[ Page 7973 ]

CONTENTS

Tabling Documents — 7973

Ministerial Statement

Sunday liquor sales. Hon. Mr. Veitch — 7973

Mr. Cocke

Oral Questions

Louisiana-Pacific plant. Mr. Williams — 7973

Mount Pleasant area prostitution. Mr. Mowat — 7974

Groundfish processing. Mr. Hanson — 7974

Canadian bed and breakfast registry. Ms. Brown — 7975

National NDP position on Expo. Mr. Ree — 7975

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

On vote 16: minister's office — 7975

Mrs. Dailly

Mrs. Wallace Mr. Rose

Mr. Gabelmann Hon. Mr. Ritchie Mr. Lauk

Mr. Hanson Ms. Sanford

MONDAY, APRIL 28, 1986

The House met at 2:05 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. A. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, l have four people here from the great riding of Cariboo, from Cinema in the north part of the riding. I'd like the House to welcome Mrs. Nancy Poulk, Leonard Dillabough, Martin Dillabough and Grant Mitchell. Would the House join me in welcoming them.

Hon. Mr. Heinrich tabled the annual report of the British Columbia Railway for the period ending December 31, 1985. Hon. Mr. Curtis tabled the annual report of the activities of the compensation stabilization program for the year 1985.

SUNDAY LIQUOR SALES

HON. MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, I rise to make a ministerial statement.

As we all know, Expo 86 is a provincial event, a unique opportunity to attract hundreds of thousands of new visitors to British Columbia. Expo is the drawing card, but once the tourists are here, we will be actively encouraging them to travel to holiday destinations throughout the province, and of course to return year after year. The exhibitory and the tourism component at B.C. Pavilion is set up to make this happen.

Mr. Speaker, many of these first-time visitors coming to Expo will expect to have access to services they are accustomed to both at home and at other international exhibitions. This expectation includes access to a licensed establishment seven days a week during the fair. This service is available on site at Expo, and today I am announcing that it is being extended throughout the province.

We want our visitors to have a consistency of experience wherever they travel in British Columbia. Therefore, through an order-in-council amendment to the Liquor Control and Licensing Act, we are enabling neighbourhood pubs, cabarets and hotels throughout the province to offer their customers the same services on Sundays as are available the rest of the week.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I have one caveat, of course, and that is that hopefully there is not going to be drinking to the extent that there will be drunk drivers on the road. Other than that, we feel that our clients, our customers and our friends come from all over the world, where they have that privilege now. I think it is fine that they will have the opportunity to partake of a social drink on a Sunday during Expo.

Oral Questions

LOUISIANA-PACIFIC PLANT

MR. WILLIAMS: My question is to the Premier, regarding the Louisiana-Pacific waferboard plant proposed for Dawson Creek. Can the Premier advise the House why the former Minister of Trade was responsible for those negotiations?

HON. MR. BENNETT: We have a number of ministries that participate in all negotiations. Trade and Investment — by the very name, Investment — is one ministry that attracts not only local but also international investment. As well, there's the whole Cabinet Committee on Economic Development. So while I can understand that the member may think that negotiation is simply a matter for or the responsibility of one minister, there are a number of ministries and their technical staff relating to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Development, which deals with all proposals — including the Louisiana-Pacific, for which I was pleased to turn the sod in Dawson Creek a couple of weeks ago, one of three major sod-turnings that are helping to create jobs in British Columbia.

MR. WILLIAMS: Could the Premier advise the House how many other corporations, particularly British Columbia corporations, have been offered zero percent loans? How many indigenous British Columbia corporations or business people or retailers have been offered zero percent loans?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, that question should be directed to the minister relating to the B.C. Development Corporation, which undertakes to provide incentive financing from time to time, depending on the type of new industry or new technology that we're trying to attract to the province. I would suggest that if the member wants an answer in detail, he could put a question on the order paper, or else if he wants to deal with it orally, I can take it as notice for the minister.

MR. WILLIAMS: Could the Premier advise the House why these kinds of subsidies were granted, in view of the fact that waferboard is the most profitable sector of Louisiana-Pacific's operations, according to their own reports?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Louisiana-Pacific is the largest waferboard marketer and manufacturer. The very fact that they are successful and do have the new technologies, particularly when we're dealing in different woods, woods that up until now have had very little commercial value… The aspen, a tree that in that area has to be a 10-inch tree, which is the harvestable type they're using, has about a 20-year growth rate. Therefore to deal with that wood and to be costeffective Louisiana-Pacific had the technology.

We've seen other waferboard plant proposals, but substantially because they weren't experienced or were experimenting, the projects in many cases were almost double the capital value of Louisiana-Pacific's, which not only would make them uneconomical but would lead to productivity problems down the road.

MR. WILLIAMS: I wonder if the Premier is aware that the largest producer of waferboard technology in the world is in my riding, Vancouver East. It's the CAE corporation, and it produces 80 percent of the world's waferboard machinery, the most modern technology in the world. Is the Premier not aware of the fact that we have an indigenous industry in British Columbia that sells to 80 percent of the world; but they're using German technology, the 20 percent player on the world market?

[2:15]

The Premier is saying that he is aware, Mr. Speaker?

[ Page 7974 ]

The question is, why would you loan on this scale when the company has shown that its most profitable sector is waferboard, and at the same time loan on German technology when our own corporation here in British Columbia, supplying 80 percent of the world's waferboard equipment, will not be a player with respect to this operation in our own home province?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I guess because that firm in that constituency doesn't have a member who has encouraged them to make an application to put a plant in British Columbia.... We can only deal with those firms that aggressively make application. If that firm was in my constituency, I would have encouraged them to undertake business prospects in British Columbia, but they didn't make an application.

MR. WILLIAMS: I hesitate to work on the education of the Premier, but it's necessary, Mr. Speaker. The machinery company is in the business of operating machines and selling machinery, not building plants. They sell to 80 percent of the world's manufacturers.

But my question is: did the cabinet officers and the Premier follow through on the question and the statements of the former Minister of Trade, who claimed that three other jurisdictions were competing for this plant, i.e., Oregon, Alberta and Minnesota? Did he check and find out that that was not the case, that none of these states or provinces were competing for this plant at all, and that none of them would have offered subsidies on this scale? Did he carry out those kinds of checks before that cheque was written for this corporation?

HON. MR. BENNETT: If that member for Vancouver East wants to have another discussion with the member....

AN HON. MEMBER: Who's never here.

HON. MR. BENNETT: The most relieved person in this House, when that member isn't here, is the member for Vancouver East, who only questions him the first time he hasn't seen him in the House. When he was here, he used to hide.

MOUNT PLEASANT AREA PROSTITUTION

MR. MOWAT: I have a question for the Attorney-General. I have received a great number of complaints from the residents of the Mount Pleasant area regarding the prostitution interfering with their daily lives. Could the Attorney General investigate the situation and report to the House?

HON. MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious problem in Mount Pleasant. As the House knows, two judges have ruled. One judge has ruled that the soliciting legislation violates the Charter of Rights and is ineffective, and another judge has ruled that the automobile soliciting violates the Charter. Both those decisions were promptly appealed, and the appeal will be heard this week, which is pretty fast-track appellate justice. There is really nothing else at the moment that can be done. Charges are being laid, but the cases are not proceeding to trial until these cases have been dealt with on appeal. It's imperative that the appeal system and the criminal law takes its course. I know that some would like me to apply again for an injunction, as we did in the West End when the criminal law had proved to be inadequate because of Supreme Court of Canada decisions. But you cannot use the remedy of an injunction, which is an extraordinary remedy, a temporary remedy.... You cannot use that to supplant the appeal courts of the land and the decisions of the courts; they must be respected.

I can also tell the member that if for some reason all the courts decide that that legislation offends the Charter of Rights, I will be strongly urging Ottawa to use the override to protect people who live in neighbourhoods, to protect these people and their children, instead of being so overly concerned about the rights of hookers and pimps.

MR. MOWAT: Again, to the Attorney-General. My research indicates that in other provincial jurisdictions the appeal has not been so, and that the federal one stands now. Could he answer on that?

MR. SPEAKER: Is the member seeking a legal opinion?

HON. MR. SMITH: I won't give a legal opinion, but I think that there are so many Charter of Rights challenges to new criminal legislation these days that it's impossible to find a pattern. Most of the experience is in British Columbia because of the relatively hospitable weather; it's not in the streets of Halifax or Toronto.

GROUNDFISH PROCESSING

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Environment in his capacity of regulating the processing of fish products here in the province of British Columbia. As he knows, fish processing plants are closed all the way up and down this coast. In this city alone, Oakland's plant is closed. In the first two months of this year, 2.5 million pounds of groundfish have gone over to Bellingham and Blaine for processing, feeding 70 jobs over in the Bellingham-Blaine area. What has the minister decided to do to develop a processing capacity here in British Columbia, so that shoreworkers can work on B.C. fish here within our own province?

HON. MR. PELTON: Of course, Mr. Speaker, the ministry is concerned when these things happen. Yes, we do have input into the processing of fish in the province. In this particular case we are looking at the situation; we don't have the solution at this time, but I would be pleased to bring further detail back to the member as quickly as I possibly can.

MR. HANSON: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. In 1985, 24 million pounds of groundfish were exported from the province, which could have provided employment here in British Columbia and in my own city of Victoria. The problem is getting worse. The volume of fish going out is increasing. What specific action have you decided to take to provide employment here in B.C. and put our own shoreworkers back to work?

HON. MR. PELTON: Without appearing to be rude, it would seem to me that maybe the member didn't listen very well to what I said. I would suggest that my offer to bring a

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response forward as quickly as possible would contain the very information that he's soliciting.

CANADIAN BED AND BREAKFAST REGISTRY

MS. BROWN: My question is to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. I received a complaint from one of my constituents, a Mr. Allan Birlie, about having registered with the Canadian Bed and Breakfast Registry. He made a deposit, which he was told would not be refunded if he withdrew his services, and paid an additional $210 for a pre-marketing fee for preferential booking. Mr. Birlie decided not to continue with the registry, and at that time was told by the owner, Mrs. St. John, that he would not have his $260 refunded. Is the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs aware of this situation with the Canadian Bed and Breakfast Registry, and what, if anything, can he do about it?

HON. MR. VEITCH: I'm not aware of this particular case, but if the hon. member would make the details available to me, we'll look into it right away.

MS. BROWN: A supplemental. I gave the information to the deputy and received a phone call from a Mr. Basiren in Consumer and Corporate Affairs, who said there was nothing they could do at the bureaucratic level. So I'm wondering if there's anything the minister can do from his height as Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Looking down on the matter, hon. member, we'll look into it and see what can be done.

NATIONAL NDP POSITION ON EXPO

MR. REE: Mr. Speaker, on Friday last the true philosophy and attitude of the NDP was made evident by the national leader, Mr. Ed Broadbent.... .

AN HON. MEMBER: Ed who?

MR. REE: Broadbent, I think is his name.

... when he was supporting a possible boycott of Expo 86. My question to the Minister of Education as the alternate for the Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mr. Richmond) is: did this statement have any effect on the attendance of unionized members, their families and friends at Expo over the weekend, and is it anticipated that it will have any effect on future attendance at Expo?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, with regard to the statement made by the leader of the New Democratic Party in Ottawa, first of all, there's no way of telling whether or not it had an effect on family days on the weekend. Of course, the leader quickly retracted when he got the advice from his provincial counterpart.

One of the concerns that I think slipped by the Leader of the Opposition when he made the statement was that the benefit to the economy of this province will be about $500 million in increased revenues for provincial sales tax, income tax, hotel tax, gasoline tax and liquor tax; those are revenues that come in to provide social services for the people of this province. It would seem to me that a leader of the opposition making a political statement in front of a food bank — or wherever he was at the time — is pretty short-sighted, and he should get his facts right before he starts making statements to the people.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
(continued)

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

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, I would like to deal with the whole area of school board budgets, particularly with the district that I and two other MLAs in this room represent, which is Burnaby School District, of course. Dealing with Burnaby School District, I think, will give me an opportunity to make a point about the whole area of education in this province and the Social Credit government's manner of handling the financing of education. Then I'll have a couple of questions for the minister. So if the minister will bear with me, I want to start off by talking about Burnaby's current dilemma: problems they face because of the Social Credit government's imposition on them of taxes they should not have to be faced with.

I would like to give the minister a bit of background here, because I realize that he's a new minister. I'm sure that he hasn't yet had time to go through each board's budget. But I certainly hope that when I've finished discussing Burnaby's problem with him, he will be prepared to have an early meeting with the Burnaby School Board, which I'm sure they would appreciate. So that will be one question, of course, to the minister. Are you planning in the near future to visit with the Burnaby School Board, which as we all know is one of the largest school districts in the province? That doesn't mean those are the only districts you should visit, Mr. Minister, but I would hope that the problems that Burnaby faces will be dealt with by you personally so that you can get some personal knowledge of the problems there.

The budget for Burnaby School Board has been reduced since 1982. To give you an example, in 1982 the Burnaby School Board budget was $62.7 million.

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: The Minister of Highways (Hon. A. Fraser) says that that's too much money. Well, I know if he's typical, and I think he is, of the Social Credit thinking on education, it shows that he always puts highways before the needs of the children of this province. Certainly we need highways, but I would hope that children and the investment in their future would have priority with the Social Credit government. I would certainly hope so. It's this ignorance and lack of understanding of the importance of education, which unfortunately is displayed by some of the cabinet ministers and obviously by the government, that is going to leave a legacy in this province that will be quite tragic for many students.

I digress here, because the minister kind of got me off the track there with his interjection. I think the recent report on school dropouts, which I know will be discussed in detail later, certainly shows that something is wrong. I think that the

[ Page 7976 ]

minister and his government have to take the blame for that whole area.

[2:30]

Mr. Chairman, to get back to Burnaby and the school board budget. In 1982 it was $62.7 million. In 1985 it is $53.5 million. That's a tremendous drop in the operating budget of our school district. The interesting thing is that our enrolments in Burnaby are now starting to pick up. I think that's one of the first things that should be realized. Also I'm sure the minister is aware that there are built-in services which hoards are responsible for and have no control over. There are salaries, inflation — all these things that school boards have no control over — and yet the budget has been forced and squeezed by the Social Credit government.

Actually what does it mean? We can talk in millions of dollars, but what does it really mean to the taxpayers of Burnaby? You'd think, wouldn't you, that if that budget dropped like that, the taxes in Burnaby would drop? The taxpayers are asking what's going on. You tell us that you've had to cut back here and cut back there. You showed us that the budget has dropped by millions of dollars, and yet when we get our tax notices, taxes keep going up.

As a matter of fact, let me give you the figures. The average Burnaby taxpayer has been paying between $100 and $125 more. Can you believe it? In spite of a reduced budget, they've been paying between $100 and $125 more in school taxes during the last two years and more, and yet some services have had to be dropped — and the budget has dropped.

What's the reason? The reason is simple. The reason is that the Social Credit government has decided to purposely shift some of the costs which they took on before on a shareable basis and, instead of continuing with those costs, they have dumped them right back on the local school board, which therefore had no alternative but to put them on the local taxpayer. Of course, it is really a Machiavellian move, because the average taxpayer looks to his school board when he sees problems with his taxes and has concerns about education. He thinks, because the school board is elected, that the school board must be making the decisions about these matters. Of course, once boards have an opportunity to explain to the taxpayers that they are not responsible for this increase, that it is the Social Credit government, some of the taxpayers accept it and understand it. Unfortunately there are many taxpayers — and, may I say, particularly those who do not have children in school — who do not visit the schools regularly, who don't talk to the teachers and trustees. They are the ones paying the taxes, and yet many of them have not had the opportunity — or, may I say, even taken the opportunity — to find out the real reason. Therefore their displeasure and concern with increased taxes in Burnaby turns on that hapless local school board.

Of course, what happens in Burnaby has happened all across the province — not in every district, depending on the circumstances, but most certainly in the school district of Burnaby.

The three MLAs from Burnaby had an opportunity to meet face to face with the school trustees and officials last Saturday morning at 8 o'clock. Just to show you, Mr. Chairman, that the board in Burnaby do indeed take their concerns seriously, they were willing to meet early Saturday morning to discuss their concerns with their MLAs. One of their first concerns expressed to us was this increase in taxes. In spite of the fact that they've already had to put this increase on the taxpayers because of non-provincial sharing, they look at this year's budget and, instead of getting relief from the Social Credit government, what do they find? They find that once again they are going to have to increase school taxes on the citizens of Burnaby.

You know what is most interesting? This is the year that the Social Credit government, with much fanfare, has announced that there are going to be millions of extra dollars for education in the province of British Columbia. Naturally everybody thinks, well, that's great. That should help the school boards. But let's find out what this Social Credit government has decided to do with the extra moneys. Instead of very carefully looking over the budgets of the school districts, working with them and restoring to them some of the sharing which they should restore and which they took away in previous years, what do they do? They say: "We will set aside this money, and you will have to apply for it. We will also set the parameters on what the money should generally go for." Here we have the tragic situation of a local school board elected to run their own district, and they don't even have control over the use of this money so they can put it right into their operating budget. Instead they are told: "We will decide basically what you are to apply for."

Well, of course, where does it put a board? Naturally the money is there. What are they going to do? Sit back and refuse it? I want to point out that when the Burnaby School Board makes application for this money, I am sure they are going to be typical of many school boards. I can assure you that making their application doesn't mean that they agree with the principle of this educational excellence fund which the government has put up and which has obviously been done strictly on the basis of benefiting themselves politically. The school board is not agreeing with this or condoning it. They have no choice, or else they don't get any money for these particular projects which the government has mentioned. If you talk to the school board of Burnaby, I'm sure you will very quickly find that if you give them the choice on how that money should be used, they want it restored to their basic operating budget. They don't want this nonsense of being told they have to make application and apply that money only to certain areas. If Burnaby citizens had a choice and were asked: "Do you want to keep your taxes down this year — you'd rather not see an increase — or would you prefer an increase and have this access to an education excellence fund...?" I can pretty well assure you that if that choice were ever put to the average taxpayer, they'd say: "We don't want to pay more taxes; just make sure the school board has enough money to operate in the manner in which they should be able to."

I want to make it quite clear that application for this will certainly not be a check mark and an okay for this arbitrary political action by the Social Credit government. They estimate that on top of a close to $200 increase in taxes in the last few years, there may be another increase of over $25. That hasn't been finalized yet, but an increase will definitely have to be imposed if they are going to try to maintain services. I would like to point out to the minister that....

Here is an example of Burnaby's budget. If you want to compare budgets in the lower mainland, here is Burnaby's increase over the shareable budget which they feel is necessary this year to maintain their operating standards and the quality. I don't know if the minister has this example. I'm sure he has, but I would like to get it into the record.

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Surrey has an increase of 11.8 percent — $11.2 million. Delta has an increase of 9.9 percent; Richmond, 10 percent; Vancouver, 8 percent; New Westminster, 10 percent; Burnaby, 8.6 percent. You can see that some districts are well over the amount of shareable that Burnaby finds necessary to carry on this year. They figure that $4.8 million is needed, which works out to 8.6 percent. There's no way the Burnaby school district can be accused of being extravagant or wanting a tremendous amount of extra money for operating — 8.6 percent is the increase.

I recall that last year.... of course, the present minister was not the minister at that time, but there were statements made in debate about the Burnaby school board, I think about salaries or high cost. I want to get it on the record right now that.... Let me give you an example of the present situation in the Burnaby school board. They have the lowest pupil teacher ratio in the lower mainland. They have the fourth-highest percentage of their budget devoted to instruction, and the second-lowest percentage of their budget devoted to administration in B.C. Those are the two areas that government usually refers to: how much of your budget do you devote to instruction and how much to administration.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I was so interested in what's happening in Burnaby that I would just like to intervene and let my colleague continue.

MRS. DAILLY: I don't have too much more now, because I know we'd like to hear from the minister on some of these facts. I would like to repeat that in those areas of the budget devoted to instruction we have the fourth-highest percentage, and in the amount devoted to administration we have the second lowest.

The important thing here is that the Burnaby school board has an excellent reputation — I know all former ministers would agree — for handling their budget in a careful manner. The tragedy is that here's a board that for years has tried to play the game with the government, do what's expected of them, keep up a good standard, yet each year they really get kicked in the teeth. I've shown you what's happened, and for all of this they still find themselves having to go to the taxpayer to impose extra taxes, primarily because the Social Credit government has purposely deflected.... has taken away from them some of the operating shareable costs which they heretofore gave to them.

[2:45]

For a school board that's worked very hard — all the school boards throughout the years — and with a non-partisan approach to their work, they find this pretty difficult to handle. However, I know the minister perhaps will say: "Look how well Burnaby has done with that amount of money." I'm sure that might be a logical comment to make when he takes his place. I just quoted to you that Burnaby has those high standards, and you might say: "Well, then obviously they haven't suffered too much with having to cut back." The point is that if you talk....

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: Not cut back — I agree with the minister — but having to contain themselves and impose more taxes because of the cutbacks from the provincial sharing.... Provincial sharing cutbacks, Mr. Minister. I think you should check with your own district, and you'll find out that the Social Credit government has taken away many of the provincial-shared items that were in the budget before. I think you'd better look very carefully at your school board's budget, and you'll find out what I'm talking about.

Mr. Chairman, the point is that the board has tried, but the board is getting rather tired. I can say they'll keep trying. They have a job to do. But what they're trying to say to the Social Credit government and to the Minister of Education is: "Look at the situation we find ourselves in. Will you not go back and restore some of that former provincial sharing?"

As far as keeping up the standards under these costs, I want to point out that the trustees say: "Yes, it's true. We're doing our best, but there are a lot of things that are happening in Burnaby because of this imposition on us of costs which we didn't have to bear before and which are having a very bad effect." There are many areas. I can talk alone about the extra load that is placed on the teachers of the district, and that says a lot for the teachers — that they have maintained the standards in spite of all the other problems they've had to deal with. The school boards burn the midnight oil — I know they do in Burnaby, and I know they do across the province — to make the best of what they have. But the attrition rate, the exhaustion, of trying to maintain good standards under this environment is not good.

There are areas that have been cut back that will definitely affect children in the future. I can refer again to the high dropout rates. It's up to this minister-and I hope he'll talk about it — to certainly, as our critic has said, get involved immediately in investigating the reasons for this.

Mr. Chairman, I have taken a fair amount of time, and I haven't posed a great many specific questions, but I would like to repeat to the minister that I hope he will react to some of the things that I've mentioned here. I hope he will make an opportunity to meet with the board face to face, and I hope that he will accept the fact that the Burnaby School Board would like to have restored to it some of the things which have been taken away when it comes to shareable costs in operating. I think the minister's officials could certainly spell out to him the changes that were made.

I think there is also an area of great uncertainty — I'd like to close with this — on future planning. There are districts in Burnaby that would like to know what will be taken into account in next year's budget- what year of salaries will be taken into account, for example. That is still all up in the air. On what salary schedule — what year — will you base the budget shareable appropriations in discussions with them?

There are many more questions from Burnaby, but I want to leave some to the other members for Burnaby.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, to try to respond to the questions, I am making it a point to visit school districts throughout the province. The member might be interested in knowing that this morning I visited the Surrey School District on my way back from Penticton to Victoria, and I will be visiting north Burnaby as soon as I possibly can.

To respond to another question that she raised about the provincial government grants and how the provincial government should give more money to Burnaby School District: Mr. Chairman, you know as well as I that it's not the "provincial government," it's the provincial taxpayer who contributes. We just act as the vehicle for the funds flowing through the provincial general revenue account and on out to those areas of social requirement in health and education and social programs. Our responsibilities are to attempt to cover the

[ Page 7978 ]

costs in this province and not to create a legacy of debt for our children, who are going through our education system and will have to pick up the banner after we pass from the scene.

It's fair to say that last year when we were so difficult with school boards and told them that there would be no increases for teacher salaries.... Even after all those terrible things we did, we were over S900 million in the red for that fiscal year — in effect, borrowing to pay for the groceries in this province. In 1986-87, although we've improved our position, we still anticipate, as the Minister of Finance's budget indicated, having a shortfall this year of some $875 million — still borrowing to buy the groceries in this province.

I don't know whether that message can get through to the opposition. I doubt it. I hope it gets through to some of the school boards in this province who have been given the challenge of controlling costs in their various school districts, and if not to the school boards, Mr. Chairman, to the electors of this province, who should evaluate the performance of their school boards, and not with 15 percent or 20 percent turnout as we've gotten in the past. Now that the school boards have been given that local autonomy — the ability to tax where they figure they need to tax, then I think it's up to the people of this province in the various school districts to determine whether or not they have good managers on their various school boards. If we see increases in teachers' salaries being a part of the operating budget of the various school districts, when the school board knows full well that there is no money in next year's fiscal framework to cover salary adjustments this year.... We got caught once, Mr. Chairman, and it cost about $19 million to cover last year's increases, even after the Minister of Education of the day said very clearly, very succinctly, to all school boards: "Ladies and gentlemen, there is no money in the fiscal framework for increases." We cannot afford more money. When I say "we," I mean the people of the province of British Columbia and the economy.

Now we're down to the Burnaby School District, which received its fiscal framework material back a few months ago and then got a further adjustment, because we came up with the $19 million for salary adjustments last year. They received, I believe, $55,848,000 to run the Burnaby School District; last year they received $54,158,000 in their fiscal framework. The approximate difference — $1.69 million more this year than last year. That's not a cutback, Madam Member. That is an increase over last year's assistance from the provincial taxpayer to the Burnaby School District.

Interestingly enough, the operating budget for the Burnaby School District — I believe my figures are fairly accurate-went from $56.6 million up to $61.2 million this year. I've got to ask myself why. Do they have, Madam Member — a question to you, since you've been informed by the school board — in their operating budgets for this year an anticipated increase of wages to teachers? I would have to assume that yes, they have. If they have, Madam Member, they are really saying to their local taxpayers: "We are going to raise your taxes because we want to give the teachers an increase in wages, and you're going to pay it all because the provincial government has told us that they aren't going to pay any more wage increases to teachers through the fiscal framework."

That's not because we hate teachers, Mr. Chairman, or because we're against the education system. It's because the thrust of the throne speech this year, the budget speech, was to create jobs in this province, not to give increased salaries to those people who already have jobs, particularly in the public sector, which is the only sector we can control. That's the reason the fiscal framework does challenge the school districts and the school trustees. But I would certainly hope that school trustees would recognize that it's not because we're against them or their teachers. It's because we have this problem called an operating deficit at the provincial level, and we're attempting to say to local administrations: "Become lean and efficient, as best you can, under the fiscal framework formula. Where there is need over and above that unique to your school district, we have given you the ability to tax." School boards, Mr. Chairman, in my opinion, who tax for increases in salaries this year will answer only to the taxpayer at the polls at the next election of the school board.

With regard to the dropout rates, and the leaked document that the very astute member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose), who puts the fear of God into parents, into students, into teachers, into school districts around this province by indicating that there is total disaster out there — not in a document that is an official ministry document; no, sir, one that he skulked around to find, got, and then was selective in his statistics, and made a great press release.... I'm quite prepared to debate it with him, Mr. Chairman.

But I just wish that he would think before he acts, because he's not hurting anybody, certainly not politicians, but the impact on parents and students and school boards is very unfortunate. I would hope that the opposition would think before they act. In many cases they don't do themselves any service; they only bring ridicule on their party. The majority of people in this province understand a cheap political trick very easily. I, for one, am quite prepared to debate with that member his selective statistics at any time.

MRS. DAILLY: I made a note of what the minister started off saying, when he said: "We can't hand out any more money." He's worried about the legacy of debt, so what right do the school boards have to ask for more? And then he gave us a lecture on his great concern over debt. Isn't it interesting, Mr. Chairman, that we never hear those words used when the government borrows millions and millions of dollars for their own pet projects: ALRT, billions of dollars of debt — a billion anyway. We're going to find that....

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: Well, in time when you consider what the taxpayer has to pay.

Do we hear you talk about the legacy of debt that the people and the average taxpayer are left with because of the Social Credit government's handling of that particular form of transit?

We could go through northeast coal and talk about the legacy of debt. We can name any project of the Social Credit government that has added to the debt of this province, but what does the minister refer to? The only time he talks about the legacy of debt is when he's talking about education. Doesn't that just about tell us where that government is at? The only time they talk about debt is when they're talking about the future of the children of this province, and then they get concerned about debt — never about anything else. At no other time has that minister stood up and expressed concern over his government's policies that are leaving the people of this province with a legacy of debt.

When it comes to education, that is one area that a government will be measured by. When you start cutting

[ Page 7979 ]

back on the future of the children of this province, you are indeed mishandling the mandate and what was given to you to do by the people. Nobody in this province ever asked you to cut back and get concerned about the legacy of debt by cutting back on the lives and education standards of our children.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

I'm also disappointed to hear the minister flail and rant against the Education critic of the opposition, who brought the problem of dropouts to his attention. He may not have liked the manner in which it was brought to his attention, but the point is that if people in his own ministry have expressed concern, I think that minister, instead of ranting about the critic who released it, and killing the messenger, should take the message that there is a problem and announce to this House that he is going to look into it- instead of putting up a smokescreen against the way the member from the opposition released this report.

I think it's time the minister realized that that probably is an area that needs to be looked at, and I would recommend that he do something about it, instead of just putting it to one side because the opposition brought it to his attention.

[3:00]

You ask me specifically about salaries, and you said: "I hope that Burnaby School Board isn't putting the increased salaries into their budget." It's not up to me to go into detail about the Burnaby budget, in case I give some wrong figures, but I am willing to give a few points here and hope that when the minister meets with the board it will be far more important and valuable for him to speak in detail with the trustees and the officials who deal with this every day, which of course I do not.

I would like to say to the minister that the Burnaby School Board budget this year recognizes current year inflation as follows. For supplies, they recognize an amount slightly less than the Vancouver CPI increase. They have to recognize that; that's inflation. For salaries, the amount is projected on the basis of the expected CSP process. I ask the minister if that is unacceptable. That's what they've put in their budget. For statutory benefits, they've recognized the amount required by senior governments, which is apparently about twice the CPl increase.

So what I'm trying to say is that they're faced with these inflationary costs; they have statutory benefits that are required, and then when it comes to salaries.... I've explained that area to the minister. I'm not giving the complete, adequate answer to your question; it is the answer which I hope you will look for and deal with directly with the school board when you talk to them. I'm going by what I picked up at our meeting, and certainly you can't go into details on a whole major budget in two hours.

The new budget of the Burnaby School Board essentially maintains non-salary items at current year levels while addressing some problem area shortages which were cut more severely and for a longer period during restraint. They are pointing to the areas of art and music, which suffered badly during restraint. If the minister says art and music are baloney — which one Social Credit minister said quite a few years ago, before you were in the House, Mr. Chairman; and I can assure you there was a great reaction from the public to that — most people do not consider art and music unnecessary. So the Burnaby school board is attempting to restore some of that.

I want to point out again that in spite of a shareable budget reduction of over 14 percent since 1982, and in spite of community growth — we have had growth in Burnaby — house taxes went down only 4 percent. I want to say to the minister — and this is important — that they're complaining, and rightly, about provincial changes in the sharing rules. Your changes in the sharing rules since 1982 have shifted about $105 of provincial costs to the average homeowner in Burnaby. It was done very cleverly by your officials. The deputy and officials in the Ministry of Education are told by the Social Credit government: "You do this job for us. We want to get more taxes away from the province and onto the taxpayer. Figure out the way you can best get this across and sell it." I think some of the way it has been worked out is almost Machiavellian, because it's a very clever attempt to put a lot of this blame on the boards and not where it belongs, with the province.

I would like to say, Mr. Minister.... I don't know if I've answered a couple of your questions, but I really feel that the Burnaby School Board, in asking to have some of this money that was taken away restored to the shareable, are asking too much. I think that what I've read to you from the reports shows that they're being very responsible in their budget this year. Perhaps you could comment on whether you consider any of that budget irresponsible — the little bit that I've given you.

HON. MR. HEWITT: With regard to recognizing inflation, I told the member that the fiscal framework gave an increase to the Burnaby School District, this year over last year, of $1.69 million. That's not a cutback, but an increase. I really can't quite quickly figure that calculation out over their total budget, but it's not a bad increase. In that were funds for non-salary inflationary items, supplies, etc. We also, as the member knows, on a general basis — it all applies to the Burnaby School District as well as to others — put an additional $6.1 million into textbooks in response to the concerns that were expressed to me by the school boards of this province. That benefited the Burnaby School District, because it means they have a larger credit with our textbook department. So we did recognize inflation.

Burnaby School District had, I believe, a reduction in students of 112 — not many, but 112 fewer. The member may or may not know that the fiscal framework is driven by the student population. As a result, there is an adjustment. Even so, they still got $1.69 million more than last year.

What is not in our figure, and what the member has now told me is in Burnaby School Board's figure, is an anticipated salary adjustment for teachers. The member stated that they put in a figure — I don't know what it is — which they are assuming will result because of the CSP process. Well, Madam Member, I guess I have said it very clearly and succinctly, as did my predecessor last year to school boards: if you put money in your budget in anticipation of the decision by the CSP, you can no longer argue lack of ability to pay. It's there. And the CSP people — Mr. Peck — will look at it and say: "Well, there's money in your budget. Therefore I can only conclude that you have the ability to pay, because it is your budget. You prepared it. And if it doesn't come from provincial government revenues, then it must follow that you're prepared to go to your taxpayers to get it." If I were on the school board and I got the direction that has been given to

[ Page 7980 ]

school boards, the information that has been given to school boards at this particular time, I would direct the secretary treasurer of my school district that no money be placed anywhere in the budget in anticipation of a salary adjustment for teachers this year. Then I would go to the negotiating table and I would tell the members opposite — the teachers' representatives — that I do not have any money available for teachers' salary increases. We would then move to binding arbitration. I would tell the arbitrator that there is no money in our budget for salary increases: "We adopt the same principle as the provincial government — i.e., job creation as opposed to increases in salaries for those who are already working for the school district. So, Mr. Arbitrator, there's no money there." If the arbitrator, in his wisdom, comes up with a figure and says, "This is what I arbitrate," then the school board arrives at Mr. Peck's office and says to Mr. Peck, "There is no money in our budget for salary adjustments," Mr. Peck will undoubtedly have the staff evaluate the budget, and if the money hasn't been put in, I would suggest to you that Mr. Peck is going to have an awfully tough time coming back and saying: "I approve a certain percentage increase because it's within the guidelines." Mr. Peck is going to have to determine where that money comes from, and if these boards are as lean and efficient as I think they are.... I grant that they've gone through some pretty tough times over the past three years. We've challenged them at every turn, not because we enjoyed doing it but because it was necessary to do. But if the money isn't in the budget — hidden, reserved, wherever they may put it — then Mr. Peck can only come up with one conclusion: this school board does not have the ability to pay salary increases this year.

I grant you, some school boards will negotiate an adjustment, as Prince George has done. Others will put the money in anyway in anticipation and will be drawn to the conclusion that there is an increase to be given. In the end when they give that increase, they will probably.... First of all, they will have to go to the taxpayers to get relief. But they may think when they come back next year that the Minister of Education will again go to the Excellence in Education fund to get sufficient money to cover off. But I can assure you, Madam Member, as I have assured school trustees at the BCSTA convention, that this was a one-time deal, I will not do it again. We all have to play our part in this economic recovery, and I have a great deal of difficulty understanding why the public sector seems to be insulated from the realities of an economy that is just starting to breathe again. For some unknown reason, we want more. We don't want to be part of the solution; we want to aggravate the problem.

Madam Member, my answer to you is as an MLA, as a person concerned about the future financial status of this province. We talk about cooperation and communication. Maybe it would be worthwhile if you sat down with your school board and passed the message to them again: "The minister has advised me across the floor of the House that there is no money available for salary adjustments. I suggest you put nothing in your budget for 1986-87."

MRS. DAILLY: I certainly will pass that on, but I think it would be much better.... I am looking forward to the minister's meeting with the board directly so they can explain to him their rationale and reasons for those details that I have given him in the budget.

It is interesting the way the minister ignored the other areas — didn't attack them — that were going in the budget for increases, but zeroed in, as the Social Credit government always do, on the teachers. It is great to find whipping-boys and — girls, and with the Social Credit government it's always the teachers. The teachers are people, they're human, they're necessary. They are more than necessary for the future of our children. If the Social Credit government has done anything — and this minister just on the scene is picking up the same theme — it is to discredit the teaching profession. Always select it for the ones to be kicked around. What they're asking here for the teachers.... I am not here to speak on behalf of the board, but it seems to me that all you continually do is select the teachers to be the basis of all the budgetary problems. My opinion is that the Social Credit government is the basis of all these problems that the boards are facing now because of the Machiavellian way in which you shift costs onto those local taxpayers, and then at the same time try to put the blame for any tax increases on teachers. I consider that a pretty reprehensible way for any government to handle the education process.

Now here are a couple of facts for the minister. I gave you what the school board is planning in their budget, or would like to. Here is what the province has left them with. Okay, $435,000 higher than last year. Through what you have announced to them, you have ignored government-approved salary increases since 1984. You've just said to us that that's what you believe.

Here is another area: you have removed investment and rental income from the use of the board. Is the new Minister of Education aware that his ministry has now removed the investment and the rental income from the use of the board? That's been taken away, something that they had before.

Increases in the expectations of higher service levels in special education. You yourself have decided that that whole area of special education is important, and I agree with you. But at the same time you've increased the expectations of the higher service levels in that whole area, and the board will be stuck with that. You have created uncertainty in planning due to a newly established authority to reduce school district grants in mid-year.

[3:15]

So all I am saying to the minister is that you have much to answer for, and I hope that you will have an opportunity — you said you would — to face the school board directly and hear from them. They can do a much better job of explaining their case than I can.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, just briefly, I have some difficulty in shifting costs. The statement that the member made.... I told the member that we increased the budget from the province to the Burnaby School Board. It gave them an increase this year over last year.

MRS. DAILLY: The shareable budget.

HON. MR. HEWITT: The shareable budget. We gave you an increase on the fiscal framework this year over last year. What we did do is give back the local autonomy, if you will, which was asked for by school boards — the ability to tax. We also gave them the accountability to the taxpayer. We've said the issue around teachers' salaries is one concern, because approximately 80 percent-plus of the total budget goes to salaries. There's no problem with that, but if you control that cost you can see there's very little need for major

[ Page 7981 ]

adjustments to a school budget or to taxes to the local property owners if that one is controlled.

No, Madam Member, I'm not picking on teachers. You always say we discredit the teachers, that we're attacking the teachers. It's not true. I think it's fair to say that negotiations have been going on with the HEU — the hospitals and the hospital employees — to a point where the hospital employees have taken a strike vote. But in that particular case I think it's fair to say concessions have been asked for by the employer. At least that's what the news broadcasts tell me. They are public servants too. So we're really asking all the public sector — you and me, our staff, the people who work for the government at any level — that the private sector, the economy that generates the revenue that pays our way and pays our salaries as public servants, can't be loaded any more. We've got to mark time, if you will — not Mark Rose but mark time — to allow the economy to recover, not load additional tax on taxpayers, on property owners but allow the economy to recover so we can improve services in all parts of the social programs that we provide.

With regard to investment income, it has not been removed. I'm told that it is still available, and l believe it's to reduce both provincial grants and residential tax at the school board level. I'll get some further information on that. I'm not sure how we arrange that, but it has not been removed, by the information I have in front of me right now.

Just a few other statistics that have been given to me. The '84 tax rate in Burnaby was 5.98; the '85 tax rate was 5.76. So the tax rate was down. Assessed values in the Burnaby School District went up by about 10 percent, so the reflection of the tax increase equates not just to the tax rate but also to the assessed values of properties within the school district, and they went up, which of course generates more tax on the particular household.

MRS. WALLACE: I'm going to start out in a slightly different vein, because there's one thing that this minister has done that is a good thing, and that is the funding of the MacKirdy assessment centre in the Cowichan district. The minister looks like he doesn't even know what it's all about, but….

HON. MR. HEWITT: I didn't hear you.

MRS. WALLACE: I'm complimenting you for funding the MacKirdy Centre in Cowichan — a much-needed facility. We've been functioning there, and I think that it indicates the concern and the dedication of the much-maligned Cowichan School Board that they had already in place such a good assessment facility there that in fact when you went to the regional assessment you utilized that centre and the people who were there already doing that job to enhance that. I just want to say that we appreciate having that there, and I want to encourage you to ensure that the funding is available to provide the staffing for that spot, because it's no good having the spot if we don't have the staff available. I would like your firm assurance that that staff is firmly in place and will continue to be paid adequately and be able to stay there in the kind of ratio that's needed in that kind of assessment centre.

I was interested to hear the minister talk about how if in fact you had no money in your budget for CSP, then Mr. Peck would not allow it. Certainly that's not what history has indicated, because we saw board after board go down under the axe when Mr. Peck agreed to some increases that just weren't in the budget, and what it meant was that they had to lay off teachers in midterm and we had disasterville in the school districts around this province. So I don't wonder that school districts and boards are a bit concerned about ensuring that they do have something in there to prevent that from happening. They want to know that they're not going to have to be laying off teachers in midterm as they did before.

As the minister may know, I have two districts in my constituency. One of them, the larger one, is of course Cowichan. The big problem there has been the textbooks. The minister makes much of having granted some several million dollars to make up the shortfall, but in fact he's made up only about 50 percent of the shortfall from his so-called Excellence in Education funding. We have situations where young people are changing courses. They're on the new social studies course now. They've gotten to the point where to the grade 5 level they're on the new course. What's going to happen at the grade 6 level? They're going to have to go back to the old course. That certainly doesn't indicate excellence in education to me, Mr. Chairman. It's anything but. It's a retrograde step, and it's not going to mean that those young people are getting the quality of education that excellence in education would indicate. It's simply a myth, the idea of excellence in education, because it's not around in British Columbia.

Another thing is the fact that those school texts are not available, so that kids wait around for three or four months and don't have a text to work from or are trying to do a social studies course, or even a math course, without textbooks. This goes on for three months and at the upper levels what happens? Those kids get discouraged and they drop out. We've just seen the kind of dropout rate that we have here in this province, and that's one of the things that's aiding and abetting it. That minister is simply a partner in the kind of dropout situation that's occurring in this province, by the very situation that he has been creating through the lack of facilities, the lack of an adequate number of teachers to service the needs, and the lack of even the school books that are required. Those kids can't even take their books home, because they don't have their own books. So what are they doing as far as home study? It's just unbelievable.

Machinery and equipment are outdated and not being repaired because the money isn't there. The specialist programs — the music program — are gone, apparently permanently, so the kids are not getting a well-rounded education. What we're seeing is not excellence in education. It's anything but excellence in education.

Lake Cowichan and Cowichan have both put in for grants from the Excellence in Education fund, and the reason they're putting those applications in is that there simply isn't enough money in the actual school budget to carry the normal costs. In the case of both Cowichan and Lake Cowichan, they have put in for computer upgrading and repairing, just to get their equipment up. Those should be normal maintenance costs, but there's no money there to do it, so they're applying to the Excellence in Education fund. That's not excellence in education, just keeping your equipment in shape. It's a misnomer, a myth, to try to convince people that we have excellence in education in British Columbia. It's anything but excellent.

In Lake Cowichan they have another application in just for teacher training, to provide some facilities and some funding so they can get the kind of training for the teachers that's required in that school district. Lake Cowichan was

[ Page 7982 ]

particularly hard hit. That minister may not be aware of it, but when the industrial-commercial tax base was confiscated by the former minister, it hit Lake Cowichan as hard as any district, and probably the hardest, because it had a high industrial tax base. They're still reeling under that. Now if they try to go to the taxpayers for any funding, the residential tax base is so limited that it would mean horrendous increases to bring the funding up to any kind of adequate amount to supplement any of these bare-bones basics that the fiscal framework is covering. So we have a very bad situation there. They're trying to deal with it. They're trying to get funds from the Excellence in Education fund, but don't let's kid ourselves that by getting funds from Excellence in Education it's giving us any degree of excellence in our system. It's simply giving us just that little bit that will keep us going, but still we have just a bare-bones type of education system that is not providing the kind of education that the kids of British Columbia are entitled to. They're entitled to a better kind of education than those basic things that you're being prepared to put out there.

You say that the taxpayer has to pay. I've quoted this to other ministers in this House before: do you know that in every developing country the first thing they do — and Japan is one of the outstanding examples — is put funds into education, because they recognize that by educating our young people we're building a good economic base for future prosperity in a country or in a province? But this government doesn't seem to recognize that. They are still determined to do the least possible for education, to make it an elitist system, actually. It will be only for those people who can afford to pay for private tutors or attend private schools, because the public school system is going to offer such a minimal standard of education that we're going to have a great mass of our population out there who have never had the opportunity to have the kind of education that we should be entitled to here in British Columbia.

That's true in Lake Cowichan; that's true in Cowichan; and that's true in every school district in this province. This minister comes in here and simply perpetuates the thing and adds to it the myth that we have excellence by setting up a fund called Excellence in Education, which is a pure misnomer. All he is is a partner in bringing the standards down even more in this whole education fiasco that's been going on here, which is unfair to the children of British Columbia.

It's an economic disaster because we are not going to have the children trained to take on the jobs and live the kind of lifestyles that should be their birthright here in British Columbia. It's a travesty; it's a disgrace, and I am very regretful that this minister sees nothing different, simply the same kind of cuts and chops that other ministers before him have seen. It seems to me that the people of British Columbia have lost all trust and all faith in this government. The time will come when the results of this will have to be borne by future generations because of the lack of opportunity for education in British Columbia.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'll just try to answer the questions. MacKirdy Centre in Cowichan is one of three centres that we fund, including Chilliwack and Kamloops. It is included in the provincial funding. As far as I know, Madam Member, it will continue to be funded. I certainly haven't had any indication from staff as to not carrying on with the present funding. I'll certainly do what I can to evaluate it myself and maybe visit the centre during the coming year so I know a little more about it.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

You mentioned last year the fact that the compensation stabilization program ended up by requiring increases to be paid, the reason being that the CSP found money in the school districts' books of account. They found money in the reserve account, contingency reserves, etc. If the money is there, the CSP people are going to find it. You see, the big problem here in this particular year....

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Again, I'll repeat that I'm not taking it out on teachers. The average teacher's salary is a reasonable figure. I'm not saying they're underpaid or overpaid. They average about $37,000 a year. A teacher's salary certainly isn't low pay, but I can appreciate that we're asking them to mark time. As I said to the member for North Burnaby, other public servants are being asked to do that and, in some cases, more.

With regard to the textbook problem, on average we spend about $11 million to $12 million a year. The member for Coquitlam-Moody had one of his other leaked documents, one that he absconded with. l don't know whether he lives under a desk or under a garbage can in the Ministry of Education — he's small enough to do that. I guess in the dark of night he comes out and gets these reports. Of course, he's selective, and I guess that's politics: being selective in information.

[3:30]

On average over the past years, as I've said, we've spent about $11 million to $12 million. The document that he got his little hands on indicated that we could look at $22 million, but he didn't tell you there were priorities one, two and three. As a result of my going around talking to school boards and to teachers and to my staff, we got a further $6 million to cover priorities one and two, and got it up to $17.25 million.

Priority three would have taken us to his famous $22 million, but interestingly enough, priority three items were not needed this year. They dealt with the new math curriculum, which really doesn't impact on the system until next year, and as a result that was not funded.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: No, he wouldn't mislead the public. He has a tough enough time misleading himself.

The Excellence in Education fund, as I said publicly before.... You're quite correct in some of the uses of that fund to date: textbooks, which have benefited all school districts on a pro rata basis; non-statutory inflationary items, which have benefited all school districts on a pro rata basis; salary adjustments 1985, which are now covered, which benefited all school districts in this province.

We haven't taken anything away. What we should have done, I guess, is put $50 million in the Excellence in Education fund, and put the other $60 million of that $110 million in the fiscal framework. I started on February 11; I said the first thing I was going to do when the Premier appointed me was go out and talk to the people, as opposed to talking to Mr. Buckley, the BCSTA or Mr. Clark of the BCTF. I went out and

[ Page 7983 ]

talked to those people in the field, the school district boards and the teachers associations, and they identified two major areas of concern: textbooks and salary adjustments.

We went back, and I've got to tell you it wasn't an easy fight. We went back, but we did get the money from Treasury Board out of the Excellence in Education fund because the budget had been finalized; the budget for 1986-87 had already been finalized and issued by the Minister of Finance by that time. As a result, we had to get it from somewhere. I said I would get it and I got it. I can tell you that after I got it and after going to the BCSTA convention and hearing the chairman spend a number of minutes finding what was wrong with the provincial government, we were always in confrontation mode. Well, I have to tell you I was somewhat taken aback. I thought maybe Mr. Buckley as chairman of the BCSTA would say: "Mr. Minister, we appreciate what you've done. You've been our advocate in Victoria and achieved some success." Then he could have had at me on all the terrible things possibly we've done or what I hadn't done.

But I didn't even get a little thank you. All I got from that chairman was more of the same. So the confrontation, in my opinion, is not Victoria to the BCSTA; it's the chairman of the BCSTA to Victoria. I will continue to meet with school boards, and I'll find out what the people in the field want rather than finding out what petty politicians want at the BCSTA level.

Mr. Chairman, the rural school districts: I can tell you that I come from there, no different than the member from Cowichan; I have rural schools. I have concerns about the rural schools. I've said to my staff that we've got to review the fiscal framework, the formula, to make sure that we're being fair to those small schools, not so much in the rural area, if I can use the term urban and rural, which is what is in the fiscal framework primarily. But maybe I could further define that and identify as urban, rural and remote — remote not necessarily meaning that you're far away from a metropolitan centre, but there may be a body of water between you and that metropolitan centre where your students have to go by water-taxi, and you have difficulty with a small school with only several grades in it as opposed to a larger school.... Maybe we should look at some of the high technology approaches to education in those remote areas where we can possibly have networking, if you will, of computer education.

When I say computer education, I should really term it as video computer education where they can possibly see the best educator in front of them on a screen teaching them in a remote area, while at the same time that teacher might be teaching in a high school in Vancouver because it is convenient to him making that lecture in Vancouver where he is being employed. But while he is doing that, maybe there is a camera on him and in one of the Gulf Islands a classroom is sitting down hearing that very same lecture as the people in Vancouver are in listening to the man in person. Wouldn't that be great? So maybe we should spend part of our education dollars ensuring those people in the rural schools in our province, many of them in my constituency as well as the member from Cowichan-Malahat and others, the best opportunity, and do it via high technology because that way we can span the water, or we can span the mountains and get the information right to our young students or young people in the province.

MRS. WALLACE: I guess if you want to make robots out of children, you teach them with computers. You're certainly going to lose the human touch if you follow that through to the nth degree, because certainly there is a lot more to teaching than just sitting watching somebody perform on a television screen. There is that one-to-one relationship that children develop with the student-teacher relationship.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Your teacher would still be in the classroom. She might be learning as well, or he might be learning as well.

MRS. WALLACE: Well, I think there is a limit to what you can do with computers, I am saying. I just want to comment on the textbook thing.

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is also a limit as to what you can do from your chair.

MRS. WALLACE: This is a little article that was in the local paper from the director of elementary education in Cowichan regarding the textbooks. He said: "The biggest concern at the elementary level is the math program. Are we going to get new materials?" Now the math curriculum in draft form is being piloted in grades 7 and 8, and the teachers are instructing it as best they can using whatever materials are available, but without student texts. So there is a problem out there.

The new social studies curriculum which I mentioned has been gradually introduced as far as grade 5. Without funds to proceed further, students educated on the new curriculum all along may have to revert to the old one. The crisis, if it arises, may hit hardest at the middle schools, of course. The social studies situation has been a major concern for a number of years, said the principal of the Mt. Prevost middle school. "The textbooks are totally obsolete and reading levels inappropriate."

Here you've had students on good new textbooks up through grade 5. What are you going to do to their interest in learning if you dump them back onto those old obsolete texts? You're going to kill it. You're going to stifle it. You're going to have more and more dropouts. That's the stuff that dropouts are made of, Mr. Chairman.

The grade 9 science. It's on stream; it's supposed to be coming on, but there's no word yet whether or not that funding's going to be available.

The minister says that he thinks he's solved the textbook problem. I'm telling him that he hasn't. It's still out there, and it's still a serious situation.

HON. MR. HEWITT: My staff advise me that the math that the member refers to is in "pilot" form, which means it is being evaluated to determine whether or not they move toward it. After they've evaluated it, when the final decisions are made, textbooks would follow along.

How long would we evaluate it? Within the next budget year.

MR. ROSE: While we're on the subject of textbooks, and just before I begin.... I might not be too eloquent, because I'm tired today. I spent the whole night up running around the Ministry of Education looking for other documents.

Interjection.

[ Page 7984 ]

MR. ROSE: It's too soon. I'm not going to release it for a week yet. I'd like to tell the minister and the House that I have not a leaked document but an upfront document here from the Vancouver School Board. It goes through the list of needed books in Vancouver, texts and others, dictionaries and all that sort of thing, just for one district alone. The minister is saying that he got himself an extra $5 million because he leaned on the cabinet and got himself this kind of money out of the excellence fund. He took $11 million out of the textbook fund to put in the excellence fund in the first place, so it's an in-and-out thing like he does with his budgeting. But I'll go into that again.

Sixty-seven million bucks are needed just in Vancouver for textbooks and reference books, dictionaries and that kind of thing. This report is not by one of those pinko lefties that's on the Vancouver School Board — that's how they're described by some people. By the way, he didn't mention meeting with the Vancouver board, the largest board in British Columbia. He met with all the other boards. I think he met with Abbotsford-Chilliwack. He could be assured of a nice comfortable greeting when he went there.

This is the kind of thing that we're getting sick of: all this business about how the minister and how the Ministry of Education cannot afford to do these things anymore. It showed in the budget paper, under vote 18, an actual increase in spending. It's not an increase in spending at all. If you look under vote 18, you'll find that the non-resident tax return, $576 million, is going down to $491 million. Sounds to me like you're spending $84 million less. I'd like that one explained to me.

I think it's another example of the old shell game. Every time we get up here we get manipulated into talking about teachers' salaries. That's all we ever hear about. Now, do your number-crunchers tell you that if you scapegoat teachers you're on solid ground, but if you talk about stealing money from education for children then you're likely to be in trouble? So scapegoat a few teachers. Even if there are only 20 on school boards, you tell them that they shouldn't be running because they have a possibility of a conflict of interest. Where conflict of interest is concerned, just have a look over on that side. Never mind what might be conflict of interest because some person exercises his civil rights to run for school board; now this is a suggestion that somehow he's in conflict of interest even though he's running on a board other than that. Sounds like the ex-minister of post-secondary education, communications and all those grab-bag.... Was the former Minister of Universities, Dr. Pat McGeer, in a conflict of interest because he was also on the university staff? If you want to look at conflict of interest, have a look there. If you want to look at other conflicts of interest, are all real estate agents now going to be denied the opportunity to run for municipal councils on the grounds that they might affect some rezoning or other? Tell us a little more about this. Or are you just after a cheap headline over the weekend, something that I was accused of a little while ago — skulking around, trying to get a cheap headline?

While I'm at it, government spending has gone up, year after year, during restraint: in '83-84, up I l percent; '84-85, 5.3 percent; '85-86, 3.9 percent; '86-87, 5.7 percent. That's what government spending has done. What have you done to the educational system? In 1983-84, up 1.1 percent: "I'm sorry, folks, but we've got no money for education. The public can only pay so much." You shifted it off to the residential taxpayers last year by 5 percent, and you'll probably do the same this year. What you are attempting to do, in my view, is have the residential taxpayers so burdened and so mad at school boards and school teachers that they'll somehow buy your phony argument. It won't wash. They don't trust you anymore — have a look at the polls. If they did, you would have called the election a long time ago, you would have called the election for this month. You've got to go by extra legislative.... In order to get any news out of this place.

The dropout rates, the business that I....

[3:45]

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I was accused of skulking around and being unfair to certain districts. This is public information, paid for by the public. You find it a little bit embarrassing. You've got 19 million bucks' worth of propaganda on TV. Every time you turn around, some cabinet minister is smirking out of some ad, which is nothing but propaganda, paid for by the people.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The committee will come to order. We're committing quite a few faults here, hon. members. We're offending the rule of anticipation. We're offending the rule of strict relevancy during Committee of Supply debate. Could we please return to order.

MR. ROSE: My view, Mr. Chairman, is that the money that should be going into education is not going into education. I was right in the middle of a diatribe announcing, after I compared what the increase in government spending has been.... When you give incentives to certain groups or individuals, it means the average person is going to have to pay more.

Lake Cowichan was one of those districts cited as having a dropout rate higher than the provincial average. Why? Because it doesn't have the money to spend on it. I'll get into the dropout rate thing with you, because I know you want to do that. You're quoted in the paper that it's an area of real challenge. With sublime neglect of the subjunctive — I'm quoting: "If it wasn't for this type of review, we wouldn't be up to date on what changes are required for striving for excellence in education in this province." I was surprised when you got up and seemed so angry and inflamed. Your face was scarlet when you said that — not only your face, but every part of your physiognomy.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's an unfair reflection.

MR. ROSE: This is an old joke between the Chairman and me, because of the business that one of the rules is that you can't cast reflections on the speaker. So he's, I think, accusing the Minister of Education of casting reflections. I don't know.

What I'm saying is that money has been moved out of the education system. I've talked about this. The non-residential tax thing for anticipated income in vote 18 has gone down from $576 million to $491 million. That's $84 million out of the system.

Anyway, I don't want to talk about that right now. I'd like to talk about some other things. I'll talk about the drop-out

[ Page 7985 ]

rates in a minute. We had all this business about teachers' salaries and all the rest of it. The School Act requires boards and teachers to go through a negotiation procedure, and if that is not successful in reaching a settlement — and I don't see how it could be, since the government controls the total global budget — these settlements get arbitrated and they are approved by the compensation stabilization commissioner and then are passed to the homeowners through their property taxes. That's what's going to happen. Your law at the moment forces them to bargain. But you insist on not funding the consequences. I'd like to know what the minister's view is on this business of forcing the boards and the teachers to bargain every fall, either go to arbitration or settle by negotiation, and whether he thinks it should be changed in the School Act. I wonder if he'd care to answer that question.

AN HON. MEMBER: That requires legislation.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Once again I'll remind the committee that it would appear we are discussing amendments or necessity for legislation, which is really not within our bounds in committee.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'll keep within the bounds of the committee. I will say that one of the areas of review will be underway in the near future. It is the School Act Review Committee. I have communicated with a number of people or bodies around the province. I hope to have the committee operating and providing some advice as to a new School Act in the not-too-distant future.

The member gives us the figures that government spending is up in 1983-84,1984-85 and 1985-86. I didn't really put the percentages down, but I won't disagree with what he says other than to say that I think he should also recognize the impact of a suffering economy on such ministries as Human Resources, which had a sizeable increase, and the ever-increasing budget for Health. Those two to a great extent would have driven the need for increased budgeting on the total budget. But those are two essentials that we have to deal with, particularly the one dealing with social assistance, because times were tough.

Then he said that in 1986-87 — and I'm looking at page 30 of the budget speech, table 5, and he's correct — the total budget went up 5.7 percent. I know he didn't mention this, but on that same page and in that same table it shows that the budget for Education went up 8.5 percent. So when you think about it, it did better on average than the total provincial budget. But the other thing he didn't add to that either was that the $110 million is over and above that increase. He relates to vote 18, which says that it dropped $84 million. Quite correct. The reason is because of the incentive program that this province gave to commercial and industrial properties, to businesses, to assist in the economic recovery, to hold those costs reasonable so our businesses could be competitive and could create jobs.

But the Minister of Finance was also clear to point out in his speech that we replaced the $84 million lost to the school boards because of reductions in commercial and industrial property-owners with $90 million from general revenue.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: No, he didn't say that, because he uses selective statistics. He's very good at it. But when you get down to the total budget spent, let me give the figures. Revised financial forecast, 1985-86: $1.092 billion. Estimates for 1986-87, Ministry of Education: $1.185 billion. That's an increase of 8.5 percent in the total Ministry of Education budget. But he'll run into his selective statistics search, vote 18, and identify that it's reduced. Of course it's reduced. It's reduced because of the incentive program that we put in place to create jobs. The total budget, Mr. Member, however you cut it — page 30 of the budget — shows an increase for education at the provincial level of 8.5 percent, plus $110 million in the Excellence in Education fund. I wish that for once the opposition would take a moment to recognize that there is an increase, and stop calling out "Cutbacks!" It's silly nonsense, and the member should know better.

MR. ROSE: I don't know how I could become such a financial ninny on this. All I know is that 68 out of 75 school districts said they didn't have enough money even for a status quo budget. How do we know, in terms of your framework, what's actually going to be spent? In 1985-86 you did not spend $65 million that was in the previous budget. You didn't spend the independent schools adjustment fund of $27 million last year. You didn't spend $11 million on textbooks until you were caught at it. And you didn't spend $1.8 million on special initiatives in vote 64 of last year. That's where you got your $110 million for your excellence fund, for your pork barrel. But there isn't any point in us arguing the old one about liars can figure and figures lie, and all that stuff. The fact is that 68 out of 75 school districts — most of them in ridings held by Social Credit — say that they do not have enough money this year to even have a status quo budget from last year.

The other thing that really troubles me some is that we hear a lot from the other side about obeying the law. What happens to a school board that tries to obey the law and have an arbitration or give increments to their teachers as they are contracted to do — they sign contracts with those teachers — and suddenly they're told they can't do that: "You've got to break the law. You've got to break the contracts with your teachers." I'd like to know how you feel about that little one.

You also broke a sacred.... Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't want to quote our Prime Minister. "Socreds Broke School Vow, Top Trustee Says." Here's this guy who's causing you all the trouble. Here's Mr. Confrontation himself. You couldn't have asked for a quieter guy for eight months of his first term. He was so quiet, I thought he was running around with Hush Puppies on all the time. He thought he could cooperate with you guys. He thought that if you talked nice to them and dealt logically with the Premier, everything would come out hunky-dory, everything would come up roses. What happened to him? Well, if I weren't in this august chamber, I could think of some provincialisms I could use to describe what happened to our friend. I know what has happened. What did he say? He said: "After three years of restraint you promised to bring an end to it this year." The new bill doesn't do that. You broke your word, and that's why nobody trusts you.

You say how wonderful this local decision-making is, and all the rest of it. I would like to know why you don't trust them. Why can't you trust your local boards, instead of hobbling them with all these things like frameworks and limitations on their bargaining power? You don't given them any power. You've defanged them completely, and you're going to do it in perpetuity. The question is, when are you

[ Page 7986 ]

going to change that, and when are you going to start playing square with people?

You're not going to get up? There were three or four distinct questions in there. There were so many that I've forgotten most of them. I want to know why the minister decided not to keep the word of the previous minister and sunset the interim finance provision which gives the ministry complete control of the global budgets of school boards — there was a pledge three years ago to do just that.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Well, Mr. Chairman, it's again selective. This member, I'm sure, has read the amendments to the act. He's intelligent enough to have read the bill that indicates the amendments to the Education (Interim) Finance Act. In making those amendments, we moved from the provincial government giving directives to school boards that in their total budget they could only use the moneys provided through the fiscal framework and the local tax rates on residential property owners — they had to meet that, and they couldn't exceed it... When we changed that, to allow them local autonomy and the ability to tax the residential property owner, we moved away from the directives being given by the provincial government, and brought autonomy back to the local level. Had we left the sunset clause in place, we would not have had the bill that amended the interim finance act to give back that local autonomy. The member knows that as well as I do. The sunset clause would have ended the interim finance act. It would have gone, and we wouldn't have accomplished what we set out to do.

[4:00]

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Well, Mr. Member, the act as it existed would have gone back to the old system of provincial decisions, limitations on the local school board and less autonomy than we've now given them. We amended it, if you look at one of the sections in that bill, to allow a shareable operational budget, and allowed the school boards to tax their residential property owners over and above that, should they feel there was a need. As I've said many times before, it might be some unique program that they had in their school district, as opposed to increasing taxes for salaries. So that bill….

I'm out of order. I apologize for that. We aren't to be discussing that, Mr. Member; it's before the House. Enough said. The Chairman is going to reprimand me if I go any further. But if you analyze the material in the bill before you when it's up for debate, and read it in its entirety with the interim finance act itself, I think you'll find that it is not going back on what was understood before. It's an amendment to give back local autonomy to school boards, as was indicated in the Let's Talk About Schools project and the discussion that my predecessor had with the BCSTA.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Again, we will caution the committee on the rule of anticipation. There is a more appropriate forum to discuss the particular topic.

MR. ROSE: There's so much gobbledegook coming from the other side I don't quite understand it all. Three years ago the minister's predecessor promised that the interim finance act would sunset. He has now gone back on his word and says: "Yes, you can tax 8 percent of the tax base; in other words, you load it on the homeowners while we retain the right to tax commercial, industrial and machinery." And somehow this is a return to local autonomy. I don't get it. I think it's just gobbledegook.

Does the minister agree that the government has a trust problem over this? I think you've manipulated the data. You talk about my being selective, but you've transferred the business and industrial taxes to provincial general revenue to exaggerate the provincial contribution. It has had terrible effects on certain districts. I think there should be a grant in lieu if some districts do not have a decent enough industrial base to make a difference. You've transferred the teachers' pensions into the new formula for residential taxes. Here's another shell game. And you've manipulated the cash flow as a result of changes in the fiscal year. In other words, you've got six months more out of it than you promised in the summer of 1983, and you reduced last year's funding levels to show an artificial increase of funding this year. B.C.'s brief to the minister of February 21 backs this up.

When I listen to the minister, I'm reminded of Lewis Mumford's description of the hunter: "...had become soiled by the sadistic lust for power; not being able to count on a voluntary response from the community, filled the silence with self-praise." That's from The City in History, page 25.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, I'm not even going to respond because I'm not sure what the question was, but let me further elaborate on the legislation.

The School Act that we had had a finance system in it. The Education (Interim) Finance Act was changed, which suspended the School Act financing system. You're with me; you understand that. You know that that was done. Had the sunset clause in the Education (Interim) Finance Act gone into being, it would have taken us back to the financing system under the School Act. Mr. Member, would you want the disproportionate financing of education in this province back again? Is that what you're advocating? I doubt if it is, because you know as well as I that the disproportionate funding of education in this province meant that those who had industry and commercial development within their school district were recipients of a considerable amount of dollars to fund the school system, well in excess of what really was required.

Industry and commerce do not have children who go to school, but they do make up part of the total provincial economy. That's why the interim finance act brought into being the fact that the province receive the commercial and industrial base.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: The member says: "Confiscated it." Will the member agree that all dollars collected from the commercial and industrial taxpayer of this province are redirected throughout the province on a fair and equitable formula per student? Will you nod your head in agreement with that?

MR. ROSE: Equity is not equality.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I see. There's a swift answer: "Equity is not equality."

[ Page 7987 ]

Mr. Chairman, what happens is that now the formula identifies that students will be funded throughout the province, as opposed to some small rural school districts in my constituency who weren't funded to anywhere near what was adequate, because they didn't have that industrial and commercial tax base. All the dollars that flow from the industry and commercial tax revenue for school purposes flow through our general revenue account and back out to all school districts, to all students in this province. I think it's a darned good approach, a fair and equitable approach, that industry and commerce share its wealth, if you will, with all young people going to school in this province.

The returning of taxation onto the residential property owner gives flexibility to the local school district to fund those things that are unique to that school district. I said this last week, I guess, but I'll repeat it. In the Castlegar School District, they have a kindergarten–grade 1 Russian language course. They want to extend that to grade 2 and grade 3. They will probably look to fund that, as I've suggested to them, from their local residential tax base, and rightly so. It is unique to their area because of the Russian heritage they have. That's the type of thing available to them now that wasn't available until those suspended sections of the Education (Interim) Finance Act that we talked about a moment ago. Those are suspended — primarily because we're having discussions, if you will, at this particular point in time — and they'll stay suspended, which will allow us now to work towards a new school act where everything will be amalgamated back into one act, as it was prior to 1983, when I believe the Education (Interim) Finance Act was brought into being.

MR. ROSE: We all put the best face on everything we do or somebody else does; the minister is no different than I am in that regard. You had a situation, before this business of the confiscation of the commercial-industrial taxes, where you had some districts with a lot of commercial-industrial base that were very rich districts, and some districts that weren't so rich — right? — because they didn't have the same kind of tax base. I understand that; I made allowances for it. I said there should be some grants. The point is that now you've got them all poor. You had some rich and some poor, but now you've got them all poor: 68 out of 75 said they can't live within the budget.

Asking them to tax only the homeowners, in my view, is a deliberate scheme to get the residences that can only form 8 percent of the total tax base to bear the brunt of any kind of increase for whatever purposes, unless it's part of a porkbarrel through the excellence fund. All I'm saying is that if this new financial formula is such a great deal and if controlling the total budgeting from Victoria is such a great deal, then why don't more school districts stand up and applaud you when you go to the B.C. School Trustees' Association? You are hardly star of that show.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, I thought you were lucky to get out the way you did, as a matter of fact. I'm quite sure that since we're a very moderate nation and not a bit revolutionary or bellicose — or any other sort of pejorative noun like that — you were able to get out alive. Anyway, there is very little point in talking about these things in this Legislature. Number one, estimates are not reported; two, it doesn't change anything. We've got a brand new, shiny minister, but the same old policies.

MR. GABELMANN: I want to be very specific and ask a few questions about one particular school district. It's Vancouver Island North, so the minister can get some information to answer perhaps some of these questions and concerns. I should say that I just want to deal with this at a very technical level, at this point. I want to clarify in my own mind some of the questions and answers, and then perhaps tomorrow in debate I might have more to say about some of the problems in the other two school districts as well. I apologize to my colleagues for being somewhat technical as we go through this.

As I understand it, Mr. Chairman, in Vancouver Island North the revised proposed budget, as presented, was for $12,491,508, almost $12.5 million. The expenditure last year was $11,958,911, just short of $12 million. The government says that this year the budget must come in, with the exception of the local taxing, which I will get to later, at $11,437,764. That's my understanding. That's a million dollars less than the revised proposed budget, and $600,000 in rough numbers less than was spent last year.

For the last couple of years there has been a declining enrolment, as I understand it. In 1985, full-time equivalent: 3,138; 1986 FTE: 3,078 projected by the school district. I'm told, and perhaps the minister can tell me if I'm right, that the ministry says: "No, your projections are wrong. They'll be 5 percent less than that." So instead of 3,078, they will be something in the order of 5 percent less than that. I'd like to know how it is that the ministry has a better handle on educational enrolments in Vancouver Island North than does the school district, who live there. That's the first thing. I have to go on the basis of the projections from the school district. So there's a decline this year from 1985 of 60 full-time-equivalent students, as I understand it.

I understand that in the previous year there was also a decline in population of 100 or so. I don't know the exact number. No budget change resulted from that, primarily because of the recognition of the unique nature of that district, with its dispersed population and its small schools, schools with very small student populations but nevertheless requiring a full-time teacher.

[4:15]

The proposed government budget, as I say, is $600,000 less than last year's expenditure. My question to people in the area is: if you have 60 fewer students, you shouldn't have a problem. You should be able to reduce your budget. They say no, that's not possible to do, because the first option you have in reducing your budget in those areas is closing a school. You close Echo Bay, Quatsino, some of the small schools. When they do the economics on that, they figure they break even. First of all, when you close a school and put the kids on correspondence courses, those children are no longer counted in the budget figures, so they lose in terms of the grants, because those students are no longer in their student population. Plus they've got to maintain the buildings. They figure the cost of actually closing those schools, on balance, is about even. But from an educational point of view it's not even at all; it's far less, because the kids would be forced to do correspondence programs. So for them the question of closing these small, rural.... I use the word "rural," which really doesn't apply in an area like coastal British Columbia. Isolated camps and communities. Their first choice is to

[ Page 7988 ]

close those schools. They say that that's wrong, and I agree with them. I have defended at every step and in every way I can the maintenance of small schools in those communities.

So I said: "What about cutting back in some of the bigger high schools and elementary schools in the bigger communities?" I asked the questions, and I named the schools that I wanted to inquire about so that it would be random and I wouldn't be getting the best-case scenarios from the people in the district. So I picked two schools: one high school and one elementary school. In the high school the full-time equivalent this year is 521 kids. They have two special education teachers; the need is for many more, but they have two. They have 1.74 learning assistants, one librarian and 1.65 counsellors. And get this, Mr. Chairman: they have 1.49 administrators; in effect, 1.5 administrators in the school. Not, I would submit, heavy in "non-teaching personnel" — very lean, in fact, in a high school of 521 students when you consider, too, that some of these kids are boarding, because they come in from outlying areas and live in town. In these kinds of communities the school acts as a social resource in a much more meaningful way than it does in the bigger towns. It is the one place in town where problems can be determined, where kids can be identified as having problems. But in this case they have this very lean staff. I understand that the actual number of teachers in that school of 521 is 30.97.

Mr. Chairman, I forget whether I named the high school. It is North Island Secondary School — NISS. The elementary school I'm going to cite is Cheslakees, which is considered one of the better.... I picked it myself and was told I had picked one of the places that have among the best educational systems in the district. Full-time equivalent this year is 135;151 if you count 32 kindergarten kids, who count as 16. If you count the 32 kindergarten kids, you're looking at a total of 151 full-time equivalent, grades I to 7. That's 150 children. Learning assistants, 0.5; half a learning assistant. Librarian, 0.38; administration, 0.43. In asking about it, I learned that the principal also serves as a librarian as well as doing everything else — plus teaching — in order to get these kinds of numbers. Counsellors: in an area that requires counselling more, I submit, than does Campbell River or Victoria or Vancouver in terms of the kinds of problems and needs that exist — zero. No counsellors at all. One kindergarten teacher for the 32 kids, split; 5.4 regular classes.

Total teachers, including the ones I've named, 7.71. This is an elementary school with 7.71 teachers, 151 kids. This school district, with this lean administrative structure, this kind of inadequate backup resources in terms of counselling, learning assistance and the like, now has to find $600,000.

Yet another problem in the way this is established is that the ministry has said it will give $69,000 in disbursement grants, but that disbursement grant is dependent upon the board coming in with a budget beyond what the government has allowed, which requires that they go to the public for a tax increase in order to qualify for the full $69,000, as I understand it, built on a sliding scale. So they're caught in a never-never land. I'm told that the tax base in this particular school district is presently $7.85 per $1,000 assessed value. In order to meet the budget — last year's budget, not this year's proposed — they would have to go to $9.02, an 11 percent increase in school taxes for the people in that area.

I heard the minister earlier, I think in response to the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly), talking about the teachers not going for salary increases. I'm not able to find out what portion of this budget, if any at all, is earmarked for salary increases; but even assuming that the CSP guideline number was chosen, you're talking here about maybe one-sixth of that amount being for teacher salary increases should an arbitration board so decide, and should Ed Peck so recommend or allow. Even then, you're still only talking about one-sixth at best, if my arithmetic is correct, for teacher salaries.

The issue isn't teachers' salaries; the issue is basic education. It's not even excellent education. This school board is now faced with saying to itself: "Do we go to the public and say taxes are going to go up by 11 percent, do we look at the $600,000 requirement and close schools, which won't save very much money," or do they reduce teachers in the schools that I've just talked about? The minister may say they could do something else. What else could they do? One proposal was that they could cut their libraries entirely. Forget about having libraries. That's one alternative. Another is that the one person they have on staff who runs their computer program, which I submit is a very important element in the district's education services, could be let go. Or the one person who runs the resource centre could be let go. If they have to make these cuts to meet....

Let's say they do a saw-off. They don't cut the whole $600,000 but cut some portion of it and collect the rest through taxes, and then enable themselves to pick up some of that disbursement grant. Their first cuts can't be the schools. They can't close those schools. They can't cut any more out of the teaching staffs in the schools as they now exist. They can't cut the support services in the schools, because they're already at bare minimum. Where do they go? The first thing they're going to have to do is look at libraries; the next thing they're going to have to do is get rid of their computer program; and the next thing they're going to have to do is get rid of their resource centre. That's as I look at it. I'm not quoting anybody when I say that. Those are my assessments of their fat: the computer program, the libraries and the resource centre.

That's the kind of problem that exists, particularly in those districts that are rural. The minister in an exchange earlier with the member for Port Moody was talking about how the new tax structure makes everybody equal. It doesn't make them equal at all. The residential tax base from which money can be collected in Vancouver Island North School District is minimal. It's even less in Vancouver Island West, which I intend to pursue at another point in these estimates. But I wanted this afternoon to zero in precisely on this one situation, and first of all in a technical way, so that we can sort out whether what I'm saying is right or wrong, whether the facts are right, and whether my conclusions are close to being right, because if they are, then the only conclusion you can come up with is that there is inadequate funding in the government's response to that particular district.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, with the regard to the FTEs — the full-time equivalents for students — the member might be interested in knowing that in 1985, to be used in the '85-86 fiscal framework, the figure was 3,170.5 students. The actual student count that occurred in September '85 was 2,990.25 students. I don't know, Mr. Member, how they get quarters or halves, but let's just take that as a given. What I'm saying really is that the projected figure given by the school district was approximately 200 more than showed up. That is one of the reasons why the drop took place in '85-86, because I think we funded at that time the figures that they gave to us. The figure that's in the fiscal framework

[ Page 7989 ]

for 1986 is now 2,930, which is down about 60 students from the number who actually showed up last September, so the student population has declined.

Where do we get those figures, and are we more accurate than the school board? It really doesn't matter, Mr. Chairman, whether we're more accurate or not. But first of all, where did we get the figures? We got them from B.C. Research. They indicate that in this school district, depending on the activity that happens up there — the employment, I guess, the families coming and going, new activity — there will be 2,930 students registering in September 1986. If there are any more than that, then they will be funded. So it really does not have an impact on the school board. They can accept that figure and proceed. If 3,000 students showed up in September 1986 the monthly allocation to the school district would be adjusted upward to account for that. However, if the student population were less, then the monthly allocation would be reduced accordingly. So there's no sense being high on your estimate. B.C. Research has been pretty accurate over the years, so I would suggest that we would go with that unless the local school board had some evidence to the contrary. But if I were a school board trustee, I would think I would like to have a surprise on the positive side in September, recognizing more students showed up, knowing I'd be funded, rather than to set my budget, my tax rate, etc. and then find out I'd budgeted too high and would not get as much as I would like. You can consider what would happen — the possibility that you wouldn't have sufficient funding to fund all the teachers.

Mr. Member, I look at the figures last year, the fiscal framework that we put out on April 12 — and that was adjusted for the additional moneys we gave them for salaries last year — and what their needs budget was. They're short $805,000.1 don't know what that relates to, and I don't think you do either; you mentioned you didn't have the specifics. But in there is probably an amount of money for salary adjustments. If I took roughly 80 percent of the total budget and took 3 percent of that 80 percent, it would come to about $300,000. If that's in their budget figure, if they took that out, they'd narrow down the difference.

[4:30]

The fiscal framework, Mr. Chairman, which quite often is attacked, shows, I think in this particular case, in Vancouver Island North School District 85, the beneficial side of this fiscal framework, because the pupil cost in this school district is $4,225 per student for 1985. The provincial average is $3,537. I guess we could argue whether or not it is enough. I am just saying that the fiscal framework allows for that relief. The provincial taxpayer and the economy contributes 81 percent of the total funding in your particular school district, as opposed to Burnaby, which was considerably less. The elementary class size in your school district — and again I am relating to 1985 numbers — is 22.2 students, and the provincial average is 24. The class size for secondary students in your school district is 19.5, and the provincial average is 25.1.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

In that I think you would see that there is some consideration given to the rural aspect of your school district, and also that the province or the provincial economy is paying approximately $700 a student more to your school district because of the rural aspect of your school district and because of the sharing of the industrial and commercial base that is related in the fiscal framework and is shared equitably across the province. This is opposed to those school districts that have large industrial bases and used to benefit, to the detriment of other school districts prior to the fiscal framework coming into place.

MR. GABELMANN: Let's just deal first of all with the full-time equivalent question. As I understand it, in 1985 the board budgeted for 3,170.5, if I am quoting you correctly. On September 30 it was a couple of hundred less, 2,990. Right here in January, the middle of the year, the actual number was 3,138. The budget was for 3,170.5, and the government said: "No, it will be 2,990." On September 30, the date that everybody uses to count, it was 2,930, less than the government had said it would be.

But in January it was 3,138, approximately 32.5 less than their initial budget and much higher than the September 30 count and much higher than the government prediction. The problem here is that in an area like Vancouver Island North, a lot of kids don't get to school by September 30. They're still fishing. They're still logging. They're helping their families make a living.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: I am just talking about.... These aren't kids who are dropping out. These are kids who work from age 12 — and younger in some cases — with their parents. Keep in mind, we need to remember what kind of community it is. It is not like Victoria. It is not like Campbell River. It is a community where the whole family works and tries to eke out a living. They work part-years, and when there is something to do, as there is in the summertime and the early fall, they are out working.

So the school population at September 30 is not an accurate reflection on the school population, yet the government persists in using that date as the date by which it is going to choose to determine the number of population. I can't say how many. The only thing I can say is that from the government's figure of 2,930 it went up in January, if I am correct, to 3,138, close to the original prediction.

Having said that — I could be wrong about some of the numbers, but the point is fair — their predictions have been closer than the ministry's predictions. That is point number one.

Number two is that in the first of these last two years, there was no budget reduction for diminishing population. In the second of these two years, there is a whopping budget reduction for what the district argues is a small drop in student population. These arguments can go on forever. The $4,200 into Vancouver Island North per student, I suspect, in Vancouver Island West is probably $4,800 or $4,900 per student. I don't have the numbers, but I would guess it is.

You can't measure education in those kinds of rural areas, dispersed areas, by figuring out how much it costs per student. A school that has eight, nine or ten kids in it is going to cost a lot more per student, but the argument is: is that enough? What I'm compelled to say to the minister is no, it's not enough, because the minister in his response said the formula works. He said: "In the $600,000 that we're looking at, attempting to come to grips with, there must be $300,000 in that budget for that particular item" — increased salaries for teaching or school board employees.

[ Page 7990 ]

In fact, I don't know what the figure is, because it's a confidential number, because they're bargaining. I don't know what it is, but I am willing to bet the minister lunch that it is less than $100,000, and not the $300,000 he talks about. I don't have access to those numbers, but the minister does. He can't do the 80 percent of the budget is the payroll and 3 percent of that is what must be in the budget.... Look at the proposal; they sent it in to you. True, we can all do those numbers — 3 percent of 80 percent of the budget.

I can do that too, but what I'm saying — and I hope the minister has heard me — is that I don't know what's in the proposed budget document sent in, but the minister can know. He has that information; they sent it in. I'm saying to you it will not be the $300,000; it will be considerably, dramatically less than that. If I'm wrong, my argument is a different argument. Then it's a whole different kind of argument than the one we've heard earlier this afternoon, if I'm wrong. I don't believe I'm wrong.

If I'm right, we have to look at how you find $300,000 or $400,000 out of an existing budget that is already not pared to the bone, but pared below the bone. The bone has already been bruised and chipped away at, and now they're being expected to go down even less than that. Inflation may be running at 4 percent in Canada; it may be running at 3.9 percent in Vancouver, but inflation runs a lot higher in these kinds of communities. It runs higher in terms of running an operation like this. It is run higher up there.

Keep in mind, too, that these districts used to have smaller teacher salary components because young teachers used to go to these areas. Young teachers get paid less. Because of restraint and because of what's happening, teachers aren't moving anymore; teachers are holding on to the jobs they've got, so they're staying there. The teachers are getting older, and because of that, increments are being paid more, and so the costs are going up in that particular school district.

The same is true in Vancouver Island West; the costs are going up at a greater rate than they would be in another area where the teaching age is more widely representative of the age in general. Here we have young teachers and, for the most part, most of them are still getting increments, and so we have costs that aren't acknowledged.

I want to come back to the minister to say: if the minister is going to say to this particular school district, "You can have $11.4 million-plus to run the show," and they say, "We did it last year on $11.9 million something, close to $12 million," there's a $600,000 difference. If the minister is going to say to them, "You spend $600,000 less than you did last year because you have X number fewer students," — an arguable number, and unless you count it in January, it's not worth counting — where in their budget does the minister propose they cut? I've suggested the three kinds of areas that are available for cutting — the numbers of teachers. The minister acknowledges that the PTR is high already, and it's appropriate when you consider the number of one-room schools. You can't cut that PTR any more.

You get to a point in these small schools where you can't offer enough courses anymore. You have to have a certain number of teachers just to be able to offer a wide range of courses. I would submit there is no room for cutting classroom teachers. There's certainly no room for administration. When you have an elementary school with 150 kids having administration of .43, you've cut administration costs to the bone. There's no money for support services, in terms of learning assistants or counsellors or special needs, because those services have been reduced dramatically over the last little while. We used to have, through MHR, a program called Chance, which enabled districts like this one to take advantage of special assistance to deal with special learning problems. Those programs have been cut back tenfold in this particular district, so there's no fat there.

Do they close the little schools? I say no, people there say no, and the board says no — and it won't. So what are they left to do? They have to cut back on libraries. They have to get rid of their computer program and the person who runs it. And they have to get rid of their resource centre and the person who runs it. Those are the most obvious available areas for cutting. That's what we have to deal with. So imagine yourself a school trustee in that particular district — and it's true in the other two districts, but let me just deal with this one. You're faced with having to make those kinds of cuts, and up there, of course.... When I name those two positions, every one of us knows the names of the people involved, how long they've been around, when one of them served on the municipal council and on and on — and what their political history is and the whole thing. These are people you know when you're in these communities, and you know what they've done. You know what kind of work they've done. You know how much assistance they've been to students over the years, because that's how it is in the small areas — as the minister knows, representing lots of small communities in the Okanagan. So what do they do? Do they cut these programs? If you're going to say to them that it's 600 grand less, and if we agree that it's not largely taken up with this other question — which is the important salary increases question, but which I'm not talking about now — where are they going to get it from? I think that if you're going to say to them, "You have to spend less," then you also have to say to them where they cut.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Chairman, I feel compelled to make a few remarks in the debate covering the minister's estimates. Coming from a community where people really look very realistically at where the money is coming from, I have to ask the opposition constantly: "Where do you think this money comes from?" They talk about money coming from the various levels of government, but really, when you stop to think of it, the money mainly comes from one level, and that's out of the pockets of the working men and women of our province. They talk about what is enough. What is enough? I don't think that you could ever totally satisfy the thirst or the hunger of those who never think that they're getting enough.

Mr. Chairman, I think that public education in our province is second to none. It's just a matter....

[4:45]

Interjection.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: I'm sure you will have your opportunity to comment somewhere along the road.

My concern is not for any political gain or whatever, but rather for the students of our province, and indeed for the taxpayers of our province. I believe that our government, like any other government, has a responsibility to maintain a high standard of education. I believe that with that responsibility comes the responsibility to make sure that there is indeed adequate and fair funding. And that has been addressed very well. I want to congratulate our minister on the way that he

[ Page 7991 ]

has reached out to communicate with the people in the short time that he has held this portfolio. I believe that once we cut through all this claptrap of politics and so forth, the sooner we're going to get down to hardpan and down to really what it's all about. I believe that our minister is well on the way to that.

There are two areas, of course, that still concern me, Mr. Chairman. One is the question of compulsory membership in the Teachers' Federation. That's something that must be looked at in this province. I don't believe that anyone in this province who has the qualifications to teach should be compelled to belong to an organization that really is bringing the wrong image to the profession. I think it's sad whenever we hear of teachers — oung teachers, bright teachers — who say: "I don't like to see this happen, because we are really a professional group, and this is sad to see." So I think that that's something that I would like to see our minister look at, and hopefully he will do that somewhere along the road.

Then there's the other question of who is going to be in a position of determining just how much money is enough and how the money should be spent. Mr. Chairman, I have to submit that any time you have a group sitting down to determine a budget or arrive at a budget — 85 percent and so forth going into salaries — then I don't believe that those who are the recipients of that in any way, shape or form should be part of that board. What I'm saying, Mr. Chairman, is quite simple: people who are in education should not be sitting on that board.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to very quickly wind up my remarks by also saying a big thank you not only to this minister but to this government for the support that they have given the private school system. I am a strong supporter of the public system, but also a strong supporter of the private school system. I see what it has done in my community. I see what it has done in my business, where we have had the privilege of hiring people from both public and private. Believe me, the people coming out of our private system are a real credit to us. I want to encourage our minister and, indeed, our government to recognize the importance of the private school system. I believe very strongly, if for no other reason than that what is needed out there is competition, competition that is going to allow those who have the qualities to excel. That is what's needed in this province. So I want to thank our government and our minister for that support.

I'd also like to point out that just recently I had the honour of being present for the opening of a new school in our community, the Abbotsford Christian school, which was burned to the ground not too many months ago. Here's a school, Mr. Chairman, that rose again, because the people of the community, the people who really believe in that, went to work to rebuild it. Again, I want to thank our minister for that support.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I just want to be on record that indeed, as far as I am concerned, those who keep saying it's not enough really don't know what enough is.

MR. CHAIRMAN: With respect to the minister's remarks, and membership in the BCTF, that is a statute item. section 140 of the act really is not appropriate for comment in committee.

HON. MR. HEWITT: A response to the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) — Mr. Member, no, I don't want you to close small schools, schools with small student populations. I have some of those in my constituency as well. I think here, however, where the numbers get to a point where the fiscal framework does not totally fund them, a decision has to be made by the school board as to whether or not they look at that and say: "All right, there's an alternative: we'll close it, and bus" — or whatever the case may be.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Member, let me finish before you find criticism, because I'm really supporting your argument.

Or they may say, after study, that it is not practical to close this school, because the school itself is a community building. It might be in a small community — I'm just trying to think of one in my constituency; maybe Kettle Valley — where they would not want to close the school, and we're only funding under the fiscal framework, because of the student population, up to about 90 percent of the cost. That's a decision for the local school board to make, in determining whether it wishes to go to its residential property tax base and the taxpayers, to say: "We'd like to maintain this school, because it's more than just a school; it's a community building. As a result, we would like to keep it open. Plus the fact that it would be a hardship on the students to have them bused, or whatever method of transportation they might use. It would be difficult to be on the road for two or three hours. So we're going to keep it open. We recognize that the fiscal framework does give consideration to rural school districts, but it still isn't enough, so we're going to go to our local residential property owners."

Mr. Member, the reason your cost per pupil in School District 85 is $700 more than the provincial average is that the fiscal framework tries to identify the uniqueness of the school district. But now the school boards have local autonomy so that they can even go beyond that, which is to go to the residential property owner.

Your comment about the student population — we take the count, or B.C. Research puts the count in in September. You say most of your people don't come back until January.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Oh, some don't come back until January.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: October, November. Okay. Well, maybe there's room for compromise, if you will, there. Maybe what we should be doing in those rural or remote school districts that are impacted because of fishing, etc.... Maybe there's an alternative date that can be used that would give some relief to the local school board. I'm certainly open to that suggestion. I'd be quite happy to have my staff follow up on that, and see whether or not we could accommodate those school districts. But they'd have to make the choice. We can't be juggling the figures month by month because the school population goes up and down. They'll have to pick a date, and maybe we can accommodate them.

In regard to how they find the money — some $600,000 that they may be short, Mr. Member — I'm not sure what they have in the budget. I know what their first figures were. I

[ Page 7992 ]

know what we responded with. I know what the shortfall is there, but between now and May 1, they can do further refinement. It is fair to say the 68 school boards that responded with budgets well in excess of the fiscal framework, in my opinion, were putting in needs budgets.

They figured: "We're going to put in what we figure we should have." In some cases they added new teachers. In some cases they added new courses. They did a number of things. Between the information we gave them as of April 15 and May 1, they'll do the further refinement in recognition that they are going to have to go to their local taxpayer. They may still come up with a shortfall, and if they do, then they have the right to go to the local taxpayer.

There is one area that I could quickly look at in the 1985-86 fiscal year. Fiscal framework funded $533,000 for administration, function four. The budget of the school district was $636,000, to be exact, which is over $100,000 in excess for administration. Question: have they addressed the costs of their administration? Maybe they are in excess in that area. I can't answer that; only they can answer it. But the fiscal framework indicates what you need in administration to run the school district: the school district office with secretary treasurer, superintendent and assistants and with staff. Maybe that is an area they could find some dollars, because it is well in excess of the fiscal framework.

MR. GABELMANN: No doubt members of the school trustees in that area would flinch at some of my arguments. They are fully aware of all the details, and I'm not. I have not sat down with them and gone through all the numbers, and they do it interminably, day after day and month after month. So they are familiar with them and I am not. But I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, in response to the last point in terms of administration, that I don't know what the numbers are, but I know there is no assistant superintendent.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: There used to be, but those kinds of cuts have been made. There is nobody in that position, but there used to be. Similarly, across the board wherever there was perceived fat in the system, they cut it long before now. There is nowhere else to go. That's the point I want to make.

As far as submitting a needs budget, I don't know. It seems to me a needs budget could be any amount greater than any budget that is submitted, and that is an argument that I can't comment on, I don't know.

But I do know that they initially submitted that their second submission was $12.4 plus, and the ministry is still saying $11.4. They are now looking at going to last year's budget and still have a $600,000.... So we're not talking about needs versus the ministry's proposal. We're looking at something very different from that.

The minister talked about closing small schools. Well, let's say the school district — and I am not sure of its name — decided to close the school in Midway if the Penticton taxpayers probably would be opposed to paying additional taxes to keep that school open. The Midway and Greenwood.... I know you have a Kettle Valley School District.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: Right, you've got Beaverdell down the river through Rock Creek and out toward Grand Forks — not going that far, presumably just to Greenwood. Right?

If the board decided to close a particular school in that district — let's pick Midway — the taxpayers in that area, the people who are asked to pay for the shot, live in that kind of area and know all about it, would support the need for a school in Midway. I am picking this as hypothetical. I don't even know the situation there right now, what the population is any more. But what I am talking about is akin to that school board making the decision to keep open the school in Midway and asking the Penticton taxpayers to vote for it. That is how it is perceived when you say: "Let's keep open the Echo Bay school." You can't bus from Echo Bay to Port Hardy either. You can't take water several months of the year either. You just can't rely on the weather. So you're stuck there. It is correspondence or nothing. It's not any alternative other than correspondence, or leaving your job and going on welfare in Vancouver. That's the alternative that some people have chosen because it is better for their kids than being stuck out in a camp — not that camp, but others that have not had the opportunity to have schools.

The same at Quatsino. The Port Hardy taxpayer will say: "Well, why should I pay to keep a school open in Quatsino? I've never been there. I don't even know the place." It is a different situation because of that, but still, in spite of that, the board is saying: "We want to keep open those schools." I think that people who think about it and have looked at the situation agree with that particular need.

Mr. Chairman, I was going to — and I still will — make some additional comments tomorrow during these estimates in respect of some more general issues and some concerns in the other two school districts in my riding. I was going to leave the politics of this question out of it. I quite frankly was trying this afternoon to see if I could get some specifics from the minister in terms of this one particular thing, but I am forced to respond to the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

I suppose he was responding to any number of opposition members who may have spoken, but he did it right after I had spoken, so I am going to try to deal with some of the questions he poses. Where is the money coming from? Mr. Chairman, we have $9 billion or $10 billion to spend. That money is in the budget. That's where it is coming from. It is a question of how it is divided up. I am arguing that the retention of the libraries, the retention of the computer educational programs, the retention of the resource centre in this school district, is more important than any number of other programs we could all identify that some of that $10 billion is going to support at the present time. That's where the money is going to come from.

[5:00]

The money is going to come from a government that puts education as a priority. If a priority were in education, then the $10 billion would be divided up somewhat differently so that education could get its fair share. That's what we're talking about. We're talking here, in this particular district, of not even a few hundred metres along the Coquihalla Highway in terms of construction costs. We are probably talking about much less than the money that's going to be spent to repair the damage that was done in constructing that road as a result of hastily building on a faulty roadbed. I'm convinced they have spilled more money on that particular project than this district needs just to have a basic level of education; not a good one, just a basic one.

[ Page 7993 ]

Where is the money coming from? It comes from a different allocation of the resources of this province; it comes from a mindset that says education is fundamental in an economy like ours, fundamental for a society like ours, and if we want to make economic progress we'll support education in a better way.

What's enough? That's part of this process of discussion and debate about what's needed. I'm saying it's not enough when you have to lay off or fire people who run the education program to do with computers, when you have to lay off the resource centre coordinator, when you have to close libraries or reduce their hours. I'm saying it's not enough when those kinds of cuts have to be made.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

In answer to the questions of the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) about what's enough, what is being proposed is not enough if you believe in providing these basic services, if you believe in giving kids in rural areas an equal opportunity, which they don't now have when you look at the participation rate in post-secondary education. They can't go on. What's enough? Enough is a little bit more than what is being provided right now. For the Minister of Municipal Affairs to say that B.C.'s education system is second to none is wishful thinking on his part. He should spend some time in the classrooms around this province.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Don't worry, I do it enough. I would suggest I've been in more classrooms than any of you, including the critic.

MR. GABELMANN: I wonder when you get time to do your job then.

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The minister will come to order. The member for North Island has the floor, and the member for North Island will make his comments directly to the Chair.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Chairman, I wasn't talking about all the years it took the minister to try to get through. I was talking about his attendance in class in respect of his job as an MLA.

The Minister of Municipal Affairs talked about ending the compulsory membership in the B.C. Teachers' Federation — get rid of it. When he also says that doctors and a whole group of other people in our society should not have to have compulsory membership in their societies or their organizations or their bargaining agents, whatever it may be, then fair enough. I'm prepared to have a discussion. But why pick on teachers? Why don't you pick on doctors or other groups? Why is it always an attempt to pick on teachers?

Do you know why, Mr. Chairman? Because the government perceives that teachers are unpopular. They perceive that they can manipulate an election issue out of this. It is as simple as that. They figure if they can get the public good and mad at teachers through having increased taxes and by having all these kinds of questions and they can get them good and mad about the threat of native land claims, maybe they might have a chance to win a few seats in the next election. That's all it's all about.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: I don't know what the teachers' position is on this particular issue.

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Hon. minister, the member for North Island has the floor. The Minister of Municipal Affairs will have his opportunity to stand in his place and debate on the estimates of the Minister of Education, but in the meantime would you please allow the member for North Island to continue.

MR. GABELMANN: I don't know what their position is. But if you said to the teachers of this province, "You have a choice: you can have compulsory membership in your professional association and live with the collective bargaining system you've got, or compulsory membership will be abolished and you can be treated the same way as all other workers are treated and you live under the Labour Code," my suspicion is that they might well go along with the Minister of Municipal Affairs in agreeing not to have compulsory membership. They might well do it, given that kind of fair choice. Well, let's see what they say. I don't know what they would say.

The final point from the Minister of Municipal Affairs that I wanted to deal with is his paranoia about those dozen — r maybe two dozen at most — teachers who happen to sit on school boards around this province. Is the minister saying that he doesn't trust the voters to elect the people that they want to elect? Is the minister going to say to the public who elects school trustees: "You can vote for engineers. You can vote for loggers. You can vote for politicians. You can vote for unemployed people. You can vote for housewives. But you can't vote for teachers"? Why don't you let the people decide who they vote for? If the people don't want teachers on school boards, they won't vote for them. If you believed in democracy, you would allow anybody to run for any office and the public would decide. It's as simple as that.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: Now he's criticizing the public for failure to participate in the election.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: Yes, I'm sorry. All of these references to the minister, Mr. Chairman, are to the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie), whose...

MR. CHAIRMAN: ...whose estimates are not being debated at this time.

MR. GABELMANN: ...estimates are not being debated at this time, yes, and whose intervention was not particularly welcome at this time either, because we were having a technical discussion about some severe problems in a particular school district in my riding. Having gotten that off my chest, I'll make the political speech tomorrow, and maybe the Minister of Municipal Affairs will want to participate again.

[ Page 7994 ]

My final words then to the Minister of Education about Vancouver Island North are these: would he look at their proposed budget? If in fact most of that extra $600,000 is for basic services, not for increased salaries, would he have another look at the way in which the cuts, if they are to occur, will have to occur, in terms of the educational services that will be eliminated, or, alternatively, recognize that there will be an 11 percent tax hike across the board on the education tax, which I think everybody would agree is not at all possible to do? I'm asking the minister to have another look at that particular budget.

HON. MR. HEWITT: We first of all sent out the documentation on the fiscal framework. Let me see if I can get these dates correct. We sent them out on March 15. No, I'm sorry, they came back in on March 15. They had to come back in on March 15 with their budgets, and we responded by April 15 with the amount of money that was available to them under the fiscal framework, based on any adjustments that could be made by the information we had between March and April. Then their final review is between April 15.... They have till May I to set their tax rate and to determine what their total budget is going to be. So it basically is in their hands. I think the difference that concerned the member — I'm recognizing that he doesn't have all the material in front of him — has partially been resolved because of the recognition of the 1985 salary adjustment. That was one; maybe there were a few others that they pointed out to us when they sent back the material in April. So it's really in their court, if you will, to make the final adjustments or to determine that they are going to the taxpayer to cover the additional funds they require.

I guess we could argue all day as to whether or not the fiscal framework does adequately fund students in this province. I for one think that although it's tight, it does do that. I appreciate that it's a challenge to school boards across the province to be lean and efficient. But interestingly enough, last year we went through the same complaint, in many cases even after school boards were told there was no money in there for salary adjustments, and they found the money, because they've almost completed this year now and they've found the money to pay those. So, Mr. Member, in response, no, I can't take another look because we've done our review and we've taken into consideration their input and the decision will be theirs as of May 1.

With regard to an item raised by my colleague, the Minister of Municipal Affairs, and certainly an item that I raised last weekend at a meeting at which I was a speaker, and of course the member for North Island has commented on it.... Mr. Member, you say: "Why not teachers on school boards?" I can appreciate that in theory your approach is good — that everybody should have an opportunity. Certainly the NDP identified with your feelings, because if my memory is correct, they weren't allowed prior to '72. Then your party became government, and between '72 and '75 you changed that and allowed that to happen. Well, my colleagues and I in this government have been accused of many things dealing with conflict of interest. I'll be quite frank with you, Mr. Member. I have some difficulty in seeing a Minister of Finance being accused of conflict of interest when he buys preferred shares in B.C. Rail, for which he has no vote in the area of their jurisdiction.... Here comes a lawyer on a point of order, but I've made my point, Mr. Chairman. So he can sit down and not give me the legal advice that he's going to give me. But, Mr. Member, just to deal with the teachers, it's very difficult, in my opinion, for a teacher sitting on a school board other than his own to not take to that school board some bias as to the well-being of the teacher with regard to salaries.

MR. LAUK: Isn't it balanced by the knowledge he brings?

HON. MR. HEWITT: In many cases, yes, I guess I have to concede it's good to have the knowledge at the school board level. However, it's the bias I'm concerned about.

You talk about the knowledge. Let me give you some interesting information which relates to our largest school board in this province, the Vancouver School Board. Granted she's no longer a teacher, but the chairman of the Vancouver School Board, Mrs. Weinstein, was a teacher with the Vancouver School Board; she's also a former professor of education at UBC. That's a tremendous amount of experience. We also have Mr. Church. Mr. Church was a teacher at Hastings Elementary School and Gladstone Secondary School. We also have Mr. Onstad, who is a teacher in the Windsor reentry program — an alternative program in the Burnaby School District. We also have Mr. Charlie Ungerleider. He is currently an associate professor in the faculty of education. Out of the nine we have four there, and I believe one or two others have had education backgrounds.

MR. LAUK: Weren't the voters aware of this?

[5:15]

HON. MR. HEWITT: Yes, but I guess what I'm trying to point out to the member opposite is that, first of all, it's good to have a good cross-section of background on a school board — I think so anyway: parent, worker, professor, professional, tradesman. These people are dealing with the students who will go into all those various lines of work in their adult life. But we tend to see some of the bias, intentional or otherwise, come into the school board level, maybe because of their professionalism.

It's of concern to me just as straightforward possible conflict of interest. If I work for a provincial education system, and yet I'm sitting on a board that determines salaries for the system, and I make a decision that salary increases should happen here, I know full well, working in the school district next to me, that this decision to increase salaries in one area does have an impact on negotiations in another. It's the old story of setting a precedent, as the member opposite would know. Being a lawyer, he knows what it is to set a precedent.

So there's a problem here. I can appreciate that everybody should have a right, if you will, to seek public office. But the possibility of conflict of interest, in my opinion, is very great, and I would think that schoolteachers in the province would look to the classroom as opposed to the directorship side of education. I know the member for Vancouver Centre is going to get up and make a great speech about human rights, about attacking the teaching profession.

MR. LAUK: I'll make my own speeches.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Well, you do such a poor job in making your own speeches, I'm trying to help you out. You always start attacking banks and financial institutions and

[ Page 7995 ]

getting off the track, and we have to keep getting you back on the track.

Anyway, I use the Vancouver School Board.... I don't want to appear to be attacking the Vancouver School Board. It's just that if you look at the number of school boards around the province, you end up by finding there are a good number of teachers on there. The member for Burnaby is not here, but I believe the Burnaby School Board does have a teacher on it; that's one that I happened to see earlier.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. minister, the Chair would like to bring to your attention that legislation or the need for legislation is not part of the administrative functions under debate in these estimates. Possibly the proposal you're suggesting would require legislation, and you're talking proposed legislation. If the minister would possibly get on to the administrative functions of his office.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: The learned counsel from Vancouver Centre is trying to assist me, and I appreciate that. The only reason he's trying to assist me, Mr. Chairman, is because he wants to have a go at me as soon as I sit down. I think I may stay here until 6 o'clock. I have no time-limit, do I, Mr. Chairman?

I don't want to appear to be attacking teachers. I'm just saying that with regard to "conflict of interest," in those general terms, it does cause some concern to me. Again, I don't want to attack the chairman of the BCSTA, but he happens to be a college instructor. Being a college instructor — that's not within my ministerial function — he does work in the system where salaries are compared and responsibilities are compared. So is it really a pecuniary interest or not? I don't know. The members opposite may wish to express an opinion. Anyway, I apologize if I've strayed into legislation; I didn't intend to.

MR. GABELMANN: The only one of us who strayed into legislation was the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie), who specifically asked for a change to section 140 of the School Act, although he didn't cite the particular section. The rest of us have been having a philosophical discussion about education.

I want to just very quickly deal with one aspect of what the minister has just said, hopefully in a quiet way too. Sometimes when people speak quietly, people assume you're right. That's why, on this issue, I am going to speak very quietly, Mr. Chairman. If you say to teachers, "You shouldn't sit on the governing board," then you should say that to the members of CUPE who work for school boards as well. You should say that to every person who is employed by the school board: bus drivers, lawnkeepers, custodial engineers, the whole works. Because if you don't, you leave yourselves open to charges that you're bashing teachers again — which happens constantly. That's number one.

Number two, I would suggest that on hospital boards there should be no doctors, no nurses, no hospital workers, no people who sweep the floor in the hospital, no people who do the dishes in the cafeteria, no people who might contract out to the hospital to do the laundry. On municipal councils, to extend the same principle, no people whose business it is to develop land within municipalities; no people who make a living conducting business transactions within municipalities; no people who sell or on behalf of others sell land and hope to make more money, who might buy a rezoning application which is successful, and make additional property.... None of those people can sit on municipal councils, because by the same definition there's a conflict of interest.

So when the minister wants to walk onto this ground, he should recognize that he's walking into some pretty heavy ground. I'm not going to do it now, but I think you could extend that a lot further too, in terms of dealing with provincial governments. The whole question of conflict of interest comes up then.

In a democratic society the simple way to prevent conflict of interest in these kinds of questions is to have the voter make a decision as to who they want to have govern: the voter determines who they want to have govern the school operations, the hospital operation, the municipal council operation. If they don't want real estate agents on municipal councils, they vote against them. If they don't want janitors on school boards, they vote against them. If they don't want educators on school boards, they vote against them. But to start saying that certain groups, professions or categories of employees in our society can't run for elected office is a philosophical step one too far for me.

MR. LAUK: Jimmy Pattison is a classic example of the double standard and the hypocrisy of this government. No one contends that Mr. Pattison isn't capable of bringing knowledge and business skills to the chairmanship of the Expo board. Yet the situations that are involving $1 billion of the taxpayers' money, the situations involving Pattison-owned companies getting contracts and related goodies and benefits with respect to the development of the exposition site, are a classic example of how this government says: "That's not a conflict of interest. That's no problem." But where schoolteachers, a handful, more teachers on some boards than others.... That's a bias. Everybody brings a bias. That's the political nature of a democratic system. Parents bring a bias: they're biased because they have kids in the schools. Are you saying parents shouldn't be on school boards? Businessmen who may have contracts with municipal governments that indirectly affect the rate of tax that people pay within the city — shouldn't they sit on the boards? Of course they should.

The minister is raising a red herring, and I am using that advisedly. He is attacking the Vancouver school board once again. Remember what happened to the last Minister of Education who attacked the Vancouver school board. I don't always agree with the policy of the Vancouver school board, but do not interfere, simply because this is a senior level of government, with the democratically elected boards in municipalities. You are playing a dangerous game, I say to the minister. What he is raising is a political argument, but he becomes dangerous and interferes with the democratic system in a dangerous way when he threatens to bring in legislation — which of course is out of order in this debate. Once he does something like that, he has departed from the normal political discussion, and he has raised an issue of dictatorial action on the part of the government, which is no place to interfere with democratically elected boards.

The minister is really playing a dog-in-the-manger attitude. The board was elected by the people of the city of Vancouver, who are most aware of the backgrounds of all

[ Page 7996 ]

those who were elected to the board. It was an issue during the election.

MR. HANSON: The Social Credit government's record in education is well known in the public mind. I guess you could summarize it in just a few words, a few categories. One is "cutbacks." One is "centralized." Another would be "destabilized," and "low priority" would be another one.

I have all sorts of documentation, as every member of this House has, about how we rank nationally in terms of per capita expenditure on our young people and their future. I'm not going to spend all my time in Education estimates ranting about the Social Credit performance in education; it's well known that the Social Credit government does not really care, in a high-profile manner, about education and the future of our children. It's shown in the statistics, which I have piles of, that we rank the lowest in the country in looking after the future educational needs of our young people. Cutbacks, centralization, lack of equality of opportunity — these are the features of Social Credit's approach to education.

What I would like to do is point out what philosophically the New Democratic Party believes in education, and some of the principles that underpin the way we would proceed — and will proceed — in a quality public instruction system in British Columbia. I think the people of this province, in reading these general principles, quickly recognize that we differ markedly from the Social Credit Party in our approach. Here are a few key principles.

One: education is the key to our provincial well-being, both collectively and individually. The evidence is very clear that societies having a well-developed education system enjoy the highest standard of living. As human beings, the thing that separates us from other organisms on this small planet is our capacity to learn. Some people call it the capacity for culture. That doesn't mean scratching on a violin or painting a painting; that means the human capacity to learn, in all its aspects. To understand symbolic language, whether it's through language, through music, through being able to formulate concepts and put them on paper, to put them on hard discs in this new technological age, and so on — the human capacity to learn.

[5:30]

Once one understands that human beings have an almost indefinite capacity to learn and to know things, one realizes how central the educational system of a society is to the way they take care of business, the way they conduct their affairs. And here we have in this wonderful country of 3.6 million square miles a very large and rich province which underfunds its future, underfunds its children's education. I'm going to give you some numbers that all members of this House may not be aware of to indicate how underfunded we are in relation to all other provinces.

Another principle of the New Democratic Party is that, for the individual, education is the key to understanding our society, to maintaining the skills and qualifications for employment, for meaningful work in that society, and to developing personal skills essential to survive in it. The educational system is a circuit in the sense that individuals have to get access to the society through a knowledge network within the society.

Within a framework of provincial goals, and so long as pupils' rights are protected, many, if not the most important, decisions about how to meet local educational needs are best decided locally. A characteristic that divides us in this House, very clearly, is the centralized approach of that side, the government side, and the decentralized, democratic, more locally oriented approach of this side of the House. We are the democrats, we are the people who believe that....

Interjection.

MR. HANSON: Such as the Nisgha School District, which was granted by the New Democratic Party government. The Nishga people are very pleased and satisfied with the performance, and that is local decision-making, a school board that has authority to make some decisions themselves in terms of their cultural diversity. Don't throw in those other red herrings to try to diffuse it. We are the democrats; we are the people who believe in democracy.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Another principle is that each person's child, talented or otherwise — and of course that is a very subjective decision — is entitled to an education according to their needs and interests. That is a fundamental right in our society, according to our party.

In addition, since Canada is a multicultural country, cultural diversity and diversity of values must be recognized and respected in our schools. Not homogeneity; diversity. That's what creates the richness: allowing for scope and broad educational goals and perspectives, rather than narrowly focused and limited ones. Also, since British Columbia spends relatively less of its wealth on education than any other Canadian province, our province can well afford to fund public education adequately.

The member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) raised the matter about the funding aspect of education. I'd just like to quickly go to a couple of numbers which indicate how we stand in comparison with other provinces. Let's just take, for example, the provincial educational expenditure per capita. This is a 1982-83 statistic, and I'm going to cite you the reference. The reference comes from the Canadian Tax Foundation's Provincial and Municipal Finances, 1983. Here are the per capita expenditures in dollars: British Columbia, $459; the Canadian average is $696. So we're largely down ….

MR. MICHAEL: What about the homeowner grant?

MR. HANSON: We have all sorts of other taxes, if you want to get into that — surcharges in this province. The per capita expenditure on education in francophone Canada, Quebec, is $990 — double British Columbia. Quebec spends twice as much on a student as British Columbia does. They lead the way in this country. Ontario is ahead; we're at the bottom.

Here is another one: an analysis province by province of the educational burden, financial ability and effort to support education. This is a 1981-82 statistic, and I'm going to cite where it comes from: Statistics Canada's "Advanced Stats on Education, 1981-1983." Let me just read you the provincial effort to support education. We're at the bottom in all of Canada at 4.9 percent. The top: Quebec, 8.1 percent. Newfoundland has 8.3 percent. Ontario has almost 6 percent. We're at the bottom. The Canadian all-province average is 6.4 percent in its effort to support education. The educational burden is among the lowest, the financial ability among the

[ Page 7997 ]

highest, at $11,027. So the statistics indicate that in almost every area we are at the bottom in our support of the public education system. The Social Credit government always wants to say: "Where's the money coming from?" They don't look at the pie that's available, in terms of provincial spending, and make education a priority. It's not a priority with this government at all.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair.]

What are some of the things that really should be done? First of all, the public instruction system in this province has to have stability. The confrontation must be ended. Stability in education is one of the most important factors in restoring confidence, and can be achieved through (1) stopping the erosion of funding; (2) stopping the centralization process; and (3) ending the ongoing confrontation, which is the hallmark of Social Credit with respect to the public instruction system in this province. Also, to stabilize the educational system, there must be a long-term program and financial planning at all levels of the system.

Another feature, Mr. Chairman, is to introduce an equality of access. That means offering diversity in choice in programs and resources which promote richness of content in all areas, including academic, vocational and fine arts; a variety of teaching styles; and a school climate free of sexism, discrimination and authoritarian practices. Post-secondary educational opportunities must be expanded in all parts of the province for full-time and part-time students, and in recognition of learning as a lifetime process. Student aid and grant programs must be developed, to eliminate barriers to equality of access to post-secondary institutions.

We must expand and coordinate the provision of accessible degree-granting programs in all parts of the province through progressively developing some of the community colleges into four-year degree-granting programs; expanding existing university and college extension programs; improving alternatives to institutional education, such as distance learning and continuing education programs.

The quality of the whole instructional program must be improved. To improve the quality of the educational experience in B.C., student class sizes have to be progressively reduced.

I just want to conclude, Mr. Chairman, by saying that to return quality instruction to this province we have to return full autonomy to local school boards, so that all aspects of the community are involved in determining local education needs. We must repeal the Education (Interim) Finance Act. We must establish a council of education on curriculum and standards, with representation for professionals and the public; re-establish college boards representative of communities in each college region with community-based consultative committees to advise boards on funding and program needs; establish university governance that guarantees academic freedom for faculty and is responsive to the educational needs of British Columbia; curb the arbitrary power of the Minister of Education to replace elected school boards with appointed trustees; and ensure that federal post-secondary funds are used for post-secondary education.

Mr. Chairman, we could return to quality public instruction in this province by getting rid of the Social Credit government and installing a government that cared for education and for the future of our children and followed the kind of program and the goals and objectives outlined by the New Democratic Party.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, it was a great speech, well read. I was almost tempted to get up and ask him if they were copious notes or whether he was reading an actual political speech that he was going to send out to all his newspapers to show that he is in attendance in this House.

The only thing that has come to my attention, which I think indicates some of the bias in the statistics he quotes, is that B.C. has the lowest percentage of population of school age of any province in Canada. If the member took that comment and related it to the statistics he quotes that show us the least spending per capita, which are the figures that he is using from the study he has quoted, he would see that they were again conveniently selected to indicate that we spend less because we don't care. In effect we spend less to a certain extent because related to per capita we have fewer young people of school age when you compare us with other provinces.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Chairman, I want to bring to your attention a couple of things with respect to education. Earlier today the minister was talking about giving authority back to the school boards. I find this a very convenient time for the minister to give authority back to the school boards, when the school system is in such disarray because of the lack of funding and the cutbacks in the funding by this government, that they now have determined that the only way they are going to maintain the levels of education they had last year is to allow the school boards to raise the funds from the homeowners of the province. Now it is very convenient to be giving back authority when you have to give back authority in order to survive as an educational system in this province. That system has been decimated over the last few years because of the cutbacks, the lack of interest, the lack of priority that this government puts on education; and now that they're at the stage where the schools can no longer function at all unless they have some increases in funding, they allow the school boards to levy taxes on the homeowner in order to come up with the funding to maintain it at last year's low level.

I say low level, because the Minister of Education knows very well that the education system has suffered severely over the last few years under that administration. It doesn't really matter what he says in trying to justify — coming up with various figures here, there and everywhere. The fact is that the school system has suffered miserably under the administration of the Social Credit government. In my constituency there's no doubt that both school boards are going to have to raise taxes in order to try to meet the needs of maintaining even last year's level in the school system.

I wanted to bring to the minister's attention this issue of textbooks. Another thing he's been talking about this afternoon is the fund for excellence being the source of funding for additional textbooks.

[5:45]

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: Yes, you were mentioning that this afternoon.

The amount of money that's coming out of that excellence fund to try to do something about the deplorable textbook situation in this province is not at all adequate. I know that a

[ Page 7998 ]

number of MLAs have already referred to this and have pointed out to the minister that everywhere in this province the textbook situation is one the education system can hardly cope with. The teachers can't cope with it, the students can't cope with it, the parents can't cope with it. They're supposed to have a textbook each. I brought one along today in order to bring to the attention of the minister the situation with respect to textbooks.

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: Get up on a point of order if you like, but I want to talk about textbooks. Do you want to move adjournment of this debate, or at least move that the committee rise? Is that what you want?

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Please continue, hon. member.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Chairman, the minister well knows that we have "A" issues of textbooks which are supposed to be one per student for the various courses that require the "A" textbook issue. The situation is that those textbooks are in such bad condition that the teachers are embarrassed to hand out the textbooks at the beginning of the year, indicating to the students the worth of the course and the amount of interest and priority that the ministry puts on education. When you hand out a batch of textbooks that are in tatters, and they are the textbooks that are required for that course, then it's an indication that this government doesn't care about the needs of those students in terms of providing them with the basic material that they need.

Then the textbooks that they do have, even if they were in good condition, are another problem as far as teachers, students and parents are concerned. I'm going to refer to only one today, the textbook for the social studies 11 course, which is A Nation Developing. Do you know when this textbook was published? It is the history of Canada, and it was published in 1970, and it refers to the 1960s. The 1960s are the most up-to-date information that you have for the Social Studies 11 course for the students of this province.

That's a disgrace, and it's not good enough for the minister to be saying: "They're revising the course." They've been working on the revision of that social studies course for years. They still haven't come up with it, and the textbook becomes more and more out of date. Do you know what? This textbook doesn't even have a picture in it. You ought to see the glossy things that are coming out about Expo, with pictures all over the place. They shine and they gleam, but the students are putting up with this kind of a textbook.

Interjections.

MS. SANFORD: This textbook has a list at the back, references to important people of Canada. It refers to only one woman in this whole textbook. Now today, in 1986….

AN HON. MEMBER: Who is it?

MS. SANFORD: Do you want to know who it is?

Interjections.

MS. SANFORD: Laura Secord is not even mentioned in that book. Joan of Arc! This is Canadian history.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We seem to get into this type of mood always about ten minutes to adjournment. Perhaps we could let the member continue without the side interruptions.

MS. SANFORD: The only woman referred to in this textbook is someone I had never heard of. Her name is Adelaide Sinclair, and she's the deputy director of UNICEF. Somehow or other she qualifies to be listed in the 15 pages of important people in Canada, but she is the only female. That gives you some indication of the kind of textbooks the students of this province are dealing with.

How can the minister justify a textbook that is that old, that inadequate and in that sad state of repair, to say nothing of its contents? Mr. Chairman, it's a disgrace, and I don't think that the minister, in 1986, representing the Ministry of Education for the province of British Columbia, can justify handing out that kind of textbook to the young people of that province.

When are they getting a new textbook for social studies 11? That's my question to the minister.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, the member mentioned the concern about textbooks. As I mentioned earlier, I listened to that concern from the school boards and teachers, and got another $6 million. I have yet to get an acknowledgement that at least I did respond to the concerns and get some additional dollars.

The member might be pleased to know that she has about $245,000 credit in the textbook allocation for Courtenay School District. I don't know whether it should be more than $245,000 or whether it should be $500,000, but this year, in 1986-87, we're spending well in excess of what's been spent on textbooks in the last several years. As I said earlier in the debate, our figures for textbooks, replacement and new textbooks, has been around $11 to $12 million a year, provincewide. This year it's up to $17.25 million. Madam Member, I can assure you that I'll do my best to bring in new textbooks as quickly as possible. In regard to the social studies....

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I have a silly little man from Vancouver East who keeps saying "When, when, when?"

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I will not say that, no.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Perhaps if you address the Chair....

HON. MR. HEWITT: I will answer the question as to when. My understanding is that the new social studies textbooks will be in the hands of the students this fall, starting in September 1986.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to ask whether that's a new edition of this textbook or whether it's a new textbook to fit a new course.

[ Page 7999 ]

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, it's the new textbook to fit the new course.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, the minister is getting tired, so I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Ree in the chair.

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

Hon. Mr. McClelland moved adjournment of the House. Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:53 p.m.