[ Page 849 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Prince George forest region. Mr. Williams –– 849

Mr. Kempf

Hospital user fees Mrs. Boone –– 850

Teachers' work-to-rule. Mr. Weisgerber 850

Tabling Documents –– 851

Teaching Profession Act (Bill 20). Second reading

On the amendment

Mr. Guno –– 851

Mr. Jacobsen –– 853

Mrs. Boone –– 854

Mr. Crandall –– 857

Mr. Barnes –– 858

Hon. Mr. Savage –– 861

Mr. Gabelmann –– 862

Mr. Messmer –– 865

Ms. Edwards –– 866

Mr. Serwa –– 869

Mr. Williams –– 871

An Act To Incorporate Mission Foundation (Bill PR404) Mr. Jacobsen

Introduction and first reading –– 873

The House met at 2:07 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker, with your indulgence, I have two introductions I'd like to make today. First of all, in the members' gallery, visiting from Saskatoon, are Bill and Norma Novak. I last saw these fine people 24 years ago at the Royal Canadian Air Force base at Cold Lake, Alberta, where I was the base controller and Bill was the principal of one of our four National Defence schools. Bill went on to become superintendent of schools in that area, and retired just a year or two ago. It's delightful to have Bill and Norma with us. I would appreciate the House extending them a very warm welcome.

On your behalf, Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce to the House three very fine people that I met at noon today: Margaret Clews, who's from Vancouver; Valerie Blackmore, who's visiting British Columbia from New Zealand; and Brian Purdy, from Vancouver. I would appreciate the House making them welcome also.

MR. MERCIER: In the Speaker's gallery are Jake Koole, the president of the Burnaby-Edmonds Social Credit riding association, and his wife Tena. I would like to ask the House to make them welcome.

MR. BLENCOE: We have some special guests in the gallery today. My father, Rev. Charles Blencoe, is here, and Mrs. Freda Cathcart Blencoe. Accompanying them, as their special guests, are two people from Cornwall, England — from Falmouth: Wing Commander Beeton and Mrs. Beeton. Would the House please make them all welcome.

MR. PETERSON: Mr. Speaker, sitting in your gallery is a very good friend of both the first member for Langley (Mrs. Gran) and me, a member of our constituency executive and a very hard worker in both of our campaigns. I wish the House to join me in welcoming Mr. Patrick McCarthy here today.

MS. CAMPBELL: Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today is Mahinder Doman, who is a Victoria resident, and is very active in radio station CFUV, which broadcasts out of the University of Victoria and does an excellent job of providing public affairs broadcasts, interviews and discussions for the people of the capital region. I'd ask the House to make her welcome.

Oral Questions

PRINCE GEORGE FOREST REGION

MR. WILLIAMS: We have now been advised that the 10 million seedlings that were likely to be trashed in the Prince George region are to be planted. Can the Minister of Forests advise whether funding for silviculture in the Prince George region has been increased?

HON. MR. PARKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the question from the member for Vancouver East, which I'd be pleased to reply to. Forest management in British Columbia is the responsibility of the B.C. Forest Service. It's this ministry's mandate, and it's also my operating philosophy, to have the field managers manage. Those field managers are managing within the terms of reference of their operating budgets and their responsibilities.

MR. WILLIAMS: That would mean, then, Mr. Speaker, that they have to steal from other programs to plant the seedlings. They indicated in their memos that that was worse than trashing the seedlings, because it would mean they would not be tending the plantations. Can the minister advise the House if that is the case? Because that was the only option the professionals saw, other than more money. They will be doing worse than trashing the seedlings, will they?

HON. MR. PARKER: Forest management is basically an objective to obtain a commercial forest crop in a reasonable period of time. In British Columbia a reasonable period of time is variable by the growing regions of the province. In some areas the rotation can be brought down to perhaps 60 years; in the northern areas it can be as much as 120 years. When you relate that to an agricultural crop where in British Columbia, in the same area, you might have 90 to 100 frost-free days, and you have to address the crop to keep the weeds down or to do any spacing, you might be delayed by a day or two, or a week, depending on the weather or any other outside influences. When you draw a parallel to forest management, you're looking at a 100-year horizon, not a 100-day horizon, and a year or two to adjust and exercise a little management prerogative makes very little difference.

MR. WILLIAMS: To everything there is a season. The professional staffers in Prince George have indicated, therefore, that this will eliminate all surveys in the region, eliminate all brushing and weeding, and one-third of site preparation. Will the minister confirm that? That's the professional decision.

HON. MR. PARKER: Mr. Speaker, I guess I haven't had that type of conversation with the staff. I would be pleased to take that question on notice and certainly come back with a written reply.

MR. WILLIAMS: Further to the minister, the former Minister of Forests, the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf), in a letter to the newspapers on April 28, said that "the people of the province are losing a billion a year" in terms of legitimate revenues for our public forests, and that studies carried out by the ministry show how inadequate and incorrect our current stumpage system is. Will the minister table those studies?

HON. MR. PARKER: The member for Omineca did initiate a stumpage appraisal review and that's underway now in the ministry. When the report is available we'll certainly be happy to share it with all the people of British Columbia.

[2:15]

PRINCE GEORGE FOREST REGION

MR. KEMPF: I have a question to the Minister of Forests and Lands. As many would know, Mr. Speaker, the Prince George TSA is being seriously overcut. Part of the solution is to chase the forest companies up the Dease Lake extension of the BCR, north of Fort St. James and into the Sustut.

[ Page 850 ]

Recently, Mr. Les Reed, a well-known B.C. forestry professor, said in Prince George that he felt the forest companies should pick up the estimated $43 million tab for the upgrading of that necessary line. My question, Mr. Speaker, to the minister is: can the minister assure this House, and through it the taxpayers of the province of British Columbia, that if the forest companies do pay for the upgrading —  and I would agree with Mr. Reed that they should — no write-off of these expenditures will take place under section 88 of the Forest Act?

HON. MR. PARKER: Mr. Speaker, in reply to the member for Omineca, the Prince George timber supply area is an extremely large timber supply area. It extends from the Bear Pass in the Sustut River area, as the member mentioned, down to an area south and east of Prince George. The cut levels in the Prince George timber supply area have been accelerated in the southeast region due to lodge pole pine and white spruce beetle kills in those areas, and the Forest Service, in its management approach to the area, accelerated the cut in that region of the timber supply area to make sure that whatever merchantable timber was available in the killed and infested timber was reaped before it was dead on the stump and unusable. So we have revenue from that crop, and we also have a silvicultural cleaning. The way that it took place was a progressive clearcut — a substantial clearcut — to the south and east of Prince George, which is exactly what Mother Nature would have done had a wildfire taken on that dead timber. So we were able to recoup revenue and keep jobs through the downturn that we experienced over the last few years.

As for the transportation matters in the upper reaches of the Prince George timber supply area, the Dease Lake extension goes from Prince George north on the BCR mainline and branches off at a place just by Summit Lake called O'Dell, and moves northwest through Fort St. James and then up along the lake system right up to Chipmunk, a coal deposit area. The railway from Leo Creek at the bottom end of Takla Lake up to the top end of the TSA was constructed in the early seventies to construction standards. It never really got to the operating standards required by the operating division of the B.C. Railway. So the point that the member was making is that there is probably $40 million to $45 million worth of costs to bring that line up to operating standards. As far as who is going to pay and when, that hasn't been determined yet, and we'll be happy to share that information with the member when the time comes.

MR. KEMPF: Mr. Speaker, this section 88 question is one of very great importance to the people of British Columbia, as millions of their dollars are being doled out in what I consider corporate welfare for section 88.

A new question to the same minister, Mr. Speaker. Has he decided or is he considering the abolition of section 88 of the Forest Act in order that industry might pay their fair share to the taxpayer of the province of British Columbia?

HON. MR. PARKER: Mr. Speaker, some of my colleagues are coaching me that we are probably dealing with future policy. But we should talk about section 88, and I'd be happy to address that portion of the member's question, with your leave, sir.

Section 88 provides for payment to a licensee by a credit note on their stumpage and royalty account for capital projects submitted for B.C. Forest Service approval, being the licenser, for capital improvements of the public's asset. If the Forest Service deem it not to be necessary and not to be in the best interests of the public, they disallow that project. If the project is to continue at that point, then it's at the licensee's own cost. However, if it is accepted by the licenser as a suitable capital project on behalf of the people of British Columbia, they approve the project and the means of payment is by a credit note on the scale and royalty account as the project progresses and as each stage is inspected and approved by a representative of the licenser. During this whole period of time, the licensee sees no interest on the capital he has laid out on behalf of the people of British Columbia, nor does he get all of the operating overheads in those projects.

So section 88 has had abuses, but section 88 has its place.

HOSPITAL USER FEES

MRS. BOONE: The question is to the Minister of Health. Last night the minister indicated publicly that he intends to lobby the federal minister for the return of hospital user fees. Can the minister assure the people of British Columbia that there will be no return to hospital user fees, or that the only thing protecting us from hospital user fees is the Canada Health Act?

HON. MR. DUECK: I don't know what the question was. Whether the only protection is the Canada Health Act — that is true, yes it is.

MRS. BOONE: My question was, if there were no Canada Health Act and if the federal government would allow you to, the provincial government here would put on user fees. Is that correct?

HON. MR. DUECK: That is a hypothetical question. I think that as far as we are concerned in the Ministry of Health, we believe that the responsibility must fall on every one of us. I believe that a small user fee such as we had before is perhaps a very good way to collect a little extra money and keep control of health costs.

MRS. BOONE: The minister said he favours, these because they are a deterrent. In my estimation, they are an unfair deterrent on the poor.

What preventive health programs is the minister working on to reduce health costs, or is his only solution to health costs in this province the institution of user fees?

HON. MR. DUECK: Mr. Speaker, that certainly is not the only preventive measure we have taken. If you want to know all of them, you would have to have more than 15 minutes in question period; it would take about an hour and a half to go through all the programs.

TEACHERS' WORK-TO-RULE

MR. WEISGERBER: A question for the Minister of Education. This morning in Dawson Creek, somewhat in excess of 300 students were demonstrating downtown to protest the loss of auxiliary services in the schools because of work-to-rule, Mr. Minister. Could you advise these students

[ Page 851 ]

and their parents as to what action you would recommend they take?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Mr. Speaker, I have heard about that action from one of the student spokesmen, who tried to make contact. In between meetings I was able to get through to the spokesman for those 300 students, a very responsible, rational young man, who was very frustrated about the deprivation of activities that the students were being subjected to.1 asked him to ask the students to go back to school. In my opinion, two wrongs do not make a right.1 asked them to act responsibly despite their frustration, de spite what they were being deprived of. I said that I felt there was nothing to be gained by them following a bad example that had been set for them, but I guess their concern really is: why are we being deprived of these sports events? I don't really have an answer for that because no legislation ever made any teacher provide that kind of service; it was always provided because of professional interest in improving the lives of those students.

I've asked them why the teachers aren't doing it. Some of them said that they would gladly coach, but they're not allowed to. I can only advise him of the existence of laws in this province, and 1 don't know of anyone — myself, the ministry, or the BCTF — that has the authority to order a teacher to voluntarily coach a team, or some other extra curricular activity, or to tell that teacher that they're not allowed to do it. I certainly couldn't order a teacher. These were voluntary activities that were done.

They're also concerned about the threat of withdrawal of graduation. I think I've made my views plain on that. Any student that has gone through 12 years of school is entitled to a graduation exercise in this province. I assured him that I expected that teachers were professional enough that they would not stop those graduation exercises. I have full faith that they will carry them out, and I said to them that they should not be canceling any plans. It takes a lot of advance planning for graduation exercises, and once cancelled it would be difficult to reinstate. I said: "Please don't cancel your graduation exercises. I fully expect that the teachers will do it, and I fully expect that some way will be found."

Interjections.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I suppose some of the opposition members really considered this depriving . . . .

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, Mr. Minister. We are not in debate; it is question and answer period.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I'm sorry, I just gathered that we were having Let me then conclude by saying that I think the students in this province will have their graduation exercises some way, and I think the teachers will be there to deliver it.

MR. ROSE: On a point of order, I think we can clearly say that in question period there are sins on both sides of the House in terms of going on and on, but I think the other side of the House weighed a little bit more heavily this time in terms of lengthy answers —  which perhaps didn't say a great deal –– I congratulate the Minister the Forests (Hon. Mr. Parker) and also the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Brunimet).

They've been taking lessons and are now taking a Couvelier attitude to the House.

MR. SPEAKER: I thank the opposition House Leader for bringing that point up. I think he was reading the Speaker's mind. I think that if both sides of the House were to read standing order 47A(b), they would see that the rules were stretched somewhat on both sides today.

Hon. Mr. Michael tabled the B.C. Railway group of companies annual report for 1986.

Hon. Mr. Parker tabled answers to questions asked in the House on April 28, 1987.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Adjourned debate on the amendment to second reading of Bill 20.

TEACHING PROFESSION ACT

(continued)

MR. SPEAKER: I would advise the member that he has 22 minutes remaining.

[2:30]

On the amendment.

MR. GUNO: I'm glad to resume my participation in this debate and support my colleagues in calling for a hoist on this bill. When I ended yesterday when time ran out, I was talking about the timing of the introduction of this bill, and more or less trying to get a handle on the rationale for introducing it at this time and with such great haste. I think the Premier provided some clue as to a reason, if you want to call it that, why this bill has been introduced now. He was reported to have conceded that he would never dare introduce such legislation near an election. He's reported to have said that to do hat would be dumb. I would suggest that if introducing it three years from now is dumb, introducing it now is equally dumb. But aside from the underlying cynicism of that position, the Premier is clearly saying to the people that this is really heavy stuff, not to be tried in the ultimate test — that is, to let the people decide and give the Premier the mandate to radically change direction in the labour and education fields, which they clearly did not in the last election.

I would suggest that the Premier is stretching the credibility of the people by saying that there has been significant and real consultation before introducing this bill. It might be trite to remind the House that it was Abraham Lincoln who aid that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. People will remember, and the ensuing chaos in the education field, if his bill is passed, will remind people constantly for the next four years that it was this government's intransigence in ramming this bill through without any real consultation. I would suggest that the government has opened a Pandora's ox. Unless they take this measured pause for a period of reflection, to consult with the people affected, it's almost inevitable that there will be nothing but grief for all British Columbians.

I've listened to the speeches from the government side and am amazed at the complete and total absence of any

[ Page 852 ]

reasonable arguments in favour of this bill. They have doggedly parroted the party line, which in effect says: "Yes, this is tough medicine, but it's good for you. Believe us. Trust us." But they have never shown any willingness to contemplate compromise, which I suggest is essential to any system of democratic government. I get the sense that the Premier seems to equate the process of pausing for reflection, of allowing people who have serious concerns about this bill.... He seems to feel it's synonymous with capitulation –– I can assure the Premier that we would not consider he was losing any manhood if he were to at least stop once in a while and consider what the differing views are all about –– I think that that kind of view is rather naive for a Premier who leads the government of one of the biggest provinces in Canada. It suggests to me a basic misunderstanding as to the role of government and, indeed, of politics in our society. It is my contention that if we are going to conduct an intelligent debate on this issue, or on any complex issue like this, we must all be aware of the difficulties and complexities that such issues represent.

I have a small excerpt to read from Bernard Crick, a political scientist from Great Britain, who talks about how we have to deal with differing views and try to accommodate them. He talks about politics. He states: "Politics arises, according to the great Aristotle, in organized states which recognize themselves to be an aggregate of many members — not a single tribe, religion, interest or tradition. Politics arises from accepting the fact of the simultaneous existence of different groups, hence different interests and different traditions, within a territorial unit under a common rule."

He goes on to say that.... This is appropriate for this government, which seems to have a penchant for order, but just simple order, without any recognition of the fact that order cannot be just willy-nilly; that political order is not just any order at all. He states: "It marks the birth or the recognition of freedom, for politics represents at least some tolerance of differing truths, some recognition that government is possible — indeed best conducted — amid the open canvassing of rival interests."

Mr. Speaker, I think that those words are appropriate to what we're trying to deal with today. So I would suggest that nothing is as black and white as this government would like us to believe, and that we have to be aware of some of the hidden pitfalls that must surely lie in this bill. It is incumbent on all of the members here in the House, as legislators, to look hard and well at the decisions that we're going to make.

Mr. Speaker, in my maiden speech I ended up by quoting three principles which the leaders of our people, the Nishga people, usually state at the beginning of deliberations. They're something akin to this. One of them was, "Sim git wil sim," which means: "Deliberate, knowing that you have a serious task at hand." I would suggest that this is appropriate advice for all of us here in this House, in dealing with this very complex and radical bill.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to touch just very briefly on some of the more contentious sections of Bill 20 just to highlight or emphasize the need for us to take some time to have a period of real consultation. First there is the issue of the College of Teachers. It is evident that the teaching profession opposes in the strongest terms the concept of the College of Teachers that is contained in sections 1 to 41 of the bill. They feel that such a proposal would splinter the British Columbia Teachers' Federation, which has, since 1919, represented and acted for teachers in all educational and professional matters, and that includes economic and employment interests. I would suggest that this bill would tend to compartmentalize the teachers and set up artificial barriers. That could only have a negative effect on our education as a whole.

So in view of those facts, Mr. Speaker, there is a significant cross-section of the educational community who view the proposal as unnecessary, disruptive and counterproductive. The government has an opportunity to show real leadership if they were to agree to set aside this bill to allow for real consultation.

Mr. Speaker, I want to just sort of speak from a northern perspective. I've been talking to a number of people from my riding and from northern communities who are concerned about the fact that the government is trying to push Bill 20 through without any kind of input from them. One of the concerns that a particular teacher brought to my attention about how it would impact on teachers in the north — and I think the member for Burnaby North (Mr. Jones) touched on this — is the concept of double jeopardy which the teachers would be placed in under this bill, especially in respect to tenure.

The concern is that it represents a possibility that teachers can be transferred with virtually no appeal. My source — and this is being borne out by other calls — feels that this would inhibit teachers from taking stands on anything, professional or otherwise. He felt that the ten-year regulation under this bill would eliminate the form of due process that exists now. In small communities like those you find in Atlin this would raise a particular kind of problem, in that a teacher's life would be under intense scrutiny all the time. For example, if under Bill 20 the school board can on the grounds of immorality have a teacher transferred, it may well be based on some member of the school board's not being satisfied with a teacher's lifestyle. That teacher could quickly find himself transferred to another area, and in many small towns teachers feel threatened and vulnerable.

Mr. Speaker, there are some strong concerns about the disciplinary powers that are contained in Bill 20. The establishment of this kind of College of Teachers that's contemplated under Bill 20 is unprecedented in Canada. It has been pointed out that it has been proposed in the past in other jurisdictions, but after consultation with the parties involved, the proposals were withdrawn because it was felt they were ill-conceived, impractical, expensive and unnecessarily complex. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that these are valid reasons for withdrawing this particular bill.

Many people in the north — both teachers and members of the communities — have expressed their view, as I pointed out, that they have never had the opportunity to be consulted about education, and there are, as I also pointed out, particular problems in small northern towns in Atlin Schools in small communities are generally the centre of 'community life. Most times we don't have recreational facilities other than those found in the schools — the school gyms. Generally speaking, that's where significant community events occur. And teachers play an integral part in these communities, Mr. Speaker. Many people I have spoken to from places like Dease Lake, Atlin and Stewart are concerned that this bill would erode those kinds of community relations. The bill would relegate teachers to being simple employees and not professionals. That erosion would move into all areas of the community.

[ Page 853 ]

The bill is a restraining one. It would create a situation where teachers would not take risks, and in teaching and dealing with young people as individuals teachers are continually having to take risks. But under this bill, with its tremendous kinds of constraints, as I understand it there would be very little motivation for teachers to be innovators. A simple mistake can have such a serious ramification on a teacher's career. So this would render teachers vulnerable. It would make them more conservative and afraid.

Another example, Mr. Speaker, which has been brought to my attention and which has application in some of the native communities in Atfin, is the recognition that where there is a significant native presence there should be native content in the school curriculum. For instance, in the Stikine district there is a native and northern education committee which advises the school board on various matters pertaining to native education. One of the more innovative programs or things that they have presented is introducing or having a more significant native content in the curriculum. Under this bill, if you run into someone — a principal or a school board — who feels that that is not appropriate or simply does not feel that that is desirable, a teacher cannot make a stand and cannot argue in a professional way, because of this kind of axe that's hanging over each teacher's head. All in all, Bill 20 would have this kind of inhibiting effect. Teachers would be afraid to take stands. It is a kind of atmosphere where creativity and imagination would not survive, I would suggest, Mr. Speaker. To quote Crawford Kilian from his article in the Province yesterday: "The net effect of Bill 20, then, won't be to professionalize teachers (as if they needed it). It'll just create another timid, self-serving bureaucracy. Meanwhile the school system will sink deeper into government-inspired chaos."

[2:45]

Redefining the roles and the duties of the principals and vice-principals and relegating them to those of administrators would have serious repercussions in our schools today. Again, in the north, where schools are generally small, it is a cooperative atmosphere that makes it work. Often teachers or vice-principals, sometimes the vice-principal and principal and teacher, are all one. In fact, my predecessor, the late Al Passarell, was a principal, the only teacher in a one-room school at Good Hope Lake.

These are the kinds of situations we find in Atlin. Oftentimes teachers are called upon to perform duties well beyond their mandate. I think the passing of this bill would completely eliminate that kind of cooperative effort on the part of many teachers in the north.

There is no doubt that this bill will cause the deterioration of the personal community and professional relations that are so necessary if we're going to have quality education. In the words of Elsie McMurphy, in her letter to the Premier on April 14, 1987: "If school-level decision-making becomes, as Bill 20 requires, the imposition of management directives in an adversarial setting, rather than educational leadership and the involvement of all colleagues, it will be a tragedy for education. Our schools do not need to become labour-management battlegrounds."

There is a great concern about the impact of the tenure right of principals and vice-principals in that removing all possibility of procedural review, of reassignments of these members and, more seriously, the authority of the school board to simply terminate by resolution and without right of reinstatement . . . . I think it is a serious denial of the fundamental rights of a great many people in our province.

It is high time that we recognize the tremendous role that the teachers play in our society. I can't emphasize this too strongly: without their cooperation in setting policies that affect education, those policies are doomed to failure. I believe that it is vital that in introducing any radical change there must be a meaningful consultative process — that we go an extra mile in avoiding further disruptions and confrontation and trying to rebuild our educational system so that we do have one that we can all be proud of.

We ought to remember that we are not dealing here just with teachers; we are dealing with education. In asking for a period of real consultation, we are doing it not just for the B.C. Teachers' Federation; we are doing it for our children. For this reason I would support, and urge all members to seriously consider, hoisting this bill.

MR. JACOBSEN: Mr. Speaker, it's my pleasure to stand up and address this motion. Before I begin speaking on it, I would just like to say that a couple of days ago I listened to the opposition House Leader express his appreciation of a speech made by our second member for Langley (Mr. Peterson), I believe, and he liked it because it was short. I want that member to know that he's really going to like my speech today, because it's probably even shorter. I also wanted to suggest to him that we on this side of the House have the same feelings as the people on that side of the House, and I would urge him to try to make his speeches and his colleagues' speeches likable for the same reason.

Let me begin by just saying briefly what I see teachers' role in society to be. I personally think that teachers occupy one of the most important positions of all people in society. They have a great deal of influence on the life of our society, the future direction that our society will take. One of the great occupations, the great professions, is that of teacher.

We have two small children at home that are just getting into the school system, and I know the teachers of those children well. Let me say that they are people that I have every respect for, and I recognize the significant impact that they will have upon our children as they grow up and go through life. So the teacher's role is certainly recognized as being very important.

The hoist motion that's being presented has no value. I don't see that there's any reason for doing it; there's no reason why this bill should not proceed and be debated now. Let's have the arguments now, and let's finalize them at this point in time.

The merits of the bill are obvious. It provides to teachers the opportunity to determine their own direction. It gives teachers the right to decide how they wish to be represented. It provides for individual teachers a new opportunity to make their feelings and their wishes known. It allows for local representation. It allows for organizations at the local level to deal with the community, and that certainly has to be a very valid point.

I was very pleased with the bill when it was introduced. I've gone over it. I am satisfied that it is very good legislation and serves a good purpose. But I was interested in hearing what the criticisms would be, and so I stayed in the House particularly to listen to the member for Burnaby North (Mr. Jones), the designated speaker of the opposition on this issue. I thought he would best present the views of the opposition on the criticism of the bill. I stayed in the House for his whole

[ Page 854 ]

speech and listened carefully and closely to what he had to say. I sincerely wanted to know what they felt was wrong with this particular legislation. Well, I heard him say that the bill is bad; that it makes collective bargaining a myth; the arbitration clause is no good; it's a kind of fraud; it's going to have a negative impact on children — and so on and so on. He went on to say that the government is heavy-handed and interested in confrontation, but he praised the role of the BCTF as being conciliatory and creating harmony.

There were some specific criticisms. I'd just like to mention three of them; there were several. The first one was the separation of negotiating working conditions away from the professional responsibilities. Perhaps those two functions could take place together, but in today's society, which is preoccupied with conflict of interest and does not seem to recognize that any person could even give up a little bit of self-interest for a lot of public good, I think it's important that there be a forum for people to express their professionalism away from any kind of suggestion that it is there to represent their own personal good.

Obviously, with the guidelines we've provided, that becomes a necessary facility within our society; so it's necessary for the teacher who wishes to address the problems of education, because it's from the teacher that most of the suggestions for how the children should be taught will come. They're the people in the field, and they're the people we need to rely upon for advice as to how our education system should work. They need to be able to present their views in a forum that's completely divorced from any suggestion that they do it for personal gain. So I think it's obviously essential that there be two places for teachers to deal: one where they deal with their working conditions; another one where they deal with their professional responsibility.

The second thing that was mentioned was the Royal Commission on Education. They asked what that royal commission would now do, with this bill being passed. I could hardly believe that there's a suggestion on the part of anyone in this House that the only issues that matter to education are the questions of teachers' working conditions and salaries; that that would be the paramount issue facing education in this province. There are many things that the commission needs to consider. I'm certainly not qualified to begin to list very many of them, but there are some. For instance, we live in a world where knowledge is doubling every few years; where skills that are learned today may be obsolete ten years from now; where conditions are changing so rapidly that society can hardly keep pace; where the young people of today will have to be able to compete in a very tough, competitive world in the years ahead. Certainly it becomes paramount now that we decide what kind of education is required and how that education will be provided.

The average young person that enters school today has spent thousands of hours sitting in front of a television set. They've seen the bodies on the streets of Beirut; they've seen the violence of South Africa; they've seen the dying children of Ethiopia; they've seen the rockets roaring into space and men walking on the moon; they've seen the mushroom cloud from a hydrogen bomb, and they've been told that one day such a device may extinguish all life on this planet. And then we take them into a classroom and we tell them to pay attention because this is important: "See Spot run."

I tell you, there are a lot of things that we have to address. We have to address the question of the environment in schools and the tremendous growth of the independent school. Let me tell you that anyone here that thinks that there's a relationship between the private school of years gone by and the independent school of today makes a very serious mistake. The private school of yesteryear was a place where the wealthy sent their children for superior education. The independent school today is a school where parents who are neither elite nor wealthy send their children for protection, because they are concerned about sending their children to school to have the moral and the spiritual fibre of their children lost during the time that they are trying to obtain an education.

We have to address the question of protecting young people in our institutional facilities. That's why independent schools are growing; that's why they are in such demand today. It is because people are insecure in sending their children to the public schools. We, the people concerned with education, have to address and answer that problem.

The other thing that was mentioned was, of course, that the legislation should even have reference to a clause that deals with the ability to pay. Now that was considered to be something that should not exist, the ability to pay. I can understand that view coming from the opposition because that is consistent with the policy that they have advocated in every legislation that goes before this House. There is no concern for the ability to pay. But thank God there are people who stand up in this House and are concerned about the impact on the taxpayers of British Columbia. Somebody has to do it, and I am pleased to say that it is the Social Credit Party, the government of this province, that has taken the responsibility for it.

Yes, I say there is no reason for the hoist motion to proceed. It is time to move this bill forward; move it now and let the legislation prove itself in the working arena.

MRS. BOONE: Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised at the words from the speaker behind me here. I am a little shocked at them but I am not surprised, I guess. I was surprised though when Bill 20 came out. I think we were all very surprised, and we were not expecting it. I talked to many people in the BCSTA and the BCTF, and no one really anticipated those changes at all. They thought that they were going to be given the right to bargain. They thought they were going to be given the right to strike, and the news indicated that that's what was going to be given to them.

The election campaign that was run in November indicated that this was a fantastic province and these were fantastic people, and we had a fantastic future. A fantastic future for some people in this province, but not for the working man and woman. What this bill has done is push people into a comer, and I am not surprised that they are coming out fighting, because when people are cornered they do come out fighting.

Nowhere else in Canada has such an act as this been put in place. Nowhere else in Canada do they have a college dealing strictly with the issuing of certificates.

This bill should be hoisted and it must be hoisted. It should be hoisted because it is going through far too fast. One has to ask oneself why. Why is this going through so fast? Why now? Why at this particular time? Mr. Speaker, it wouldn't be a surprise to you to hear that we were a little taken aback when this was put on the order last week. We didn't expect this to happen, but it came at this point, and I think it came because of a deliberate attempt to push the

[ Page 855 ]

teachers into doing something radical while the talks were still going on.

I find it interesting that one of the provisions in Bill 19 indicates that there should be no strike vote before negotiations start. I have heard a lot of people say that they think that is a good idea, and it is a good idea. However, right now we have put Bill 20 on to the order paper and we're giving it t second reading while negotiations are going on, which is exactly the same thing as taking a strike vote beforehand. You are pushing them into a comer. You are holding a gun to their head. You are telling them to do something, and then you act amazed when they actually do perform, when they do go out.

[3:00]

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

This is happening, and it is happening not because of anything that the teachers have done. It is happening because this government has deliberately put the teachers into a situation where they must react, and they have reacted.

We have a royal commission going on right now. What would be wrong with waiting until the end of that royal commission to take some action on this? Why is it necessary to put in a college of teachers at this time? What is the reason for this attitude? I don't know. I have no idea other than surmising that I imagine it is here in order to break the BCTF We've had some members from the opposite side that have just about said that.

What's happened in education since 1983? Since 1983 we've seen a tremendous amount of cuts. We've seen classrooms made larger. We've seen cuts in supplies, cuts in curriculum, and we've seen the Compensation Stabilization Act. As someone who was directly involved with the Compensation Stabilization Act, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that that was one of the most frustrating times of my life, dealing with a group of people, or a man — I don't know what it was — and having to go through negotiations, renegotiations, arbitrations, rearbitrations, all at a cost to the taxpayer and all at a cost to the associations. It was a futile situation and it was a sham. It was a sham because there was no way that we could negotiate. There was no way that anybody could do anything in that situation. What it ended up doing was costing everybody money. Had the government been honest at that time, they would have put a freeze on the teachers' salaries, which is what they wanted to do initially but they didn't have the nerve to do that. So they came up with the compensation stabilization program which virtually did that anyway.

I think all of us wanted a breather. Every single, solitary one in this province wanted a breather at this point. Nobody wanted to get back into the disruption that took place in 1983 or at any other time. There has been a disruption in our classrooms. There's been a tremendous disruption in the whole system. We've seen teachers who have been moved about. We've seen teachers doing jobs that they sometimes aren't even qualified for, but because of seniority clauses and because of cutbacks, and ways and means that they had to get back their staffing requirements, they were doing things that they weren't able to do to the best of their ability. This was not their fault. The system pushed these teachers into this situation, and the children suffered as a result of it.

We've also heard some talk about people . . . . I've heard some pretty rash statements regarding competency of teachers and how there are incompetent teachers out there and you can't get rid of them, and they do this and they do that, and that the BCTF supports these teachers. Now if there are incompetent teachers out there, and I think there probably are, as there are incompetent lawyers and incompetent doctors and everyone — I think there are probably incompetents in every profession — it is up to the professionals in that group to do their homework, to make sure that they get the necessary reports done on those people, to make sure that hey get those reports in on time, and that the situation can take care of itself. Those reporting procedures, I feel, should have been revised. That's something that I know as a trustee; many people were hoping to see some of those revised. But nobody expected the type of things that came out here — firing on 30 days' notice without cause. That's a little radical, going from having approximately three reports done six months apart. It goes from one extreme to the other.

The system was there. If people chose not to use the system, then that is their fault and the people should have been reprimanded for it. But you cannot blame every teacher out there and say that every teacher is incompetent or that every teacher is abusing the system. Because for every teacher that goes out, leaves the classroom three minutes early — as one of the members said yesterday — there are 100 out there who are staying four and five hours overtime in order to keep their classes going.

Interjection.

MRS. BOONE: One of your members did.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: No, he said some were incompetent — very few.

MRS. BOONE: That's right.

The teachers were tired, the boards were tired, parents and students were tired, basically everyone was tired. And you know what? In October a lot of those tired teachers, contrary to what you people seem to think, actually went out and voted Social Credit.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: We know that.

MRS. BOONE: Sure they did. These radical teachers who are out there as a front, these radical BCTF members, actually went out and voted Social Credit. I do not think that the BCTF is a radical organization. The BCTF is not a front for any left organization whatsoever. The BCTF is entirely representative.

We heard the second member from Quesnel indicate yesterday that there were . . . . His teachers frequently had difficulty getting a quorum at a teachers' association meeting. If these teachers fail to turn up for a quorum and can't turn up to a meeting, how can they object then when their teachers' association does something that is not in line with their thinking? It is a democracy. In a democracy people have to participate. That means turning out to meetings. That means voting at meetings and making sure that your point of view gets across and that your people are representing you.

So to say, and with pride, that "my people don't turn up for BCTF meetings and we don't get a quorum in my area, " I think is a shame, and I think it should be a shame on his association that those teachers are not turning up, because they do have that opportunity. This is a democracy and they do have the opportunity to make sure that the BCTF represents them. So when I hear people saying that the BCTF does not represent the teachers, I say that is hogwash, because it

[ Page 856 ]

does. If teachers choose not to vote, then that is their problem.

They are saying that they are radical teachers . . . .

AN HON. MEMBER: Some of them are busy working.

MRS. BOONE: You're right. Most of them are very busy working. Radical teachers, they're saying. I hear this a lot and it is not true. These are very difficult decisions and the fact that so many of them turned out yesterday, and the fact that so many of them turned out in '83 on the streets, was something I found really amazing, because I know a lot of these people and I know for many of them it was actually a gut-wrenching experience. I had a friend phone me, and she said: "I just couldn't imagine ever walking a picket line in 1981." I don't know what she did yesterday. But those are the situations that people are going in. They are not doing this on the basis of radicalism; they are not turning out on the streets because of some radical movement. They are teachers who are concerned about their profession, about what's happening in the teaching world and about what is happening in their classrooms. That's the difference between what you believe teachers are doing and what I think they are doing.

One of the things that I'm finding really difficult to understand is why we are pushing so hard at this point. There are so many other things going around that are being studied to death. We have a liquor review committee that's going around the province. We had one two years ago, and nobody acted on those recommendations. Now they've got another one coming around, and Lord knows what they're going to do about that. But why all of a sudden these two bills? Whomp, these are gone and they're into the action, and that's it. There is no studying going on, and no chance for people to digest it. It does not make good sense to me. This government could have introduced those bills, taken them around for study, and produced a White Paper that would have given people a chance to review, to have some action on these things. We've had enough White Papers and bills on education for so long; surely one more, that you really intended to enact, wouldn't have hurt. We had "Let's Talk About Schools"; that cost a fortune. We had the "green apple" from the Attorney-General (Hon. B.R. Smith). We have masses of these reports out there. Why is it that all of the sudden this is the one thing we are adamant about putting through in a month or a month and a half?

Why not give the people a chance to digest it? Why not give them the opportunity to take it back into their communities and say: "Maybe there are some changes here; maybe we can live with it"? But when you've got people and you're pushing this through and we're into second reading, that's when you get radical action. You do not get radical action when people know that they've got the time there, when they know that they have the ability to react and that they've got the time to study something. If you immediately push this thing on people, you shouldn't be surprised that you're going to get radical reactions.

I've heard that everybody says the teachers got everything they asked for. They didn't get everything they asked for, and they got a lot more besides that. They got the right to strike, and then Bill 19 effectively takes it away, so there's no right to strike in there. I don't think teachers really wanted that right to strike. Three years ago . . . . It went to the BCTF three or four times before it actually got passed, and it got passed because of actions of this government against teachers. It got passed because time and time again the teachers were put against the wall. They were being beaten by the Social Credit government every year, and that's why they went for the right to strike. Five years ago you wouldn't have had this happen. Five years ago the teachers wouldn't have thought about wanting the right to strike or the right to bargain.

[3:15]

One of the interesting things I find is that people are talking about the self-interest of teachers. I find this really strange, because there's a contradiction in terms here. We have loggers and miners that come and talk to us, and they're negotiating on their own behalf, and that's certainly self-interest. But when it's somebody who's doing something that should be in the public's interest — a teacher, a social worker — all of a sudden it becomes a dirty word to be talking in terms of your own self-interest. You shouldn't be mentioning that; you should only be thinking about the value of the total product; you shouldn't be thinking about anything but devoting yourself to your profession. The teachers did this for many years. In fact, when I originally started teaching there were very few males in the teaching profession, because they were so underpaid that nobody would even go into it, because they couldn't support a family on a teacher's wage. They negotiated and got their increases, and now there are a lot of males in the profession — and a lot of females. Of course, females are better, but that's okay.

What people fail to realize all the time is that there comes a time when people must stand up for their own selves, and it's not wrong to do that. It is not wrong for a company to promote the best interests of its stockholders, and it's not wrong of individual teachers to look in terms of the best interests of themselves as well.

I heard the member before me talking about teachers' working conditions and salaries having nothing to do with the quality of education. I find that absolutely amazing. I don't know whether he realizes what working conditions are. Teachers' working conditions take into consideration class size, library size, the equipment they're using, the size of classrooms — all of those things. For anybody to say that teachers' working conditions do not affect the way a class behaves or the way it achieves is, I think, very naive. To suggest that salaries aren't important either is also very naive. In the past three or four years we have lost many top-quality people to other areas — to other provinces where salaries are better and to the U.S.A. where salaries are better. And this is not just in this one profession. This is actually in many professions in B.C. — in the health care professions as well. So to say that working conditions and salaries do not affect the children is extremely naive — and wrong. There's no other word: it's wrong.

I just want to mention in my closing remarks . . . .

HON. MR. DUECK: I don't believe it.

MRS. BOONE: Believe it.

The very essence of this bill . . . . The fact that this bill is creating such problems should alone be enough reason that you hoist this bill for a time. Give the people in this province a chance to sit back. Give them a chance to reorganize themselves. Give them a chance to accept it. Give them a chance to maybe point out to you some changes that can be made. Do not push this through. Do not push this province further into more confrontation. We really can't afford it. We

[ Page 857 ]

can't afford it in terms of our own personal commitment. We can't afford it in terms of what it's doing to our children in the classroom. We can't afford it in terms of what it's doing to the morale of our teachers.

I don't care what anybody says, when our teachers feel they are being trodden upon, when they believe they are being mistreated, that affects what happens in the classroom. That affects your children and it affects my children. I don't believe that that's what anybody in this province wants. We want to see some sanity in our classrooms. We want to see some sanity in the education field. We want to see some sanity in the labour relations field. And we can only do that when people are not pushed into comers, when they are not held up to ransom by a bill such as this.

There is no need to push this through. You have the time; you have the power. You're not going to change. You have the numbers over there. There's nothing we can do to stop this bill from going through. We know. We're still going to be here next year. You're still going to be there in the fall. Give this thing a chance to breathe. Give the province a chance to get itself on its feet again. Don't push us to the edge, where we're going to have teachers doing instruction only. Give them the chance, so that our children will be given all the possible extracurricular activities at this time of the year, which teachers really spend a lot of time on. Do not push this through right now. We need to have some time. You need to have some time.

MR. SERWA: What for?

MRS. BOONE: I just told you: so that we don't have this confrontation. If there is no consultation, if you don't intend to change anything and you don't intend to listen, if that's what the minister is saying, then I guess we are saying there is no choice.

Interjection.

MRS. BOONE: We are talking about Bill 20 right now, not Bill 19, thank you.

I really do think that this is a chance for you to save some face. I think you do have a chance to sit back. The Labour minister did. He sat back for a while. Give yourself a chance. Take this back. Look at it again. Review it with the teachers in a nonconfrontational attitude at a time when we are not pushing them to the edge. Give them that opportunity.

MR. CRANDALL: Mr. Speaker, I just want to speak against the hoist motion this afternoon. My impression is that Bill 20 represents some very significant improvements to the educational process in this province, and I know that a lot of people in this province support this bill even though they have not been vocal, they have not been walking out on strike, and they have not been doing things like that.

I was just having a meeting with a fellow today, who in the course of discussion brought up a "by the way" point. He said: "By the way, I'm very much in support of this legislation. I support it strongly and encourage the government to pass it." He went on to say that he hoped that other professionals who have similar organizations to what we are proposing for the educational system would step forward and support this legislation at this time, when the government is considering it.

The previous speaker has said that it's creating such problems. I want that speaker and other members of the House to know that in my riding, at least, there have been very few representations — in fact none — to me on Bill 20 by people asking us to delay it. I spent all day Monday in my riding, and the people of the riding whom I talked to about this issue, virtually to a person, were suggesting that we carry on, pass it and improve the educational organization in this province.

I want to mention that the teachers we have in this province are an extremely fine group. We know that the workers in this province. regardless of occupation, are for the most part professional and good at what they do, and our teachers are no exception. The organization we are proposing, however, would make that organization work better, and I'm anxious to see it.

I'm very concerned about this hoist motion, and this is the second time we've seen one. I guess I'm concerned partly because I'm a new member and have to be concerned for the business side of what's happening here. Perhaps it's natural that I would be concerned, because I do have a business background. The previous speaker mentioned that with the numbers in the Legislature, of course, this legislation is going to pass. She also mentioned that if there were some specific changes made, maybe she, the opposition and the members of the teaching profession in this province could live with it. Out of those two points — my concern for the business side and the point that if changes are made, it could perhaps be acceptable to all parties — I would like to mention that I can't help but disagree with the strategy of putting forth a hoist motion.

We have 69 members in this House who are going to have to be here for a longer time because of this motion. We went through the exercise on Bill 19. This House has to be an expensive operation to run, and I'm concerned to know whether or not the people in this province would be willing to purchase several extra days of operation of this House for us to consider this hoist motion. I would like to see the opposition — who incidentally have had this bill since April 2 — and any people in the province who disagree with it give us the specific items they would like to see changed, and the minister and the government will consider those changes, I'm sure, as we have indicated with the previous bill as well. We can then get back to the business of running our province, running our schools, educating our children in the way that we should.

Instead, because we've got this hoist motion, we're going to go through several extra days of debate. I'm not sure that the end quality of the legislation is going to be any better. Again, I say, because of these costs . . . . I recognize that we're in a democracy and that we all need to have a chance to make a point, but I think what's happening here is that we're delaying the process for a very questionable result, at an expensive cost. I don't think that the taxpayers of this province are going to benefit by the extra expenditures that this is going to take.

The debate, if it were going to be substantial, should be of substantial meat and potatoes. We would see the galleries full; the newspaper people, the media people, would all be here. Today in question period, Mr. Speaker, I counted 17 media people up in that bench. You know how many I count now? I count exactly zero media people up there, and that tells me that this debate that we're carrying on about this hoist motion must not be of sufficient quality that it's newsworthy,

[ Page 858 ]

and I would again suggest that the people of this province would be better served if we would get on to the clause-by clause study to get to the stage of improving the specifics of this legislation so that it can make the necessary improvements that we see for our educational system.

Interjection.

MR. CRANDALL: I guess I might mention, as my good colleague for Yale-Lillooet is mentioning, that not only are there no scribes here in the.... I'm sorry; we now have one media gentleman to hear this debate on the hoist motion. Not only do we have few with only one member of the media here.... Wait a second, we've got a second one coming in, and a third, and they now exceed the members present from Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition by one. There are now four media here, so there are now twice as many media people here as there are opposition members. Maybe if I speak just a little bit longer, we might have even more.

Interjection.

MR. CRANDALL: I recognize that my colleagues from the media have their offices closer than the opposition. I should mention I didn't catch the first member for Victoria (Mr. G. Hanson) who was sitting at the Clerks' bench. The score is now 4 to 3 for the media in terms of the opposition.

[3:30]

MR. GABELMANN: Better than 27-7.

MR. CRANDALL: Yes, it is. In any event, my point and it's a serious one — is that the quality of the improvements in this legislation as a result of this hoist motion is not of sufficient value to extend this debate by these several days, and I am sure that if the opposition would proceed to second reading, we could get down to the important business of the consideration of this legislation in its other forms.

Interjection.

MR. CRANDALL: I've got to hand it to the opposition; you're now ahead 3 to 0. The media has left us.

I'm anxious to get on, as I've been saying, to the advanced stages of debate in this bill, and I'm sure that when we do, we'll find a bill that meets acceptance from the teachers in this province. The last speaker said that she may well be able to accept it, and I'm sure that the opposition will as well. I'm sure that down the road one, two, three, four years, and at least down the road a generation, people will think that the legislation that we're bringing in now and the new environment that we create in the educational system in this province always should have been here.

I'm sure that it's going to be positive improvement. I speak against the hoist motion.

MR. BARNES: I join with my colleagues in the opposition in supporting the hoist motion which would allow those in the community an opportunity to consider the implications of the bill in terms of the details that so many members have already tried to clarify. I feel, however, that the details, as important as they are.... It's sort of like putting the cart before the horse. The Premier has suggested to the opposition and to teachers that if we are prepared to suggest specific amendments to the bill, he's willing to listen, but he's not prepared to consider anything that would change the philosophy or the principle of the bill.

Well, I think that is the question. The member for Dewdney indicated in his remarks that many parents were unhappy with the public school system, and that was why the independent schools have been growing and developing and becoming so popular in this province. That is, as well, one of the questions that we're concerned about in the opposition. Why is the public school system coming into such disrepute, and the proliferation of independent schools is becoming very much in evidence? This is why we are saying that Bill 20, in tandem with Bill 19, constitutes an initiative by the government that is quite perplexing and causes us a great deal of consternation and concern about just what the government's agenda is. I realize that when I suggest that the government has an agenda which perhaps is hidden, immediately there are going to be cries that I am becoming cynical, negative and suspicious and being unfair in prejudging the motives of the government. However, I can assure you that I am attempting to be as objective as I possibly can in trying to understand why the government has decided at this particular time to take such a drastic departure from tradition and practice in this province, with respect to providing education opportunities to the public, to students.

What has Bill 19 or 20 to do with students, the education of students or the quality of education of students?

MR. RABBITT: Everything.

MR. BARNES: Somebody yelled: "Everything." I don't know who it was over there on the government side.

There was one little interesting comment by the Premier that Bill 20 in a large measure was motivated by the fact that there is child abuse going on by teachers in the schools. Imagine that! All of a sudden we're going to throw out one of the best public school systems, destroy an organization such as the B.C. Teachers' Federation that has been around for almost three generations, and create a whole new playing field because of the unfortunate behaviour of a few out of thousands of teachers. That is the reason. I don't think that's a very good reason.

MS. CAMPBELL: He didn't say that.

MR. BARNES: Yes, he did; here it is. Somebody's yelling: "He didn't say that." Now they're trying to defend themselves. Here it is right here. In the Times-Colonist, April 23: "Premier Blames Child Abuse. Bill 20 Splits Discipline of Child-abusing Teachers from Union Activities." Read it and weep, my friends. You know what that term means in poker: that means it's down and dirty. And that's exactly what you are doing now: you are looking for any excuse.

Some of the teachers are saying that the government is vindictive, but "vindictive" suggests that there is something to become triumphant over, that you have to be vindicated for something. What's wrong? What is it about the teaching profession that upsets you so much? Teachers, hon. members, are a vital link to the future, with respect to our youth in generations to come. I know that you are saying that they should be responsible as professionals. But how many professions do you know where you are required by virtue of your work to work for the public? There are very few teachers I know of who are independent, who are privately employed,

[ Page 859 ]

who are working in their own business. They are working for the public. That is the nature of their job. They should be treated equally and not discriminated against because they are teachers. That's something we should come to understand: they can't help the fact that they are teachers in a situation that requires them to work for the public, for the government, for the people. Do they not deserve any more rights? Are we to say that, oh, their service is essential and therefore we have to discriminate against them and give them no power, no opportunity to fair representation, no opportunity to self-determination?

Mr. Speaker, right across this country teachers' associations — in Quebec, in Manitoba, in Alberta, in Saskatchewan, right across this province — are opposed to this legislation on principle. They're not opposed to your desire to try to streamline and improve the processes by which we deliver education to our youth; they're not opposed to your trying to economize, trying to pay for those things that we can afford, in terms of the most basic and essential services. But what we are saying is that it has to be a cooperative venture. It requires participation by all parties, especially when there is no emergency. There is no valid basis upon which to move this legislation at the rate that it's being moved.

To the member — I think it was Columbia River, North Peace, wherever — who suggested that the media are uninterested: it's not that the media are uninterested. The point is that we are trying to get you to come to your senses on a fundamental principle. And you're trying to tell us that we should be debating details, when we're saying that you are not seen to be believed anymore. You are not believable in terms of your idea of cooperation and consultation. This is a drastic departure; it is a retrograde step; it is undemocratic; it is unfair.

I know teachers are out there on the lam, and everybody is going to say that they are letting down the students. But you know, fair is fair. We all know that our students should be well educated and that teachers are in the profession to do that job. But let's not try to escape our responsibility to a profession of people who are covered under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms the same as everyone else in this province. We can't have a class system that treats one group of workers, one group of people in a certain occupation, one way and another group another way. They are all equal and they should all be given fair treatment, not these kinds of games that you are playing.

You are saying: "Okay, you want the right to strike? No problem." Now why would you give them the right to strike if it wasn't fundamentally the right thing to do, Mr. Speaker? Why give them the right to strike and then come back and give them a catch-22? That's fine, but if you do, here are the conditions. You must form a different organization and be a member of the B.C. Teachers' Federation. We are going to have to change the game; you are going to have to join the college on the one hand, or you can have certain privileges if you don't; but you can't have it both ways. You are going to have to have a professional organization on the one hand; you're going to have to have a union on the other hand. You can't have one, even though you feel you have used it for years successfully, that is going to do the same thing.

Look at the heads shaking. They don't like this, Mr. Speaker. But the point that I am making is, how can you arbitrarily, unilaterally, from on high come down and tell these people how they should organize themselves? What other professions do you do that to?

The next thing I want to ask you is: why is it that you haven't given the private members an opportunity to sponsor this so-called new teachers' profession bill which brings in a college? Why not give the teachers an opportunity to draft up their own bill and present it and have us approve it through committee, which is a normal procedure for matters like this? Why not?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Teachers present legislation?

MR. BARNES: Why not? That's happened in many cases. How did we get Trinity College? We have professions right now that are asking to become recognized. I can tell you some health workers who are trying to do it right now, Mr. Speaker. They would like to have some of the members sponsor a private member's bill.

This is an unusual approach to dealing with a problem that you claim is urgent, and we on this side of the House are having a great deal of difficulty finding out why you have to act in the way you are acting.

Mr. Speaker, I want to read to you some of the things that people are saying across the country, and I know that you have heard this before. The Alberta Teachers' Association at their annual representative assembly supported the following action by the provincial executive council on April 3:

"Resolved: that the Alberta Teachers' Association affirm the principle that occupational groups have a right to choose their own organizational structure and express its support for the teachers of British Columbia in their struggle to maintain the B.C. Teachers' Federation as a unified, professional organization in the face of the blatant efforts of the government of British Columbia to destroy that collective right; and further, that the provincial executive coun cil be authorized to allocate up to $100,000 . . . ."

Now think of that. They are prepared to put up money in order to defend this principle. This is not something you take lightly.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: They don't understand it either.

MR. BARNES: They do understand it. They understand the fundamental principle that if you are going to be able to do this to one occupational group, when does it stop? We are talking about rights. We are not talking about your desire to run a good system, but how can you run a system by imposing? This is the part that alarms the opposition. This is why we are saying the bill should be withdrawn. Teachers should participate; they should have a right to participate in a democratic society, and it should be seen to be believed.

[3:45]

It should be seen to be done. Fair is fair. I can tell you that personally and politically I don't mind defending the teachers on this because of the principle. I know that all teachers are not perfect. I know that even among the teachers themselves they have problems in trying to maintain the very highest standards that are possible. But that is not unique to teachers. It is the same thing in the legal profession. It is the same thing in the medical profession. It is the same thing in any profession or in any trade, and certainly is true among politicians. Maybe we should have a college of politicians, and let us regulate ourselves and let us organize. Let's face it; I think, to

[ Page 860 ]

be quite candid and quite fair, we all want the very best for our fellow British Columbians.

But you know, there is one thing that we sometimes forget, and that is that when you violate fundamental rights and freedoms, certain principles that make the democratic system work, you throw everything out because people get their backs up. They become reactive, distrustful, and they simply don't want to cooperate, because they realize that what you are doing is not fair. That's why this won't work. You can't impose your will upon people in a democratic society and expect it to go smoothly. Ever since the Premier was elected, it seems as though we've had nothing but confrontation with this new government.

Do you realize the atmosphere out there today as a result of this? Thousands of teachers are beginning to rally around a principle, not because they want to neglect students — and some of the students, I believe, are being used to try to create the view that we don't care about students or that students are the losers. I'll tell you, students are going to be the losers, families are going to be the losers and we all are going to be the losers if we don't support teachers, encourage them and give them the facilities they require.

There are serious problems in the school system. Just three or four years ago you brought in your restraint program. Who did you hit? The first people you hit were the students, cutting back on things like English as a second language in this province where nearly 50 percent of the students do not speak English as a primary language. What's happening to those students? You escalated the whole approach to testing — made it more difficult to get by in the core curriculum that you came up with, and many of these students do not have a mastery of the language. Where is your initiative there? Where is your budget to support new Canadians who are coming to this province? Where are the multicultural programs? Where are the opportunities for those students? These are the kinds of things you should be addressing. Where are your commitments to youth in terms of their years immediately after graduation from secondary schools and their plans to go to university, college or some of the trades institutes? Where are the guarantees? Where are the real opportunities? Do we realize, Mr. Speaker, that in British Columbia suicides among teenagers are the highest in the country? Some of you members over there may not realize that even in places like Surrey they've got what they call the red-coded area. It's coded that way because the incidence of suicides is higher than in any other place in British Columbia. They've shown that is a problem in British Columbia on some kind of demographic map.

So I think that those are the things we should be talking about in the public school system. We should be concerned about delivery of quality programs, realizing that schoolteachers are a unique species in our overall system of service to people. They are unique because they are professionals expected to do professional work; they're expected to be competent, and to keep themselves educated and up to date with respect to the changing times. It's a pretty challenging job. Most of them are in there because they care and because they believe in what they're trying to do. They do believe that they can make a contribution to the future. I don't believe a teacher goes into that profession to get rich. It's just not the profession you'd go into to get rich. I think they go into it because they have a compassion for young people. They have a desire to try to make their mark by, so to speak, positively affecting young people. I think we should be complimenting, celebrating, encouraging and supporting them, rather than doing something like this.

It seems to me that teachers, as mild and gentle as they are, have demonstrated in the last few days that even though they appear to be singled out and even though it looks as though they don't have public support . . . . That's what makes it even more dramatic: they are taking the action they're taking despite the fact that politically it's quite risky; they leave themselves open to the charge of having neglected the youth. The politicians, especially the government side, can, get behind that and say: "Look, what about the young people? You're not doing your job. The law is the law. You should be obedient." But the point is that they're in a catch-22 situation. When do the teachers become political and when do they just remain passive? I think that the strength of a democratic society is everybody feeling the right to exercise their political muscle, and I don't think we should deny any group that right to free political expression.

I had hoped to make a case with respect to the uniqueness of this decision. I haven't been able to get all of the research I wanted, but I asked just how many pieces of professional association legislation had been government bills as opposed to how many had been private bills. I wanted to know just why it is that the government has decided to make this a government bill and not a private member's bill. Why not allow some time for the bill to fly around? It was just curious to me that.... I've sat on a few standing committees. I recall one to do with Trinity Western College not too long ago, and that was a private bill. I'm sure that many of you can think of all kinds of private bills with respect to other trades, where there has been plenty of time for everyone to come to appreciate the implications of the bill. But here you wipe out an organization that has been functioning, that the teachers themselves did not want to lose. You catch them in a whipsaw kind of situation, where you say: "You want the right to strike? Fine, you have to give up something for it." And you start playing politics with it. Right away they're suspicious of your motives. You've taken a backwards step. It's more than a backwards step; it's a bit of a slap in the face.

It's a bit of a mean act, especially when you can't defend it on the basis of having had genuine consultation. Teachers are not known to come out and blatantly state an untruth, but they have issued a pamphlet which quite clearly outlines that what teachers asked for is not what they got. There is a whole list of items in this blue pamphlet, with the government's response in the contrary — implications: "disaster."

They're saying what the government is doing, and why would they do this. You're going around saying: "Oh, well, we consulted with them." You consulted with them to find out what they wanted and found a way to use it as a leverage to get what you wanted. As I said initially, this is a major transformation of the public school system as we know it today into something else. Okay, it's cynical. You accuse me of being negative and doubtful, but I suspect that the member for Dewdney who said that the public school system is not as popular as it should be.... That's why the independent schools are growing — because the government sees this as a thing of future. Those who can afford good education will get it and those who can't, ultimately, will find themselves struggling in an understaffed, under-resourced public school system. That's what is going to happen; that's my suspicion.

I think it's quite clear that there is a political agenda, and I think that the Premier is the architect of it. I'm not sure if the cabinet knows half of the time what the Premier is going to

[ Page 861 ]

do. He's entitled to his own personal views, as we all are, but I think as government he has a responsibility to ensure that whatever decisions his government makes, there is never any question as far as the democratic process in terms of the government's commitment and the government's responsibility to be fair and to be seen to be fair.

So I would say the main reason for wanting to hoist this bill is that it is fundamentally contrary to those processes. It was introduced without adequate input, and practically every teacher association across the country has expressed opposition in writing and quite vocally to the methods by which this bill is being brought in. In terms of what the bill will accomplish to assist students in getting a better education and helping teachers to do their jobs better and maintaining the kind of collegiality that they require in order to do their job, there is a great deal to be desired.

One has to only suspect that the government is prepared to throw down the gauntlet on this bill, to take its chances politically and gamble that in the end it will win out and be able to get on with a whole new style of providing public education in this province, the same as we have suspected they were doing with respect to the social services and those cutbacks and the whole initiative towards privatization, the whole idea that those who can afford services will pay for them. We just believe that there are diametrical differences between what the government is saying and what the government is doing. We believe that this is really the issue.

Don't forget the politics; don't forget the government's hidden agenda and the stridency of the Premier to push this bill through. I don't mind reminding you that he has said time and time again that "the larger the crowd, the larger the protest, the greater the numbers who are demonstrating, the more convinced I become that I'm on the right track." This is why I join my colleagues in opposing this bill; I don't think the Premier is prepared to listen.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: Just to correct a statement by the member who just spoke, I believe you said that we had declining commitment to secondary English. In 1984 there were 13,399 pupils registered with a budget of $28.2 million; In 1985-86, we had an increase to 15,304 pupils and $33.5 million. It's up again this year.

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly rising to speak against the hoist motion. I believe that this government is on the right track with Bill 20, and I think we are acting in the best interests of education in this province and of the teachers. I have talked to a number of teachers in my riding, as recently as half an hour ago. I have had a great amount of input relative to what they feel happened yesterday. I believe that some of the comments that came forward are to be recognized.

In the district that I represent, along with Walter Davidson, my fellow MLA . . . . Our district was closed yesterday. The school district was shut down. I don't believe Delta School Board acted responsibly in so doing. They are elected representatives of the people of Delta. Their responsibility is to leave the schools open.

[4:00]

[Mr. Weisgerber in the chair.]

I do know for a fact that a number of teachers attended schools with the intention of going in to teach a class. The doors were locked, and I think that is totally irresponsible. These people went conscientiously to work to perform their professional responsibilities.

The couple of questions that I think have been tossed around about what will happen to the teachers . . . . I really believe that by and large what we have given in this bill is exactly what the teachers have asked for. A number of questions were fired out as to what is going to happen to a number of areas. I can think of one right now, and that is that a lot have phoned me and asked me, for example: what happens to sick benefits? Well, the boards will really be the ones that will negotiate the sick benefits. They will carry on. As government. we will encourage boards to carry on with those benefits.

A couple of other ones that were asked . . . . What will happen to teachers who do not choose to join unions, or who conscientiously, because of religious beliefs, do not wish to belong to a union? That is their choice, but if 50 percent plus one decide that they wish to belong to a union, then that district shall be unionized. I see nothing wrong with that.

They asked questions of me this morning about their rights relative to seniority. There is no question in my mind that if people in seniority have some desire to attend professional days, those rights are there also. I was asked by a caller this afternoon: what happens to medical and dental care benefits that have been accrued over the years? Those will be negotiated as a result of the new bills. There is not likely going to be any loss relative to those benefits.

The other question asked of me, oddly enough, was: what is the average teacher's salary in this province? The average teacher's salary, to the best of my knowledge, is in excess of $36,000.

AN HON. MEMBER: Plus benefits.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: Plus all the benefits; that is correct. I think that is not too bad, when you look at the average income of a number of other professionals. In the issue of . . . .

MR. BARNES: A shameful amount of money for the work they have to do.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: That's your opinion.

MR. BARNES: Don't you think they deserve more?

HON. MR. SAVAGE: I think that is debatable, on qualification.

Under Bill 20, local associations can in fact continue to support the BCTF. There is a question about whether the BCTF would be gone. That's not necessarily so. If the teachers decide to support the BCT17 and stay with it, that is their decision. But it now gives local associations some of the authority they wish to have.

A number of people who phoned today . . . . I did a poll today because I felt it was worthwhile to come to the House and relay some of the results of that discussion. There was a number who say they prefer what we have done in giving local autonomy to the districts. There are a number of teachers who say that's exactly the way they wish to have it. So I feel that we are on the right track, and I think this government will see that education will do very well by putting Bill 20 through this House.

At this time I certainly wish to speak against the hoist motion. Let's get on with debating the bill.

[ Page 862 ]

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the motion to hoist the bill. I wish the government would of its own volition take this step, and I'd like to argue a few reasons why I think they should.

First of all, I want to pick up on some comments made by the member for Columbia River (Mr. Crandall) half an hour or so ago in the Legislature. He described what we're doing as stalling. He also described the process as being.... I wrote the words down: "House is an expensive operation to run." I just want to deal for a moment or two with both of those points.

The first is the question of stalling. Mr. Speaker, this legislation was introduced on April 2, and today is April 29 — a total of 27 days. Dentists in this province have had a stall granted to them that's lasted for several years, while their legislation has been held up, first of all for review and discussion to incorporate into their professional statute the language that they wanted. That legislation, in fact, was stalled for so long.... Mr. Speaker, so I'm not out of order I don't want to comment and reflect on legislation that's in front of the House. I'm talking about the process, in case that's what the Clerk is advising you at the moment. Without getting into or reflecting on that legislation, the process involved is one of lengthy consultation, one of a respect for the views expressed by the professional organization. As a result, amendments some years ago.... This is not reflecting on legislation in front of the House, because this is legislation in front of the House a couple of years ago. A bill was introduced, and the dentists decided that there were some elements in that bill that didn't entirely meet their needs, so the government allowed the bill to die, and then introduced it again in the 1986 session, and for a variety of reasons did not proceed to passage at that time. I won't reflect at all on the fact that it's been introduced again this session; I'm reflecting on a bill that was introduced in a different session, Mr. Speaker.

The point, however, to get off that, is that when it comes to stalling, there's been a stall of several years' duration. No one is dreadfully concerned about it. The stall has allowed for complete discussion and a satisfactory resolution of the issue. But now, 27 days into this legislation — 27 days since its introduction — the government somehow feels that there is an urgency and a need to get on with it in a hurry, and if opposition members wish to take a few more days to talk about why there's some merit in delay of debate, there is a charge of stall, less than a month into the bill. It's curious, and it makes one believe that the government deals differently with one professional group than it does with another.

I'm going to get back to that point in respect of other professional organizations later in my comments, but I wanted to just deal with that analogy in terms of the member for Columbia River. He also said.... There's no verb in this, so I have to read it the way he said it: "House expensive operation to run." Democracy is damned expensive, Mr. Speaker. And to suggest that MLAs should curtail comments they wish to make in a serious vein about a very important issue, to save money, flies in the face of all the democratic traditions that I thought we should espouse and have espoused in this House. If hon. members on either side of the House wish to take what they feel is the appropriate time to I express considered and important views, then no cost is too t high. Democracy does not have a price.

I hope that that comment from the member for Columbia River comes simply because of his length of time in this Legislature, and perhaps his enthusiasm for getting on with it; or, as Mussolini used to say, making sure the trains run on time. Sometimes, Mr. Speaker, there are reasons why the trains shouldn't run on time, because sometimes the train runs over a few people in its efforts to get to the next station on time, and it might be quite appropriate for the train to stop, let the people get out of the way and then perhaps arrive a few minutes late at the station. So getting on time to the station is not always the appropriate objective.

Mr. Speaker, we're talking about a hoist motion, which is a parliamentary device that we have at our disposal. If we had any device at our disposal — if we could move any motion to achieve the objective — I'm sure it wouldn't be this precise motion, but we can't move the kind of motion that would be appropriate. What would be appropriate would be that the bill be returned to this Legislature when the parties affected by it have reached an agreement. And when I say the parties affected by it, I mean the public as represented by the government, the cabinet; I mean the trustees; and I mean the teachers. When the parties have reached an agreement, then the bill would come back. It may be in less than six months or it may be in more than six months. I'm not particularly tied up with the six-month provision, except that that's all that's available to us on this side of the House to make the argument that what is required now is some proper discussion, some proper process.

I don't understand why the bill was called for debate last Friday at approximately the same time that discussions were begun with the parties to see whether or not the bill was appropriate or to see whether or not the bill could be amended. I guess this point has been made by a number of speakers on this side, so I won't belabour that point; but it's hard to understand. Either the government is intent on pushing the bill through in its present form, with perhaps minor amendments not reflecting what they might call matters of principle, and for that reason we're having debate about principle that will remain unchanged following the discussions.... If that's the case, I wonder what those precise principles are that are not negotiable at the table. Is the proposed college non-negotiable? Is that a principle in the bill? Are the powers that are contained in that particular college the principle, the extensive and excessive powers contained in that college? Or is the government prepared to say: "No, we are prepared to talk about those principles"? Or are they principles? We don't really know that from the way his debate has gone to date, as far as I can ascertain from reading some of the Blues.

Is collective bargaining per se a principle? Is it a principle of the government that bargaining certification takes place district by district? Is it a principle of the government that head teachers shall not be eligible for collective bargaining? We're on difficult ground in knowing, Mr. Speaker, what principle we're addressing in this debate on second reading and what principles are up for negotiation over in the Douglas Building or wherever the talks are taking place at the present time. If in fact some of these major components of the bill — principle or otherwise — are subject to possible amendment, how can we ever have a debate in principle about those changes if they're introduced after the debate in principle?

It's an insult to legislators to require us to have a debate about he principle of a bill while the principle may be being changed in private negotiations. I applaud the government in attempting to sit down — if it's what they're doing — to change some of the principles in the bill; but if they're doing

[ Page 863 ]

that, then they should have respect for this Legislature, sufficient respect that would allow this Legislature to deal with the principles as they're finally enunciated following the discussions.

[4:15]

I just don't know what's going on. I don't know whether the talks that are proceeding are a sham, that we in fact are debating the principle and what we debate here is what we will end up with; or is this parliamentary debate a sham? Which is it? Because I don't think there's much room in between. Either the debate is a sham because we're not talking about the principle of the final legislation, or the discussions are a sham because they're not dealing with the principles that need to be discussed, As I say, I find it insulting that we would be asked to debate this bill in principle when potentially significant changes may be made in meetings outside of this chamber.

The next point I want to make, Mr. Speaker, is one that my colleagues have made, and I just want to touch on it so that I'm on the record on this. I think it's tragic what's happened to children in this province over the last seven or eight years. The characterization by Crawford Kilian of School Wars as being what's gone on in educational areas for the last few years is really quite appropriate. You only have to go into classrooms and spend time talking to kids, and go into staff rooms and spend time talking to teachers, and go into parent meetings — as I do frequently in all three cases, year after year — to discover that in fact we've been in a state of war in British Columbia in education. There are a whole variety of issues — which I'm not going to canvass now; they're better canvassed during Education estimates. I think no one would argue this point: there has been a state of mind in education that has not been stable. There has not been a stability that's required. Teachers have felt it necessary to divert their attention from the classroom — which is where they would prefer to put their attention — to political issues, political issues raised not by their organization but by government, through successive ministers. It has been a constant battle.

Teachers are losers to a certain extent: the stress, the burnout. The dropout rate among teachers is alarming to me. I see friends of mine who have quit teaching simply because they can't handle the stress or the fact that they're not allowed anymore to provide the kind of education they feel qualified to provide. So they get out and go and do something else, from selling stocks to driving trucks to retiring early. The stress is clearly there.

So it's hard on them, and it's most particularly hard on children in this province. I have some personal experience in that, too, having a daughter who graduated two years ago and a son graduating this year. To see the difference in their educational levels, going to the same schools — not always the same schools, but generally — through the last half dozen years . . . . It's been tragic to see what deterioration has occurred as a result of government activity. Here's yet another intervention by the government that does nothing for ensuring peace in our schools, does nothing other than ensure that the school wars continue. If for no other reason, it would be useful for the government to hoist this bill and work out a peace plan rather than a continuation of its war plan.

A few minutes ago the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Savage) said — and I'm quoting again — that this bill is "giving teachers what they wanted." If it's giving teachers what they wanted, then I would have thought that you would have allowed them to draft the bill, as you have allowed other professional organizations, in effect, to do — to draft their own legislation. If it's giving teachers what they wanted, why the outcry? All you have to do is look at both the representations to government and the statements made over the years by the BCTF It's quite clear that the bill does not give them what they wanted at all. It gives them a truncated version of collective bargaining for a limited number of their members, but it doesn't give them the collective bargaining they talked about. They've asked for some things in collective bargaining that I don't agree with. They've asked for the unilateral right for arbitration, for example; I happen not to agree with that. But that's what they've asked for, and you haven't given that to them. So for government members to argue that this bill simply gives teachers what they wanted is obviously wrong. The College of Teachers is not something that the BCTF has asked for; it's not something that teachers anywhere in this country have asked for. For their own reasons, they've asked for a unitary organization. In my view, that's their choice. Other organizations of self-described professionals — engineers, doctors, architects, lawyers, dentists, nurses and many more; I just cite a few — all have had the right to participate in the decision-making about the legislation governing their professional organization. Why is it that only teachers, as a professional group, have been denied the right to be involved in the design of their legislation? Only teachers. All these other groups have been involved in full consultation.

Reference has been made to nurses. Nurses have two organizations and so therefore should teachers, goes the argument. Nurses under the RNABC decided some years ago to set up the B.C. Nurses' Union as a parallel but separate organization to deal with collective bargaining concerns. That decision was made not by government arbitrarily but by nurses. It has been a decision that they feel has worked well. It's a decision that, from a practical point of view, has worked well. But educational issues are different from nursing issues. Teachers decided — and by majority decided — not to opt for that route.

If the government is prepared to reflect, by passing legislation, the views of all of the other professional organizations and groups, why won't they do it for teachers? The only conclusion one can draw is that there's a vendetta against teachers. The minister shakes his head, but I can think of no conclusion, other than that there is a vendetta against an organization that the government, for some reason, feels uncomfortable about. If there isn't a vendetta, Mr. Speaker, then the same procedures would have been used in developing legislation affecting a professional group in respect of teachers as it has for all of the others.

The first member for Vancouver-Point Grey (Ms. Campbell) yesterday in the House talked about the registered nurses. She said, for example, registered nurses are a self-governing profession and they are a good analogy to teachers because many of them are public employees. They have the B.C. Nurses' Union that bargains for them, but the Registered Nurses' Association of B.C. is their professional association, the college that determines their curriculum, etc. That's what they've chosen to do. But they chose to do that. The government didn't impose it on them, and that's the important difference in this case.

I want to talk too — time goes quickly — about the bargaining unit. Again, the first member for Vancouver-Point Grey yesterday talked about the teachers. She said they

[ Page 864 ]

wanted full bargaining rights and they wanted other provisions of the Labour Code to apply to them, but they did not want to be subject to the certification rules of the Labour Code. I assume by that she means she wanted for teachers the same thing that happened for government employees back in 1973, which was certification of the existing organization which had clearly demonstrated itself to be the organization representing public employees, at that time the B.C. Government Employees' Association. Because it clearly represented government employees, it was named the bargaining agent when the PSLRA was passed in this House. I assume by that that she's making the argument that that was long in principle, although if my memory is correct the Socreds of that day supported that particular approach. But nevertheless it's arguable; this is a new day and a new House. So it is an arguable point whether or not the group representing the people should be given the certification if they've never actually formally had a vote about that; but that vote could take place very easily.

The member for Vancouver-Point Grey said they did not want to be subject to the certification rules of the Labour Code. There's another side to that issue that she didn't talk about, and that is that under normal procedures a group of employees makes an application to the Labour Relations Board, presumably in the future to the Industrial Relations Council, for a group of employees that they wish to have certified for collective bargaining purposes. They may include in that group people who the Labour Board may decide are inappropriate for collective bargaining, and therefore should be excluded from collective bargaining. But that process is one that's available to be debated between the employer and the employees in front of the Labour Board and a decision is made. This legislation sets out ahead of time by law who can be in and who can be out of the bargaining unit. It's not left to, as the member for Vancouver-Point Grey would put it, the certification rules of the Labour Code. It's not left to that. Passing a law defining a bargaining unit is a fundamental contradiction with labour law as we've come to know it in North America.

Apart from that concern, which in many ways is a more technical one, I have some very real concerns about the decision to exclude from participation in the employee group principals and vice-principals. The term "principal" is really not a noun but an adjective. The term "principal" is an adjective modifying the word "teacher." These people are "principal teachers." Or to use the word I would prefer, "head teachers." That's what they are. That's what they should be. That's what they historically have been, and we are beginning to find in some school districts a move away from that, a move that leads us into the direction proposed by the current Premier some years ago when he talked about perhaps hiring "administrators" to run our schools. I don't have the direct quote but I can paraphrase what he said three or four years ago. He referred to people who have the administrative abilities to manage the school, people who aren't necessarily educators or teachers.

That's the wrong principle in an educational institution. The kind of collegiality that has been developing in many schools — not all but in many schools — between teachers and their principal teachers and their vice-principal teachers has been, in my view, quite beneficial to education. To create an artificial separation, to give powers to these people which will set them across the table from their fellow teachers, is wrong in principle. It is completely wrong in terms of educational value and educational principles. It will not lead to better education in the classroom, and that's what we should be doing.

My objection goes further. I have always argued — and I don't know whether all members of my caucus agree with me or not, but I'm going to say it anyway — that every principal and every vice-principal should teach at least one course constantly, should constantly be in touch with the classroom. Furthermore — and I'm sure that people who do this for a living won't agree with me about this — five years is enough as head teacher: back into the classroom after a period of time, and rotate the job. Make it a collegial model. Have people work together rather than this . . . . Have a horizontal model rather than a vertical one, which I think is the way labour relations are going in general terms these days, which is to try to get rid of more managers and more bureaucracy, and try to have fewer. What we're talking about doing here is adding a whole level of bureaucracy to the management functions of school boards. We're adding another 10 percent — or more, I guess — in the management category.

[4:30]

I've heard arguments from the other side of the House that we've got too many managers already in the schools. There are arguments against having assistant superintendents, directors of curriculum or instruction, and a whole variety of offices that school boards have established over the years. What this legislation envisions is another whole level of bureaucracy at the beck and call of the superintendent and the school board. It just seems totally inappropriate from a management point of view, from an administrative point of view, but most importantly, from an educational point of view. It's one that I hope the government will pull back on and recognize that if they want administrators to run the technical part of the school, fine. If the school board doesn't have enough resources at its disposal to do that, then make sure they have enough resources. But the head teacher is not the administrator. Those are two totally different concepts. We're moving away from the whole idea of head teachers and into an economic analysis of the classroom. The school or the classroom is not a factory. These are not widgets we're manufacturing. The factory analogy is inappropriate in education.

Mr. Speaker, I'm getting short of time and I've got much to say. The first member for Vancouver-Point Grey (Ms. Campbell) yesterday talked about CSR She said: "It's also the case that the government wishes to remove teachers from the compensation stabilization program. Teachers were the last to enter the CSP. They will therefore be the last to leave.... Who's leaving CSP? We've got CSP back in spades. CSP is bigger and stronger and more effective, from its point of view, than it ever was — under the other bill that we can't talk about at the present time. So for members in this House to talk about teachers coming out of CSP, even though a year late . . . . They've got CSP with a tighter definition of ability to pay than they had before. I would have thought that the member for Vancouver-Point Grey was more knowledgeable about these matters, but clearly she isn't.

Another issue, in the few minutes I have left, Mr. Speaker, is scope of bargaining. Again, the same principle relates to the bargaining unit. Scope of bargaining should be a decision to be made by the parties. The parties should sit down, if they're autonomous — and the government seems to want to say that school boards are now going to be autonomous — and argue about what the scope of bargaining is

[ Page 865 ]

going to be. But one section of this bill eliminates the possibility of having seniority lists. Seniority lists are a traditional right that can be bargained. I don't want to get into committee-stage stuff, but section 72 effectively wipes out any ability to establish meaningful seniority lists by collective bargaining, because this act will override it. Section 53 allows a complete override of the collective agreement by the School Act. So the scope of bargaining — and I'm going to get into this in more detail during second reading debate . . . . Many of the arguments being made by the government are just not so. They don't reflect the reality of the language. It's important to remind members of the House that it's not what we in this House say it means that matters; it's what the language says it means, as interpreted by courts or boards, and clearly there is wide-open interpretation here for scope of bargaining to be severely limited. I will get into that in detail in second reading.

Another issue is that there are 10,000 forgotten people in the discussions going on, wherever they're going on next door. The entire non-teaching staff, who are affected by this bill, who will now have principals as their bosses in the schools, and who are represented mostly by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, are not involved in the discussions. I don't understand why. We allow 30,000 of the 40,000 employees to participate in talks, but we don't allow the other 10,000. That should be something that the minister addresses very quickly while those talks continue.

My conclusion, Mr. Speaker, as I run out of time, is that we have a royal commission in British Columbia today; Barry Sullivan is there to do that job. If we want to start the peace process instead of a continuation of the school wars, the very best way of doing that . . . . Despite what the teachers may have said a few months ago or last year — that they didn't want bargaining issues to be referred to the commission — at this stage, in my view, that would be the appropriate way to go to get the thing off the table here, to put all educational issues into the hands of the commissioner, to depoliticize this whole educational war that has gone on, to get it into the hands of a commission and allow for some rational, quiet, level-headed discussion outside the political framework, where it's been for too long. I think the destructive effect of that has been too damaging to our kids in this province.

MR. MESSMER: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in favour of Bill 20 and against the hoist motion. The hon. member for North Island suggested that the other backbencher from our side suggested that we were having a stalling tactic, and that democracy is not served unless everything is said. I would like to join with the other back-bencher from our side, who again suggests that it is a stalling tactic. Really, both sides of the House realize that the second and third readings give us ample opportunity for both sides to speak on the issue. At the rate we're going, it's certainly going to take a considerable amount of time for this to go through. Looking back, I notice that in 1973, when the NDP brought in the Labour Code, from the time of introduction until proclamation it took 44 calendar days. I don't know how we're doing on those days, but certainly we're running short of time.

I believe that Bill 20 is good legislation. This bill will enable all of the teachers to do what they do best, and that is to teach. I think we can all look back as students and . . . . Certainly the teacher was the person whom we probably respected most in our community, and who probably ended up being the person who best moulded us into what we did with our future. I think that attitude probably still holds true in our schools today.

However, education has become a very serious profession, in that in the days when we went to school, we respected the teachers. The teachers earned that respect, but at the same time, I believe, had the support of the parents. Today teaching is somewhat different. Today we have drugs, alcohol and other things that happen within our society, which we fend off and turn part of the responsibility for over to the teachers of our children. I think that this bill gives us an opportunity to change a lot of that feeling that we have within our communities. It gives our teachers an opportunity not to have to be part of a solidarity movement, which reflects the attitude of the profession within the community.

[Mrs. Gran in the chair.]

I would like to quote a couple of things from the education audit put out by the B.C. Teachers' Federation. It says: "Community sniping at teachers has become a sport. A hefty segment of the population has bought the apparently government-endorsed line that teachers are an incompetent, overpaid, overindulged elite that needs to be put into its place." That's certainly a statement that is not true within each community; it is a statement that is true and has been caused because they've been linked with such movements as Solidarity.

Another one: "Two groups of secondary students were questioned about their attitudes towards teaching as a profession. The second group was made up of teachers' children, all of whom were students at a junior secondary school. Unlike the first group, in which some of the students expressed interest in a teacher career, none of the teachers' children expressed such an interest." Mr. Speaker, I think it's a sad situation when children who happen to be children of teachers within our schools also realize the attitude that is happening within our school system.

This bill provides for the teaching profession to become a profession within itself, through the teachers' college. It also allows the teachers to have their own bargaining unit, and that bargaining unit can decide whether or not they wish to become part of the Solidarity movement. The teachers' college will not perform any bargaining functions, the same as the province's nurses have today. It will be a professional organization.

I'm a little surprised that the opposition is opposing this bill and coming out against the teachers' college, because I'd like to read from their 1966 convention. The NDP supported the establishment of such a body: "The B.C. College of Teachers. In consultation with B.C. universities, the B.C. School Trustees' Association and the B.C. Teachers' Federation, the New Democratic government will establish a B.C. College of Teachers whose responsibility it shall be to supervise the certification of B.C. teachers." That was in the provincial convention. So I think that . . . .

HON. MR. BRUMMET: It can't be true.

MR. MESSMER: Yes, it is true. If it was fine for the NDP government back in the year 1966, I'm sure that they must have the same feelings today. It's also interesting to note that in addition the NDP passed a resolution in the 1981

[ Page 866 ]

provincial convention supporting collective bargaining rights for teachers, and I hope the members of the opposition can explain these apparent contradictions. Mr. Speaker, I rest my case.

MS. EDWARDS: I'm here to say what I said about Bill 19 when we were talking on the hoist motion. The same thing applies. The bill has been introduced to be pushed through the House in a big hurry, and the only explanation is: "Come on now, guys, it's costing money." I don't know what this House is for, but I was under the impression that this House is here so that we could give broad and general consideration to the legislation that is brought before the House, and that every person here is representative of a constituency of people and has the right to make that representation.

It's time to say again to the government, as we said on Bill 19, that the bill should not be rushed through the House. Let's wait, let's look, let's consider, let's talk and let's take a length of time. The member has just pointed out that the previous labour legislation that was brought in by the New Democratic government in 1972 to 1975 took 44 days to get through. When it finally came through, we had reached a consensus in this House and the bill was passed unanimously.

That seems to me to be something for which we should strive. In fact, it would be far better if we had far more agreement and cooperation on legislation instead of a situation where we have people arguing that you're pushing it through, and that you're not, and where we're back in the old confrontational situation. What has happened here is, as I say, a confrontational situation where the government for some reason or other supposes that it has given a group what it asks for even though the group says it isn't what they asked for. I'm not quite sure whether the government considers the teachers to be perverse or stupid, but they must perceive that they are one or the other. They say over and over again: "This is what you asked for." The teachers say: "This is not what we asked for." The government says: "But we wanted to give you what you asked for, so here it is," and keeps pushing it to them.

This is a situation which needs addressing. It needs some time, and it needs some listening to be done in the time that we should give to the consideration of this particular bill. The public comprehension of this bill is still very poor. The people do not understand what is in the bill; it's a complex bill. It is not what was expected by the public or by the teachers, and therefore we need some time. We should give it at least a six-month wait. That would not be an unreasonable amount of time to let the public come to some understanding of what is in this bill; to let them hear it from the government itself; to let them talk about their bill to the public in every part of the province, on a number of occasions, so that they can go back and hear the argument, and go back and make a discussion occur, so that this can be talked about until people have been able to say, "I thoroughly agree with it, " or, "I thoroughly disagree with it, " after having informed themselves about what is in the bill.

[4:45]

The bill is doing exactly what the government said it didn't want to happen. It is disrupting all the relations between the teachers and their employers and their ultimate governors. I say that because there are at least three bodies involved, and that's ignoring that fourth body that the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) just mentioned. The disruption that is occurring cannot do anything but harm to the school system. That school system is what we're really talking about. What happens with this bill is what's going to happen in the system, and it's there that I'd like to look for a few minutes.

What this bill does is take away the collegial model. Our whole idea of education over centuries has been that it needs a collegial model, not the industrial model that is now being introduced with Bill 20.

As a civilization we have said that we respect learning. We have said that we would like people to learn; we would like as many people as possible to advance their education as much as they possibly can. Learning, unfortunately, is not neat. It happens here and there, and it doesn't necessarily happen in a particular place at a particular time. It happens for the characteristics of each individual who participates in the activity.

Because it is not neat, I guess, we have this bill, which is trying to put things in neat little pockets so that we can now get hold of it. That is the industrial model. It happens because in the search for efficiency we sometimes take things apart; we analyze them to find out what the parts are. It is the same situation, to use an educational model, if you like. . . .  It is what happens to the digestive system — and we have all heard this. In order to understand how the digestive system works, we have a model, a diagram on the wall, where we have the stomach here, and the intestines here, and the other parts, and they are different colours and look very easy. I suppose it is like the television model of the headache moving in and out with the pills. This model is very useful in doing analysis in order for us to take the parts at the rate at which we can understand them. If we take them one at a time and think them over, we can understand a little bit more about how the digestive system works. However, as any good teacher of any kind has always said, the digestive system doesn't work that way. We have analyzed it; it doesn't go that way. You have to think in terms of synthesizing it all over again, or else you won't understand what is going on.

This is the basis, the whole process of thinking educationally. We do this with short stories; we do this with psychological models. We try and figure out why people work the way they do. We decide it may have something to do with where they live. It may have something to do with who they live with, their siblings or their past. But if we take a person apart that way, we can lose the whole person, and if we don't put that person back together again, we may end up thinking about this person totally in terms of their toilet training. It doesn't work that way. We cannot take things apart and leave them in pieces. And that, I may suggest, is what has happened with this bill. This is what the government seems to be wanting to do with the educational system.

The history of teachers is that it has been a dialogue. It has been a personal involvement, a process of experience that comes to people. Under this model, Madam Speaker, Socrates and Plato would not only be in different unions, but one of them would be a manager and the other one might be a teacher.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to synthesize after having analyzed, and that is not happening with this bill. The government has taken the teacher apart in order to understand what this teacher does and in order to be able to control what she does, and the government has left her in pieces. What kind of mind wants to do that? What kind of approach is it to tell someone who works in a particular

[ Page 867 ]

occupation that this part of you shall operate there, and that part of you shall operate somewhere else, and I'll decide?

To use another analogy that might be useful, in the schools again, why is it that we have children in grade 1 divided up into canaries and robins and bluebirds? Well, we do that because it is a learning process. It is at the most basic level of learning to understand that if you are going to do a different function, maybe you will be like this group of people, but you will be unlike those. But anybody who thinks that that means we've created a new kind of bird is making a big mistake.

The thinking in this bill is far too elemental. It simply does not deal with the complexities of the situation as it occurs. But it seems that for the purposes of comprehension, I suppose, and simplicity, the government has proposed Bill 20, in which principals and vice-principals are divided from the rest, and also a college — in other words, the professional duties of the teachers' body are separated from the bargaining duties of that body.

Now the union does the bargaining and the professional duties together. In fact, the teachers historically have man aged to do this. They have developed that model and they want to keep it. I don't know why in the world you would expect them not to want to keep it when they are saying so very clearly that that has not happened anywhere else across Canada, that attempts to do it have been abandoned by governments who thought it might be a good idea, and that the teachers' body itself does not want to deal with the professional issues separately from the bargaining issues.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: They don't want to deal with it at all.

MS. EDWARDS: They have been dealing with it all over the years, as the teachers say, and they did not ask to have those separations and divisions made.

What has happened with Bill 20 is that those kinds of divisions have made divisions between districts, divisions between professionals — people within the same group, principal teachers, as we've talked a whole lot about. The idea of principals being principals is that they are the first among peers, and that has been a model that has been in existence for centuries. The industrial model, where you have managers who decide they shall do the hiring and firing, I they shall be separate and they shall negotiate it with the other groups of employees, is a model that has not been in existence for centuries. It has been in existence since the middle of the eighteenth century, when the industrial experience began to come in our western society.

The bill not only breaks up the BCTF, which is the professional and has been the union body of the teachers . . . . It could break it up, and it also breaks up the closed shop. In other words, everybody doesn't need to belong to the BCTF. The bill brings with it a division of that teacher; from being a person, that teacher is now either at one point a teacher in a classroom or a negotiator somewhere else, or  goodness knows, when they get out of those two particular modes, what kind of being they are.

I had someone phone me last night with a major problem. The problem this teacher described was exactly that situation. He was coming to the point of not being able to operate as a whole person any more. He had had to — he felt, by conscience — go to work yesterday when the Teachers' Federation had decided that they would take a study day. By his conscience he could not do what he thought was an illegal thing, so he had gone to work. He was not happy with having had to make that decision. He supported the teachers in their objection to the legislation; he could list everything that the BCTF has said publicly, and he said he disagreed with the process that was being introduced. He disagreed with the philosophy that might be behind the bill and with the principles in the bill. He disagreed with the legislation. He disagreed with the divisions. He disagreed with the whole thing. He was being torn to bits by the fact that he had now to argue with his very close friends on matters of very close principle. He said that friendships he had had would never be the same again. He had been torn apart as a whole person. He could not operate in that mode any more. He was particularly upset, and that was one of the reasons that he called me. He said: "It goes beyond anything you can talk about in a rational way. It goes beyond that to the way we feel about each other. It goes to what's going to happen in the classroom as well as between peers in our professional duties."

Well, all this is going on, and we're getting this kind of division in the classroom. We're having teachers, who we all agree — although I sometimes wonder, by the things that are said.... Teachers care about the children they work with. Why in the world would a teacher be in the teaching profession if she or he did not care about children? So here we have these teachers taking action that they think, and they have balanced and they have decided . . . . They are professional people, let's remember, and they have decided that one day away from work is what they will do rather than submit calmly and quietly to a piece of legislation which they can see will tear the educational system from side to side for years to come.

While all this takes place, of course, the Premier is clicking his tongue and saying: "My goodness, why must the children be hurt?" Madam Speaker, that's my question too: why must the children be hurt? Why will the government not withdraw this legislation and talk and listen with the teachers, who with their professional approach are saying: "This will not be good for education. It will not be good for us, for the system or for the children. It will not be good politically in any way"?

The situation has been created by the government, and it will harm the children. It will certainly harm the children if legislation goes through, when the people who are the brunt of that legislation do not agree with it at all and feel that they have been victimized.

[Mr. Weisgerber in the chair.]

It's amazing, the kind of power the government has decided it would like to take. The government has decided it would like to play god, and with its sticky child's fingers it has really only created havoc. The self-righteousness of the people who say, "We think it would be better if the teachers did it this way," and do not give the teachers what they say they want, is absolutely humongous, to use an old word. It adds anger and hurt. It destabilizes the schools, and it upsets he whole system that we say we admire. As a society we perceive ourselves to be admirers of education. We have set up a lot of our patterns in life on a perceived respect for education.

[5:00]

Education is a very rigorous process. It requires a lot of input on the part of the learner and on the part of the facilitator

[ Page 868 ]

for that learning, who is commonly called the teacher. It means that there has to be some very constant attention paid to very interpersonal relationships. Education is not something that happens by machine. It happens with people when they are interacting with other people.

What we see today, in these recent times, is that we have a hollow spot in that perceived respect for education. There is no respect for education by people who say: "You can't do that any more. We're going to tell you people who are our educators what to do because we know better." The surface respect is underlaid by a fundamental disrespect, and there's a great hole there under the surface.

We have to appeal for a waiting-period for consultation. I suspect that, were the teachers in a position to decide to rewrite the rules of this House, and they said, "Look, we'll tell you how to run the House and we'll write some new rules for you," there wouldn't be a single politician or member of this Legislature who would not expect to have some input into that. I don't think there's a single person sitting in here who thinks that teachers know more about how things should go in this House than he or she does. I suspect that if the teachers brought in some rules that the legislators didn't like, and the legislators said, "We don't like it," they would expect to be listened to. Why is that respect not given to the teachers on the other side? This is the only province in Canada in which teachers are being asked to divide the professional part of their activities from the union part. Why is it that the teachers are not allowed to say to the legislators, if they give them what they don't want: "Mind your own business"? That's exactly what the legislators would say to the teachers if the tables were turned.

I had another experience today that made me recognize again just how harmful this particular bill can be. I was talking to a teacher who's married to a teacher, and she said: "We're looking to leave the province. We're not going to teach under this bill." I think that's probably something we've all heard recently. Some people dismiss it and say: "Well, you can't do that, anyway. You probably can't afford to." That may be true, Mr. Speaker, but the point is that there are teachers who will be leaving the province because they are objecting very strongly. Why is it the government will not listen to the fact that these teachers are objecting as strongly as they can possibly object? Why is it that there is not some talk going on? If the government does not listen to them, if they do not have their professional body put in the state they want it in, why would they not go to another province in Canada where they can teach as well?

We've been saying, because we believe it to be true, that teaching conditions are the learning conditions in our schools. Teachers create the whole learning environment in which our children spend such a large part of their day and in which they do that one thing that we say we respect so much — learning. The teaching environment is one in which the teacher as a person interacts with the child as a person. Why is it that we . . . ? We know that our schools are in trouble. We know that there are some shortcomings in that environment right now. We know that we should be addressing such situations as textbook shortages, class sizes that have been going up, auxiliary services such as libraries and counselling. Why is it we are not addressing those issues, instead of rattling the chains on the necks of the teachers? Why can we not recognize that if we disrupt the situation in the schools, the learning will not take place?

A royal commission is about to look into education in this province, Mr. Speaker, and it should be dealing with some of the issues that could come up to change the learning situation, the school situation. Why is it that we did not wait for that royal commission to hear some of the problems that are coming up? Why is it that we can't wait for that commission to at least begin to hear from the public, so that coordination could take place with the things that it is going to be recommend? What in the world is the hurry, where we have to get teachers into a situation where they are all unhappy and disrupted — and then expect them to work with a royal commission, decide that they can work with another inquiry from this government that is not listening to them in the first place?

Talk about the public interest. Talk about damage to third parties. Talk about modelling good behaviour. It doesn't wash. This is not going ahead in a manner that was approved at all by the teachers or by the public. It is simply not being accepted. And the government should wait a while, listen, change its tactics.

The College of Teachers, which the teachers of course did not ask for, would be declared under the act to be a corporation. Here we are again, Mr. Speaker, with the industrial model. "The Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may make regulations" — in other words, we're not even sure who the board of governors is for this corporation. Nowhere else in Canada do we have this situation, and in no other profession do we have this situation where the teachers have the college put on them without having been consulted. Or, if you're going to insist they were consulted at some time, they certainly weren't consulted on this bill before it came in. They were not satisfactorily consulted. What they had to say has not been listened to.

There is a bill on the dentists' profession waiting to be given final reading right now. One suspects, again . . . . You see, there's no problem there, because the dentists are asking for what they're going to get from this government. But the teachers are not treated with that same degree of respect. What we have is an attempt to push a practice — if you want to call it that — or an institution that has centuries of tradition and history behind it, that tells us that we want a collegial model, that we want a student to become a learner like the learner who has become the teacher, and that in fact the professionals all together, those teachers, will have a principal teacher among them . . . . If we want that to happen, we don't put it into the industrial model.

There is no way that you will get the best effort from a professional person if somebody else is telling that professional person how they should do what they're going to do. The whole idea of professionalism, Mr. Speaker, is that this person who is a professional has been trained to the point where he or she can make the decisions that need to be made about how to proceed. That's why nobody makes a bunch of rules for doctors. They say you have to look at the disease and at the patient and at the way that you work with whatever happens, and you go ahead; you decide. I'm certainly not capable of deciding what should happen to that patient under these circumstances. By the same token, most of us — those of us who are not professional teachers — are not capable of deciding how that child in that situation with this subject and this teacher and this learning style . . . . Why should we decide? It's the teacher who should be deciding, and who probably should have an act in which the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council is not able to make regulations without any

[ Page 869 ]

particular restrictions. It's that professionalism that the teachers need to have recognized. If a teacher is a professional, and if a teacher is able to decide, why in the world do we have this kind of legislation pushed at teachers, given to them whether they want it or not, in fact given to them when they're saying very clearly that they do not want it?

Mr. Speaker, I don't think we should further alienate teachers and prospective teachers, and let's not forget that it's prospective teachers as well as teachers. If we had a mass exodus from this province and if we had a number of prospective teachers deciding they really didn't want to be in the teaching profession because they won't become professionals, they will become like cogs in an industrial machine, what in the world is British Columbia going to do, then, for its education system? Not only will we be short of textbooks and all those other things, we'll also be short of teachers. We are in a technological revolution right now. The only thing we can do to prepare ourselves for that is to educate ourselves as well as we can. Let's say to the teachers, as a society: "What can we do for you so that you can do the best you can for our students?"

MR. SERWA: Mr. Speaker, boy, have we ever got a barnburner going in here today! I'm sorry that the member for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) isn't here today. He lamented that we appeared to be a bunch of readers rather than speakers, so I'm going to speak today, and I'm sorry that he's not here to absorb some of the pain that the rest of you will have to absorb.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

First of all, I'd like to state my position on teachers. Perhaps I grew up in a very privileged and stable time in society. Teachers and ministers were pillars in the community. They were well respected by the students, by the parents, by business, by every other member of the community. We all looked up to them. We turned to them in times of need. All through my educational experience I had the opportunity of being tutored by professional teachers. They were professional in attitude, ability and effort; most of all they were professional in their commitment to students. That's really important, because this is what the whole exercise is about. This is what both sides of the House are involved in and should be concerned about. We have to remember that education is fundamentally for students. It's not an environment simply for teachers. The end result is education for our students. That's where our future is. Part of the philosophy and influence that I obtained from those teachers will always be a very valued part of my environment. It will always be part of me until the day I die, and I value their commitment and their contribution to myself.

[5:15]

The House Leader of the opposition taught band at Kelowna Secondary School in the early fifties. His legacy to Kelowna Secondary in the music department still exists. His standard of excellence that he initiated is still retained. He is still well thought of and respected not only by the parents but also by the students who had the opportunity to take music while the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose) was the head instructor there.

I said earlier that when I went it school it was a very stable environment. There was no uncertainty. I knew that I would go to school on a school day. We'd never heard anything about work to rule. There were no strikes. There was no militancy in or out of the classroom. There was a great deal of harmony on the part of the teachers and the part of the students. Yes, it was a simpler world. We had the opportunity perhaps for discipline, and there was a great deal of mutual respect.

I said earlier that we are here on both sides of the House to do the best possible job that we can for the people of British Columbia, and in this particular opportunity, the best job for the children and the students of British Columbia.

I still respect the majority of teachers. They are professional and committed to education. The students are their reason for being. They get their sense of fulfilment, and they are making a great contribution to humanity. I'm not a stranger to teachers and to the teaching profession. Five members of my family have been or are in the teaching profession.

When I first became aware of Bill 20, I was confident that it would be well received by teachers. The reason for my confidence was not that I was naive, but that I had taken part in a meeting of the Central Okanagan Teachers' Association in Kelowna in the early part of this year. They listed four points for discussion. The second member for Okanagan South (Mr. Chalmers) and I attended a meeting that lasted for three or four hours. It was a good meeting. We were warm and open, earnest and receptive.

They listed four points that were their major concerns: the compensation stabilization program, educational finance, bargaining and professional rights, and the Royal Commission on Education. We had requested background material from the Minister of Education. At the end of the discussion, we noted their comments and submitted them to the minister.

Every aspect, every element for which they had requested attention, has been attended to in the manner that they wished it attended to. The compensation stabilization program is being phased out. That's good stuff. Educational finance — yes. An increase in the public school system and an increase in post-secondary education; that's attended to. Bargaining and professional rights — they were talking about wanting the right to strike, wanting the right to bargain about working conditions. They have that opportunity with the choice in Bill 20. The Royal Commission on Education — Barry Sullivan; he has a job to do, and he's on his way doing it. So that's one of the reasons I was confident that it would be well accepted.

In the College of Teachers, a professional body, teachers will be writing their own rules. They are professional, they are well educated and they are competent. As was mentioned earlier, conflict is a problem in an organization such as the one that we have at the present time. It's contradictory to ask that professional standards be maintained effectively at the same time as they are working on bargaining rights.

The college will be making its own bylaws, again showing a great deal of responsibility that the teachers will have to accept, They are certainly capable, by the quality of the individual, of accepting this challenge. They can have either unions or associations. They can have their choice on the bargaining rights. Bill 20 gives more rights to teachers to write their own rules, terms and conditions than they have ever had before. The only thing that the government is asking is that they bear the responsibility of their actions.

Subsequent to that first meeting, and just prior to the New Democratic convention in Vancouver, we had a second meeting with virtually the same group of teachers from the Central

[ Page 870 ]

Okanagan Teachers' Association. Again it was a good meeting. They are constituents, and our obligation is to represent them to the best of our ability. After a long discussion, it boiled down to two elements. One, they do want the B.C. Teachers' Federation to retain both professional and bargaining rights. So they want them together. They also want the principals and the vice-principals to be retained within the B.C. Teachers' Federation. The president would give up the right to strike to save the B.C. Teachers' Federation.

What we're hearing at the moment is a great deal of smoke and storm about a camouflage type of issue. The elements that I've heard discussed today and in previous days aren't critical to this matter at all. The critical issue is simply the head organization: the bureaucratic B.C. Teachers' Federation with their $7 million or $14 million, whichever story you wish to believe.

That is a critical element, and another critical element, as indicated, is wanting to maintain through the BCTF control over the principals and the vice-principals. That is what this is all about. That is what all the procrastination and discussion is about.

In all of the discussions, the missing element is: exactly what is the purpose of teachers and teaching? In all of the discussions in the number of hours that we spoke with them, it was never demonstrated that there was any concern by those individuals with the end result, the students — the education of the children of British Columbia. That is the element that I am really concerned about, and that is the element that has not been discussed.

Delay: I have heard that many times. More opportunity for misinformation to be sent out; more opportunity for militancy; more time to hurt the education and to hurt the climate of education in the province of British Columbia. Is that what we want? Is that what the opposition wants? The reaction that I get from the public is not the reaction that the BCTF hoped for when they had their illegal strike.

I think that there are some wise and prudent members in the opposition. I would like to quote the first member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich). He is to be respected for his comments here, and he is to be respected for his tenure in the Legislature. He goes on to say in an article: "They should be doing their best to win support from the public and parents and students, students who will be graduating from school this year and voting soon. You don't change things by making enemies. You do it by making friends and changing governments." Okay? He has an attitude that he can work well within the law.

I note that the Leader of the Opposition is not in the Legislature, and has not been. I am confident that he wouldn't condone the type of dialogue that has gone here, which is aggravating the situation and encouraging breaking the law of the country.

Another quote is from the member for Vancouver-Point Grey: "I was opposed to the teacher strike in 1983, because one of my worst fears was fulfilled. It became very divisive. Some schools took years to heal. The same thing is happening now. Schoolteachers are being polarized politically." I have a great deal of concern about that. In talking to a number of teachers and principals last weekend while I was in my constituency . . . . A number of them went out today, recognizing that they would have to continue to work with their colleagues. They didn't want to go out, but they recognized that, all of the tomorrows down the road, they would have to work with their colleagues. They were responsible enough to make that decision, to work towards the future. About a third of the teachers support the militant stand of the B.C. Teachers' Federation. About a third of the teachers are just like the rest of us: they can work whichever way it is. And a third of them are advocates entirely of Bill 20 and the opportunities it has for people in the teaching profession.

It has been stated a number of times that the B.C. Teachers' Federation was not consulted. That seems to be the justification for a delay. I quote from a letter:

"The Minister of Labour consulted widely with union and business leaders, and I" — the Minister of Education — "have met with the B.C. Teachers' Federation and other groups individually . . . on many occasions since I became minister. The legislation reflects the vast majority of the recommendations made by the B.C. Teachers' Federation in its brief to the Minister of Labour. Teachers have asked for and been given the same bargaining rights as other unions in the province. To protect the rights of individuals, however, the legislation requires teachers wanting full union status, including the right to strike, to organize locally first, like any other union."

That was a choice. They were consulted, and Bill 20 is a reflection of that consultation.

The things I hear because of the one-day illegal strike are not good. The comments from the prudent and temperate leaders of the B.C. Teachers' Federation are really not the things I want to hear in education. "B.C. Teachers' Federation president Elsie McMurphy called the Socred government 'Mickey Mouse' and said Bill 20 'has diddly-squat"' — that's from someone in education; that's a good one — "'to do with education,' and is aimed at 'control of education, of teachers and of school boards." Now this is a beautiful statement from a law-abiding body, a legal entity: "We will not arbitrarily be dictated to by any government or by anyone else." That doesn't sound very conciliatory to me.

[5:30]

The thing we have to remember is the emphasis that education is for children, and we're all going to have to work together to make that workable. I really believe that if we were designing a system right from scratch, we couldn't design the system any better than Bill 20.

There are a lot of good professionals out there, and I'm going to read a letter.

Interjections.

MR. SERWA: No, there will be some amendments, but the design is good. The principles and philosophy are good.

"BCTF and right-to-strike issue.

"I am a teacher in British Columbia, and I do not support the B.C. Teachers' Federation position in regard to work action to further their aims. I'm not alone in this regard, as I know many of my colleagues feel the same.

"My job is to teach the children in my class to the best of my ability. I cannot do that if I am on a job action. Using children as a weapon for personal gain is unconscionable for any group, but for a group that is supposed to have the child's best interest at heart it should be criminal.

"I sincerely hope that before your government contemplates legislation that would give the B.C. Teachers' Federation the right to tell me that I cannot

[ Page 871 ]

do the job I have contracted to do, you will survey the teachers in the province individually, not through the B.C. Teachers' Federation. I believe you will find that the organization speaks for a very well-organized minority of teachers who have a common political aim. I also believe that politics has no business in my classroom unless it is part of the curriculum."

I speak against the hoist motion for very good reason. All we're doing is creating more of a problem out there. I think that if we all act responsibly and work together and address the debate in second reading, then effectively in third reading, item by item, we will come up with the best possible legislation.

MR. WILLIAMS: One can't help but reflect on the last speaker's comments. I respect the member for South Okanagan; I think he's a serious and concerned member of the Legislature. Certainly I enjoyed the earlier part of his speech in terms of his own reflections on the schools in Kelowna and his experience with the teachers there. Clearly it's been a benefit for him and for the other people of the community, so that's good news.

The last part of the speech, however, I really had a little trouble with. I made notes and he said: "If we started from scratch we couldn't do any better" — sort of if we'd started the whole education exercise right from the beginning. It almost seemed like some biblical thing, that this was Genesis. Bill 20 is Genesis. We've really begun again.

We all know there are meetings in the back room or in the front office, wherever it is, in terms of looking at amendments. Genesis amended! The eighth day is coming up, and the ninth and the tenth, and we'll see what happens with the amendments of Genesis. It's going to be the horse that became a camel.

Then your constituent says politics shouldn't be there unless it's part of the curriculum. Written, drafted by whom? The same group that's preparing Genesis here, or has prior to this session now? I do respect the member for South Okanagan, but in a general sense one is offended when one looks over the last decade in terms of the attitude of this administration — and it is the same administration. The present Premier is the former Minister of Education who caused countless problems in the education community.

What we're seeing now is just a continuation of the kind of narrowly based attack against teachers and education that we saw when the Premier was minister.

I commend the Premier on many of the things he's done in this administration to improve the climate and attitude in other areas. That's been beneficial. But I think there are still a few grudges hanging around. I do believe that there's a grudge with respect to teaching and the teacher group on the part of the Premier, and that's part of what's in this legislation. I think there's a grudge in terms of the labour movement. That was in the previous bill we were discussing in this House. It's not well-founded. It doesn't serve him well, because in many ways he has a generous attitude about some aspects of public policy in this province. This is not the generous side of the Premier we're dealing with in this statute.

I get tired of this, because I'm frustrated with the education system myself. I have mixed feelings about it, as a student and as a parent. I've had some wonderful teachers, who have made the difference for me. I probably wouldn't have gone to university . . . . Nobody in my family went to university before I did, or at least in recent generations. As many of you know, that's not common in our age group, and in some economic groups it wasn't common. So for me it was a kind of bridge — an intellectual bridge to a more interesting or different world. I'm forever indebted to those teachers who helped build that bridge for me and, in a sense, made it possible for me to be here today doing what I do in my job in this Legislature.

But at the same time, I am offended by the attacks that these same people have been under. I'm tired of the lack of real creativity in the system any more. I think that the attacks on the system and on the teachers have hurt that whole business of creativity in learning. It's turning too many of us off. You're turning the teachers off. You're turning the citizens off. In the end you're turning the kids off, and you're turning off our future and our potential, That bridge will become narrower, or it won't even be there for some people in our society. I think the kind of pervasive attitude that's been over there is a heck of a lot of the problem.

I've said I'm frustrated. I have real frustrations about this educational system of ours. I'd like to get on to some second, third and fourth stages in developing it into something very significant. But we're pushing back to minus-one, minus two, minus-three. That's a loss for us all. The schools just aren't what they could be. It doesn't do a service to this Legislature to have . . . .

I was hoping the first member for Langley (Mrs. Gran) would be in the chair, Mr. Speaker, and I could talk obliquely about the member for Langley and commiserate with the Chair. I'm not going to have that opportunity. But again, I think the member for Langley, like the Premier, didn't serve this institution well in terms of the kind of attitude regarding the teaching profession that she showed in her speech earlier. Unfortunately I wasn't here, but Hansard fortunately has got it all there in black and white — or black and blue. Black and blue may be more appropriate for what the member had to say about some teachers. That feeds this kind of hurtful negativism in terms of the rebuilding and growth of our educational system in this province.

MRS. GRAN: Facts are facts.

MR. WILLIAMS: Facts are facts, the member says! Well, what did she say? It just blows me away. It's the old communist conspiracy stuff. I thought that went out with Senator McCarthy and the un-American activities committee and all of that nonsense,

You know, the member for Langley resents the fact that teachers might cover the whole political spectrum, like the rest of society. That's really what she's saying in her speech — that she really can't accept that some of them don't hold the same views as her. Oh, yes, that's what you're saying, Madam Member for Langley; that is what you're saying. It reveals — and I don't think you realize it — an intolerance about political attitudes. We are a free society. I don't think much of Maoism; I don't think much of Stalinism, personally. But there may be some around who do, and that's fine. I don't think much of the ultra-right, with some notable exceptions — maybe in this chamber — but it's the spectrum of attitudes and beliefs, and it's part of a free society. It's reasonable that we should have these differences. It's reasonable that teachers should have these differences, really.

What do you say? She says things like: "I say to you that the strategies worked" — this left-wing plan. Some ultra left-wing plan was developed, and in order to keep our

[ Page 872 ]

education intact, the government had no choice but to bring the bill in.

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: Do you really believe, Madam Member, that this bill is geared to control the thoughts or beliefs of teachers?

MRS. GRAN: No.

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, that is there underneath, and it is disturbing. It is intolerant. It is wrong-minded, and it does not serve the educational establishment or learning in this province well.

To say in effect that we are dealing with a bunch of ideological, wild lefties here in the B.C. Teachers' Federation doesn't wash. You can look at their president or spokesperson. Does anybody believe that of Elsie McMurphy? I don't think so. Do they really think that of the general collective leadership of the B.C. Teachers' Federation? I don't think so.

You know, you're moving into a very narrow ideological band yourself when you say that. It can't be supported.

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: No. However, I wish you were in the chair.

What all this means is that the teachers end up spending too much time organizing and things Re this in their spare time, and that is unfortunate. They don't want to go backwards any more within the system. I would like to see them putting their work in on the creative side of things. That would be better for them; it would better for the kids; it would be better for our future. What you guys are doing over there — and even over here, I am afraid — is that you are pushing them against the wall to get this kind of response, and that is not productive at all.

We have had too much restraint in the educational field over the last decade.

[5:45]

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: Oh no, come on. Do I have to give another lecture about how much we don't get out of our forests?

Much of the restraint was not necessary. We are a rich province. We could have been doing much more in terms of serving our kids. In my part of the city of Vancouver, we have a real need in terms of English as a second language and the special problems with immigrant children, especially the current group from Vietnam, boat people and so on, in my neighbourhood. There are some real needs there, needs like we've never had before in this province, because they come from very desperate backgrounds. There are social problems tied to it at home here in the city of Vancouver as well. But Lord, we don't even have adequate textbooks in Vancouver; and that's all been covered and is clear and is out there. What we don't have, in addition, is the creative, innovative programs that are serious in terms of the kids' future. It's that lack that bothers me more than anything else.

MRS. GRAN: That's what the BCTF should be working on.

MR. WILLIAMS: I agree, but you're pushing them to make this decision: are we a trade union or a professional group? They've wanted to work on both turfs, and that may not be as unreasonable as it appears at first glance.

There is an interesting, small, creative school in the city of Vancouver called Ideal School. My daughter attended it for a while. It was initially a private, independent, liberal-minded school.

Interjections.

MR. WILLIAMS: No, not shame. It was an interesting private school. I don't have any trouble with that kind of pluralism in our society; I think it's healthy. But the interesting thing is, it was taken over, and you might call it a socialist takeover of a private school. Actually, it was an agreed-upon takeover by the Vancouver School Board, so that this independent, liberal-minded school actually got taken over by the Vancouver School Board, and it still functions and flourishes today down in the Marpole area.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

The kids call the teachers by their first names; there is a very good rapport between the teachers and the kids. At the same time, it's very good academically and it involves the kids questioning and a real dialogue all the time, not the traditional, conservative, narrow school where everybody sits in a row and takes what's fed them. The kids are encouraged to question the teacher all the time where they have doubts. My daughter actually shifted from that school to one of the traditional ones. It was very hard on her, because she was questioning the teachers and they really didn't want to be questioned — some of them, that is, in this other school.

At any rate, what's desperately needed is this greater area of creativity so that there can be more Ideal Schools out there in the system, or the equivalent of the Ideal School in Vancouver. But that's not happening, and it's not happening partly because of restraint. It's not happening because the present legislation — and others; the restraint program — has pushed the whole system into this kind of backwash instead of letting it move on, flourish and develop.

Too many bright kids are not being stimulated in our secondary schools today, in my view. I think that's very unfortunate. That's a job for the ministry, the teachers and all of us, in terms of trying to see that they are, because we lose them. Some of the brightest ones we actually lose from the schools, and that means that they're not going to get over that narrow bridge I talked about, in terms of getting into higher education in other fields. That's too bad. I see this legislation as indirectly frustrating this process. I don't think that was intended by the government, but I think it's going to happen, and that should be reflected upon by all members.

I have a younger brother — a lot younger than me — who is a good, creative teacher. He's out there in those Socred southern suburbs that we've got to turn around. He's got a master's degree; he's bright; he works long hours to provide a useful experience and education for those kids out in those southern suburbs. He's been terribly frustrated in recent years. He was an outstanding student himself I'm satisfied that he's a superb teacher. At the height of the restraint

[ Page 873 ]

program he was really ready to pack it in. He teaches in a district that had been very careful in terms of spending, and it was squeezed even more because of the narrow kind of budgeting program the restraint program brought about. He continues to be frustrated by the attitude that is there and is partly represented in this bill. That's a terrible waste, because it's sapping some of the spirit of that young teacher, and that in turn saps the spirit of the whole group. That does not benefit our society.

So, Mr. Speaker, I see this as a narrowly based thing. I can understand the government thinking that it was really a reasonable kind of approach, in a sense. I can understand the rationale, but at the same time it has these other implications that aren't there tied to the simple pieces of the legislation. You are frustrating teachers like my young brother, and that is not healthy. The kids are going to be the losers as a result. I want to see more Ideal Schools, more creative schools. I want to see steps two, three and four, and not the minus steps that we are going through now and have been over the last few years.

So as a person who has very mixed feelings about our educational system and getting the ultimate productivity out of it — which is very hard to do and in some ways very difficult to measure — I think that there is an indirect side to this legislation that the government has not appreciated, and for that reason I support the hoist motion.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the government benches  will move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I will ask leave for the second member for Dewdney to introduce a bill.

Leave granted.

Introduction of Bills

AN ACT TO INCORPORATE MISSION FOUNDATION

MR. JACOBSEN: I'd like to move that a bill intituled Bill PR404, An Act to Incorporate Mission Foundation, be read a first time.

Motion approved.

MR. JACOBSEN: This is a bill to provide a vehicle for the people of that community to give to the betterment of the community. Mr. Speaker, I would move that the bill be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders, Private Bills and Members' Services.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Strachan moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:53 p.m.