[ Page 9353 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Presenting Reports –– 9353

School Amendment Act, 1990 (Bill 11). Second reading

Hon. Mr. Brummet –– 9353

Ms. A. Hagen –– 9355

The House met at 10:04 a.m.

Prayers.

Presenting Reports

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the first report of the Special Committee of Selection for the fourth session of the thirty-fourth parliament. I move that the report be read and received.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: By leave I move the rules be suspended and the report adopted.

Leave granted.

Motion approved.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I call second reading on Bill 11.

SCHOOL AMENDMENT ACT, 1990

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I am certainly pleased and proud to open second reading debate on Bill 11. This bill makes some changes to the educational funding system in this province. I think it is completely in line with the recommendations of the Sullivan report, which asked for stable, predictable funding and increases in line with the economy.

I should mention briefly the background. The Sullivan report was presented to this government in July 1988. It was analyzed by many people, and the recommendations were looked at by government. In January 1989, the government announced the policy directions that stemmed from the royal commission report. At that time it was also announced that the government was not ready to proceed with the recommendation of the interministry cooperation to serve the needs of students, but that we would do that within a year. That came out by the end of 1989 and was released early in 1990 — the protocol agreement between the Ministries of Education, Health, Social Services and Solicitor-General. It sets targets for the improved services on a cooperative basis to the students and children of this province.

At the January 1989 announcement of policies and directions that the government had committed itself to, we also announced that the changes would take money, and that we had committed $1.4 billion over ten years in order to make that happen — over and above the regular expenditures. We announced that facilities would need to be upgraded, and we also announced a six-year program of $1.5 billion for capital expenditures. On both of these courses we are on track. We have the money, and in a sense it is over and above what this bill deals with. I thought I would provide that background.

In the new School Act, we also committed ourselves to provide the information that school boards need to budget as early as possible in the year. There is a commitment in the legislation to provide the budgeting allotments by February 1 of any year. We've met that commitment In the last two years.

Once that decision is made on the total funds, the ministry has to work through the formula they have — the fiscal framework, which is widely recognized as a fair and equitable distribution system. It takes them about three weeks to run the allocations to the school districts, and again they managed to accomplish that.

Throughout all this, I certainly want to recognize the tremendous extra effort put in by the people in my ministry right from the top down through the ranks in order to make a lot of these things happen.

The bill we have before us brings into effect the funding changes, and it ensures a fair, stable, predictable and accountable system for financing education in British Columbia. The legislative framework established by Bill 11 ensures ongoing public support for our public education system and the changes that we have incorporated.

I don't think I should go on without emphasizing the importance of that public support. The public has been telling us that they find acceptable increases in a rational system in a rational amount related to the economy, and that they do accept extra expenditures for new mandates, for new programs, for changes to the education system that will improve it. We also get a very strong message from the taxpayers of this province that they were not prepared to face tax increases of 15 to 30 percent each year with an economy running at 5 to 6 percent.

All of this has been put together. We have accepted in this bill the recommendation of the Sullivan commission report that we move to a block funding system for education and that the increase be based on the economy. The emphasis has to be to protect the best interests of the students in this province, not to focus primarily on the vested interests of any particular group. I think this legislation provides for a fair, equitable, stable and predictable funding system for education.

This bill also simplifies the budget-setting process for school boards by requiring only a single submission, as requested by the School Trustees' Association. I should also point out to those assembled here that these decisions were not just from the Sullivan report and the ministry. We met with the School Trustees' Association, the B.C. Teachers' Federation, the superintendents' association, the secretary-treasurers' association and the administrators, and had many discussions with many people. Generally there was agreement that as long as the base block was fair and reasonable, it was an acceptable system. There was a lot of discussion on that.

Also, in simplifying the budget process of the past.... Under the old system, boards submitted preliminary budgets earlier in the year — sometime

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in February or March — and they could submit a final budget later. Because boards could decrease but not increase that, it became standard practice to come in with a very high preliminary budget, in the hopes that when the grants were announced, all of it would be possible. Then if the grants didn't come through, the budget was pared back.

This bill eliminates that rather onerous and pointless exercise, in that by February boards will be required to provide some basic information, such as the amount of debt servicing and a bit of other information. That information is needed to calculate the block under the fiscal framework. Then they will be given their block allocation, of course, before February 1. They will have that information to put together one sensible, reasonable budget. That will save everyone a great deal of work and prevent a great deal of game-playing.

Bill 11 establishes the principle of block funding. It describes how the provincial block is determined and provides a means for allocating the block based on enrolments in the school districts and on the varying costs of delivering education programs.

I should mention that one of the good — and I think sensible — concepts in this bill now provides for automatic increases as enrolments increase. In other words, the provincial block will be calculated as a total amount converted to an amount per pupil, and the total sum of that block will be decided by the number of pupils actually projected when the budgets are finalized. It will be adjusted automatically to provide the funds if the enrolments are different at September 30, when we can take the snapshot. That is the same date we have always taken the snapshot of what goes on in the education system.

[10:15]

In order to fund the block system, the province will combine a variety of revenue resources to finance the provincial block, and that includes local residential school taxes and other provincial revenue

School property taxes, except those resulting from local school board referenda, will be set by the provincial government, collected by the municipalities, and forwarded directly to the province for distribution to the school districts on the basis of the block allocation to districts as determined by the fiscal framework system. All these processes are well-established, well-known and widely accepted.

Boards will also have the added incentive to be cost-effective, as they will be permitted to carry operating budget surpluses into future years. That surplus will supplement their block in the following year. That again is a major change, and it does make unnecessary the efforts that have sometimes been made in various departments; you must spend it before the end of the year, otherwise you lose it. Now there is no such requirement. Boards will benefit from that as additional money in the following year. Correspondingly, to prevent any game-playing in the other direction, boards will have to carry forward their deficits in future years, and they will have to be taken out of their block, or included in their block funding.

I think it's reasonable in that it is almost impossible, with budgets of $30 million, $50 million, $180 million and $200 million in a district, to budget exactly the amount of expenditures that will happen during the year or to budget exactly the revenue to match those. This way most boards come amazingly close to the budget amount, but there is an advantage of carrying forward any surplus, and I do emphasize that.

The block then is based on actual expenditures and is increased in line with the economy, and that should fund the education system in this province. The fiscal framework system distributes that equitably around the province, taking into account the varying costs from one district to another so that equitable educational opportunity will be provided anywhere that students reside in this province, to the extent possible. I think every member in this House would agree with me that it is impossible to provide an identical or equal situation in a 50-pupil secondary school as compared to a 1,000-pupil secondary school. But it will be equitable, and the opportunities will be there for students to get the education that they need or desire.

If a board then wishes to spend beyond this fair and equitable block, they must go to referendum. This legislation provides the details of how the referendum will operate and in what way it can be conducted. I say the bill does this for future years; this year, of course, was a transition year. Every effort was made by myself, my ministry and the various taxation authorities to give the boards as much time as possible to conduct the referendum. In future years, the dates are spelled out with adequate time to make all the decisions that need to be made.

I should point out that if the referendum in a school district passes, then the funding will be for that year only and must be fully paid from the local residential taxes in that year — this year, for instance, in the 1990 calendar year. These funds will not become part of the base budget for future years.

I should point out that in the past, with the school year differing from the calendar year and from the fiscal year, many of the decisions that were made by boards and applied to the taxation.... For instance, in 1990 only 40 percent of that money was paid for by 1990 taxes, but the 60 percent commitment was there for 1991 before any further funding decisions were made. That was confusing to the public and was of course making commitments into next year's taxation that should really have been taken this year. We've corrected that.

I want to repeat: if a referendum passes, funding will be for one year only. It must be fully paid from local residential taxes in that year, and the funds will not become part of the base budget for future years.

By recognizing the actual money spent on programs as the base for the block, by significantly increasing the funding for the block, and by providing money outside the block for all the other items, the government has guaranteed the funding necessary to continue to provide all students in British Columbia with sound, complete education.

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I might point out that the capital funding is a major item, and that is outside the block and will be dealt with as it has been in the past, except that we have been able to fund it at a much increased level.

The unfortunate thing that has happened since the announcement and the introduction of the bill is the effort that many people have made to distort the intent of this. The block funding and increases have generally been accepted as fair. The people have focused so much on the referendum which this bill makes possible and have tried to say that the referendum will create inequities in providing education to students. It will not, because the inequities are looked after through the fiscal framework and through the differential funding to districts, to ensure that every student in this province gets an equitable education. The referendum will provide for extra expenditures and only that.

If one thing surprised me, it was not the reaction by the Teachers' Federation — which doesn't like any limits on spending — but the reaction of many school boards, which had agreed that if actual expenditures were included in the base block and if the increase were reasonable, it would be sufficient money to run the education system. Then the reaction about the ability to spend in an open-ended way beyond that, when that ability was curbed, unless approved by the local taxpayers.... I was surprised that no boards in this province stood up and said that yes, they represent the best interests of the students and, with this kind of funding, the best interests of the students are served. No board in this province said it was sufficient, that they didn't really need any more money and that they saw their other role as representing the taxpayers. There seems to be a great resentment of having to go to the taxpayers to get approval for extra spending.

Mr. Speaker, I could go into a lot of detail, but there may be the opportunity for some of that later. I would like to say again that this system provides the assurance that the education program in this province will be funded in a stable, predictable and rational way. To me, that provides the assurance which is important to me and to many people in this province that with the changes we are proposing in education, we don't need a roller-coaster education budget based on the whims of the day or on taxpayer resentment or revolt, if you like. Some people say I'm being far too extreme in comments like that, but let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that had we done nothing with the funding formula for education this year, with a 15.6 percent increase in local residential taxes already built in from last year's board decisions on supplementary spending and another 15 percent this year, those taxpayers would have faced on average a 30 percent residential tax increase this year on top of the 15 to 20 to 30 percent increases that they faced last year. Judging from the messages I got and those the Minister of Finance and Minister of Municipal Affairs got, I don't think people were prepared to accept that.

They do want a good education system in this province. They do want it funded properly. Measures have even been taken so that now the province will be picking up just over 90 percent of the funding for the education system. It will take responsibility for 100 percent, but less than 10 percent will now be coming from residential taxation; and through the tax relief measure that the Minister of Finance has taken, people will see tax relief this year on their bills — particularly those who have been paying at a much higher rate.

There may be further changes necessary in the future, because we have taken very seriously the royal commission recommendation that education funding should be stable, predictable, reliable and also that there should be as much equity as possible built into it. I know there are many arguments around the value of property taxation, but eliminating this as a source of revenue has some pros and also a lot of negative side effects.

I have never accepted what the opposition leader said here in this House — that the government should pay the full cost of education because the taxpayers can't afford the taxes. Whether we collect it or it's collected at the local level, the taxpayers still pay the bill in one way or another.

I'm confident that with the block funding this bill provides, the distribution system that is in place and the funding that is provided by the Finance ministry we can assure a good, sound, quality education system for the future as good as or, in my view, even better than what we have now.

With that, I would move second reading — or do I do that at the end? I am going to move second reading whenever it is appropriate, and would be, of course, prepared to accept it at any time. I thank the members, and I would hope that some of them have read the bill before they comment on it.

MR. SPEAKER: For the sake of the minister, the process is to move second reading at this time. However, we will hear from other members and then you will close the debate. The member for New Westminster.

MS. A. HAGEN: I want to open my comments this morning on the second reading of this debate by just noting that the notice we have had of the fact it was coming to the House has been somewhat consistent with the whole approach to this bill. It is disappointing, in fact, when the House Leader has to ask specifically what is going to be on the orders of the day for today.

[10:30]

However, to reassure the minister and other members of the House, I anticipated that this would be the order of the day, and I am pleased that the bill is before the House. I'm disappointed, though, that it did take so long to come before the House.

The matters in this bill are very important to the people of the province, as all of us know. There's been a tremendous amount of interest and public discussion in schools, on school boards, in community groups and in our press about the substance of this bill. I think people feel affronted that there has not

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been an opportunity for the bill to be debated prior to its implementation. I think that holds true particularly around board budgeting and the issue of referendums.

I would like it to be known — because people are not always aware of what is available to government, nor the rules of the House, Mr. Speaker, of which you are the guardian — that it is the government's prerogative to schedule any debate in the House as it sees fit. That means that this bill could have been debated immediately following the throne speech or the budget speech. It's traditional for us to have a throne speech debate following the Lieutenant-Governor reading the Speech from the Throne, and it's traditional for us to have a budget debate following the Finance minister presenting his budget for the coming fiscal year.

But there is no reason in the rules of this House why this particular bill could not have been debated much earlier; it was already late in opportunity for presentation because the House was late in its sitting. I think that people would have been very much more pleased if the government had exercised that democratic and good government prerogative. They would have felt that there was more trust in a discussion of important changes in public policy on school finance if, indeed, the debate could have taken place earlier.

The public has become even more aware of that issue because of what we might call the extra-parliamentary activities that have taken place. As I noted, these reforms and changes have certainly elicited tremendous interest, concern and debate in the public at large. As the minister notes, the issue of education is important to people in this province. It is on their minds, and they are concerned that in any policies, changes or developments that affect education, they are consulted, they have an opportunity to participate and the democratic traditions of legislative debate can be fully implemented.

We are entering into this debate today while nine boards in this province are in the final stages of going to their constituents for approval of funding through referendum. Those boards have made those decisions in extremely difficult circumstances and have not had the luxury of an open, public debate on these policies before they were forced to deal with what will in fact be retroactive legislation.

The Premier, for example, has trashed his own Richmond School Board on the issue of referendums and has indicated that he would advise his wife and relatives and friends not to support the referendum. He did that, we know, without according to that board the courtesy we would all accord to any publicly elected body — to trustees — to inform us on the issues they would be taking to the public. The Premier obviously believes that we should have referendums, but then the referendum should be defeated. That's a very mixed message to send out there, and that's been a part of the problem that we have faced as we have looked at this whole change that the government is proposing.

I might note that the Minister of Education, who has met with some boards, declined persistently to have a meeting with the Surrey board, which was very concerned about some elements of the block funding and some of the problems they faced. However, he did find time to attend a public meeting discussing the referendum on April 25 in Surrey.

It's interesting that for two months the minister said there was no more funding and the block was totally fair. It was a very consistent message. I am sure it was a message that he had agreed with his cabinet colleagues he would carry forward. But on the same day that the minister attended the public meeting in Surrey, the Surrey School Board got a phone call saying that they would receive additional funds — $1.27 million, I understand. They, along with some other boards....

Interjection.

MS. A. HAGEN: Twenty-two boards altogether. Yes, member for Yale-Lillooet (Mr. Rabbitt), there were 22 boards that had not received fair treatment up to that time and had tried to get the attention of the minister.

It's somewhat coincidental that that information about the addition to the Surrey board budget and other budgets came on the very day that the minister was attending a public meeting. It did not reach the board office officially until Friday the 27th. It came just a day or so more than the week that is prescribed for advertisements to go into newspapers informing the public of the issues going to referendum.

All of these actions on the part of the minister are counterpoised against the failure of the government to bring these matters to the Legislature so we could in fact fully debate them before their implementation. The actions of the minister and the government in this regard have contributed to confusion and uncertainty on the part of the public and to a change in the climate that I know this minister has prided himself in trying to create, a climate where the policies he brings forward have gone through a process of consultation and of building, if you like, a trust in that process. The minister knows — I don't need to tell him; he's acknowledged it in his own comments — that this legislation has very seriously affected that climate, and I am sure he regrets it. I certainly do. It's most unfortunate that this has happened. It would have been entirely preventable by a government that was managing its affairs better and heeding the democratic processes that all of us value.

Mr. Speaker, I should note at this point that I am the designated speaker for this debate, for your information.

Let me now begin to look at the substance of the bill. While I have been critical of the minister and the government about the way in which this bill has been brought forward, I do want to join him in commending his ministry. I believe that the tasks set for the Ministry of Education over the last almost two years have been very challenging, and I know that people in that ministry-both regular staff and seconded staff ~ have been working diligently around the directions that this government has given

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them. I think they deserve a great deal of credit for their work and their efforts, and I think that's acknowledged in the field as well.

So what are we looking at in this legislation, Mr. Speaker? We are looking at some fairly straightforward changes, but we are looking at changes that will have a profound effect on how our system runs. It is the government's hope that these changes will be for the benefit of education, but I think it is our responsibility to point out some of the questions, challenges, concerns and deficiencies that we find in the legislation. They are not without remedy, but in their present form they certainly do not contribute to the climate that the minister insists he wishes to create. We are looking at a bill that removes school residential taxing powers from boards, and effectively that is what has happened.

Boards have no power to tax in their own right any more with this legislation. We are looking at a bill that centralizes power over school funding very strongly in the ministry, and there is nothing in this legislation that alleviates that centralization — very much at odds with the Sullivan commission co-management and maintaining autonomy and responsibility of boards.

We are looking at a bill that allows the government to set funding unilaterally, and there is no suggestion that there will be guidelines or regulations governing that. We are looking at a bill that I believe underlines the true accountability of the boards by the introduction of the referendum system

We have already had examples of interference with school districts in respect to referendums and attempts to influence the outcome of those referendums. I believe those have been very unwise and ill-conceived when one looks at the role of the ministry and the role of boards. As I have noted, we have had incompetence in dealing with the elements that are already identified as inequitable. The 22 boards who received additional funding at the eleventh hour, after two months of advising the ministry, going to the ombudsman and in various ways informing the ministry of those serious inequities, gives us some indication of that incompetence.

We believe that the public opposes this bill for several reasons. First of all, there is strong opposition to referendums, and from the time the minister first announced that on January 31 — to the shock and total surprise of the school districts, trustees and their officials — that opposition on our part and from the public has been unstinted. The public is opposed to referendums for school purposes, and the minister himself is very well aware of that. School trustees, as he noted, have not stood up and spoken in favour of referendums — not one board.

The Home and School Federation, now the Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils, has spoken out strongly against the use of referendums. Many city councils have advised the Premier and the minister of their opposition. They understand that the referendum for annual operating costs of school districts is not appropriate.

It's a reasoned opposition. It's an opposition that recognizes that education has been singled out for a destabilizing, quite complex referendum system. There's a recognition that inequalities can occur. There's a recognition of loss of autonomy and flexibility for school boards. There's a recognition that there can be built-in rigidity and restraint in these budgets without anyone having any say except the minister. Again, the centralizing aspect of this bill is very significant.

[10:45]

I want to review, as the minister did, the genesis of this bill and to make a few comments about that. As he noted, there was a commitment — we discussed this during Education estimates last year confirming that commitment — that there would be education, finance, taxing and funding changes in the coming year.

Shortly after that there was a surprise announcement that there was going to be a property tax forum travelling around the province. I am informed that the Minister of Education was not aware of the creation of the property tax hearings immediately after they were announced, and certainly there was no representative of the education community on that task force. Clearly residential school taxes are an important part of any tax hearings.

Furthermore, some analysis of those tax hearings leaves us with the knowledge that it was as if those who were a part of the forum went out to manufacture what they wanted to hear. I want to note just a couple of comments that were made during the BCSTA annual general meeting last week

HON. MR. BRUMMET: On a point of order, I believe I just heard that member accuse two of my colleagues of manufacturing what they wanted to get from a hearing. I think the member should withdraw that.

MR. SPEAKER: It's not appropriate to interrupt the member for such a thing as that; only for clearly unparliamentary language. If the member imputed any improper motive, I'll ask the member to withdraw it. Correction should be made at the end of the member's statement. Would the member please continue.

MS. A. HAGEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Did you impute any improper motive?

MS. A. HAGEN: It was not my intent to impute a motive, Mr. Speaker.

If I may continue with my comments, I would like to read some comments made by the retiring president of the B.C. School Trustees' Association in his final address to the trustees last week. Respecting the House rules, I will name the people he names specifically by their offices in our executive council. The Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Couvelier) and the then Minister of Municipal Affairs— now the Minis-

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ter of Transportation (Hon. Mrs. Johnston) — "and other government officials to this day claim that the meetings were necessitated by a pending property tax revolt, a revolt that never appeared nearly as serious as they claimed." These executive council members "were vitriolic towards trustees on several occasions and kept repeating at meetings, and through the news media, that school board submissions were subverting the process, that school taxes were too high and that boards were the worst enemy of taxpayers."

"Curiously, very few presenters took this position, and It seems apparent in retrospect that government didn't want anyone confusing it with the facts. It was an example of provincial policymakers deciding what they wanted to hear and then refusing to listen to anyone who said anything different. The whole exercise was very regrettable and was, I believe, an instrumental part of the process which led to the recent referenda announcement."

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

I have one other quotation I want to take from that speech at this time. Although it doesn't relate so much to the financing, it does relate to the issue of accountability and responsibility. Mr. Hingston quoted from a report on the hearings, and the report included these words: "Even though the matter was not one raised by a taxpayer at the hearings, the government members of the panel continued to initiate discussion on whether school trustees should be elected or appointed."

The issue here of what the problem was is taken out of the hands of the Minister of Education. I will argue that events superseded him. Perhaps in another life he might actually tell us what he really believes about referendum. It would be refreshing if we could look forward to that.

At any rate, following those hearings and the report — a report on which the two government members remain silent and didn't give any indication what their position was or what their reading or observations were — we know that there was very little consultation until it was urged upon the minister by some of the stakeholders with meetings held in November and proposals coming from the stakeholders.

Then the public process came back on track. That public process involved extensive briefings with the ministry and the minister and his officials, with representation from all of the key people involved with the management and running of the school system — and eventually involved a meeting with the Education Advisory Council. Some very solid recommendations came forward. Those recommendations did not include referendums. Referendums were not a part of those discussions. Those deliberations, however, as the minister noted, did grow out of the royal commission report and did grow out of the recommendation of the royal commission report around block funding, stability, flexibility and accountability — the words that the minister used and that I will come back to at various times in my comments today.

There was, I know from my contacts with those stakeholders, a feeling of optimism, a feeling that the reforms that the minister would be announcing late in January would be consistent with process and faithful to substance that had been discussed. Imagine the surprise of everyone when the minister's announcement came and included in it was referendum. We had been forewarned of referendums, because we know it's a favourite issue with the Premier.

The minister stood up to the Premier a couple of years ago when the Premier was trial-ballooning the idea of referendums, along with county systems and vouchers. I think all of us had a hearty respect for the minister because he knew all of those systems were counter to some of the excellent traditions of education within our province. He spoke out against the Premier. In fact, when the Premier shuffled his cabinet in 1988, the Minister of Education survived, even though he had challenged the Premier.

However, the Premier, once he gets an idea, hangs on to it with a tenaciousness that defies research or any kind of rational and objective due process. He gave us signals of his interest in referendums again when he spoke to the people of the province in mid-January, and at that stage of the game people began to get antsy. They began to be worried that the Minister of Education, with whom people had worked in a productive, cooperative and trustful environment for the past year and a half, was about to be upstaged and his wishes and ideas overturned by the Premier — fully and ably abetted by the Minister of Finance and, I would imagine, by the Minister of Transportation, who has made it no secret in this House that she is not a great friend of school boards. She has, on numerous occasions in this House, made comments that tell us what she thinks of those bodies, and her opinion is, I believe from her comments here, not very high.

People were genuinely shocked when the minister said that he hadn't looked into any of the research or any of the experience with referendums. "We were going to do it and see how it worked, and then we would take a look at it again." We really believed that the minister, who had been fighting his cabinet on behalf of education, was meant to be a messenger for some very bad news for education. There's no question, Mr. Speaker, that referendums are bad news for school boards.

I want to turn to the specifics of the bill, a bill that has in fact been a shadow bill since January 31 and that has evolved in terms of us knowing what was going to be in it and in terms of people trying to figure out how we were going to make it work. There are three main elements.

Before I do that, let me just conclude with one further comment on the perception about the referendum announcement. Again, I want to quote the words of the past president of the B.C. School Trustees' Association: "Of course, solutions to the funding and taxation issues are very complex, and government has the right and responsibility to gov-

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ern." This is a recognition of the challenge that government faced. I want to acknowledge that it's not an easy one; it is a challenge. It isn't something which is easy to explain or easy to evolve in a way that produces the results we want. "But, " continuing the quote, "if the motivating factor is the B.C. good rather than 'party' time, I would call on the Premier and cabinet to take the high-road approach that has served us all well through the new School Act and royal commission process to this point." That high road, I would say, is indeed to look again at the referendum issue.

Let's get into the specifics of the bill. My task this morning is to highlight some of our concerns and to put on the public record some of the concerns that are being expressed to us by people in the province around this whole initiative. It is more in sorrow and frustration than anything else that we have come this far and have seen, as a result of incompetence, lack of openness, rigidity, and some bad policy moves encompassed in this bill, a change in the working relationships that had been moving in a direction that all of us were feeling better about.

There are three issues in this legislation that we need to address as the main themes. The first is the method by which schools will be funded — the block funding system. Second is the issue of local residential taxation and the removal of the board's right to tax, the taking of residential school taxes into general revenue. The third issue is referendums. We will have an opportunity to look at a lot of the more specific aspects of the bill when we get into committee.

[11:00]

Let's begin at the beginning with the block funding process. I want to say off the top that we think the concept of block funding is a good initiative, a good change. It comes from the royal commission. It was discussed extensively during the initial stages of policy development in '88 and '89 and enjoys the support of people working in the system. They see in block funding the potential for some commitment to stability within education funding. That's something we didn't have in the eighties and that people feel would be good to have enshrined in legislation.

However, the implementation of block funding has been flawed for a number of reasons. The minister, for some reason, has been very intransigent in dealing with this. He has not been open. He has not been prepared to provide people with answers to questions except from what appears to me to be a script. I know it in my sleep, Mr. Speaker. I'm sure the minister does too, because he has said it over and over again. But as I noted earlier, sometimes we don't want to pay attention to the facts and to listen; that's what is involved with consultation, consensus and working things out.

The minister has noted, quite rightly, that the block is made up in some fashion of all of last year's budgets, including the supplementary budgets Those budgets are determined by local school districts — the amounts of money that local residents pay for entirely in their school taxes. It's interesting that the first thing the minister has to do after delivering rhetoric which has soundly criticized school trustees for their profligacy in funding schools — because that's the real world out there in education — is accept that those dollars are needed to move toward an equal and quality education for our kids in this province.

On the one hand, he continues to run the theme through that school boards have been very bad managers, have been profligate and have pushed taxes onto the residential taxpayer. But when you get right down to it, he has confirmed what we have all known: that this government for years has been underfunding education. The royal commission said that. One of his comments was that you can't put a litre bottle in a pint, that you cannot achieve those aims without the dollars.

Interjections.

MS. A. HAGEN: The members protest, because I have hit a raw nerve. They protest, because they know that what I say is true. The minister's own actions in encompassing all those costs and expenditures in his block are in fact proof of the government's underfunding. I don't want to get into election mode in this speech, because we are talking about the long-term financial health of schools, but one has to wonder — and I will pursue this through my comments — if there is not some election agenda in all this. As we look at the bill and its lack of commitment to ongoing funding — and I think we will find some real lacks, holes and omissions in this bill in that regard — we have to wonder if this is not some kind of election year repentance, with nerves that have been touched by parents, teachers and staffs who have told you the real story about what's going on in schools.

Let's just look at how we can quantify that issue by comparing a few figures from 1982 to '90. There has been a growth of almost 50 percent in the gross domestic product of our economy in British Columbia. In that time, the cost of living has gone up significantly, about 30 to 31 percent. Expenditures through government contributions to schools have gone up only 25 percent, but the per pupil education costs coming out of residential taxes have gone up 150 percent. That is the crux of the problem.

For years this government has not paid its proper share. I just want to go back to a speech given by the Premier of this province the day before the budget, when he expounded in his usual fashion, with waving arms and vigorous speech. He noted that the province was funding on the McMath formula, and he commended that alderman from his municipality for creating that funding. I knew — and the minister knew — that the Premier didn't know what he was talking about. But the Premier expounded on the fact that this party, this side of the House, had proposed a fair sharing of 90 percent from the province and 10 percent from residential taxes. He called us profligate and all kinds of things, and said: "We're sharing way above the McMath formula of 75 from the province

[ Page 9360 ]

and 25 from the taxpayers. We're sharing at a rate of 83 percent. We're wonderful; we're marvellous. We have been funding education adequately, even better than Mr. McMath" — who happens, I believe, to support people on this side of the House.

Mr. Speaker, what the Premier forgot was that when Mr. McMath devised this formula, he devised it with the industrial-commercial tax in it. Now that's out; it's been gone since 1983. We're now talking about just residential taxes. I think my House Leader was doing some statistics: 8 percent of the tax base is residential, so we have that very small tax base from which we've had this massive increase up until this time. The very next day, the Premier having excoriated us for our profligacy in suggesting 90-10, the Minister of Finance got up and said: "We are going to fund to 90-10." You know, 90-10 is roughly the McMath formula with just the residential taxes in it. It still has a basis in McMath, but it deals only with residential taxes.

Actually, I was quite astounded, Mr. Speaker, to hear the Minister of Finance, in his usual way, dealing with that issue. I was even more interested that the Premier didn't know anything about his own education finances. He's really only interested in referendums. That's his idea, his issue. He really doesn't want to get involved with the nuts and bolts of all of this. Some of us who are responsible legislators know that that's one of our jobs.

Okay, let's take a look at this block....

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Where did the 90 percent come from?

MS. A. HAGEN: For us, it comes from a McMath formula that has been recast to look at residential taxes as the base from which you draw the other 10 percent. So 90 percent comes from the province and 10 percent from the residential taxpayers. Ten percent instead of 17 percent — that's the way it should have been all along. It's another example, Mr. Speaker, of how this government has been underfunding education and pushing the taxes onto the local taxpayers, and it has finally recognized that it can't continue to do that.

The block funding system has come a cropper on quite a number of serious problems. We'll probably get into this more in committee, but I just want to note a few of the issues that are not covered. They are having a very significant impact on boards, and they are the major reason why boards are probably having to make the decision to go to referendum.

I want to just quote from two or three boards and the statements they have made to their public. This is from the Vancouver School Board, in the review of their meeting of March 5: "Although the ministry announced a 6 percent inflation factor is provided in the block funding formula, salary increments and the annualization of salary increases have not been included." It goes on to note a range of other programs that will be affected as a result of that.

We all know, Mr. Speaker, that the major cost of any school district is that of people, because people provide services to kids. Sometimes the minister and members opposite are inclined to talk about those people as if they were some kind of object; but they are the nuts and bolts, the fundamental cornerstone, of how the system works.

Look at the situation in Surrey. Surrey immediately informed the minister that the surplus that was part of their operating budget in 1989-90 had not been included in the block. It took the minister a long time to acknowledge that and to finally, at the eleventh hour — and probably more for political reasons than anything else, because the timing doesn't allow me to have any other conclusion — make that announcement.

I'm glad he made the announcement, and I'm glad boards have that additional money, but it's again a sign that the elements of the block need to be reviewed, even in this first year.

The minister has left us with some very real concerns about when he will review that block. He certainly made statements early on in this extra parliamentary debate that it was fixed. This was the snapshot in time, and from now on boards will be working from that base. The base, for a number of boards, presents very serious problems, and those are real and genuine problems.

The Coquitlam board is a growing board; the Surrey board is a growing board in terms of the number of people in their schools. If you look at Surrey, for example, there are 2,000 more youngsters within their system. When we get to committee stage, I and my colleagues will want to ask the minister some very serious questions about some of those deficiencies.

The minister has protested again and again that there are reasons for differences in funding of pupils. We acknowledge that there are reasons. But he has not been prepared to acknowledge that increments, salaries, maintenance costs and some of the internal costs of the 300 portables in Surrey are not covered by that block. He has not been prepared to address those issues.

If that block funding is fundamentally flawed in terms of the amount and the fairness of it, then we do not have the very first principle that the minister espoused: fairness within the system.

The minister is now beginning — it's interesting — to try to debate before we have an opportunity to genuinely get into a debate. I would ask him to listen. If he has answers, then we'll be delighted to hear those answers. But people who have been working in the system and who know that system have said — not just one board, but dozens of boards — that there are flaws within the system in terms of how it is going to work.

[11:15]

In fact, although the minister has said it's based on all of last year's supplement, the system is worked out on a 70 percent allocation. It's a complicated formula, and I think what that formula does is to give some districts a little more and some a little less. But there are problems in understanding that and making that work for people.

[ Page 9361 ]

So, Mr. Speaker, the block funding we can support, but its implementation and maintenance are important. That brings me to the second point, and that is the matter of predictability, because boards need to be able to plan. They need to be able to plan in the long term. They need to be able to look ahead, as this government claims it's doing, in some of the areas of its responsibility. I would submit that this bill does not provide that kind of predictability.

There is nothing in this bill to give any sense at all of guidelines or regulations about how the block will be established, how it will be reviewed, what may be encompassed in it or how the additions will be calculated. I think the minister is looking at the expenditure side of things — that's the snapshot right now of where schools are — and he's saying: "That's the perfect world, or as close to perfect as we can get, and we're going to go from there."

He's not open to looking at the costs, and I would challenge the minister to make public all of that information, so people can look at it and make some of those decisions themselves. He's not even prepared, I understand, to make public the recalculated grants based on the 22 school districts who have received that funding. They know, but he hasn't made any commitment at all to make that information public, so it becomes a part of the total picture that we know.

Furthermore, there is nothing in the legislation that requires the minister to do more than tell boards what the total block funding is for the province and the average per-pupil cost. We know the practice in recent years has been to do something different. The practice has been to inform boards of their fiscal framework — now their block — usually around the end of February. But there's nothing in the legislation to require that, and I think it's a sign of the lack of trust and the insecurity there that boards are questioning that kind of bill language. They're questioning whether they can count even on the predictability of that information being available to them.

So the minister determines the block. There's no legislative standard about what will be in the block. He determines any increases and determines the sharing ratio between the province and school districts on a provincial basis and on a district-by-district basis. We know what this is this year, but Mr. Sullivan suggested that the sharing system should be one where there was a commitment for it to be in place for a number of years so that we had that predictability.

I am sure, too, that boards feel they should have information about the tax impact of the now government-set residential school tax at the earliest possible time. We certainly don't usually go about setting budgets with half a loaf of information.

Furthermore, the minister speaks proudly and often of the money that is available for royal commission funding, and it is good to see that funding has indeed been increased from what I know the ministry officials anticipated this year. But again, boards do not have any concrete information about what funding will be available to them. These are the boards that are planning their programs for next year; they're planning how they are going to work on one of the most comprehensive and challenging changes that have ever happened in B.C. The minister says: "In good time we will let you have that information." Predictability is only as good as all of the information being there and there being stability in the system working over a period of time and people being informed of its change.

Maybe, because the Premier spoke about 83-17, he might want to go back to that significant effect on taxpayers. There's nothing in this bill that says anything at all about a sharing ratio being one that would be committed, and there are no regulations associated with this that would give us some sense of where government is going.

I want to move to the issue of taxation. I've done an interesting bit of reading over the last little while, just browsing through some books that talk about our schools of almost 140 years ago. One of my readings was very interesting: A History of Public Education in British Columbia, by a UBC man named F. Henry Johnson. The other is a publication from the Department of Education in 1970-71 celebrating 100 years of public education in British Columbia.

I've said, as I've looked at the legislation that changes the taxing powers of school boards, that we are really going against a very long tradition in this province. The first local school taxes were hinted at in 1874, when the superintendent of schools, a man named Mr. Jessop, said that there was such a thing as direct and even local taxation for educational services, and began to introduce it.

I was also really interested to read about a person from my own riding who I had not known before to have had a very strong impact on the direction of public education in British Columbia: John Robson, who was eventually Premier of the province and, during an earlier cabinet position, Provincial Secretary, which was the role that had responsibility for public schools. He fought strongly for public, non-sectarian education as a means of drawing to the province people from all parts of the world who could help build the economy of the province. Mr. Speaker, it's interesting to think about the perspectives of John Robson — who, by the way, has a school named for him in my riding — 130 years ago on public, non-sectarian education, funded and supported by the public.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

I want to note one comment he made: "The securing of the zealous efforts of six prominent citizens to guard the educational welfare of the children has not only tended to increase the growing popularity of the public schools in these cities" — referring to Victoria, New Westminster and Nanaimo —  "but has inspired greater confidence in their proper management." That goes back a long time in history. The tradition, the role and the responsibility of school trustees is enshrined in those words of Premier Robson — at the time he wrote those words

[ Page 9362 ]

he was not yet Premier — on behalf of the children of British Columbia.

If we look to the more recent time, we find that perspective is also maintained by Mr. Sullivan. Let me quote briefly from the Department of Education — as it was then known — document, "One Hundred Years: Education in British Columbia," where again the principle is enshrined: "The origin of the concept that both financial responsibility, as well as educational authority, should be shared...." Those words came from Mr. Jessop, who was the original superintendent of schools in British Columbia.

It's interesting that Mr. Sullivan made so many comments in the royal commission report on the role of boards and local autonomy. That system of sharing responsibility and accountability is disappearing. We believe that the symbolic and actual setting of local school taxes by the government, taking those taxes to Victoria and redistributing them back to the province is symbolically and actually a symbol of centralization and of what we believe could be the eventual demise of boards. There were real concerns about this expressed by boards during the annual general meeting; real concerns about how that autonomy, in fact, was going to be affected.

In the royal commission report, Mr. Sullivan recommends that the provincial government continue to recognize distinct, local revenue-raising capacities and that any proposals for change be a matter of consultation with major organizations before they are introduced. I might note that he also recommends that a block funding formula and system be in place for five years — not this one, I would hope, because it needs work before it is ever in place.

I don't believe that the whole issue of how we arrive at fair and equitable taxation has been resolved by this bill. We have school districts that have a very limited tax base, and we have school districts that have a very large residential tax base. We have no means here of dealing with equity and equalization with the legislation that has come forward, and we don't really have any means for boards to exercise authority to tax as one of their responsibilities, except of course by means of the referendum system.

As the minister has noted, this has been the focus of attention in this bill. It's not surprising that it should be the focus of attention, because people have been offended and disturbed by the government's initiative in imposing a referendum system in one sector of the community only — in the school system. We didn't have referendums and don't have referendums on anything else. Mind you, perhaps this is simply the start. Perhaps, the Minister of Education is the harbinger of changes to come. There was a promise in the throne speech of something called the B.C. Referendum Act. Perhaps we're going to go to referendum to decide whether we're going to fund hospitals. Perhaps we're going to go to referendum to decide whether we are going to build roads. Perhaps we're going to go to referendum to decide whether we're going to build jails. Who knows? At this particular stage of the game, education is singled out, and singled out in a way that most people have found very disturbing.

[11:30]

I'm going to take the opportunity to read some comments that have been made in respect to this issue. I want to start with the words of Lyn Cockburn in the Province on February 11. I'll be brief, although her comments are very cogent. A number of people noted how much this article touched their feelings. She starts by saying: "Education is no chicken to be haggled over in some open-air market." She goes on to say:

"Education is a matter of such import that it must inspire cooperation not contention. Indeed, there is something ludicrous about a bunch of fractious adults squabbling over how much they will spend on their children's schooling. And referendums only exacerbate that squabbling. Referendums perpetuate an adversarial system which pits the beleaguered property owner against the voracious tax collector.

"Of course, an excellent education costs money. So do Coquihalla Highways. So do transit systems. We do not single out one group of citizens to bear a larger portion of the cost of highways.

"Education is no chicken to be haggled over."

She has some advice for the minister and the Premier:

"Education is no albatross to hang around the neck of property owners. Surely, the Minister of Education and the Premier are not such turkeys that they would disagree."

Interjection.

MS. A. HAGEN: If it fits, Mr. Minister, if it fits....

Crawford Kilian is a person who does a lot of analysis of education. He spoke out very strongly against referendums. One of the things he noted was that one of the myths around all of this referendum business is teacher-bashing. He goes on to say two things: first, that teachers' salaries, in constant dollars, are little different now than what they were in 1981. "A teacher with a master's degree and ten years' experience made exactly $11 more in 1989 than in 1981. The average teacher's salary in 1981 was $28,516. In constant dollars it's now $30,375...." He makes the point that teachers' salaries in constant dollars have remained in line.

He goes on to make an even more important point. It's one that I believe is the most important issue facing education today. It's more important than curriculum changes or financial changes, but symptomatic of some of the things that are happening in education. We are going to face a very major shortage of teachers in this province in the next ten years. I don't see anything on the horizon to reassure me that is not going to be an issue that will challenge us all.

I think the most important thing we must do, as legislators and people who represent those 500,000 youngsters, their parents and the communities in which they live, is ensure that the system we have in place and the support for it is, as the minister has said, stable and predictable.

That is not the perception. The perception has been eroded in terms of trust and a feeling of

[ Page 9363 ]

commitment to education as a result of this bill, and specifically as a result of the referendum issue.

We need to attract the brightest and the best to our education system. We need to make that a profession that is, once again, one where people will know that the work they do is valued, challenging and difficult, especially in the societal conditions that we have at the present time.

The chairperson of the Vancouver board, for example, during debate at the BCSTA convention on the weekend, noted that 130,000 children in this province live in poverty. Those children go to school. If their bodies aren't nourished, their brains aren't nourished. If they are not happy children because of the societal and economic conditions that they don't choose but do live in, their teachers are challenged in ways that are different from the ways in which teachers have been challenged in the past.

We need to attract the brightest and best...

Interjection.

MS. A. HAGEN: I'll just stop in a minute.

...of teachers to the system, and we need to attract support staff with higher and higher degrees of skill, because we are integrating children who have learning, physical, mental or emotional disabilities into our system. We are providing them with the challenge and the normal school life to the very best of our ability.

If we do not have a system that is co-managed, where the accountability and the responsibility is shared between government and local school districts, and if we do not have a government that we can sincerely trust is responsive and responsible for the education of those children, we will not attract those teachers. We know from the record that the situation is not good. Nearly half the new teachers in the province leave within five years. I have some nieces who are teaching, excellent young women. They are finding the system really challenging. It's hard, challenging work. It's work that we must value in our words, in our deeds and in the remuneration that goes with the training and skill of those people.

Let me continue with some parent voices, because I think parents have spoken out most strongly about the education referendum issue. I want to read into the record a letter to the citizens of Vancouver from the Vancouver District Parent Representatives. I would note that there is a coalition of over 30 organizations in Vancouver who are working to have the minister and government change their minds on referendums.

"Our children are British Columbia's most natural resource. Together we must ensure their access to an education which will enable them to become caring, competent guardians of our future.

"Referendum financing of operating budgets is a costly and inefficient means to achieve this balance. Referendums are to be held in the spring, apart from fall elections of civic officials. The estimated $320,000 cost for Vancouver to hold a referendum must be paid from local school board funds.... Referendums may only raise funds for the current budget year; they may not seek commitment of program funds for a multi-year project."

Again, predictability, which the minister has made a great thing about, is not possible with referendums that must be renewed annually.

They call on people to join with them to let the government know that referendum financing of local education needs is not responsible resource management; and they are calling our children a resource.

"As parent representatives who have closely followed the Vancouver School Board's current budget process, we feel strongly that the projected growth budget, which is above the block funds provided by the provincial government, is essential to meeting the real education needs of our city's children."

Speaking of that resource are many letters to the editor. Here's one from a gentleman named Leonard Peters on February 15 in the Times-Colonist:

"Although this system may appeal to many residents, in particular homeowners who do not have children of school age, its dangers must be recognized, as well as its motives.

"This seems a classic B.C. election ploy to pit one group against another — in this case, property owners with no children versus everyone else. It is inevitable that another round of teaching-bashing will result."

He goes on to conclude: "British Columbians" — and this is to all the greybeards among us — "your retirement depends on the quality of education received by today's students." How right that gentleman is. That quality of education is not going to be protected by a referendum system.

Just a few comments from specific parents. This is a letter to the Minister of Education from two women named Ellen Rosenberg and Virginia Mulhall from l'École Jules Quesnel in Vancouver — one paragraph.

"If a road costs more to build in a mountainous community" — do we know what road they're talking about? — "do they hold a referendum to raise the extra funds? If a school district has more ESL students, do they raise the extra funds to meet these special needs? We urge you to reconsider the proposal of referendums for education funding. It undermines the basis of a stable education system in B.C. at a time when a financially secure environment is necessary to implement Curriculum 2000. Referenda would drain valuable time, energy and money away from the focus of our children's education."

That's just part of a package of letters that I received.

From Education Leader, a publication of the B.C. School Trustees' Association, on August 12 — long before the referendum actually arrived on our doorstep, so rawly ripped out of the Premier's words: "Referendums, plebiscites and other such voter initiatives commonly referred to as direct democracy are an unpredictable and destabilizing legislative approach which seriously undermine the long-range planning of school boards, reports a recent survey of education leaders across North America."

Now the words of the minister, through advertisement. One of the ads asks: "So who needs a referendum?" This is the minister who has said that boards will have the right to go to referendum and then has tried, I believe, to influence the outcome of that

[ Page 9364 ]

referendum by getting directly involved in the board's communication with its public. "The new school funding system pays for everything that students need to get a first-rate education," says the ad. We know that if we look at schools around the province, not every school district provides an equal education yet. We recognize, as the minister does, that is a challenge that will take us a long time to meet. But if I look again at some of the local districts — all of which should have similar resources to provide a similar quality of education — I will find that the children in Surrey and Coquitlam who are going to school in buildings that are really very inappropriate don't have an equal opportunity for education and don't have equal access to learning resources. I will find that the library resources or the programs for hungry kids and poorer children are not equal across the province. We have a lot of work to do in this regard in order to improve.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I think the fundamental issue here is that a referendum is a process by which we, in fact, erode the accountability and responsibility of boards. In accepting referendums, we buy into the minister's perception — a perception not borne out by the facts — that boards have not been responsible and accountable to their electorate. We buy into a system that is destabilizing, that will produce inequities and that will cause us no end of grief, if not in the first year then in later years.

The issue is important. The government would do itself a great service if it were to retract that aspect of its finance amendments and proceed with refining and developing a block and taxation process that is open, consultative and still very much the subject of our review. The bill is really an abdication of the government taking responsibility for a flexible system that would be responsive to the changes we want to have in the future.

Mr. Speaker, it's with reluctance that we will not be supporting the bill. As I noted earlier, the process started on the right track until the Premier got into the act, and then the cabinet and the Minister of Education went along with the referendum process.

At this stage of the game, we want to get out of the school wars. We want to get out of the conflict. We want to get out of pitting one group of people against another. We want to get out of blaming people. All of those things are possible with a piece of legislation that doesn't incorporate one of the most backward steps the government has taken in a long time.

[11:45]

Mr. Speaker, let me just quickly review this. We support the block funding concept, but we would ask the minister to be very open about the elements of that block and to provide, in legislation, regulation or formal policy guidelines, the processes by which it will be reviewed and altered, to ensure that there is equitable funding for school districts and that the severe problems arising in some districts as a result of the snapshot of introducing the block at this time will be addressed.

We are very concerned about the issue of board autonomy and responsibility. Our concern around that issue is encompassed in two measures of the bill. One takes away from school boards the right to set and collect taxes — the symbolic fact that, for the first time in the history of this province, residential taxes are going into general revenue. It's an entirely new and, we think, quite dangerous tax concept. In fact, we might see that same approach to many issues, as this government tries to eliminate responsibilities that should be the responsibilities of general government. We would note that in that taxation matter, there is nothing to ensure that the taxation imposed by the government on residential taxpayers will be fair. There's nothing to give residential taxpayers comfort that the taxes they may pay next year will be predictable, reasonable and fair.

Finally on the issue of referendums, we are adamantly opposed to the use of referendums in our school districts. It is a method that has been used, and it is a method that has failed. It has failed for all kinds of very real, tangible, provable and demonstrable reasons. For a government desperate to find some excuse to deal with a few taxpayers who have, I think, had a very large voice in its decision-making, a government desperate to follow its leader even though its leader is leading them down the wrong path.... The referendum will go down in history as one of the very bad and ill-conceived decisions of this government.

It's not a good "legacy for learners." It's not a good legacy to come out of the royal commission process. It's not a good legacy for the minister — who has made commitments to working with people — to have as part of the elements that he now has to.... It's very hard for the minister to continue to have the trust and confidence of people when he has so seriously affronted them with a policy initiative and now legislation that brings in something that no boards favour, that the parents' organizations of the province are opposed to and that responsible people — editorial writers, business and all kinds of community people — have indicated they oppose. The minister will go down in history with that albatross — if I could use the words of the columnist whom I quoted from earlier.

We have a long and proud history of school boards who have worked diligently — "zealously," as my historic constituent Mr. John Robson said — on behalf of children. We have school boards who are recognized as being the people who are going to implement the changes that can improve and enhance our school system.

At this particular time, we are looking at a very significant crossroads in the history of the province. It's the last major reform. We should do it right, we should do it better, we can do it better. A removal of the referendum provision would be a very significant step in doing it right and making it better. If the government is listening and hasn't made up its mind, contrary to all the facts, contrary to all the opinions

[ Page 9365 ]

that exist out there, then it would act to eradicate now this particular matter from the legislation that we are beginning to debate.

I have come to the end of my comments, but I understand that the speaker who is going to adjourn debate will be into the House shortly.

Perhaps I can take the opportunity to conclude my remarks with some words from the newly organized British Columbia Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils — formerly the British Columbia Parent-Teacher Home and School Federation. They presented a paper of major concerns on referendums, and although some of the points have been made, I think there are a couple that they make exceedingly well. I'd like their points of view to be on the record too. This document speaks for parents, and there are hundreds of thousands within our province.

"We democratically elect people from our community to be responsible for the operation of our local school system. We trust them — that's why we call them trustees. They should be in a position to determine appropriate programs for school districts and the money needed to operate these programs. We voters can censure school boards through the election process."

Let me make one further comment from that document. "Referendums will deny our school trustees control of their budgets. Instead of providing stability of programming through long-term, consistent planning, there will be crisis management. Students will suffer as a result."

I rest my case, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Minister of Transportation and Highways seeks leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: It seems appropriate, Mr. Speaker, that in our gallery today we have some students visiting us from T.E. Scott Elementary School in Surrey, and I would ask the House to please make them all welcome.

MS. A. HAGEN: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to add my voice of welcome to that of the Minister of Transportation. It is good to have students when we're debating matters of such direct concern to them. I would now move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting.

MR. SPEAKER: We are not in committee but in the House as a whole, so it's Mr. Speaker, not Mr. Chairman. You'll have that opportunity later.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Richmond moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 11:53 a.m.