changed it from that. We've asked for a representative from what was the Employers' Council. As I say, there's a ministry representative, and there are some lay persons on the committee. We asked for a representative from the Federation of Labour, and we had a response from Mr. Kube advising us that they weren't interested in sitting on that committee.

The House resumed; Mr Ree in the chair.

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

Hon. Mr. Nielsen moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:33 p.m.