[ Page 8015 ]

CONTENTS

Oral Questions

ResWest reservation system. Mr. MacWilliam –– 8015

Mr. Stupich

Coquihalla Highway. Mr. Lockstead –– 8016

Forest fire fighting. Mr. Williams –– 8016

Downie Street sawmill. Mr. Williams –– 8016

Transfer students. Mr. Nicolson –– 8017

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

On vote 16: minister's office –– 8017

Mr. MacWilliam

Mr. Cocke Mr. D'Arcy Mr. Rose

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Environment estimates. (Hon. Mr. Pelton)

On vote 25: minister's office –– 8031

Hon. Mr. Pelton

Mrs. Wallace

TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1986

The House met at 2:09 p.m.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, we are delighted to have with us this afternoon, accompanied by my good friend Mr. Mark Krasnick and his charming wife Arlene, four visitors from East China Normal University in Shanghai: Prof. Zhang, Prof. Xie, Prof. Zhao, and Mr. Li. These people are participating in an educational program at the University of Victoria, now in the last week of a two-month visit, and I know that all members would like to bid them a most cordial welcome to our assembly.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, in the gallery is a very talented young lady whom I have great pleasure in presenting to the House today. Tammy Gray is 15 years of age and her home is Terrace, British Columbia. Tammy is attending the Jericho Hill School for the Deaf in Vancouver. In Nanaimo Tammy competed in the deaf and disabled athlete portion of the 1985 B.C. Summer Games. The big news in Tammy's contribution to the games is that she won nine gold medals. No athlete in the British Columbia Games has ever won more than five medals, and no one has ever won more than four gold medals. Tammy's medals were won in the 50 millimetre butterfly, the 50-millimetre freestyle, the 100 millimetre backstroke, the 100 individual medley....

I'm sorry, did I say millimetre? Forgive me. Now you know how really difficult it was.

It was the 50-metre butterfly, the 50-metre freestyle, the 100-metre backstroke, the 100-metre individual medley, the 200-metre individual medley, the 100-metre breaststroke, 100-metre freestyle, 200-metre freestyle, and four gold medals in the 50-metre relay.

She is accompanied today by her mother, Mrs. Gill, from Terrace, and her interpreter, Diana Hill, from the Jericho School for the Deaf. Would the House please welcome this very talented lady.

HON. MR. KEMPF: Mr. Speaker, in the members' gallery this afternoon, from the district of Houston are Mayor Adrian Meeuwissen, clerk-administrator Mavis Smith and alderman Gary Beaudette. I would ask the House to make them very welcome.

MR. CHABOT: We have in the galleries today Miss Renee Cosgrove from Montreal, a friend of Miss Lisa Fitterman of the Vancouver Sun. I'd like the members to join me in welcoming her here today.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, we have in the galleries today two people from that wonderful riding of Revelstoke-Shuswap, Mr. and Mrs. Mac Turner. I wish the House would bid them welcome.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, also visiting with us today is Mrs. Christa Brooker from Vancouver. I'd ask the House to extend a warm welcome.

Oral Questions

RESWEST RESERVATION SYSTEM

MR. MacWILLIAM: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Tourism. British Columbia hotel and motel operators have been outraged at the fees charged by the government-supported monopoly reservation system, ResWest. Legitimate hotel operators have refused to join ResWest, while the skid row motel operators are given bookings in a less than honest fashion. What action has the minister taken to deal with the serious problems associated with ResWest reservations?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: We have kept in very close contact with ResWest. As a matter of fact, we have a committee that meets every Monday morning, made up of people from the hotel and motel industry, my ministry, Expo and ResWest. The doom and gloom, as suggested by that member, is just not there. Most hotels are in the reservation system. They are booking some 1,000 to 1,200 room nights per day through ResWest. The Host Home program is functioning through it, and doing very well. As a matter of fact, we have over 1,000 homes on the Host Home system now, with 10,000 more ready to be inspected and accepted onto the system.

[2:15]

MR. MacWILLIAM: The B.C. Motels, Resorts and Trailer Parks Association has requested a no-cost referral system as an alternative to the present situation with ResWest. I wonder if the minister would like to comment on whether he supports their request.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I hasten to point out to the member that the B.C. Motels Association was one of the unsuccessful bidders for the reservation system. We've been working very closely with them ever since, and we've convened meetings between them and ResWest. I suppose it should also be pointed out that the person making the noise on their behalf, one Earl Hansen, is now a candidate for some other party in the next election.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Is the minister not concerned about the long-term effect that might be occurring with regard to the B.C. travel industry? Unsuspecting tourists are booked into minimal accommodation –– in some cases skid row accommodation –– through the ResWest system, which has been promoted by the government. Is he not concerned about the long-term effect that this may have on return visits by those tourists?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: We're very concerned about the long-term effects. That's why we put the reservation system in place a year before Expo opened, and we intend to have it in place for many years after Expo is just pleasant memories.

MR. STUPICH: Another supplementary on this question of ResWest. Hotel and motel operators in Nanaimo joined the ResWest system, and they're wondering why traffic is being directed to Whistler rather than to Nanaimo on the basis that it's closer. Is there any connection between this and the

[ Page 8016 ]

amount of money that the government has invested in Whistler?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: The answer is no.

COQUIHALLA HIGHWAY

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I have a question to the Minister of Transportation and Highways. It was revealed last week that sections of the Coquihalla Highway are being ripped up because of improper surfacing. Will the minister advise the House who is paying for the reconstruction of the highway.

HON. A. FRASER: Would you ask the member to repeat the question, please?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: We'll try him once again, Mr. Speaker. It was revealed last week that sections of the Coquihalla Highway are being ripped up because of improper surfacing. That's easy enough to understand. Will the minister advise the House who is paying for the reconstruction of the highway.

HON. A. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, I don't know where you get your information, but in spite of the NDP, the Coquihalla Highway is being built. It will be open on May 16 as one of the finest pieces of road in Canada.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Can I ask the minister to repeat that non-answer?

I wonder if the minister can confirm that much of the groundwork and some of the paving was done during the winter months, which is quite extraordinary for a project of this kind. In other words, they paved over icebergs.

HON. A. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, you leave the worry of the construction to our competent engineers, and I invite you to join us and ride on one of the best pieces of road in Canada on May 16.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Supplementary. Has the minister been made aware of the concern that the roadbed and the paving have a greater than normal likelihood of slumping, and higher maintenance costs, because the work was done in winter conditions'? In other words, the maintenance costs of that thing are going to be astronomical.

HON. A. FRASER: Our contractors, our workmen, our engineers have literally moved mountains to push this freeway through what is probably the most difficult area in Canada. Sure, there are lots of problems when we build a road anywhere. But we will overcome, and the road will be first-class in construction as well as maintenance for a long time to come.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Just one more short supplementary. We have reason to believe that the final overall cost of this particular project will be well over budget, possibly $150 million over budget. Can the minister confirm that this is in fact the case?

HON. A. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, as I said before, we are still building the Coquihalla. We're not stopping creating lots of jobs. We're building phase 2, and we're going to build phase 3. We'll keep you posted through Public Accounts and that; we have an auditor-general and everything else. We have nothing to hide. I wish you people over there wouldn't be so suspicious of honest people.

FOREST FIRE FIGHTING

MR. WILLIAMS: After all that snow, I have a question for the Minister of Forests. Under restraint, the ranger stations in this province were cut by half. The report we received yesterday with respect to the devastating forest fire problem of last year indicates that the district structure should be amended to accommodate problems with respect to firefighting. Can the minister advise which districts will be extended so that there can be proper...?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, the report was made public yesterday. I think that the members will agree that it was a very frank and open report. I have not had an opportunity to analyze it in any significant detail, but I can advise all members of the House that the recommendations which are contained within the report will be thoroughly addressed.

With respect to the specific item on observation posts, I will make particular note of that concern which has been raised by the member.

MR. WILLIAMS: In that report, Mr. Speaker, there were 310 recommendations in terms of necessary change to improve our status with respect to forest fire fighting – this in a report prepared basically by civil servants. Can the minister advise how many new staff he foresees to deal with these 310 major issues?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: A total of 300-plus recommendations were made, but anybody who has taken time to look at the report… On page 1 it makes the following comment: "After the culmination of the review of this process, there were over 300 conclusions and recommendations. Many are common to several of the reports. Therefore a composite, consisting of 30 recommendations developed from the review panel hearings, advice received from other sources...." So I really am getting the impression from the report.... It may be politically opportune to make reference to 300 recommendations, but 30 recommendations are being suggested. I want to assure the member that this matter will be addressed.

DOWNIE STREET SAWMILL

MR. WILLIAMS: To the same minister, the Downie Street sawmill in Revelstoke has been closed. It's owned by Federated Co-op. Under the terms of their licence agreement, any wood harvested must be used by that mill. The yard is full of logs which are necessary for startup by the mill. There is concern among unemployed people in Revelstoke that those logs remain there. Ministry staff have advised that that should be the case. Can the minister confirm that those logs will remain at that mill so that there can be startup, and that those people will be re-employed as soon as possible?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Well, Mr. Speaker, it's a difficult problem. The fact of the matter is that the mill closed. We have to ask ourselves the reasons why it did close. The next

[ Page 8017 ]

question we have to ask ourselves –– and I recognize that there is an inventory in the yard –– is whether it's in the interest of the people who have the financial obligations to move those logs or to reopen the mill and have it process them. There are other matters involving that area being discussed at this time which I am not at liberty to discuss. I think a decision as to whether or not they are prepared to open is going to have to be made primarily by the owners of the mill. It's a very difficult question. Do you retain the inventory in the yard? I recognize the terms and conditions that were attached to the particular mill, but sometimes it's.... I think that we're going to have to.... I'll have a serious look at the problem. I don't have any details other than exactly what the member has asked –– that there is some fear that the logs are going to be sold. I'm not going to give a decision or make a statement, yes or no, until I find out all the facts with respect to it –– plus the other matter which we're considering.

TRANSFER STUDENTS

MR. NICOLSON: I have a question to the Minister of Post-Secondary Education. The University of British Columbia is considering putting a limit at 750 transfer students from the colleges. The overall responsibility lies within your ministry, Mr. Minister, and I would like to ask why the system is in such a state of chaos that one institution can undercut the mandate of another institution, all of which are funded by the taxpayer.

HON. R. FRASER: The principal concern of the minister with respect to the transfer of students, of course, centres around both access and excellence, and you can be sure that the very best possible treatment for transfer of students will be given to all students so that everybody in the province will have a good opportunity to transfer should they desire to do so.

MR. NICOLSON: I have a new question to the minister. The facts are that of students enrolled as freshmen at university, 17 percent come from the metropolitan area and only 6 percent come from the non-metropolitan areas. Has the minister decided that in British Columbia all students should have access, and that they will not be discriminated against because of their place of origin?

HON. R. FRASER: May I remind the member, Mr. Speaker, that all the colleges and institutes in the province were built by this and preceding Social Credit governments so that everybody in the province could get a post-secondary education.

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.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Mr. Chairman, before we recessed for lunch I was discussing the concern regarding the recent issuance of 91 layoff notices to teaching staff in School District 22. I brought to the attention of the minister the fact that those 91 layoff notices have gone out to teachers who are on permanent staff above and beyond the additional 22 teachers who are on temporary appointment who will not be having their appointments renewed. I want to reiterate that not all 91 of those teachers will be laid off. There will be some rehiring; just how much has not yet been determined. But I think the real concern here is that when you issue pink slips to individuals, those individuals immediately begin to look elsewhere to secure employment. The fact is that at this time we have 91 teachers in the Vernon School District that suddenly find their jobs may be terminated as of the end of the school year. Those people are not waiting around for that final decision to come down upon their heads. They're looking elsewhere right now. I mentioned one gentleman who is already involved in discussions with school districts in California, and that's happening not only as a result of layoffs in School District 22 but throughout British Columbia.

[2:30]

These layoffs, as I've mentioned to the minister, have been given to all teachers who have worked less than 66 months –– that is, less than 5.5 years. They are the youngest, the lowest-paid I might add, the ones with the most energy, the newest ideas. Not to discredit our older members, for they also are a fine example of the expertise in our profession, but the fact is that the new blood coming in is what continues to revitalize education in British Columbia, and these are the people who are being lopped off in order to serve the constraints of a restricted budgetary system.

Above and beyond the immediate crisis for those individuals, the question that comes to my mind is what happens to the morale within the teaching staff itself when you see friends and colleagues having their jobs terminated. The reality is that the morale has never been at a lower ebb. As people move on and out of British Columbia in efforts to find new employment, what happens is that we are suffering a draining of our professional resources in education while other provinces and other countries are becoming the beneficiaries.

Earlier the minister talked about pupil-teacher ratios. In the Vernon School District that PTR has now been altered to 20 to I in secondary schools and about 20.5 to I in elementary schools. Now when the minister looks at a PTR of 20 to l, I'm sure he realizes that that doesn't necessarily equate to 20 pupils in every classroom. But I really wonder, Mr. Chairman, whether the minister knows the extent of the discrepancies that exist within that pupil-teacher ratio. Does it mean class sizes of maybe 25, or perhaps class sizes of 30? Well, the fact is that they can equate to class sizes far greater than that. I want to point out to the minister that this is where the funding formula breaks down. This is what I said about not being realistic. The fact is that very few classes come within that ratio of 20 to 1.

I want to tell the minister something from my own experience before I became a member here in the House in the fall of '84. In September 1984, teaching senior high science classes, I was faced with class sizes in excess of 30 students. As a matter of fact, one had 41 students and the other 47 students in that laboratory class for science. I want to ask the minister if he's ever tried to teach a class of 40 students or greater — if he's ever experienced what it's like to face a class which becomes literally a sea of faces. It is absolutely impossible to address the concerns of the individual student when

[ Page 8018 ]

you've got a sea of over 40 faces in front of you — absolutely impossible to approach this concept of excellence in education that the government continually flaunts. It is impossible to approach any degree of individual contact with those students. Class sizes that exceed 30 individuals in a senior science class.... It severely compromises the educational excellence in that class and the opportunity for those students to gain the benefit of individual attention from the teacher. I wonder if the minister has ever stood in front of a class of 15 or 20 students and compared it to what it's like now to have to teach a class that is in excess of 30. I tell you, Mr. Minister, that the difference is not just an additive difference; it's far beyond that. It becomes virtually impossible to develop any educational excellence.

This whole idea of excellence in education is nothing more than a very sad joke, when we look at the pupil-teacher ratios that the teachers in the elementary and secondary levels are facing as a result of the budget constraints and as a result of the inflexibility of the present fiscal framework. The minister just recently — actually it was the Premier, I guess — announced the $110 million fund for Excellence in Education. It's a joke. You cannot have excellence in education when you are ignoring the very essence of the problem, which is funding the programs and the meat-and-potatoes issues: enough textbooks, small enough class sizes, and enough staff and professional experience to assist the teachers on a day-to-day basis. The $110 million Excellence in Education fund becomes absolutely meaningless until you begin to address those real concerns.

I met yesterday with the members of the board of School District 23 in Kelowna. The Kelowna school district had written me and asked me to attend a meeting so they could address a number of concerns directly to me, because they had been unable to elicit a response to the request they had made to the Premier to sit down and talk to him about problems faced in the Kelowna school district regarding education. Not only did they not receive an indication of when the Premier would be available to meet; they were completely ignored. So they did the next best thing, which was to ask a neighbouring MLA and an MLA whose constituency does overlap with part of School District 23.I took the opportunity to meet with those members, to sit down and talk to them and learn a little bit in terms of first-hand experience about some of their problems.

They took the opportunity to detail a fairly extensive report. I want to point out to the minister that the report summarizes many of the inadequacies of provincial funding for the school operating budget. School District 23, I might add, has always had one of the lowest per-pupil costs in the province. My colleague the opposition critic for Education will verify that, because he taught there himself. It has always had one of the highest pupil-teacher ratios in British Columbia. There has not been a lot of fat to trim from the beginning; certainly there's none left now. During the restraint program introduced since '82, the district reduced staff at both the school and the district levels. But in spite of those reductions, in spite of the trimming, the board has still been unable to fund the very essential programs, the meat and potatoes, that are needed to run a school: the school supplies, textbooks, professional development fund, even daily maintenance schedules. They cannot be met under the present fiscal framework.

Class sizes are very large. I have a summary of class sizes. I'm sure the information is also available to the minister and that he has had a chance to look at it. The majority of classes are between 21 and 30 students. Many senior secondary classes are in excess of 30 students. As I stressed before, as you increase class size you decrease the ability of the individual teacher to service those students; you decrease the educational opportunity available to those students.

The board is extremely concerned over the long-term, adverse effects of the present situation. They were kind enough to submit to me a fairly detailed report, which I would like to take the opportunity to read a portion of into the record, for the information of the minister. In the report they say that the level of shareable funding recently determined by the ministry, using the present fiscal framework, is not adequate. Then they go on to list a number of points, and I want to take the opportunity go through them. "The board will be able to allow the cost of salaries and benefits for all employees at the 1985-86 level, and pay 1986-87 increments to the teachers." That's just paying the increments. "The employees in this district have not had a significant wage increase since 1982." Despite the howls of protest from the other side that all the teachers want is more and more money, there has not been a significant increase since 1982. When you take into consideration the five unpaid days worked in 1983 and the inflationary factors, the teaching staff have actually experienced a decrease in wages.

"Although no funds have been included for the 1986-87 teacher salary negotiations in the fiscal framework, the negotiations and the arbitration process have not been suspended. There is, therefore, a potential for teachers to be awarded an increase by an arbitration board." The point here is that the board will not have any alternative but to reduce programs currently planned in order to pay increments received through the various legal provisions. That's one point that they make.

"Although some adjustments were made this year in the fiscal framework, the funds allocated to School District 23 barely permit continuation of the current PTR" — which is already recognized to be one of the three worst in the province.

MR. ROSE: Is that right? Three worst, eh?

MR. MacWILLIAM: That's right, according to the report; absolutely. It says: "Although this district" — I see the light, Mr. Chairman — "has the third-highest pupil-teacher ratio in the province, the operating funds allowed under the fiscal framework do not permit recruitment of even a few additional teachers to lower some of the largest class sizes."

"A survey of similar-sized school districts indicates that the allocations for such necessary things as school supplies" — my goodness, school supplies! — "industrial education and home economics materials, and minimal expenses for school teams travelling on league games, are and will continue to be significantly below the amounts provided in many other districts."

Another point they wish to make: "The equipment replacement budget in this district has been so low for so many years that unless a major investment is made in this area, many schools could have serious difficulties in offering such essential programs as industrial education, home economics and business education" — the meat and potatoes. They're going to lose the ability to service even that. "The board will

[ Page 8019 ]

not be able to allocate much more to this program than was provided last year."

One point they continually re-emphasize is that "the fiscal framework does not take into consideration one major factor in school district organization, a factor which the school district itself cannot very easily alter," and that is the number of schools in the district. "A school district with the same enrolment but fewer schools has much more flexibility in allocating the fiscal-framework-determined budget." In other words, those school districts with a lot of smaller schools have higher administration costs. It's unavoidable. Perhaps the minister would like to comment now, or someone else will speak.

[2:45]

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, I thought one of the other members of the opposition was going to intervene so the member could carry on with his scintillating debate, but let me talk about the issues that he has raised.

First of all, this morning before lunch he raised the one about the California people coming up to British Columbia to take our teachers, and he talked about the brain drain. Again, opposition members are very selective. They would not tell you that the same recruitment is taking place in the province of Alberta and the province of Ontario. I'm pleased that California looks to Canada for quality in educators. The reason that these teachers are available, of course, is that our student population is not sufficient to require all those with teaching degrees to work in our schools. So it is nice that we're recognized in Canada as having good, quality education for our teachers.

Specifically, going to School District 22, again the member opposite is very selective. He says 91 teachers have been given their layoff notice. Mr. Chairman, he's quite correct that 91 teachers in his area have been — or will be given, I guess, is a better term — a layoff notice.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Have been.

HON. MR. HEWITT: The school board has to advise well in advance. The reason? First of all, there are 300 fewer students anticipated in September than there are now. The member has identified that. Also, usually in the Vernon School District, in the past anyway, up to 20 teachers have taken a leave of absence for a year, and that has allowed other teachers to stay on even though student population was declining. This year there arc only three taking their leave of absence and only one teacher going into retirement.

The teachers in the area, although receiving their notice, know when it gets around to September, because of student reduction, that you'll probably see about 20 of the 91 being laid off. The reason for that, Mr. Member, is that first of all the notice must go out, and then the opportunity of burnping, if you will, of those people with seniority to make the determination of what else they would like to do. That's the reason the notices go out now.

In actual fact, you won't be seeing the 91 laid off, as the member tends to indicate. This is a terrible thing to be done, but it allows for the seniority burnping procedure in the contract to take place. The reason for the reduction of numbers of teachers also primarily relates to the reduction in student population.

One last thing. The teachers, of course, have a negotiated agreement — a contract — with the school board regarding layoff notices and arrangements with the local school board.

Back to the California issue. I don't know whether the member opposite would want teachers to stand in empty classrooms in anticipation that somewhere down the road there will be an increase in our population and therefore teachers will be needed. There will be a time, I am sure, as our young population grows that we will need additional teachers. If we don't have them here, we will undoubtedly look elsewhere for them, the same as California has done this year and last year, and the same as we did back a few years ago when we looked to Great Britain for teachers.

I am told that over 2,000 teachers presently teaching in British Columbia were trained in Great Britain and recruited in the past by school boards and by the government. There is an indication that when the time comes that we need additional teachers and we don't have them locally, then we will have to search for them, the same as California has done and the same as we did in the past.

To take the NDP economics about having people standing collecting paycheques and not performing in a classroom is absolute nonsense. I think that's why the member for Surrey keeps telling that college instructor from North Okanagan that he should maybe get a little bit educated in economics and get a real job.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I'm glad the Minister of Education put that comment on the record. I truly am impressed with the comment, and I'm sure my colleagues throughout British Columbia will be most impressed.

Mr. Chairman, this minister does not seem to realize that we have classes in excess of 30 students. We have schools, for gosh sakes, up in the Vernon area that have had to eliminate their department head — there are no department heads whatsoever — in order to save money. We have class sizes that are unrealistically large, yet we're still laying off teaching staff. We're losing the professional expertise, we're losing the years of training and we're losing the tax dollars that we've put into training those individuals. And this minister has the unmitigated gall to suggest that that's sound economics.

If you think that's sound economics, Mr. Minister, then you'd better have another look around, because it's the most unsound economic theory that I've ever heard, where you spend hundreds and thousands of dollars training people, and then you lay them off and let them leave the damned province because there are no jobs for them. If you can reduce the pupil-teacher ratio to a reasonable level at this time when there is decreasing enrolment in the schools, where a teacher can get up in the morning and face a class where he understands the individual needs of every one of those individual students rather than facing a sea of bloody faces, then you'll begin to get some educational excellence here.

Mr. Minister, you have no idea of the reality and the day-to-day life that is faced by the teaching profession in this province as a result of the policies and as a result of the pigheaded attitude that this government has had to education in this province over the last four years.

MR. REID: Why not go back to 1975 levels? How about 1975 levels when you were in government?

[ Page 8020 ]

MR. MacWILLIAM: Mr. Chairman, the minister has indicated his unwillingness or his inability to see the crux of the issue, and that is the fact that the fiscal formula does not work for many rural districts. Take, for example, Arrow Lakes School District, a small school district geographically dispersed, which has many small schools spread throughout a large area. It faces increased administrative costs because of the small schools, the isolation, the geographical dispersement and the extra transportation costs that that involves. Take also School District 23, the Kelowna school district. Granted, it's much larger, but also with many small schools. It faces the same problems.

The fact is, the fiscal framework does not address the very real concerns and the increased administration costs that those more rural school districts must face. That has been brought up time and time again to previous ministers, yet nothing has been done to address that point. That is precisely the point that School District 23 was attempting to address in previous discussions with the minister, and again I point out that the minister simply refuses to acknowledge.

Going back to the report, it says:

"While the government's position on the fiscal framework is that it provides adequate funding for offering the programs mandated by the Ministry of Education, we assert, with firsthand knowledge, quite the contrary. Our assertion is based on three major factors.

"The fiscal framework uses the average teacher salary as the main factor for calculating the major portion of a school district's budget. No allowance is made for the fact that salaries arc determined after the budgets are established.

"Little allowance has been made for inflationary increases in the cost of providing services."

As a former department head of science in the education system, I witnessed, in my science budget, yearly increases of 24 percent to 27 percent in expenditures for supplies. That's the reality of budgeting which science departments and home ec departments and phys ed departments have to meet. In the real world, costs are still going up, you have to address those costs, and address them in a realistic manner.

The minister sits there and says the fiscal framework is working well. I tell you it's not working, because you're holding costs in light of the escalating costs that these districts must meet on a day-to-day basis. When you're faced with increased costs of 24 percent in one year for chemical supplies and laboratory equipment, what does that do to your budget when it's based at the same amount as it was last year? You cannot supply the material. One of two things happens: either you cut down on the number of necessary lab experiments, or you alter the program in such a way to meet the fiscal reality of your decreased buying power. Inevitably you will compromise the quality of that program. That's the reality we're facing out there.

The third point that I want to point out to the minister is: "The number of schools in a district largely controls such factors as the number of administrators, the cost of providing utilities, repair and maintenance bills. Every school is built with the ministry's permission. Surely the ministry should bear some responsibility for the number of schools in a school district. In other words, some recognition must be given in the fiscal framework" to account for the larger number of small schools and the higher operational costs experienced by these rural districts.

Those are the points that have been brought to my attention as a result of my meeting with School District 23 in Kelowna. I promised them I would bring them to the minister's attention. Mr. Chairman, the minister is now aware of those statements. In light of the Premier's refusal to meet with the school board in his own constituency, I would suggest that the minister take the opportunity to address those concerns directly to those members. There were a lot of very concerned people at that meeting yesterday, people who have put everything into their jobs and are quite frankly very disappointed in this government and its ability to address the real problems in education.

Some particular questions to the minister. I would like to know specifically if the minister is prepared to address the issue that I have just highlighted — the inflexible fiscal framework that does not reflect the needs of the rural district. I would like to know if the minister is prepared to make any alterations in the current pupil-teacher ratio to reflect more reasonable levels of staffing. I point out again that we have lost 3,000 teachers since 1982. Enrolment has dropped by only 10 percent, but when you consider inflation, funding has dropped by 25 percent. Three thousand jobs. We could be taking that opportunity to take those extra staff and to utilize them in such a way where we make the programs more flexible, we reduce the stress factor and the load on the individual teachers by spreading the load around. I'm not saying that you have to preserve every job; I know that that may be unrealistic. I'm not asking for any teacher to stand up in front of an empty classroom and get a paycheque every month. You know that's a stupid statement to make, and you know that no reasonable member would support that. What I am asking is that you have a look at reducing that pupil-teacher ratio. We have an opportunity to do it now while class sizes are dropping, without as much pain as when we have increased class sizes. What are you going to do about that?

What about adequate funding for special-needs programs, going back again to excellence in education, which is quite clearly a joke, when people are trying to just survive the day-to-day activity in an overloaded classroom. What are you going to do about adequate funding for the special-needs program? Not only for the disadvantaged or handicapped student, but what about the gifted student? They need an accelerated program, and right now there's not enough money in the budgets of most school districts to accommodate those needs. What are you going to do about the fact that 35 to 40 percent of our student population leaves school before graduating?

[3:00]

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Also, I'd like to know why the minister has rejected the recommendations made by the trustees of over 50 different boards that have called for an independent and impartial inquiry into education in British Columbia. I'd also like to know the ministry's views for the future of education in this province, in light of the fact that our whole economic structure is changing from an industrial society to a society that is becoming largely information-based. Our job roles are changing. How is the ministry addressing this need for educational change to resolve some of the concerns of technological change that we're facing now and certainly will be in the future? What role does he see for our schools in addressing this problem of tech change?

[ Page 8021 ]

Lastly, although the minister mentioned the indemnity of the board members, he didn't indicate whether there's any intention of increasing this remuneration. I think he mentioned $6,000 for the chairman and $4,000 for trustees. Mr. Minister, I have to submit that the amount of work that those poor school boards have put in during the past few years, trying to undo some of the damage that this government has done to education, certainly makes them eligible for an award of merit, if not for a slight increase in what really amounts to peanuts.

I'd like the minister's views on those questions.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, the member again is selective in his statistics and talks about the majority of classrooms in his School District 22....

MR. MacWILLIAM: Of course I do. That's what I'm responsible for.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Well, I wish you'd tell the truth...

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

HON. MR. HEWITT: ...or at least that you wouldn't exaggerate to such an extent that you mislead the public.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Hon. minister, I would ask you to withdraw the statement about....

HON. MR. HEWITT: Yes, I withdraw the statement about not telling the truth. I just wish he wouldn't exaggerate, Mr. Chairman.

Let me then tell the member for his information that in over 80 percent of secondary classes in the Vernon School District there are 30 students or less. Interesting.

He mentions science. Well, l have from his school district secondary class size by grade, and it has science grade 8.... You can appreciate, Mr. Member, so I don't mislead you, that these are averages, I guess, of all your classes in science. There are 26 in grade 8, 27.5 in grade 9, 27.7 in grade 10, 25.7 in grade 11, and 22.1 in grade 12.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: And I know, Mr. Chairman, that that's exactly the point that the man's trying to make. But, Mr. Member, will you get the message: over 80 percent of classes in your school district in the secondary school are under 30 students. I don't know what else I can tell the man. I apologize to others of the teaching profession, but I have some difficulty with this man's ability to reason, and I have to concur sometimes with the member for Surrey, that I wish he'd get an understanding of figures and economics, instead of just commenting about the terrible side of education in his school district.

For example, Mr. Member, your largest class in the elementary schools is 32; smallest class, 17; number of classes enrolled — I guess this is under 21 — 19; between 21 and 25, 80; between 26 and 30, 57; between 31 and 35, 7; over 35, zero. Mr. Member, is that all that bad?

You say: "Isn't this the time to reduce class size?" You teachers have this mindset of pupil-teacher ratio mainly because the former Minister of Education for the NDP, now the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly), read a report once that some academic wrote, and said: "Listen, we can do much better if we have more classes." Mr. Member, for your information, and I'm sure you're as aware of it as I am, in Japan they are considered to have the best education system in the world; their students achieve the greatest academic standards, and I can show you charts to prove that. Well, the average class size in Japan is 41 students. Now something's wrong. I know you're going to tell me it's all to do with social things and matters and the style of the population or whatever, but I'm giving you facts, not political rhetoric. I'm giving you facts right from your own school district that prove you wrong.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to move to some of the other issues that the member raises. On rural school districts, Mr. Member, I'll agree with you. I also think that we've got to have some more fine-tuning, possibly in the fiscal framework for rural.... No, I'll even go beyond rural, because as I've said earlier to my staff and, I think, even in this House, maybe we'd better identify urban, rural and remote. By remote I mean those schools that are small schools with a small student population that may be separated by water, mountainous terrain or whatever the case may be. Maybe we have to take into consideration some further assistance in that area. But we do have a fiscal framework review committee made up of staff, and of educators as well, who come in to meet every fall. They review those things, and they have made recommendations; and my ministry has accepted about 85 percent of those recommendations. I'm in agreement that there may need to be some additional fine-tuning, but that is not a major or material impact on the total fiscal framework.

When you talk about salary increases not being in the fiscal framework for 1986-87, that's quite correct. They're not in there because the message is loud and clear: there shouldn't be any money in there for them, because there shouldn't be any salary increases given this year for the reasons that we've talked about before.

You talked about the inflexible fiscal framework, Mr. Member. We have an annual review committee made up of people from the field and my ministry, as I said, to identify those areas; and we do, to a certain extent, identify the rural school district. I'm just saying that maybe we need a little more fine-tuning in that area. So on that subject maybe the member opposite and I agree.

The pupil-teacher ratio I've talked about. He asks what I'm going to do. I've indicated to him that his figures are somewhat exaggerated. So I've given him actual figures right out of his school district. He talks about the gifted students and special education. Function 3 of the fiscal framework identifies that. Included in that function, if you want to read the formula, is a section on gifted students. The number of gifted students identified by the local school district — and input into the ministry generates the dollars to be related to the fiscal framework in regard to a school district.... In your case, Mr. Member, we put $523,000 in the fiscal framework last year. Your school district had $449,000 in its total budget. In effect, the framework gave them more than they actually used or needed. In regard to district administration, we provided $291,000 in the fiscal framework. In their total budget they had $238,000. Again, they identified less than what we provided. Your school board has the ability, by the way, as you probably know, to move the dollars among those various functions of operation. So they have that flexibility at the local level.

[ Page 8022 ]

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEWITT: l don't disagree with it, either. I'm just saying that we attempted to identify it.

In regard to my goals, Mr. Member, I'm going to be very kind. I'm going to send you a copy of my speech, unless the critic for education has already acquired one. I'll send you the one I gave to the BCSTA meeting. It outlines my goals. You might find it interesting reading, but I won't go through the details today.

You talked about, l guess, the royal commission concept. The "Let's Talk About Schools" effort addresses the need for change in many areas. That's going to be part of the material used by my School Act Review Committee in determining what their role's going to be in developing new legislation in the province.

Mr. Chairman, I think that answers all the questions that the member raised concerning his school district and education in general.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I don't dispute the figures that the minister threw out. l guess that's the problem with playing the numbers game: the numbers never reflect reality. That's exactly the point, Mr. Minister, that I was trying to make. You mentioned that the average class size, according to your document there, is approximately 30 students. The reality is that with the reduced staffing and with the number of course options that are faced, particularly in the secondary institutions, many of the courses are severely overloaded, particularly in the academics and the sciences, which is the area I'm from. That's what I'm trying to say. Yes, there are classes that are low in terms of the number of students, but there are also classes that are extremely high. I'm telling you about a situation that I faced — a reality that was faced — where initial class sizes were in excess of 40.

I guess it's like the guy standing in a tub of boiling water with one foot in the boiling water and the other foot in the icewater. On average it's not bad. But the reality is that one foot's frying and the other one's freezing. That's exactly what's happening in the schools: on average it's not bad. Well, even that's debatable, because a class size of 30 students is pretty large.

Interjection.

MR. MacWILLIAM: And you find that acceptable? I'm saying, stand in a classroom of 36 students and see the difference between teaching a class of 26 students and a class of 36.

Interjection.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Let's not debate the issue any further, except to say that the fiscal framework does not account for that reality, and that's why it's too inflexible.

Interjection.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Obviously the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) knows absolutely bean-all about education if he's to make a comment like that. He continually puts down people in the education profession with his inane comments, his inept summary of a situation he knows nothing about.

The minister also mentioned, in between attacks on the education profession.... I might add that the minister's comments about teachers not having real jobs will, I'm sure, be very well received by the members of the profession.

Citing Japan, the minister seems to indicate that the opposite is in fact true: that larger classes make for better education, that with classes in excess of 40, they have high educational standards. But it depends upon how you measure those standards. Is the minister saying that education is merely a function of filling the empty cup? You can fill an empty cup if all you're looking at is memory retention and the simple functions. He knows nothing about it. The minister doesn't realize that there's more to education than simply filling the empty cup; that the real need for education is the ability of the individual instructor, at whatever level, to attend to the individual needs of those students.

What I'm saying to you, Mr. Minister — with all due respect — is that you need to be able to deal with the student as an individual, not as a nameless face in the class. Until you appreciate that fact, you'll never understand the essence of education in this province.

[3:15]

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, we can be very philosophical. That's what I found from that member over there in the debate today, and others. I have a wife who is an ex-teacher and who taught in the classroom for a number of years, and she has given me her comments on how she sees education today. I have a daughter who teaches in the school system, and I have her comments on how education is performing today. All we get from the opposition is not issues related to education, but political rhetoric. I have no objection to that, because the opposition's role is to oppose. That's the whole system, I guess, that we debate in this House. We say one thing, they say another. We go on and on and on.

That man who just left the chamber, the member for Okanagan North, gets up and makes those comments, and he comes from the teaching profession. I didn't hear too much in the way of his thoughts for education in the future, except get the pupil-teacher ratio down because we can hire more teachers then; that we are underfunding. I didn't hear any comment from him in regard to his views on "education," but only the issues that.... He finds fault with the fiscal framework. If he stopped for a moment, he would recognize that it benefits his school district, as it benefits other interior school districts in this province that didn't have a large industrial base to tax, as some have had.

Mr. Chairman, there are many teachers out there who do have a sense and understanding of the economic problems of the province. That member does not. Many teachers that do have ideas for the future in education and how best to provide for our children in the twenty-first century, and who are interested and enthusiastic over the Excellence in Education Fund. I would advise the members opposite that we now have 30 applications, I believe, from various school districts around this province, and I'm sure more to come. There are many administrators, school board members, school teachers, all excited about the future, but not involved in political rhetoric.

My statements about the BCSTA and its political stance — and I use the word "political" in the general sense, not party politics — at the leadership level, and I use that in the general sense.... The members opposite are all caught up

[ Page 8023 ]

in the fact that we've got to have this debate, this confrontation, whether it's NDP versus Social Credit, BCSTA executive and BCTF executive versus the Ministry of Education. But the one thing they've forgotten, and the one thing I'll never forget in this role as Minister of Education, is the young people. Nobody over there has mentioned the students yet today. They're more interested in finding files and pulling leaked documents, in debating issues and finding fault with a formula developed by people who have worked in the system and attempted to find a rational, proper way to fund education in a manner that is fair and equitable to students of this province, yet they keep finding fault. They'll always try to find fault, and they'll always be over there trying to find fault because people see through the political charade.

MR. COCKE: The minister made a very significant contribution at that juncture. As a matter of fact, I would argue with his prophetic statement. The fact of the matter is that when the writ is dropped, if it ever is, sides will very quickly change. One of the reasons they will change is because of this government's attitude toward education and our children.

I heard the minister distinctly indicate that the members on this side of the House were not talking about the children. I have been in and out of this Legislative Assembly for the last number of hours, and I have heard plea after plea with the objective of providing for the kids of this province. How the minister can misinterpret everything that has been going on.... Talk about political. The minister talks about philosophical and political statements coming from the opposition. The fact of the matter is the political rhetoric is coming from that minister. You know he talks about no one speaking for the kids except him.

Take it right outside this chamber. Take it away from the Socreds. Take it away from the NDP, and take it to the families that have children in this province. Ask them. Ask people who are not politically involved whether or not this government is measuring up in terms of the delivery of education to the children in this province, and there will be virtual unanimity out there that they are not measuring up. Every survey.... Every member of this assembly knows it in his or her heart of hearts because we all hear it.

This is not just emanating from 517 East Broadway or wherever. It is emanating from the consternation that people are feeling toward the lack of energy being spent in taking care of our children. The minister says that he has a daughter that is a teacher, a wife that is an ex-teacher, and so on. Commendable. But what does that do to his argument'? His argument is hollow. He didn't even suggest.... He says that they have made statements to him, but he hasn't even told us what those statements are.

I suggest that the minister is giving us a bit of a short shrift on this whole subject. Now I don't think anybody has any misunderstanding of where we stand in terms of funding, so I am just going to reiterate. As far as we are concerned, the funding should be 75 percent provincial. It has dropped off ever since the Socreds were elected in 1976. They have continually decreased the amount of their contribution. Then of course, midway through the scene, they managed to pilfer the commercial and industrial tax base from every municipality, from every city in this province. They say that makes it fair. Well, what about the old formula, for heaven's sake?

New Westminster for years has been in receipt of more than 100 percent of the costs of our educational program in New Westminster, and anything over 100 percent went to the rest of the province. It was divided up in the old formula. But no, not now; that's not good enough anymore. Now they want that tax base to make it appear that this government has a sort of a Santa Claus attitude.

MR. REID: There is no Santa Claus.

MR. COCKE: There is a person that is better qualified to tell us that there is no Santa Claus than anybody I know. The member for Surrey, who accidentally found his way to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and who will never find his way back here after the next election, has proven to us that this government has absolutely no generosity whatsoever. He sits there and heckles.

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The hon. member for Surrey will have his opportunity to stand in debate if he so wishes. In the meantime, his silence would be appreciated.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, the member for Surrey never debates; he sits in his chair and heckles. He has not the basic wisdom. Mr. Chairman, let's get back to it.

As far as we are concerned, that kind of funding with local autonomy restored.... What do we look at when we are seeing funding? We see this new $110 million fund for excellence in education. That's almost without precedent in the democratic system, where a minister has his pockets stuffed....

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: The member that sells used cars....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The hon. member for Surrey will have an opportunity to stand and debate. In the meantime, the member for New Westminster has been recognized and has the floor.

MR. COCKE: Now that fund for excellence, Mr. Chairman, is unprecedented. We all know that. Here we are, representatives of the people in British Columbia, asked to monitor the estimates of this government, and then suddenly this government, by an act, turns over $110 million for him to pack around and distribute according to his wisdom. What about the wisdom of the Legislature? Why is that $110 million not in the estimates where it belongs so that it can be discussed, so that the minister doesn't have the opportunity to go out and do his political largess thing?

Oh, you're a supporter? Here we go. If not, well, then you may have to suffer. In New Westminster, where they have had the good sense, since 1952, to never, ever elect a Socred — always a CCFer or an NDPer — we know the kind of instincts that this government has in terms of their largess. They do the political punishing. Oh, they won't do it much longer, but they have been doing it. Don't you ever look at the Royal Columbian Hospital and many of the other manifestations in our city and tell us that no, we don't. Nonsense.

Anyway, what's happening in my town as a result of this government's attitude toward the children of New Westminster? I'll tell you what's happening. There are cutbacks in counselling, which is needed more now than ever, for

[ Page 8024 ]

heaven's sake, in our province where there is so much upset; cutbacks in speech therapy.... Now is that an unnecessary program? I don't think so. Special education— you know, we just use that term. We say special education, and then people say: "What's special education?"

Well, it's for the gifted and talented. I don't think the member for Surrey would qualify for that, but it's also for the learning-disabled.

MR. REID: Careful, careful.

MR. COCKE: Oh, you can take it, can't you? You can dish it out but you can't take it. Poor little softie.

MR. REID: You'll never win again. You'll never run again. You're gone.

MR. COCKE: That's right, I will not win a provincial election again, because I've had the good grace to understand that when one's time has come to get out of this, that's when one should leave. I've had going on 18 years of service, and I haven't been criticized that much, other than by the member for Surrey.

Anyway, getting on, Mr. Chairman. Gifted and talented, learning-disabled, mentally handicapped.... Let's just for a second talk about the mentally handicapped. The Ministry of Human Resources decided, and I agree with this concept, that it would be necessary to get the mentally handicapped people into the community and into the school system, and to provide for them there. They did two of the three. They got them into the community, into the school system, but didn't pay the shot.

MR. REID: Yes, they did.

MR. COCKE: No, they did not.

MR. REID: Yes, they did.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I would like that member to stand up and prove his point, because I can prove mine. You show us where the increase has been. The budget in our town is to provide for the 1983 level; 1986 it is now, and we're into the fiscal year 1986-87. But no, to provide at the 1983 dollar level.... Well, you know where you're going with that kind of situation — you're going backwards.

[3:30]

Now there was a minister standing up and telling us about his concern for the kids in British Columbia. His concern for the kids in British Columbia is not reflected in his actions toward the children in British Columbia. I wondered, at the time that he was made Minister of Education, whether or not there had been a mistake. He's never shown an interest in the subject. Never to my knowledge has he ever shown an interest in education in the province of British Columbia, and yet all of a sudden out of the blue the Premier of this province names him Minister of Education. It was a shock to me. I thought that surely it would be somebody who had at least said something. Mr. Chairman, with respect, I'm dealing with his office. Surely someone in the Social Credit caucus or cabinet or somewhere.... You know, the Chairman who is just about to take the chair: I've heard him make speeches on education and talk a good deal of sense on education.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

But I'll tell you, l have never heard those kinds of words emanating from the member from Boundary-Similkameen. Now suddenly here we are. The only worse disaster that could have happened would have been the second member for Surrey. Anyway, I just want to say on behalf of the constituents of New Westminster: no, we are not happy. No, we don't feel that the overall province is being well served, and we know full well that we in our city are not being served properly by this ministry or by this government.

MR. D'ARCY: I certainly never anticipated a week ago, when we began this discussion in this House, that I'd be standing on the same vote today. I know we are making great progress, however.

MR. ROSE: I didn't expect it either.

MR. D'ARCY: The member for Coquitlam-Moody thinks that our caucus should reconsider our decision to have this through by noon today.

Anyway, I have just a few things to say to the minister, to some degree relating to last week and to some degree relating to today. But first of all, I think the minister, this House and this committee should realize that the minister a few minutes ago attributed political statements to everybody who has ever had anything to say about education.

Interjections.

MR. D'ARCY: I don't find that bad. Everybody's going, "oh, oh, oh," over there. I don't find that bad at all. What I want to remind the committee, in case the minister has forgotten it or wants the province of B.C. and the taxpayers of B.C. to forget about it, is that the minister is a politician. He's a Social Credit politician who ran for office last time and is probably going to run for office again. And everything that that politician says — and I don't use the term politician unkindly — to this committee or anywhere else is indeed a political statement, and every position that he takes is a political stance — a partisan political statement and a partisan political stance. Let's just get that clearly on the record, Mr. Chairman. Everything that politician over there says is political, by definition.

Very quickly — I suppose I should have perhaps got up and made a correction at the time — the member for Okanagan North (Mr. MacWilliam) said that the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) was occasionally making inane comments. I don't think that should go unchallenged, because I'm not aware of the second member for Surrey entering this discussion at all, with comments that were either inane or nane, whatever that is. I don't believe he has entered the discussion, but he's certainly free to at any time he wishes. However, I will say that I think that the second member for Surrey's interjections — his quiet interjections — from time to time certainly articulate and demonstrate very well the Social Credit attitude toward education in general in this province, and therefore should go....

I want to get back to the question of the excellence in education, which I discussed with the minister last week. The minister and other politicians on the government side have

[ Page 8025 ]

stated ever since the Excellence in Education fund was announced that they had a pretty liberal attitude towards applications and that they were prepared, with open minds, to have a good look at applications wherever they came from, on whatever subject. Last week the minister told the committee that language immersion, period, was not an appropriate subject for Excellence in Education in his view and in the view of the cabinet. If that is the case, would not the minister and his predecessor have saved that school board in Castlegar, in particular, and indeed all other school boards the trouble of applying for assistance under the Excellence in Education fund on language immersion, or anything else, by merely putting down a few guidelines?

That is the problem that we and that the taxpaying public of British Columbia have with the Excellence in Education concept. It is not the question of whether or not the Excellence in Education fund is a slush fund. The point is that it must not appear to be a slush fund. If the minister cannot lay out guidelines, but will say anything and everything will be considered, and then to say in this House, as he said to that school board up there: "Don't bother with an immersion application. We just don't consider it appropriate, period...." All that anyone ever asked for, Mr. Chairman, was that the minister and his committee keep an open mind and look at each application from every school board on its own merits before rejecting them out of hand.

The minister and the government would save the hard-working school boards and the concerned citizenry out there, who are ultimately paying the bill, a whole lot of time by not giving the impression — indeed, stating outright — that almost anything is appropriate under the Excellence in Education criteria but not spelling out the criteria. Then when applications come in, they simply say: "We're rejecting that out of hand, because we don't consider it appropriate."

The minister, Mr. Chairman, says they have up to 30 applications. We know that one out of that is not considered to be appropriate. How many of the others are appropriate? How many are inappropriate? What are the guidelines, Mr. Chairman? The taxpaying public in B.C. and the educational community in British Columbia certainly have a right to know.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, to deal with the Excellence in Education fund, we did put out the pamphlets, all the materials and the call for proposals, which identified detailed guidelines dealing with the objectives, priority expenditures, basic proposal, certain components, teacher training, equipment component, effective schooling. We also included in this material requests for support — a document, if you will, is an application which can be completed, and then all the supporting document will go in with it.

We attempted to give as much detail as possible in order that school boards and administrators and teachers would have a good understanding of what we were attempting to do. I also had my senior staff tour the province, I think meeting with almost every school district, either the superintendent or the secretary-treasurer or administrator, to explain it so that it could be conveyed to the school board. I think we covered most of the questions that school districts would have.

Regarding the language immersion program that the member was talking about, one of the areas that we're explicit about is that this program could not cover ongoing funding of any particular programs. You can appreciate that it's more or less a one-shot funding to acquire equipment or retraining of teachers. To start up a course would need materials, etc., and that was the opportunity afforded to them under the Excellence in Education fund, which, as the member knows, is a three-year fund and at the end of the third year, if you had it covering ongoing costs of a class, you'd end up at the end of three years with no funding left.

The concept was really to provide the capital to get something underway that would normally be covered.... The operation side would be covered under the operating budget. This was an incentive to get some new ideas and concepts put forward from the field, from the educators working at the local level. As I said to the member, we have approximately 30 applications in to date which we will be dealing with.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Chairman, those were exactly the criteria that the school board, in consultation with the taxpaying public in Castlegar School District thought they were applying under. They thought that they were applying under the general section that the minister describes as effective schooling. It is, Mr. Chairman, a new program. They knew very well that after three years they would have to have the thing fly on its own out of general funding. Those were exactly the criteria that they discussed with the ministry — the potential criteria.

This weekend, I was importuned — if that's the word — by several school board members. I was taking part in a trade fair in Castlegar, and a number of school board members asked me about this, and I asked them specifically, based on the minister's comments last week to this committee, if they had asked the question of anyone within the ministry, including the minister or past ministers, before they prepared this application, if this would be inappropriate. At no time were they told that this kind of a program would be an inappropriate application under the Excellence in Education fund. So they proceeded with it. It was only after they had prepared the application that they were advised that it was not appropriate. That is entirely my point to the committee. If an area of application is to be inappropriate, will the minister and/or his staff please advise the school boards out there, especially when, as in this case, they go and ask specifically: is this appropriate or inappropriate? I'm not attempting to make policy for the minister. I'd like to, but I know he won't pay any attention. But I am saying, would you at least let them know out there what the score is, so they don't run up any cul-de-sacs; they have more important things to do.

HON. MR. HEWITT: The member is referring, I gather, when he talks about Castlegar, to the Russian language program, which they have now funded themselves, for kindergarten and grade 1, and they want to expand it to grades 2 and 3. I met with the Castlegar School Board a week or so ago, and they posed that question to me. I said that, in my opinion, it would not appear to me to be a suitable one, but it would be one that they could address with regard to local taxation, because it is an ethnic language and certainly supported, as he mentioned, by parents in the area. If there is any misunderstanding, I apologize. My staff may have indicated to them: "Put the submission in and we'll see whether or not it qualifies." Evidently, I guess, it has been sent back. But when I met with them, I told them that one of the concerns I would have with the Excellence in Education fund if they were actually funding an ongoing program, which it appeared to me they wanted to do, was that it would be short-

[ Page 8026 ]

term funding, and then they'd end up having to tax locally two or three years down the road. l didn't think that was what they wanted to be faced with, and I didn't think that was really an appropriate approach to the Excellence in Education fund. I was hoping they would look to some other innovative approach. However, if we did not give them the information before they started, I can only apologize. I wasn't aware that they were asked to submit it on the assumption that it was going to be accepted.

MR. D'ARCY: I'm going to leave this; I think it has been properly canvassed. I just want to point out that the application was not submitted on the presumption that it was going to be accepted. It was submitted on the presumption it would get a fair hearing, and they don't feel they got that.

[3:45]

Anyway, last week I discussed with the committee and with the minister three important outstanding Expo legacy fund grant applications. The minister said at that time that they had merit, and that he would discuss them with his staff or his colleagues or whomever he discusses these things with. He has had a week to do it. I am wondering if he can report back to the House on the Castlegar library grant, the Haley Park development grant in Trail, and the application by the Red Mountain Ski Club as well. I think the minister is fairly familiar with the Castlegar library grant, and I don't want to recanvass that one. But I would point out that work on both the Haley Park redevelopment and the Red Mountain Ski Club application is very seasonal. Obviously the Red Mountain one has to be completed before the snow flies.

In the case of Haley Park, it is a summertime-use thing. We're into April now, and it is very important that that most important facility in the city of Trail, used by the entire region, be got at least partly into usable condition, and it is hardly usable at all at the present time. Certainly the hard-working individuals who have canvassed door to door, and who have turned out every weekend to do enormous amounts of work in a public-spirited way, have a right to know what the disposition of this grant application is. I am told by people both here and in the constituency that the Haley Park redevelopment was one of the very first grant applications to be put in after the Expo legacy fund was announced by the government, and I think they have a right to know.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, I have been totally involved in the education part of my responsibilities, and I haven't had a meeting of the Expo legacy committee. I will take the member's comments with regard to Haley Park, Castlegar and Red Mountain, and attempt to have those matters dealt with as quickly as possible.

MR. ROSE: I would like to take a little bit of time to sort of clean up a number of things that haven't been covered. I know that most things have been pretty thoroughly canvassed. I feel sorry for the minister. He has got a very difficult job. He has to defend the indefensible. In order to do that, every once in a while he struts up and beats his chest. He makes certain kinds of sounds not unlike an anthropoid during perhaps the mating season.

But he talks about how much he loves the children. All the rest of us are really only interested in looking after and feathering our own nests so that these teachers can have fewer kids to teach and get more money, while he's looking after the kids. He's right out there looking after those little children.

I'm really pleased that both his wife and his daughter are teachers, and I'm glad that they've achieved that level of education, and that in spite of the fact he's Minister of Education they're still talking to him. I'm really pleased with that, because I met his daughter, or at least she was in an audience when I spoke in Penticton a year or two ago. I'm sure she's a very nice person, and I'm pleased she's got a job, because I've got a couple of daughters who haven't, as a result of this system. It isn't because of them particularly; it's about the kids.

Now when he was debating this matter with the member from Vernon.... The member from Vernon is perhaps not as charming as the present speaker, and therefore he tends to nettle the minister. I learned to be that way, and I get along fine without much information, and that's how I can operate in the dark so well in a place over in the Ministry of Education where they grow lots of mushrooms. I can get by under those circumstances.

He said they're going to fire 50 teachers up in Vernon. There were 91 who got their notices, but perhaps there would be 20 or more fired. Well, 20 into 300, even if it is 20, and I don't think it is 20.... But anyway, whatever it is....

MR. CHAIRMAN: One moment, please. It's encouraging to see the member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. Reynolds) and the second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe) get along so well, but it is a little loud.

MR. ROSE: What it looks like to me is, if you divide 20 into 300 — even 20, and it's going to be higher than that — it comes to 15, and that means that you're going to load class sizes, because I don't think there's a classroom in Vernon as small as 15. When somebody else....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Yes, there might be one. I don't know, I haven't got his records here. Mr. Chairman, you should know this: as an opposition, we're not entitled to have our experts and researchers behind us. There is the minister over there, armed with all those gurus. Every year he comes flanked by acolytes, all the experts, all the number-crunchers, and we're forced to depend on our wits.

HON. MR. HEWITT: You're a half-wit. Oh, sorry.

MR. ROSE: Oh, oh! Did you get that, Hansard? Because I'm going to ask him to withdraw. Otherwise, if you haven't got that, then I won't ask him to withdraw.

Young people cannot get a decent education in large classes. It's the kids we're talking about. We're not talking about the teachers; we already know what you think of them. You think the teachers are greedy, number one, so what do you do? You freeze their salaries for four years. You think they're lazy, so you load their classes up large; and you think they're incompetent, so you put provincewide examinations to bring them to heel. That's what you think.

In some classes, if you're teaching nice, malleable, polite Japanese youngsters, you could probably deal with a class of 50. That is not the case in our schools at all. When you've got kids of tremendously varying ability and social backgrounds, some classes of 50 would be a delight to teach unless you were teaching English. That's what we're talking about; we're talking about what kind of a deal the kids are getting.

[ Page 8027 ]

You're stealing money from the kids. That's what you're doing. There's no question about that in my mind. It's impossible to get a good education if you have class after class that's overloaded, if you have a split class or something along those lines. It just doesn't make any sense. We have lost the progress we've made in the last 15 years. That's what's happening.

I can recall when we had to import teachers from all over the place, because we weren't producing them here. We had to take them from other jurisdictions, and we had huge classes, and we had shifts. Now when we've got a chance to do something else, why don't we do it? Why do we have to go back to those bad old days? For better education? I doubt it, and I think you'll see the trend lines will show quite differently.

Centennial high school, Mr. Minister, is in my riding or fairly close; it serves my riding. I heard their choir — I think there were about 15 in it — on Friday night. They've got a half-time music teacher in a school of over 1,200. That's terrible. The arts are being decimated in our high schools. It isn't just a case of teachers' jobs. There are no artistic opportunities for the kids, or else they're so frightened that they can't take the option of music and art or drama. It's gone, decimated, all out of our schools. Everybody is not going to be going on to university. It's a shame, what's happening there.

I'd like to talk a little bit about something the minister said the other day. I know you're getting briefed on certain things here, and I think you should be. Yesterday you talked about the interim finance act and how the industrial and commercial property tax would be inequitable if you returned it to the school board.

Is the minister aware of what the situation was before Bill 6? You know the system was equitable there. You raised the money; if you didn't have enough, a grant made it up to what the guidelines suggested. If you had too much, as the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) said a little earlier, it went somewhere else. It went to Victoria to be spread equitably around the province. The confiscation of this kind of thing is intolerable to many districts. It allows you complete centralized control, and it was nothing more than a naked tax grab. It wasn't equitable in any way at all. How would you like to do that to the municipalities? Take it away from municipalities, somebody might suggest. Your own argument suggests that. Do you think they'd stand still for that? About five minutes they'd stand still for that. You say it's okay to do it to school boards, because you can kick them around all you like, but try doing that to a few municipalities and see how far you'll get. If it's equitable for school boards, would it not be equitable for municipalities? There's a former mayor of Maple Ridge over there. How would you like the government to come in, Mr. Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Pelton), and take the industrial or commercial tax away from your municipality and give you back your share? You wouldn't like that. You wouldn't put up with it. No municipal government would put up with it.

Mr. Chairman, the BCSTA's latest poll showed that the first concern in the public's mind was that the government and school boards and teachers should stop fighting. Now this place is made for aggression, unfortunately. This is a much more aggressive, bellicose, loud, rancorous chamber than other chambers that I've been in, and I won't name them. Provincial chambers tend to be like that. I don't know why. It may be that because they're smaller, they become more personal and maybe more petty. But they don't have to be like that.

Now there have been suggestions about how to do it. Our own idea on what we should be doing here is that we should have a royal commission. We should be looking into the causes not only of the dropouts, which you're anxious to debate with me, but also to determine what kind of education system we need for the twenty-first century. Those little kids going to kindergarten next September will spend all their adult lives in the twenty-first century, and we should know what kind of education they need. It's not enough just to load up the schools with a bunch of hardware. I see Mr. Hardware and Software is sitting up here in the gallery. That's not good enough. It will look good, it'll be trendy, but it isn't enough.

And for those of you who think, like the minister does, that we're going to have heaven on earth, perhaps, where we can supplement teaching by the use of television and distance education, don't bank too much on that. Just remember the TRAC program. That was individualized, self-paced, self-evaluated, based on Skinner's reinforcement theory, and there were all kinds of rewards for a task well done. We thought teaching machines were going to be the real answer one time. We thought programmed learning was going to be the real answer one time. We thought television was. They've been disappointing. Nothing replaces a good teacher who's concerned about his or her students.

Now we suggest that we should have short-term remedial measures to restore local autonomy, and also have a long-term look at it by way of a royal commission — a completely unbiased look at it — just as the BCSTA has called for a completely unbiased look at the minister's books and his framework, not by the NDP or some interest group such as the BCSTA, but by a completely external group of people, perhaps.... Who are some of those big accounting firms that do that sort of thing? I don't know, but anyway, they certainly exist.

This is what the BCSTA plan is: an external analysis to establish the real facts about education service levels. We say they're too little. You stand up and say they're just fine. That gets us nowhere. It's a circular argument. "You're a bad boy." Then you stand up and say I'm a bad boy. "You're political." And then I stand up and I say you're political. That's not getting us anywhere.

I've been through this dance, this merry-go-round.... This is the fourth year in a row. I don't think I've changed your mind about anything, because I don't think it's your mind anyway. I think you're stuck with a set of policies, and can't do anything about it. Maybe you're wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I am. No, I don't hope I am. I hope I'm not, because then I wouldn't be able to think as much of you as I do. I'm charitable enough to think that maybe it's not your fault.

We've talked about the funding drop in education — $300 million over three years, counting inflation — compared to the increase in general budgeting. People say: "Well, where is the money coming from?" I don't know. We're promising $3 billion for Site C. I don't know where all the bodies are buried, but obviously the Premier knows where all the money is going to come from — unless it's the Californians. I don't know about that.

Anyway, let's have an external analysis to establish the facts about funding. Let's restore local autonomy and give them back something to tax. You are as well aware as I am that there's only 8 percent in that residential portion. So if

[ Page 8028 ]

you've got 2 percent inflation, you've got a 12 percent hike to the homeowners, and if that's your design, your design is to scapegoat teachers and continue the fighting. I wonder, since you return to salaries all the time, and teacher power and teacher bargaining, whether that's the level you want the debate on. We don't want the debate on that level totally. We want the debate on quality of education. Never mind the gimmicks, and the buzzwords like excellence, and other things like that. It's okay. I think that was a PR man's dream, that title, but aside from that, what we need to do is return local decision-making, and you're not doing that, because you don't give them the wherewithal and the taxing powers to do anything about local decision-making.

[4:00]

It means that you're to have the ratepayers fighting with teachers and school board trustees, and if that's your aim, you're doing it well, I think, but if that's not your aim, if you want to de-escalate the violence in terms of the words, if you want to change the tone into one of cooperation.... I don't think you're going about it the right way, but I don't think that's what you want anyway. I think you want to keep the fight going.

Introduce a sensible system for management-employee relationships. Nobody else has, I think, in terms of bargaining, fewer powers than teachers, unless it's somebody selling hamburgers down at McDonald's. They don't come under the Labour Code. They have no right to strike. They can't withdraw their services. They can't bargain for working conditions, and now they can't even bargain for salaries. So you've stripped them of all rights in terms of their own rights, except maybe seniority rights, which are guaranteed to them — aside from under Bill 35, the West Vancouver bill, which allows them to be fired virtually without cause. Oh, that's going a little far.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: That's the first thing, instead of seniority. Nobody should be defending incompetence. The profession shouldn't be defending incompetence. It's very difficult sometimes to decide what is competence. Any little kid in the school cannot tell you what's competent in teaching. Teaching is a very difficult task, or chore, or profession, to assess; it really is. I'm saying that as one who spent 11 years assessing student teachers. When I gave them a mark, whether I gave them an A or an E or flunked them out, I was never sure if I was right about it. If somebody looks like a teacher, talks like a teacher, walks like a teacher, like the duck you assume it's a duck. But that only measures performance; it doesn't measure learning. That's the difficulty with it. The competence of a teacher is how much the children learn. It has nothing to do with whether the guy tells a lot of jokes or has a nice personality or combs his hair, or has, like the member from Surrey, a nice new shirt and tie on. I think it helps if you look the part.

Don't let anybody kid you, as a new Minister of Education, that there are any simple ways of evaluating teacher competence or, if you like, teacher productivity. They don't exist, to my knowledge, and I've looked into it somewhat. I don't think you can do it. It's a judgment call, no matter how you do it. All those calls for merit rating — all that kind of stuff — do is single out people for unsupported attack. Take the government out of direct involvement in the day-to-day operations of school districts and take on its traditional role of go-between, conciliator. As a government you should be a conciliator. You should be minister for education, and I don't think you are. I don't think you see yourself as a minister for education, and that's unfortunate.

Another thing. When we hear about "where's the money coming from," we usually hear from the member for Surrey. I'll just pause a second while he gets ready for his next heckle.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Oh, is he gone? Oh, no, there he is. There's his clone over on the other side. When you get the two of them together, it's formidable. They've got the goal-post over there.

Quoting from a letter to the Vancouver School Board from Mr. Philip Resnick, 4448 West 15th:

"It's a question of fairness. As a homeowner in the city of Vancouver and a parent of two children of school age, one elementary and one in secondary, I am particularly concerned about the inequity of the school tax burden that is being thrust on the shoulders of the ordinary taxpayer in this city. I am struck by the fact that while the proportionate share of school costs borne by residential property has grown from 38 percent in '84 to 46 percent in '85-86 — in absolute amounts, from $68 million to $81 million — the sharing from provincial grants and non-residential taxation has decreased 62 percent to 53 percent — from $119 million to $100 million, down $19 million for the city of Vancouver."

What does that mean? It means you're gradually dumping more and more of the school costs on the homeowner. If you take the commercial-industrial and reduce them by a third for incentives, then essentially you've asked the homeowner to pick up the difference. If somebody is going to pay less, other people are going to pay more. It's as simple as that. Not only are you starving the global budgets, but you're shifting the burden more and more onto the local homeowner so that they'll get mad at school teachers, school trustees and anybody with kids. Again, I think that's deliberate.

We have the Metro Education Association in Vancouver and they've got some recommendations — as well as the BCTF — that the fund for excellence be put into operating budgets for school boards. The minister says: "Well, we wouldn't get any of those nifty little ideas." Why couldn't we mark that equitably, or are all the nifty ideas going to come from certain districts and not from other districts? If we put that into the budgets, then they could make the determination about the niftiness of the idea and how well it suited local conditions. Why not? It seems like a good idea. Why should they be granted only centrally?" ...that the Premier and Minister of Education fulfil the promise made in 1975" — I'm sure the minister knows about 1985 — "to provide necessary funds required by school boards in the province before April 20 to make up their shortfalls."

Here's the promise in 1975. This is the promise by the Premier — the current Premier — when he was out for re-election: "A British Columbia Social Credit government would give B.C.'s young people a better-quality education...by changing the way our educational system is administered.... We would therefore return authority to local school boards, while at the same time eliminating the bureaucracy in the Department of Education." Well, that

[ Page 8029 ]

sounds reasonable — except perhaps to the bureaucrats. They promised to do that. What have they done? Just the reverse. You can't be trusted, you guys. You promised the sunset position on the business of the interim financing act; you went back on your promise. What else did you promise?

"Just as important as the source of educational revenue is the manner in which it is distributed. As government, the British Columbia Social Credit Party would increase direct payments to local school boards, while decreasing the cost and importance of the central bureaucracy. The end result of such policies would be a better quality of education...for our young people...an educational system which can grow and develop without burden to local taxpayers.

Bill Bennett"

Good old Bible Bill.

AN HON. MEMBER: What's the date?

MR. ROSE: It was 1975. That was another broken Social Credit promise, right?

They want an immediate review of the fiscal framework, because it's not delivering the funds needed — every district, Metro Education Association....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Members include school boards, parents and teachers. They ask that there be an immediate review of the framework; not fine-tuning, but.... Now here's another group. They're asking that "an independent assessment of the needs of the public education be undertaken and the funds provided to meet these needs." BCSTA calls for it. MEA calls for it. We call for it, or support the call for it, but we want to go further. We want a royal commission. " ...that consultation and recovery start immediately, and a time line be established, and school districts be given access to the commercial-industrial tax base." That's what they want.

Mr. Chairman, I've got a number of other things that I could go into, and so I will. I'll do it quite rapidly, because I know the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Pelton) wants to get at his estimates. And, as I say, there's no point in punching.... You know, I feel like I'm punching a pillow. I'm not getting a great deal of reaction, and I suppose that's reasonable. However, I don't think that I'm going to get any more reaction if I speak another five hours than if I stop in five minutes, so I'll opt for the second — as close as I can come. [Applause.]

MR. REID: More!

MR. ROSE: That's the first time I ever got any applause from that corner.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I wasn't part of that. I was in the Big House at that time.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the minister, while I go through some of these, what the present policies are regarding consistency and minimum standards for school health throughout the province. Have you got a note of that, Mr. Minister? There's a provision here for minimum standards for school health. It's in the School Act, section 97. I want to know what you have done about them. What's your policy on the minimum standards for school health? Because I don't think you have any, and I'd like to know if you have. So look at section 97 of the School Act. Provision for health services — that's one question.

I've got some questions here that I'd like to deal with on the business of the policy for the provision of technological change in the schools. I've got a few questions. I had the privilege of speaking on a panel with your Ministry of Education expert on that subject the other night — the subject of technological change and technological innovation in the schools. I think it's only fair that I tell you my own particular reservations. It'd be kind of nifty and trendy to dump a bunch of computers in there. But that, like programmed learning and like a lot of things, is really dependent not upon the hardware at all, but on the software. I've got the numbers. I think most of the computers we've got in the schools now have been provided not by the Ministry of Education, but by bake sales — the way we used to fund the music programs when I first started.

I want to know, though, apparently the figures I've got.... And I think I was corrected the other night. There's one computer at B.C. schools for every 76 in Ontario. That may not be true; we may not be that bad. We may have one for every 30. I was corrected on that figure, and I've forgotten the correction. I didn't have these notes with me. These are the notes I have. I know that you have a person who's studying it. I want to know if the committee is operational yet. You've got a person, but is there more than one committee? What is the composition of this committee? And is it going to be a committee just of industry, or will the BCTF or anybody that might be using or teaching with computers in the schools be involved in it? I want to know that. And is there a deadline for the committee to complete? Does the government view computers as a substitute for teachers? Because some people are rather nervous about the inception of computers.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I don't know where he went.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: He's just been called out for a minute? I see. So anyway, are you taking the notes, then?

MR. REID: I am.

MR. ROSE: You are. Well, that wouldn't be very reliable. I'd be a little nervous about that for its particular reliability.

Anyway, those are some questions. Could the minister elaborate on how he sees the technology being used in the classroom? I'd be interested to know about that. And I want to know, too, whether or not the guidelines or the terms of reference of this study committee will be made public, so we can have an opportunity to debate with him. The point that I'm trying to make is that the very fact that we have computers is one thing, but how they're used is far more important.

[ Page 8030 ]

l can recall one time as a supervisor in Westminster I filled my classrooms — those were times when money wasn't quite as stringent as it apparently is today — with equipment that I could use very well. But unless these things are usable by the teachers, they won't use them. Unless you've got sufficient numbers, and you've got to go for miles down a hall to get that stuff or find that it has to be shared with a great number of classrooms and you have to go and actually physically bring it in there, the things won't be used, although it might look good on paper.

So those are two or three questions I have on computers and a number of other things that I would like to almost close with. I won't promise until I hear some of the answers.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, in regard to some of the concerns expressed by the member, the industrial commercial tax base and the fact that it now flows through to the province.... Mr. Member, I am aware of the old system, but in this case I think it's fair to say that the system of having it flow through the province is one that redistributes — I think anyway — fairly and equitably to students throughout the province. All the money we take for nonresidential taxes goes back to the individual school districts. We don't keep any of it.

As a matter of fact, the member mentioned there was an $84 million reduction in non-residential tax this year, and he's quite correct. We recognized that when the incentive programs and tax relief was given to industry, because we replaced it with $90 million from general revenue so that education would not be short-funded because of the incentive programs that the Minister of Finance announced last year.

[4:15]

Quality of education. Mr. Chairman, we've had some good debate today. I guess in some cases the members of the opposition feel that I'm attacking the capability of teachers. I've told them many times that that's not correct. I've just tried to impress upon them that as an organization there is need for marking time because of the difficulties we have as a province.

With regard to the requests of the teachers of holding the line, compare it with other people who live in the same community and are faced with the same inflationary impacts, who have to put food on the table and have to heat their homes, etc. I can give you statistics that indicate that members in a trade union at a class were looking to help the company and were prepared to donate 15 percent of their wages in exchange for shares in the company, to help the company to survive. There are other unions that have taken a reduction in pay because they recognize the impact on their employer.

I mentioned earlier that the Hospital Employees' Union has been asked to give concessions. So we're not teacher-bashing or singling out teachers; we're just saying that everybody has a role to play in trying to deal with the costs that are faced by government or by the provincial taxpayer.

On the positive side, Mr. Chairman, there are indications now that the kids are hitting the textbooks more than ever in British Columbia, and the results are beginning to show. One of the side-effects this particular gentleman was mentioning in an article is that students are developing more skill in areas such as research and independent subject exploration. I think that's good. Another Vancouver School Board spokesman mentioned that there is an increase in the work ethic. Kids are more conservative and more willing to apply themselves than they were ten years ago — primarily, I believe, because they're faced with challenges in the classroom. That, of course, gives them something to strive for, and I think it's part of their education. It seems that we're getting some positive results.

When I mentioned Japan and the average classroom size in Japan compared to British Columbia, it's not all bad, Mr. Member, because I have a study result here from a United States paper. They wanted to know how the top grade 12 students compared, and there were 12 countries. They rated them, and here they are: Japan came first; Finland came second; Ontario, third; then Hungary, Sweden, New Zealand, Flemish Belgium, England and Wales, British Columbia, French-speaking Belgium, Scotland, and the United States. I'd like to think that because of the expertise of our teachers and because of our education system, we rank pretty high. The report went on to compare the eighth-graders. It indicated that Japan came first, then the Netherlands, Hungary, Flemish Belgium, France, Canada, and British Columbia, which came ahead of Hong Kong, Ontario, Scotland, England and Wales, Finland, New Zealand, Israel, the United States, Sweden, Thailand, Nigeria, and Swaziland.

MR. ROSE: What were they testing?

HON. MR. HEWITT: It was an international test dealing with mathematics — by percentile.

I think those are positive things, Mr. Member. I guess the reason for my comments is to indicate that, yes, I'm concerned about quality of education, and I indicated that we stack up pretty well in British Columbia. We just have to keep working toward that.

The member mentioned Mr. Resnick, who I gather is a university professor who was commenting on his concerns about his children's education. Maybe he'd be interested in knowing those statistics I just gave.

I'm not sure whether I answered them all, Mr. Member. It's getting toward the end of our debate. You asked me about the computer committee. I think I have the same concern as you do, because I've been at meetings that you've attended. I think we agree on the ad hockery of computer education. In other words, I have a very strong feeling that a lot of the computers have been placed in schools as a response to a good sales pitch being made, and we don't have standards set. We don't get the best possible use of the computers, and that's nobody's fault. It's just because we're moving into new technology. This committee can assist us a great deal in setting those standards and attempting to get the best in the classroom, so that they benefit the students. The make-up of the committee is representative of the BCTF, the BCSTA, the ministry, the computer industry and the computers-in-education committee. Those are the members who will be attempting to address the concerns that we have and come up with some recommendations and some standards, so that we can advise school boards and give them a better understanding of what is needed in the classroom with regard to computer technology.

Vote 16 approved on division.

Vote 17: management operations, $24,646,629 — approved.

[ Page 8031 ]

Vote 18: public schools education, $1,131,921,501 — approved.

Vote 19: independent schools, $28,643,519 — approved on division.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT

On vote 25: minister's office, $211,255.

HON. MR. PELTON: Mr. Chairman, just before we get down to the question-and-answer period on my estimates, I would like to make just one or two remarks, as is usually appropriate at this particular time, I believe. I might start by saying that, as many members of the House are probably very well aware, the Ministry of Environment recently had its tenth birthday. During that decade we've seen a tremendous growth in public awareness of environmental issues, and a corresponding increase in the demands made on the government agencies that manage and protect our environmental resources. Although there remains much disagreement with respect to specific land and resource use questions in our province, there is a consensus among all British Columbians that our physical environment is our greatest asset.

I am sure that at the time my ministry was formed in the mid-1970s, there were many who predicted that the so-called environmental consciousness was merely a luxury of the economic boom, and that people's priorities would shift back to bread-and-butter issues if tough times ever returned. As we all know, we have been experiencing some tough times in the last few years, but environmental consciousness is still very much alive and well. I believe that what we have seen is a maturing of people's view of what kind of environmental protection they want in our province. The demands of public interest and special interest groups are quite specific and based on some very impressive research. We are dealing with a public that is much better informed about environmental matters than it was ten years ago, and we welcome their input.

I am most impressed as well, Mr. Chairman, by the way my ministry and its staff have responded to the challenge of meeting these demands and of discharging its broad mandate, a mandate that encompasses nothing less than the management and conservation of all water, land, air, plant and animal life in the province. Last September I had the pleasure of issuing a statement setting out the priorities for each of the ministry's nine programs over the next five years. This document reflects a management philosophy based on the need for long-term goals and on the premise that British Columbians of today have a responsibility to preserve a high-quality and diverse natural environment for the enjoyment of future generations. I recently completed visits to Ministry of Environment regional and district offices throughout the province. I was most impressed by the dedication and the enthusiasm of the ministry's staff, and I'm confident that their activities will take our province into the next decade well-equipped to preserve our unique natural heritage.

The events of the last few months have impressed on me that environmental concerns in British Columbia are very much the subject of national and, indeed, world scrutiny. As the House knows, the report and recommendations of the Wilderness Advisory Committee, which I had the privilege of appointing last October, are currently being reviewed. The widespread media attention given the committee's hearings, together with the phenomenal number of submissions — over 1,100 in all; I believe it was 1,143 — from a very broad spectrum of the public, are indications of the importance attached to the environmental decisions we face.

We also know that during this Expo year our province will be receiving closer world attention and entertaining more international visitors than ever before. The world exposition is part of a long-term strategy designed to stimulate new trade, new investment and employment in British Columbia. My ministry's program is predicated on the understanding that a well-managed environment is not peripheral to this program of renewal but an integral part of it.

I am pleased to report that these estimates contain several new initiatives which have a bearing on our province's economic future as well as on the quality of our environment. During this fiscal year the province will begin a computerized terrain-mapping project in cooperation with the mapping industry. This project will create 300 person-years of private sector work, and will provide a three-dimensional computer model of the terrain of British Columbia. This initiative will make British Columbia a leader in digital mapping, a technology that has a high potential for export to developing countries and will produce information that will be invaluable to resource industries, the government and the public at large. The province will invest $24.1 million in this project over a period of five to six years, with an additional $6 million coming from industry.

Our fisheries program will continue to receive strong support from this government. The signing last year of the general fisheries agreement with the federal government has provided new impetus for federal-provincial cooperation in fisheries matters, particularly with respect to the maintenance of the salmonid enhancement program. This program, with its goal of restoring our west coast salmon and trout populations to their historic levels, will continue to receive our strongest possible support and likewise, we anticipate, that of the federal government. During the last year the transfer of technology to the mariculture industry from research and development projects conducted by the ministry has produced significant increases in the production and diversification of product. The rapid growth in this sector represents one of the brightest economic development prospects in British Columbia at this time. I'm glad to say that the ministry will also continue to maintain the high level of trout hatchery production achieved over the past two years, recognizing the importance of this program to both resident anglers and tourists.

[4:30]

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Our water management program comprises a wide spectrum of ministry responsibilities ranging from allocation and conservation of water supplies to the protection of life and property from floods. These estimates contain $13 million for flood prevention through a diking program that will also provide employment opportunities in many areas of our province. The amount includes $5 million for the Fraser River flood-control program and $3.25 million to complete the reconstruction of the Zosel Dam under the agreement with the state of Washington.

Over the coming year we will continue to engage the active cooperation of other governments in addressing all aspects of pollution control and waste management in the province. Following the signing last year of a three-year

[ Page 8032 ]

agreement on acid rain with the other western provinces and the federal government, British Columbia also concluded an agreement to exchange data on this problem with Washington state. We will continue development of air-quality management strategies for various areas, including the setting of standards and the establishment of monitoring programs for individual airsheds.

In the Okanagan basin, a program has been initiated which will allocate $26 million over three years for advanced waste treatment facilities. Under this program communities will develop waste management plans as part of a valleywide strategy for resolving sewage discharge problems. In the lower mainland, the urgent problem of solid-waste disposal is being addressed in a way that should serve as a model for cooperation among senior government and municipal authorities. Last December I was pleased to approve a refuse waste management plan for the Greater Vancouver Regional District — the first such plan, I might add, in the province. It places strong emphasis on recycling and resource recovery. A similar planning process is underway for the regional districts of Dewdney-Alouette and Central Fraser Valley, and we have also invited the Fraser-Cheam Regional District to become involved if they see that they can benefit from the program.

Special wastes continue to be of great concern and are the subject of ongoing discussions between British Columbia, the federal government and the other provinces. By the middle of this year these discussions will develop a list of regulated wastes that is consistent nationwide. British Columbia and the other western provinces will investigate the possibility of establishing a mobile incineration system for western Canada. We anticipate making considerable progress in this regard before the end of this year. My staff are closely monitoring the movement of special wastes in cooperation with the Ministry of Transportation and Highways, which has the responsibility for administering the regulations for the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act. A provincewide system for the temporary storage of special wastes has recently been completed. This system, operated by my ministry, provides storage facilities in eight regional centres for hazardous material received from small-quantity generators, ensuring that these wastes do not go into municipal collection systems.

Mr. Chairman, we are also particularly aware of the intense public concern regarding the safe use of pesticides. Our pesticide control and waste management staff will continue to work closely with other levels of government and with industrial users to ensure that these products are distributed, applied, transported and disposed of in the most responsible manner possible, thus ensuring minimal hazard to humans and to the environment.

The province's wildlife management program will be an important priority in the coming year. This program has a complex and challenging task in meeting the needs of hunters, commercial resource-users such as trappers and guides, and the 70 percent of British Columbians who, according to my ministry surveys, participate in non-hunting activities involving wildlife.

Substantial progress is being made in the development of provincial guidelines to protect wildlife habitats during logging. I am very gratified by the cooperation that is being demonstrated in this area by provincial wildlife staff and employees of the Ministry of Forests and the forest industry.

Both the wildlife and fisheries programs will continue to benefit from the provincial habitat conservation fund, which will make available approximately $2.2 million this year for 93 projects throughout British Columbia. In addition, we welcome the opportunities for additional funding of habitat conservation activities through the recent chartering by the federal government of the Wildlife Habitat Canada foundation. This initiative will provide valuable support for provincial projects and will complement the work of my ministry's habitat conservation fund and the public conservation assistance fund.

Before closing, I would like to inform the House that British Columbia will be hosting a visit by the World Commission on Environment and Development, known as the Brundtland commission. These people will be coming here on May 22 and will be here also on May 23. The commission was formed in 1983 to examine critical environmental and development problems and propose better ways and means for the world community to address them. Ten commissioners, including the commission chairman, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, have confirmed that they will attend. These people are interested in the very thing that we have accomplished through the work of the wildlife advisory group.

My deputy minister is somewhere between here and Fredericton, New Brunswick, on his way back from a meeting down in that area, but I'm very fortunate today in having with me, to assist me in fielding the questions that I know I will get from my very capable critic, Mr. Earl Anthony, who is the Assistant Deputy Minister of Environment, and also Mr. Dick Marshall, who is the executive director of the administration and technical services division.

MRS. WALLACE: It's always interesting to listen to the Minister of Environment, who gets up and gives us a recital of all the things he's responsible for, and yet, somehow, we never seem to be able to find out what he's doing about any of those things. It sounds very good when he tells us that he has so many people working for him and what great people they are — and I agree with that; he has an excellent staff of very good people working for him. Really, when it comes down to getting anything done to protect the environment, I have never seen a situation where there is so much indecision, and where there seems to be so little concern.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair.]

He did touch briefly on the economic aspects of environmental things, but in his opening remarks he talked about the fact that as time went on we probably couldn't afford the luxury of environmental protection; it was only for the boom times, and we would shift back to bread-and-butter issues when times got tough. Mr. Chairman, if there ever was a bread-and-butter issue, it's the issue of protection of the environment. If we let our environment disappear, we have lost our bread and butter. The minister somehow fails to grasp the significance of the economic importance of this whole arena that he is in charge of. Believe me, it is a huge arena; there's a tremendous load of responsibility that supposedly rests on his shoulders and a tremendous wealth for which he is responsible. And yet he seems to have so little.... He sounds concerned and he always says how important all these things are, but when it comes to doing anything about it, that's the problem.

[ Page 8033 ]

The budget this year. He gave some specific increases. He didn't give them all. And he didn't give any of the decreases. Basically, this budget is just a hold-the-line budget, give or take a few dollars. It's right on line with what we talked about last year. In light of experience, we certainly are aware of the shortfalls that were in that budgeted amount for last year. There just wasn't enough there to do the job. Last year, when we talked about conservation officers, for example, the minister got up in the House and said, "Yes, I know there's not enough, and there should be more, and we need more regulation," but it wasn't forthcoming.

I really don't know what that minister does when he goes to cabinet. It seems to me that he has absolutely no influence. If he's as sincerely intentioned as he says, and really wants to get these things done, then he must submit some of these programs to cabinet; he must submit them to Treasury Board. I don't know what he does when he goes to cabinet, but what we see happen is that one by one those programs are chopped back to just what they were before, or to less.

Mr. Chairman, it reminds me of nothing more than of the Tale of Two Cities, where Madam Dufarge sat and knit while the heads rolled during the revolution. It seems to me that that's what that minister does: he sits and knits in cabinet or in Treasury Board as, one by one, his programs fall under the axe of cabinet and Treasury Board. That must be what happens, because we never see any funds coming forth to support these programs that he gives lip service to.

We are in a position where we find that one after another of the things that should be.... He really should have the influence to do something about it, and it just doesn't happen. One case that comes to mind is, I believe, right in his own constituency. There was a request by B.C. Forest Products to build a boat launching road right through a wildlife preserve. Now all of the people in the ministry were opposed to that, but what happened? You know, it seems to me that B.C. Forest Products has more influence in cabinet than that minister, because B.C. Forest Products got the permission to build the road through the wilderness preserve.

He talked briefly about the Wilderness Advisory Committee, and that's another example of where that minister really doesn't have the clout. He also doesn't have the commitment or the willingness to stand up to pressure, to make decisions. What we saw with the Wilderness Advisory Committee was a situation where he had so many issues that were just too hot to handle. The pressure was on. He didn't know what to do about it, so what he did under the advice, I would think, of the Premier was to set up a Wilderness Advisory Committee. It's my understanding, Mr. Chairman, that that committee was more or less appointed by the Premier rather than the minister, and in fact some of the minister's suggestions relative to who should be on that committee — for example someone relative to tourism, a representative of the native Indian community — and things that were requested by the committee and, in fact, things relative to their methods of reporting.... While the minister might have agreed to that and he might have had the wisdom to see that the terms that were being set for that committee were utterly impossible, what happened? Again he was overruled by cabinet. I think it is a disgrace that we have a token minister....

AN HON MEMBER: A token minister!

MRS. WALLACE: A token Ministry of Environment, and that's all it is — a token ministry set up to give a false sense of security to all those whom he talked about who have become so concerned about environmental issues. Well-informed and well-intentioned. So we have this ministry that they deal with. And he listens and he gives them nice sounding answers, and nothing happens. That minister has no ability to influence cabinet decisions, and that's why we're seeing one program after another so drastically reduced.

[4:45]

It's interesting to note, Mr. Chairman, that there is no additional money in any of the programs really. I think the only one that has any sizeable increase is the waste management, which I presume is to cover this portable PCB burner for the three provinces. But the others are more or less right on target with what they were before. Water management is down a bit. I don't really know what "reduction in asset acquisitions" is. That's a detail we may get into later on.

Under waste management there is quite an increase in the operating costs, and again I presume that that is the PCB burner. But you know, what they're proposing is a repeat almost of the fiasco we had with Genstar, where they are getting together and then they're going to contract it out. When you contract things of that magnitude and that importance out, you get the kind of priority placed on the destruction of the PCB or the hazardous material that's being destroyed.... You get more a concern about how that company is going to operate in order to make something from it. And if this is going to be contracted out, then again I think the minister has missed the boat in the destruction of hazardous materials.

But I wanted to just talk about one very strange thing in this budget, and that relates actually to the vote that we're supposedly talking about, the minister's own office. I've indicated that the other votes and all the sections of it remain more or less constant, and yet in the minister's office somehow or other he is able to get a 25 percent increase in his own office budget. That to me, Mr. Chairman, indicates a strange sense of priorities, where you would have a minister who is able to get a 25 percent increase in his own budget, but he can't get one red cent for another conservation officer. He can't get one red cent to do anything about the protection of our environment from hazardous waste. Well, he has got something, I guess, for that one, but not in the total budget. Only in his own ministerial budget has he been able to come up with this kind of increase. Mr. Chairman, that bothers me no end, because it indicates to me that the minister's priorities are entirely wrong, that he hasn't grasped that what we are dealing with is something where not only the quality of environment is concerned, but.... In the fisheries and wildlife section alone we're talking direct and indirect something like a $2 billion per year industry, and he doesn't have the clout to get any funds to ensure the protection of this.

There have been studies done that indicate that poaching, illegally taken animals, is probably equivalent one-for-one to those taken legally. Now why is that? In the ministry's report filed with the House a few days or weeks ago, he talks about how the conservation officers spend their operational time. That is an interesting phrase right there: "operational time." I have seen statistics that indicate that the operational time represents only about 60 percent of the time those conservation officers have. The rest of the time is spent in administration. So there, when he talks about 109 or whatever he's got in the way of conservation officers, now down some 37 percent from what it used to be, we're talking about a further reduction in that the staff that normally dealt with

[ Page 8034 ]

administration has been so reduced that we find the conservation officers themselves....

Do you mean my green light is on? Where did time all go? It just goes when you're having fun. Well, seeing my green light is on, maybe the minister wants to respond.

HON. MR. PELTON: That was only 15 minutes' worth, was it? It seemed like more.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh! Oh! A vicious attack.

HON. MR. PELTON: Vicious attack.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, the hon. member was talking about knitting. I certainly never did learn how to knit, but I never learned how to nit-pick either, which is really what is coming from across the way. But never mind, let's talk about some of these things for a moment or two.

Let's talk about conservation officers for a moment or two, because the hon. member has some bad information someplace. The reduction in the conservation officer service as a result of the cutbacks within the ministry was 10 percent, not 38 percent. We have accomplished a great deal with this smaller staff, as a matter of fact, because through combining the officers we have reduced the overhead costs, the administrative costs which the member referred to specifically. We have reduced these costs, and we have also been able to make sure that the conservation officers spend more time out in the field, which is where they do their job and where they are supposed to be, not sitting in an office.

But it must also be pointed out that when we talk about administrative costs within the conservation officers' service, we aren't just talking about someone answering the telephone or doing this kind of thing. We're talking about people writing up various case histories and doing that kind of work which is essential to the ongoing efficiency of the service. As you know full well, unless you have these things documented very carefully, and you take people to court, the case won't stand up in court and so it is thrown out.

I must say that yes, a lot of poaching goes on in British Columbia, but I don't really think that we could ever have enough conservation officers to completely stop all the poaching that goes on. It might be of interest to the committee to know that more wildlife is lost through being run down on the highway than through poaching.

Now the hon. member suggests that no additional money has been put into conservation. I should point out that we put an extra $250,000 in last year, and this year we're putting in another $240,000. We'd like to put in more, but we have accomplished something in that regard. I think the conservation officer service does an excellent job for this province, and will continue to do so.

Interjection.

HON. MR. PELTON: They're doing a good job with what's left. That's important, I think. As a matter of fact, I think we're accomplishing more now than we probably used to when they were in smaller groups.

About the Pitt Meadows wildlife, the Pitt polder, a road wasn't built there by B.C. Forest Products. There is a road on top of a dike. B.C. Forest Products have a logging operation up Pitt Lake, and they have been transporting people into that operation — using boats, of course, on the lake — from an area that's used extensively for recreation. For them to operate out of that area was very dangerous. There was the possibility of very bad accidents. Also, quite a bit of fog occurs up on Pitt Lake, and there was a requirement for them to deliver these people even when there was fog; so it made a lot of sense that they should be allowed to build a boat launching ramp at the end of the dike.

We have determined that there will be no disturbance to the wildlife in the area. Some people made it sound as if there was going to be an Indianapolis speedway on the top of the dike. That wasn't the case at all. There is very limited traffic and it will occur twice a day. So it was approved. There was a suggestion at one time that the people in the ministry objected to it. That is not correct. Some comments were made about it, but there was no particular objection. As a matter of fact, the decision that was taken to allow B.C. Forest Products to use the dike was done on the basis of consultation with the people in the ministry who are aware of all the problems involved. One of the local people who is very much involved with Ducks Unlimited has stated — and it was recorded in one of the local newspapers — that there was really no concern. They would rather not have had it there at all, but the fact that it was there wasn't going to cause any great problem.

I'm glad the member mentioned the Wilderness Advisory Committee. They did an absolutely outstanding job in a very short period of time and deserve a great deal of credit for the things they've done. They brought their report back to us on March 7. The report was distributed immediately to everyone and we have now had a report back from the deputy minister's committee. I have a great deal of hope that we're going to get something out of this. This is one of the best things ever done in this province, as far as I'm concerned.

In the matter of PCBs, it's an old subject; we've talked about it many, many times before. I won't go into a great deal of detail about it at this time because I know there will be further questions, but we do have a program in place — I mentioned it in my opening remarks — whereby it shouldn't be too long before we are able to do something concrete about the destruction of PCBs. The program that came along some years ago involving Genstar was, I think, a good program. It probably would have put British Columbia in the forefront of this type of thing right across Canada. But a series of things happened that involved economics, and also involved the NIMBY syndrome, so it became something that just couldn't be done. We do have a program underway now. We've been consulting particularly with the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta with respect to coming up with some kind of a system whereby we can destroy PCBs and other special wastes within the province.

I think we'll have something and be close to a solution on that by the end of the year. A lot of things are involved. The hon. member mentioned contracting out. That might not necessarily be the way to go, but many other things have to be taken into consideration as well. Who is going to pay? That's a pretty important issue, I think, and has to be considered. We also have to consider the fact that Alberta has a system in a place called Swan Hills. It's my understanding that when that was put in place, there was some kind of guarantee made that it would never be used to deal with special wastes, other than those that were generated within the province of Alberta; so that in itself presents another problem that we have.

[5:00]

With respect to the 25 percent increase, or whatever it works out to in percentages, within the ministry office, I can

[ Page 8035 ]

explain that quite readily. As the hon. member will remember, the Ministry of Environment for a long time cohabitated with the Ministry of Lands, Parks and Housing. When it was split off and made an entity unto itself, a year ago this past February, the people who work in my office came from the Ministry of Lands, Parks and Housing. My ministerial assistant was on the payroll of Lands, Parks and Housing. He remained on that payroll through the last fiscal year, but this year he transferred over to Environment. The difference represents his salary.

There was no increase in salary for the other people who came into the ministry, because the same number were employed within when Environment was involved with Lands, Parks and Housing. If the hon. member requires more detail, I'll give it, but that is the simple answer to the increase in vote 25.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just before the member continues, the Chair was in error in interrupting the member originally, but there was a change in the Chairman, and I didn't realize. On behalf of the Chair, I apologize.

MRS. WALLACE: I'll get my full 30 minutes this time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: When the green light comes on, the member will know that she has three minutes yet to speak.

MRS. WALLACE: I'm not going to deal with the chemical thing right now. I think it's better if we keep this stuff compartmentalized.

I'm interested in the minister's response relative to the increase in his office. But I always go on the assumption that when we discuss estimates, we're discussing.... I should have been here long enough to know better. When we discuss estimates, we're not really discussing what you're going to spend or how it's going to be charged. What the minister has told us is that last year's estimates were wrong; that he had somebody working for him that he wasn't paying; that the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing was stuck with that bill. This is the thing that really annoys me. It would be nice to come down here and get some meaningful figures; that you knew what you were talking about; that you knew that they were actually prepared, based on projected expenditures, rather than just some figures that happen to come out to the right answers in the end. It seems to me that that's what we're always doing with these estimates and with the budget generally.

I want to go back to the conservation officers. I'm quoting, as I say, from this report of the Ministry of Environment. This is how they spend their time. In relation to waste management, the ministry tells us they spend 2 percent of their operational time on waste management, and on fisheries management they spend 21.8 percent of their time. Under that they are responsible for enforcing both the federal and provincial fisheries acts.

It's interesting to note, too, that violations reported by the public were down 7.2 percent in 1984 over 1983, while violations reported by conservation officers were down 10.3 percent. Court proceedings, warnings issued and convictions were all down. Fines levied were down 22 percent. This is in the fisheries aspect of it. Does this mean that there were fewer violations? I don't think so. I think what that means is that those conservation officers are spread too thinly.

The minister talks about the great things he's done with regionalizing them, and we've had continuing battles. At Princeton he had to give in; he had to put the man back there. At Grand Forks, I think that one is gone now, moved to Castlegar. But when you do that, when you take them away from that local area, that just means that much more time in the vehicle driving. There were some instances, I don't know about all, but I know about one or two instances where conservation officers simply didn't have, toward the end of the fiscal year, any more money in their budgets for transportation, so they couldn't drive those distances. When they don't have the kind of support to get them there, it's just disastrous.

As far as the time that conservation officers spend on wildlife management, the report is silent on that. It goes into it on fisheries and on waste management, but it doesn't talk about wildlife management. But I would expect that the remainder of that operational time pretty well goes into wildlife management. But I have indicated before that there is a major problem with the loss of wildlife. Studies that have been done in other jurisdictions certainly indicate that it is a one-to-one ratio. There's no reason to believe that it's different here.

There was an article in the local paper in my constituency not long ago which I think should be of interest to the minister. This was written by a columnist in the Lake News, which is the local paper for Lake Cowichan. The columnist begins the column by decrying the fact that the only way Youbou got on the map was that it was the place about which some friend of hers in Victoria said: "Oh, yes, that's the place where they caught all those poachers." She goes on to say:

"Awareness of the extent of the problem might induce those Victoria bureaucrats to release some funding for bigger budgets and more personnel for protecting wildlife. You can tell them now that poaching has nearly doubled in this past year, that every illegal kill that's reported almost certainly has its counterpart in several undiscovered carcasses lying somewhere in the bush."

That's a direct result of the lack of conservation officers. This is not some little problem that's just going to go away. This is dollars and cents we're talking about. This is that $2 billion industry that we're talking about. This is that industry which has direct benefits to the economy: hunting and primary non-consumptive trips, $126 million; capitalized benefits of hunting and non-consumptive trips, $1.263 million. Indirect benefits: participants' expenditure for accommodation, transport, food, equipment, etc., $801 million. That's where I get my $2 billion figure, Mr. Chairman. That's what this industry is worth, and this minister is piddling it away by refusing to get those conservation officers there. It's just letting that whole thing go down the drain.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Would the members who feel that the member speaking is using unparliamentary language please refrain themselves, because I'm sure the member did not mean what it sounded like she meant. Please continue.

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, the economic impact of this whole industry — the gross business production, $849

[ Page 8036 ]

million; the gross domestic product, $520 million; government revenue from taxes, $95 million; personal income tax, $318 million; number of jobs created, 18,948 persons employed. This is from "The Importance of Wildlife to Canadians: An Executive Overview of the Recreational Economic Significance of Wildlife in British Columbia." So we're talking about something fairly significant, and what I'm suggesting is that the minister has not recognized the importance of this. He says yes, it's important; yes, we need more COs; yes, he's going to co-opt some foresters or something to go out and do this job — deputize them. That's what he told the B.C. Wildlife Federation. As far as I know, foresters are pretty busy as it is. Maybe he can work something out. It was news to me and news to a lot of people at the Wildlife Federation as well.

I'm open to anything that will help, but what I don't see is any positive reaction from that minister. I don't see any results — just a lot of fine words. No more assistance for conservation officers. The concern has certainly been expressed by the B.C. Wildlife Federation and by other organizations that have been heavily involved in trying to pressure the minister into taking some action that will do something to relieve the situation. They have actually formed a coalition — the Coalition of Professional Wilderness Users. They claim to represent 600 wilderness companies including fishing, hunting guides, nature tours, heli-ski operators, river rafters, wilderness lodges. They claim they generate an annual income of more than $100 million. That's their figure. They want to try to persuade.... I understand they did make a presentation to cabinet to try to put some pressure on cabinet — seeing the minister doesn't seem to be able to do it — to get some action to provide some funds to ensure that we have the kind of protection that we need not only for our game but for other assets that are out there in the way of the various things that these people are engaged in.

The Princeton situation with the conservation officer is an interesting one. I understand that the minister has finally agreed to leave the officer there in Princeton. But it is a temporary thing, and it involves, I understand — and I think we went into this last year — about 8,000 miles of road that has to be patrolled in that area, and you expect someone to come from Castlegar to do that.

I would like to see the minister recognize that while maybe regionalization is fine in some aspects, there are areas in which it just doesn't work. I guess he didn't come from Castlegar. I don't know where he had to come from before. It was the Grand Forks one that came from Castlegar. But that situation is just a continuing one, and it is not going to get any better with the Coquihalla Highway going in there. It's not going to get any better at all; it is just going to get worse. There is going to be an access into the interior area that is rich in game and rich in natural habitat, and if we don't have someone there who can keep an eye on it, we're going to be in trouble.

So I would hope that the minister would recognize that regionalization maybe isn't the answer in all instances. I am not sure it is the answer in any instance, but he has made that decision. He has had a lot of correspondence, and he has told me the same thing over and over about how this is going to work so much better. Yet when I go out and talk to the people who are actually out there dealing with the game on the front line, I get a different answer entirely. I get an answer that tells me that it is not working, that they are not able to do it.

Whether it is just because they are so very thin, and they don't have the number of staff to do it, that they are expected to do two or three times more work than they are able to do.... Maybe that's the reason. But maybe part of it is that they are spending more time driving from that regional office to get out where they need to be.

I know the conservation officer in my area is out there at very unusual hours trying to keep track of what is going on, and he just can't possibly cover even the area the size that he has to deal with. That's why we have the problem with the poaching at Youbou. Incidentally, another sideline of that story is that they have some elk in that area which they managed to catch and radio-collar. I think they took six cows down into the Sooke-Renfrew area where the herd was depleted, and of those six cows they found two poached lying left in the woods.

[5:15]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, under standing orders the critic or the Leader of the Opposition is entitled to a 30 minute address. Do you wish to extend that at this time?

MRS. WALLACE: I would like to have my 30 minutes, yes. Thank you. At last.

Interjections.

MRS. WALLACE: I only got 15 minutes the first time. An error was made.

You know, those are just a few local examples of the kind of thing that's happening. The minister says that more are taken by accidents on the road. I doubt that figure. I'd like to know where he got that figure, because it seems to me that that is really stretching it. It seems to me that what we're seeing is a lot more poaching going on.

What are some of the reasons? One of the reasons is, as we've talked about, the lack of conservation officers. But some of the reasons relate to other things. Some of them relate to the fact that we have a sort of option system: if someone is picked up and found to have some illegal game, he is allowed to pay a fee. If he goes to court, the fine must be much greater than that, but there are set fees that he can just pay right then. I think those are too low.

Some really startling instances have come up about the tagging system for game. I'm sure the minister is familiar with some of these stories of how the game is not tagged. It's taken out without the tag being put on, and if they happen to meet a conservation officer, they have ways and means of getting that tag on before the conservation officer has a chance to have a look. So there's something wrong with a tag that can be used that way. It means they can take that tag and go out and get another animal. I know that the minister has lots of correspondence on this because I have copies of the correspondence that he's had on the kinds of things that go on with the tagging: the amount of the fine, the fact that there just isn't the opportunity to get these people. Because of the limited amount of staff that he has, it's impossible to contact them all.

I had, somewhere here among my papers, an instance of a chap who had been.... Actually he was operating a butcher shop, butchering illegal game. The conservation officer went out and spoke to him, and told him to cease and desist and whatever it was that he had to do. They went out to

[ Page 8037 ]

check, and there he was: he had some 30 game animals hanging there. The fee was so small that it....

AN HON. MEMBER: Where was that?

MRS. WALLACE: I don't have the paper in front of me right now, Mr. Minister, but I will find it before.... It wasn't in Point Grey, anyway. Then the result was, of course, that he was fined — I forget the amount he was fined — and his equipment was confiscated. Again, it's a very remunerative occupation. The penalties are simply not sufficiently severe. Again, the minister is doing little about it.

This was in Prince George; that's where it was. I've got the paper here now. He was caught with an illegal butchering operation. He was charged under the Wildlife Act. However, when the officers returned ten days later, they found the remains of 35 moose. The resulting court case resulted in fines of $3,800 and confiscation of butchering equipment estimated at some $80. Because poaching is so lucrative, and the penalties minor compared with other criminal activities, organized poaching rings, not only for meat but for trophy animals, are on the increase. That is the opinion of those very valuable people who work for that minister, the conservation officers; they themselves think that. I don't know whether I should even say that, because there was a group that went out and did a little survey of what was going on in the poaching and talked to conservation officers, and got their wrists slapped by that ministry for doing it.

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: Yes, by your ministry. They were told that they had no business talking to conversation officers — that if there were any polls of conservation officers being conducted, the ministry would do it.

That leads me into a little sidelight, but it's an interesting sidelight too. I wonder if that minister has put a gag order on some of his staff. It's a very interesting thing, Mr. Speaker.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Would he do that?

MRS. WALLACE: I don't know; he just might do that. One of my staff had an appointment to meet with one of his staff. This was some time ago. They were supposed to meet at 10 o'clock in the morning, and the guy called to say: "I'm sorry, I can't come. I have to have the minister's permission." Just recently someone made a call to one of the people in your staff, Mr. Minister, asking for some information about the figures in the estimates when they first came down, and they were told: "Sorry, I can't give you that; it will be discussed in estimates." I'm wondering if there is a gag order out there, that people aren't supposed to talk. In view of what happened with the conservation officers and the little poll that was not supposed to be conducted, I kind of wonder if that is the case.

Grand Forks, of course, was another situation where there was a lot of concern about the conservation officer. That's now over and done with, I guess, but there were some really good arguments made that it works better if those people are close to the scene. That didn't relate just to Grand Forks.

Now the minister says he has only reduced conservation officers by 10 percent, but certainly in some areas.... In Prince George, for example, the whole staff was reduced by 30 percent. Information officers were laid off, conservation officers had to take on additional duties created by the laying off of those information officers, and that is certainly what suggests to me that where we're at is about 60 percent operational time and 40 percent administrative time.

I want to talk a little bit, while we're on this subject of fish and wildlife, about the CORE program — the conservation and outdoor recreation education program, I think it is, a very convoluted name. That program was such a good program, Mr. Chairman. When my son was coming 16 and was going to be carrying a gun, the kinds of concerns that I had at that time.... And I have a grandson who is now 15. It's important that those young people have the kind of training that that program offered — and I have to use the past tense. When it was operated through the ministry in cooperation with the fish and game clubs, it was a good program. In fact it got an award for North American excellence. It was an excellent program. There were 14,000 young hunters a year taking advantage of that program to learn safety in the woods — an excellent program. Under the present plan, since the government has backed off from it and turned it over to I think it's the B.C. Federation of Shooting Sports, which is trying to operate it in an entirely different way, the enrolment in that plan has fallen to 3,000. We have instructors from the fish and game groups who are so frustrated they're ready to quit, and some of them have quit, because the program is so poorly operated. And the worst part is that the cost to young hunters has more than doubled. It used to be about $25. They could get the books and take the course and have the test. Now it has become so convoluted and just so difficult — so much red tape and so much more expensive — that I think that's one of the reasons for the drop in it. So I would urge the minister that he have a look at that program and consider turning it around and taking it back under his own jurisdiction and operating it as it was before. Because you can't knock success, and that was a successful program. It was operating very well. It has now been absolutely ruined. It's not serving the purpose it was meant for anymore. It's just not doing the job.

When talking about the Princeton thing, I spoke briefly about the Coquihalla Highway. That is a real concern. When you spoke recently in Penticton, Mr. Minister, I heard you say that you're negotiating with the Minister of Transportation (Hon. A. Fraser) relative to getting some overpasses or underpasses for the animals there. But there's still a lot of concern in the minds of the people closely involved in that area and concerned about the future of wildlife there that that's not going to work out. Certainly we're wondering what's happening with the private property there. What are you going to do about that? The Minister of Transportation certainly has the power if he wants to expropriate, which means he has to pay. Is that going to happen, or are we going to have a situation where the wildlife is going to be more disturbed than they've already been disturbed by that highway going through there? There were a lot of concerns about what kind of environmental impact that highway was going to have on that particular area, which is a very remote and productive wildlife habitat.

What we see here now is the possibility of not being able to do the sort of things that were indicated should be done. So there's a lot of concern in the minds of the people who are up there — and certainly in my own mind — as to whether or not we're going to have the kind of facilities there that will bring at least some kind of protection to the people who are concerned about that.

The habitat conservation fund: the minister always talks about that like it's his money, but it's not. None of it is his

[ Page 8038 ]

money; it's the taxpayers' money. That particular fund is a very special fund made up from an assessment self-imposed upon the hunters and fishermen who.... I should say anglers, not fishermen, because I like to fish too. That's self-imposed.

[5:30]

How much consultation actually goes into the spending of that fund — the amount that's spent; how, when and where it's spent'? I've heard some complaints. The minister is shaking or nodding. I'm not sure what he's doing. I presume he's saying: "Oh, yes, there's lots of consultation." I've heard a lot of complaints about the lack of consultation on that fund. The minister sets the magic figure, and it's interesting to know that since.... He always says he's going to collect so much and it's always less than he actually collects. This is the history since 1979 — I think I went back to then. He always says he's going to collect so much, and he actually collects more than that. This is in his budget estimates. And then he always estimates he's going to spend so much, and he actually spends less than that. So he has now built up quite a nice little cushion there, and we have a goodly chunk going out this year. There may be a reason for that, I don't know, but we won't go into that.

I've heard a rumour that the minister intends to just turn that fund over to the B.C. Wildlife Federation to actually administer it. I'd like to know whether or not that is the case. If so, does that amount to his really just becoming a collection agent to collect this money on behalf of the people who fish and hunt in this province, and then turn it over to their elected body to administer that fund? Is that the intent'? If that's the intent, that may be okay. But I think we should be very clear that that's what he's doing, and that he's not going to turn that over to some other organization, as the CORE program was turned over, and privatize it. So I would like to know just what his intent is with that habitat conservation fund.

HON. MR. PELTON: The member made quite a long speech, and there weren't too many questions in it, but I'll start with the last one first, the habitat conservation fund. I know that that member wouldn't deliberately come forward with information that is incorrect, but there are certainly many errors in some of the statements that were made about the habitat conservation fund. It is a special purpose fund. It's a non-lapsing and interest-bearing fund. As the member said, it's made up of a surcharge of $3 on angling, hunting, trapping and guiding licences. The ministry is not involved in projects that come out of the fund at all. Those are approved out of a great list of projects that come in each year. They are solicited from various parts of the province, and then there is a committee that sits and goes over these things and picks out the ones that are going to be brought into effect in any particular year. Of course, it has to relate to how much money is available in the fund for them to do that.

There are probably some people who are disappointed because their projects aren't picked, but I have never had any complaints from anyone about the way the process works. It is completely and undeniably fair. Not even the ministry is involved. The people that do the choosing come from all around the province. They come from the B.C. Wildlife Federation. They come from other areas of the province as well. So the whole process is a very fair one.

Certainly I can do nothing but pay kudos to the people who voluntarily agree to the $3 surcharge, because without it there would be millions of dollars we wouldn't be able to expend on this most important thing of habitat conservation. It might not sound like a lot of money, the amount we spend. The budget this year is $2.26 million. It's not bad, and it's surprising the number of projects that you can do with this amount of money.

As for the turning of the fund over to be privatized, for want of a better word, we are trying this out because we think it will work better. But it is only for a trial period, and if it doesn't appear to be working too well we can change it.

I would suggest to the hon. member, Mr. Chairman, that perhaps the reason that you find a disparity between the budgeted amount for habitat conservation and the amount that is expended is that we do, from time to time, run into a problem where we will have a habitat program, for example, that involves the fisheries. There are only certain times of the year that you can get into a fish-bearing stream and do some of the things that have to be done like build a fishway or a ladder or something like that. One of the problems we have experienced because of the involvement of the ministry in the administration of the fund was that it involved FTEs — which we are all familiar with; it's like a household word — and we couldn't get out and do the job in the time that it had to be done.

We feel that with turning it over and privatizing it we will accomplish that and get better mileage out of the money we have. I hope that is a reasonable explanation, because I would want the member to be really clear on any of the points relative to the habitat conservation fund, because it is such a very important thing. I hope that I have provided all the information that you might require, hon. member. I have a lot more here but it would take too long to go through and read it, so I won't do that.

Let me just talk for another moment about something that I think is also very important. Whether the hon. member believes it or not, I am sincerely interested in what I do, and I do try to get the best mileage that I can for the taxpayers of British Columbia out of the money that's made available to me.

Let's speak for a moment about the Coquihalla and the problems that are attendant upon the construction of a large project like that that's running through country inhabited by wildlife. I am sure that the member is aware of this, but I must point out for the record that we can negotiate with the Ministry of Transportation and Highways, and that's what we've been doing.

We've had a great amount of cooperation, but that's about as far as we can go, because the Highways ministry are the ones who have to make the decision as to where the overpasses will be, if there are to be any, or where the underpasses will be, although studies are undertaken through the ministry of the migratory routes of various animals so that we can try and get these underpasses, or get fences constructed, or get whatever is required in the areas where the wildlife would normally migrate through.

They, being creatures of habit.... If you put an underpass in the wrong place, they probably wouldn't use it. I don't think it can be overemphasized, the fact that we are getting a great deal of cooperation out of the Ministry of Transportation and Highways. They have spent large amounts of money to assist us in hiring consultants to look into migratory routes. In the first phase of the Coquihalla, I think the experts within the ministry who were concerned

[ Page 8039 ]

about these matters are quite pleased with what has happened. As we go down the road and as the other phases of the Coquihalla are completed, I am sure we can expect nothing but the same kind of cooperation that we have had from my colleague the Minister of Transportation and Highways up to this point in time.

I have a great stack of statistics here about conservation officers, Mr. Chairman, but I guess there is not much point in spouting them off. They certainly aren't all the same as what the hon. member has given, but there again they probably come from different sources. We have been very successful in the conservation officer service, in spite of the smaller number of people that we have now than we used to have. I find it difficult to really appreciate the fact that the member is getting information from conservation officers that the system is not working. Because I have travelled; I've been into every region now, and I've talked to the chief conservation officer in each region. I'm not the type of person that scares anybody. As a matter of fact, according to the hon. member, I'm kind of a Milquetoast who gets pushed around in cabinet and never gets anything done. But anyway, I go in and I talk to these chief conservation officers and they tell me how well the system works and that they are accomplishing things that they never did before, because instead of spending time sitting on their butts in an office pushing paper, they're out where they should be doing inspections and stopping cars on the highway. But if we need more information on conservation officers, I can provide that too.

One point you made that I feel quite proud of is when you mentioned about the case where we found these people...the butcher that was trafficking in large quantities of game meat. I think there was about five tonnes of it in the Prince George area. I think the really important part about that was that we had a couple of our conservation officers go out and they investigated this. It was excellent investigative work that they did, and they did their work so well and so thoroughly that the culprits, as you have suggested, hon. member, were taken into court and were fined $3,800 and had some equipment to the value of about $7,000 confiscated.

I guess if there's anything wrong with that, it's that the fine, in my point of view, is a little on the small side. When you get into that kind of a poaching thing, one would hope that the courts would see fit to whomp them a little heavier than $3,800. But then I guess we have these things. These judgments, as was suggested in the House one day recently by the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith), are judgments that have to be made by the courts and we can't really interfere in these things.

They also had a very successful investigation of some elk poaching in the Shaw Creek area, which you probably know of, on Vancouver Island. The problem was so severe up there that the elk were just disappearing like you wouldn't believe. And here again, our conservation people — and I can't speak too highly of these people.... I know the hon. member wasn't degrading them in anything she said. They're just excellent people and they do an absolutely outstanding job. They did such a good job on the case on Vancouver Island with the elk that three people were charged and convicted. This is real good stuff. This is the kind of stuff I guess we don't talk about enough. We all seem to get caught up in this kind of negative attitude, and we only talk about the bad things, not the good things.

Just for a moment on the CORE program, conservation and outdoor recreation education, you're right. You had that one perfect. It was an excellent program. By and large, it is not a bad program still. There are areas where it's operating very well indeed, and there are areas where it's not operating very well at all.

This is a case, I think — one of the few cases — where in our attempt to improve the program through privatization, it didn't work. This surprises me, because normally it does. But I must tell you, there are some advantages to privatization which I still think we'll reap benefit from. We also now have a director within the ministry who is very competent in this regard, and was involved in the CORE program before. He's on staff, and he's setting to work to try to sort the thing out.

When the CORE program was privatized, the theoretical portion was transferred over to the Open Learning Institute, and they offered a correspondence course. The remaining practical part, the firearms safety part, is being delivered by the B.C. Federation of Shooting Sports. Each group receives some government funds to assist in startup costs. But the ministry still retains the responsibility for the course content and the enforcement part of it.

The advantages of privatization, which I said I would mention, include better course coverage, better course content and a more uniform exam, and less involvement by the government, which I thought was a really good idea. The less government involvement the better. As I say, we did hire a CORE coordinator in October of this past year. He ensures ministry responsibility for record-keeping, for program standards and content, and for monitoring, regulation and overall agency coordination.

We're trying to improve the program in five different areas. If you'll allow me just to read them out to you, I think you'll find them interesting, hon. member. You might not have had this piece of correspondence when your research was being done. We're hoping to revise the written examination, to streamline the correspondence course, to increase the number of firearms instructors through certification and recertification sources, to provide firearms for instructors and, last but not least, to initiate the availability of audio-visual and other teaching aids to support classroom instructors. That kind of covers the CORE program.

Were there any other questions in there that I've forgotten?

[5:45]

The House resumed; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

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

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

The House adjourned at 5:46 p.m.