[ Page 9449 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Motions not on notice –– 9449

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

Ms. Cull –– 9449

Mr. Lovick –– 9453

Mr. Sihota –– 9455

Mr. Williams –– 9459

Mr. Vant –– 9463

Appendix –– 9464

The House met at 10:04 a.m.

Prayers.

MR. VANT: Mr. Speaker, from the great constituency of Cariboo this morning, I am pleased to have present 20 grade 7 students from West Fraser Elementary School, which is south and west of Quesnel. They are accompanied by their teacher, Mrs. Cynthia Bernier. I am sure that the House would like to give them a very warm welcome.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I too would like to ask you to welcome them. This will be a double welcome — as the second member for Cariboo — to the same class.

Motions

HON. MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave of the House to move a motion referring a matter to a select standing committee.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. SMITH: By leave, I move the motion that I'm now referring to the Clerk, referring the matter of the Builders Lien Act to the Select Standing Committee on Labour, Justice and Intergovernmental Relations. [See appendix.]

On the motion.

HON. MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of that motion is to allow the Select Standing Committee on Labour, Justice and Intergovernmental Relations to complete its review of the Builders Lien Act which was referred to them last session. I understand that their preliminary report is substantially written and that the House may be receiving it shortly.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to introduce a motion to refer a matter to the Select Standing Committee on Finance, Crown Corporations and Government Services.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I'd like to introduce a motion to refer the issue of financial planning, regulation and monitoring to the select standing committee, and I have a motion herewith, which I can submit to the Clerk. [See appendix.]

On the motion.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: The purpose of the motion, Mr. Speaker, would be to allow the select standing committee to conclude its deliberations on that weighty subject of financial planners. I understand that they made significant progress in the last session and are close to concluding their deliberations this session.

Motion approved.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I call adjourned second reading debate on Bill 11.

SCHOOL AMENDMENT ACT, 1990

(continued)

MS. CULL: Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to rise today to take my place in this debate and voice my concerns about this flawed bill.

I want to begin by going back to where we started with respect to this bill. I'm going to quote from the royal commission report, A Legacy for Learners:

"In community after community and in numerous written submissions, people deplored and sometimes criticized sharply the confrontational character of provincial schooling in the 1980s, and raised such questions as: 'Why can't we have better cooperation between levels of government and between school professionals and the government? or 'Why can't we have a less volatile educational climate?'"

Such concerns, at least to me, underscore the deepening sense of frustration and impatience with the political storms that have troubled British Columbia's schools in recent years.

On a positive note, however, people spoke about the importance of stability, continuity and better long-range planning in education. They spoke about the fact that any school system by nature consists of interdependent parts, and that unless a climate of cooperation prevails among participants throughout the system, schools will continue to lurch from one crisis to the next.

Much of the friction that has characterized provincial schooling of late was attributable, some said, to matters of school finance. However, as I listened carefully to what such people had to say, I detected that causes of public and professional concern were not bound up entirely in level-of-funding issues, but were also grounded in the considerable uncertainty that seems to surround budgetary planning and the problems local systems encounter in shifting quickly from one funding level to another.

Strong cases were made throughout the hearings for greater predictability in the way schools are financed. That's where we began. That was the goal. That was what the Greater Victoria School District was looking for when I was a member of that board, and that is certainly what the parents, the teachers and the people in my constituency were hoping for coming out of this royal commission report. They wanted stability, predictability and equality.

Mr. Speaker, that was happening to a great extent. There was a lot of cooperation going on in bringing about the implementation of the recommendations in this report in all respects — not only the financial ones, but in other respects in the report. The Educa-

[ Page 9450 ]

tion Policy Advisory Committee — and after that the Education Advisory Council — was working together in a very cooperative fashion, and real progress was being made. Unfortunately, given the progress that was being made in that respect, that is why I find this bill to be such a betrayal. It is a betrayal of the cooperation that was happening at the time. It's a betrayal of the goals that people believed were being pursued as a result of the royal commission's recommendations.

Let me turn now to the bill itself. In the highlights of the bill, I want to read another statement that indicates what was trying to be achieved here. I'm reading from page 6:

"With the passage of the new School Act and the formation of the Education Advisory Council, further consultation and review of funding and taxation occurred and opportunities were provided for the major education stakeholder groups  — trustees, teachers, superintendents, secretary-treasurers — to put forward proposals for change. These groups endorsed the concepts of block funding, economic adjustments, the retention of the fiscal framework distribution system, and recognized the need for cost control."

This comes from the document the ministry has put out to accompany the bill.

The concepts were endorsed and progress was being made; but unfortunately, something got lost between the endorsement of the concepts and the delivery of the bill. What got lost were the concepts that were being worked on — the principles of stability, predictability and equality. They got traded for political expediency. This is a very sad thing.

After pursuing a lengthy, consultative process spanning almost two years with never any mention of referendum as a funding formula, it was suddenly dropped on the stakeholders in education without warning. What that did, after this lengthy process — this very positive process, which I do compliment the minister on — was to destroy the trust that was being worked towards in this whole process. Trust is at the root of all of the problems we've had with funding of public education in British Columbia. I'm going to return to that as I talk about the bill, because I think the question of whether the people in this province — parents, students, teachers and everyone who is concerned with public education — can trust this government is the root of the issue here.

Let's just look at what the bill proposes. First of all, there is the notion of block funding; and as has been said before, we recognize that that's a step forward. I think it's also interesting to point out at this point that in establishing the block funding the ministry finally had to recognize the true costs of public education, including the supplementary amounts that boards had been adding over and above the money allocated through the fiscal framework. The province finally recognized that it had indeed been underfunding public education throughout the years.

If we look at the Greater Victoria School District and some of the examples that came out of that district's supplementary budget last year, there were two very large items. The first was for elementary school counsellors which, until this year and the block funding formula, had never been recognized as a legitimate item in public education.

[10:15]

There is no way that anyone can convince me that children do not have problems until they reach the age of 13. In fact, we know that children start coming to school at the early age of five, with an enormous array of problems that have to be dealt with. Teachers are not equipped to handle these problems in the classroom, and there has been a need for elementary school counsellors. The Greater Victoria School District hired 12 counsellors, funded entirely by the residential taxpayers in the district.

The major item in last year's supplementary budget for the Greater Victoria School District — an item of $600,000 — was to move toward greater integration of special needs children into the system. I use the words "move toward, " because that $600,000 did not nearly achieve the goals that educators and parents want for children in this district; it was only a start. It was a move toward greater integration, but it has in no way and by no means accomplished all the goals that have to be accomplished if we are to fully integrate children with their peers in classrooms. However, those amounts were indeed added to the block funding, so there is a step forward here.

Unfortunately, the block funding has not been indexed. If we go back to the quote that I read from the highlights accompanying the School Act, there was the indication that some general agreement had been reached. Indeed it had. I think the stakeholders in the Education Advisory Council believed that there was commitment towards indexing the block funding, but that hasn't happened in the bill. How can we talk about predictability, stability and long-range planning if a board doesn't know from one year to the next what's going to happen with the block funding or what it will be tied to? There are all kinds of reasonable suggestions put forward for tying the block funding to some kind of indexing formula, some cost of living formula, inflation — whatever — that would have provided this kind of predictability and stability.

The Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Couvelier), in talking about a number of items in the provincial budget, commented on these very principles. He said that we would have to have multi-year funding if we were to know what was going to happen and be able to plan in any kind of reasonable way. This has not happened in this bill. It's a very serious shortcoming that a board knows only for one year what it is going to receive.

The boards also have no idea how the grants above and beyond block funding — for particular programs like the implementation of the Curriculum 2000, Pacific Rim and many of the other special programs — are going to be determined from one year to the next. When I was a member of the Greater Victoria School Board, it was immensely frustrating trying to put a computer program in place. The amount of money required to purchase computers for the 52

[ Page 9451 ]

schools in Greater Victoria School District was considerable. It cannot be done in any one budget year. It needed to be planned out over a number of years, but there was no guarantee that the funding program we could embark on would be able to be achieved, because from one year to the next it wasn't clear what funding was going to be available.

A second concern with the bill is the fact that there aren't any legislative time-lines for the announcements of block funding. The bill requires school boards to submit budget information by March 15. I assume that this information is required by the minister so that he can determine details of the block funding. Surely the information is being submitted for a reason. That is less than two weeks before a referendum decision has to be made and less than four weeks before the referendum actually has to be held. That creates some real problems. School districts will not know what kind of money they will be getting before they have to make the decision about asking the residential taxpayers to pay more.

Budgets have to be finalized by April 20. That is before the ministry has announced the school tax rates, and before the boards know what grants they're getting for the special programs over and above block funding. This year, in fact, it was one day after the provincial budget. Boards are not going to know what kind of funding they are going to be receiving.

There are no legislative time-lines that give them the amount of time they need to do the planning that the Minister of Finance has said is necessary for many other areas of our economy, and which I think the Minister of Education would agree is required in education planning as well.

I just don't see how this can contribute to stability, predictability and equality — the very goals that we are supposed to be striving to achieve through this process.

I want to talk a little bit now about the referendum. This is the most divisive issue in the entire bill. Milt McClaren, who is a professor of education at Simon Fraser University, has said that the Education minister sincerely supports the Sullivan commission recommendations, but the referendum issue has now deflected everyone's attention from education to finance and has ruined the climate for change at the district level.

One has to ask: why is this referendum approach even in the bill? The rules that have been set out that apply to referendums in the way that they can be advertised, in the time-lines that they must be advertised, in the kinds of things that can be funded are in fact, to me and to many people looking at the system, deliberately designed to sabotage referendums. If the rules are not enough to sabotage them, the statements of the minister and the Premier prior to the referendum appeared to do the very same thing — to defeat and to deflect the referendums.

The point is that the whole question of referendums has changed the climate for cooperation within the public education system in British Columbia and created a climate of distrust and confrontation — back to the school wars that we were trying to avoid by going through the Royal Commission on Education.

The referendums create chaos in the system. To begin with, they apply for only one year. Imagine funding a local capital initiative like a road or an arena on that basis, having to raise all of the money in one calendar year. What if the second year fails? How does the program continue? Is it completed from operating funds? Do we take money out of other projects and try to continue the project? Certainly we're not going to abandon something that we've invested money in one year because money is not raised the next year. What is the impact on budgets of this one-year planning?

Imagine a municipality having to raise money for operating costs, because that's what we're talking about here. Imagine a municipality having to raise money for police services or firefighters via referendums on a year-by-year basis. One year you have a police department; maybe the next year you don't. Imagine any program we might fund in the school system  — such as feeding hungry children or integrating special-needs children into classrooms — being on one year and off the next. Why would school boards even start if the second year was not certain? Is that wise management of our tax money? Of course it's not. It's a crazy way to run a system, and that's what many of the school boards in this province have said.

School boards are not going to know until days before they decide to go to a referendum whether in fact they need to. As I said earlier, there are no legislative time-lines for announcements on block funding. They're not going to know what the tax rate is going to be, and they're not going to know what the special grants are going to be. Really, what this bill is saying to school boards is that you have to go to referendums, saying to the public: "We don't know what your school taxes are going to be, and we don't really know what our full funding is going to be. Would you be willing to pay more anyway?" It's hardly a reasonable proposition.

We had a situation last week where we actually had the opportunity to pilot legislation in advance of it being passed. I think the pilot project that occurred in the nine referendums over the weekend shows that it has failed, that this is a flawed bill and that it must be reconsidered. Referendums are already creating inequality. We now have two school districts that have been able to raise additional funds above and beyond the block funding. They will be able to provide programs that neighbouring schools will not be able to provide. The inequality that happens between boards in neighbouring communities, where the difference in the amount of money provided for one student is of the order of $800, makes no sense. Yes, there are differences between school districts, but neighbouring school districts having a difference of $800 per pupil makes no sense.

We know from other experience that referendums do not assist in quality public education. We're not inventing a wheel here. We can look around this country and around the continent to see what has

[ Page 9452 ]

happened in other districts and other jurisdictions when school referendums have been used to fund public education. We can learn from the mistakes. They have failed everywhere. Everywhere they have been tried they have created inequality and have harmed — not furthered — the cause of public education.

The minister says that block funding will prevent this, that block funding will be adequate and that all school districts will have an adequate and equal amount to fund their programs. But that comes back to the question I raised at the beginning of my remarks — the question of trust. Unfortunately the people in my community and the people in British Columbia do not trust this government to provide adequate funding for public education, and to continue to provide it, because that hasn't been done in the past. The Minister of Education is saying: "Trust me that this year we will provide you with an adequate amount of funding, and trust me that funding will be adequate in future years." Most people base their trust on their experience and on the past record, and the past record of funding public education in British Columbia by the Social Credit government has been dismal.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nonsense!

MS. CULL: During the early part of the 1980s, the Social Credit government gutted public education funding. I am truly sorry for the minister in this regard, because I think that he has, for the most part, supported the recommendations of the royal commission and wanted to try to move away from the school wars of the 1980s. But unfortunately, politics prevailed — politics that pit one group against another and that thrive on confrontation. Unfortunately, that's the style of educational management we've had in this province over the last decade.

The background paper says that we needed these changes because of escalating school costs. I'd like to bring a local perspective to this whole question. Last year, during the property tax reform forums, Donna Jones — then the chair of the Greater Victoria School Board and now the president of the B.C. School Trustees' Association — gave a personal perspective on the cost of public education. She looked at her own family's income and taxes over the period from 1981 to 1988. During that time, her family's salary was raised by 50 percent, municipal taxes went up 45 percent, federal taxes went up 67 percent, provincial taxes increased by 74 percent and school taxes went up, 13 percent. In fact, if you took the 1989 taxes paid by the Jones family in the Greater Victoria School District and converted them to 1981 dollars, you would find that they were paying $5 less than they were eight years previously. Overall, I think these figures show that public schools have been a better bargain than the provincial government under this administration.

It's interesting, though, that when you look at the background report, all of the charts that show the costs of education skyrocketing start in 1986 and go to 1989. One has to ask the question: "What was happening between 1981 and 1985?" The answer to that question is that school taxes decreased by 17 percent.

Perhaps there's another agenda here; maybe that's what we should be looking for. The cutbacks of the early 1980s created the problems that we're facing today in the 1990s. It was the underfunding in the early part of the 1980s during the restraint period that created the financing problems that we have today in these districts.

[10:30]

Again using a local example, Lampson Street School in Esquimalt was closed during the early 1980s because of restraint. In fact, it was closed and not even occupied in any fashion because the board felt so restrained in terms of its money that it could not keep that building in operation.

It is being reopened today at the cost of approximately $3 million, far more than would have been spent if that building had been maintained — had been used, heated and kept in decent repair — so that it could be used again, as we knew it would when the enrolments started to increase at the end of the 1980s.

The lack of jobs during the early part of the eighties and the restriction on salaries have contributed to the teacher shortage that we face today. We have been so shortsighted in our education financing policies that we have put the public school system on some kind of a crazy roller-coaster where we cut back for a number of years and then panic to repair the damage that has been done. Surely the principles of equality, predictability and stability demand a more sensible approach to education financing.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

But why? Let's go back to what was going on with Bill 11. Is there, in fact, another agenda? I quote from a speech that the past president of the B.C. School Trustees' Association, Charles Hingston, gave at the end of April at the annual general meeting of the BCSTA. He said:

"I am being forced to believe that the process whereby a funding and taxation package that received unanimous approval at the Education Advisory Council, and certainly, from their reaction, was acceptable to the Minister and Deputy Minister of Education, has been derailed by a cabinet more interested in the short-term political gains of so-called direct democracy than in the welfare of British Columbia's public education system."

What is the agenda here? I think the agenda is the elimination of democratically, locally elected school boards. That's what we're moving towards here: the elimination of local control by publicly elected local people over education in the districts.

It's such a shortsighted agenda, because while this government may not believe that locally elected school boards have value, the citizens of British Columbia certainly support them. A recent provincewide survey of B.C. adults found that 83 percent of those were satisfied with their local school boards' management of the school system, and 72 percent

[ Page 9453 ]

said that local school boards should have more control over schools.

Only 18 percent of those surveyed believed the provincial government should have more control. Further, 81 percent of the respondents rated local school boards as a reliable source of education information. Only 40 percent rated the B.C. education minister as a reliable source of information about schools. That's what it's all about, Mr. Speaker. It is about trust.

This survey shows that the people of British Columbia do not trust this government to provide reliable information about schools. They do not trust this government to deliver on promises of adequate funding, predictability, stability and equality. They trust their local school boards.

That's why this bill, which is an attack on local school boards, is such a betrayal of the royal commission recommendations and the process that everyone entered into in good faith in this province in trying to get away from the confrontational aspects that marked school funding and the planning and delivery of education in this province for so many years.

In conclusion, I want to say that schools are not a charity. They're not a social service. They are part of the infrastructure of this province. They are every bit as important a part of the infrastructure as highways and hydro. They deserve to be funded in the same predictable, stable and equal way that the infrastructure of this province is funded.

Rarely do we get an opportunity to pilot legislation in advance of its being passed. The nine referendums that were held this weekend were a pilot project. They now — two of them having passed and seven failed — have put us on the road to creating have and have-not districts.

We have seen what happens. We have a chance to go back and take a second look. And I ask the Minister of Education to do that, to take a second look, to reconsider, to go back to the cooperative approach that was being built prior to this legislation being dumped on the people in this province. It's going to be difficult to do, because trust, once it has been betrayed, is very hard to earn back. But I don't believe it's too late. This bill could be pulled, and a more equal, predictable and stable system could be put in place.

MR. LOVICK: I am rather surprised that there is nobody from the other side leaping to his or her feet to defend this particular measure. However, that is not surprising, because indeed on the other side they are wont to discourse like angels in defence of a particular measure, but then come the opportunity, they run like rabbits. How sad it is, on this important measure, that we don't see all members opposite, not merely the Minister of Education, who is duty bound, of course, to defend the measure, even if he disagrees with it — which we suspect to be the case.... But sadly we discover that all those backbenchers — that great multiplicity of members whose only duty in life is to say: "Ready, aye ready, tell me what to do next" — aren't leaping to their feet. How sad that is.

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House are certainly prepared to participate in this debate and to do so with some energy, some commitment and some feeling.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: How about some facts?

MR. LOVICK: And some facts, too, for the Minister of Education, who I am happy to see has discovered that word. I didn't know it was in his vocabulary prior to this moment.

We are pleased, as I say, to talk about this particular measure because it gives us an opportunity to focus on what is called "the principle of the bill." The School Amendment Act before us, second reading — that's what we're doing now — is about the principle of the bill.

I want to devote my remarks today to the referendum part of the legislation — clearly the most outstanding feature of the legislation, clearly the most contentious part of the legislation. And I want to argue, at least for a few moments, that the referendum dimension of this particular measure demonstrates that this bill is an unprincipled bill.

Here we are talking about the principle of the bill, but when I look at the referendum part of the legislation proposed, I see a blatant, patent, glaring lack of principle. I can come to no other conclusion. The reason I say this bill is fundamentally unprincipled is that it is so transparently clear that this referendum measure is politics pure and simple — the politics of revenge, the politics of punishing your enemies and maybe rewarding your friends, the worst kind of politics, the kind of politics that gives all politics a bad name.

The purpose of this bill, it seems fair to conclude if one looks closely, is to create hostility towards public education, specifically teachers. All of us who have watched the political scene in British Columbia for any length of time know that Social Credit and teachers tend to be incompatible. They do not like one another as species. This measure, it's safe to say, is showing the Social Credit Party and government getting its revenge on teachers. The objective is to create a state of war — taxpayers versus greedy, self-serving teachers. That's the agenda; it's just that clear. Comments made by various members opposite over the past three years demonstrate the validity of that conclusion. Clearly they don't have much love for the BCTF, whoever the president may be. Clearly they don't have much love for teachers because they fear that those educated folks don't believe in Social Credit. The measure, then, has nothing to do with education. It has everything to do with attacking teachers.

Why would I draw that conclusion beyond the obvious history in this province? The answer is really pretty straightforward. All you have to do is reflect ever so briefly on the nature of referendum — on what actually goes on.

Local school boards, let us never forget, are politicians who are on the front lines. Those are the people who are in their communities all the time,

[ Page 9454 ]

making decisions on behalf of the communities, who stand for re-election on a fairly regular basis in most communities. They have to make tough decisions regarding spending, which will have a direct and immediately recognizable impact on their constituencies. Who, then, could possibly imagine that any school trustee — in her or his right mind — would consciously and deliberately say: "We're going to the people to ask for more money"? Unless, of course, they concluded they had no choice. No school trustees with any amount of brains or ability could possibly support the proposition of going to referendum unless they had no choice in the matter. It's a simple calculation. There's nothing mysterious in this. Even the minister opposite seems to be nodding his head with some understanding of that point.

Mr. Speaker, those individuals in the front lines and the trenches who go to the taxpayers asking for more money know that is effectively the kiss of death on their political careers and on their own futures, unless they conclude they have no choice — in fairness to ourselves as trustees, in fairness to what we perceive the education system ought to be and in fairness to the people who work within the system.

Nine school boards in this province went to referendum. It's worth noting that two of those school boards — the two coincidentally that passed the referendum: Vancouver and Richmond — represent the significant, large and certainly something close to the majority of B.C.'s population. Those two by themselves, significantly enough, voted for referendum. They did so knowing full well that they, the trustees, are going to take a beating. They are going to risk something, but they did so. They did so because they believe in the system, and they deny emphatically all the claims made by the Minister of Education that there is sufficient money in the block funding for them to do the job that ought to be done. There's no other way to cut it, Mr. Minister. There's no other possible conclusion there.

It doesn't make sense to say: "They're playing politics." They aren't playing politics, because it's their particular careers that they're putting on the line. They did it only because they said: "We must do this if we believe in the system. We must do this because we further conclude that the Ministry of Education has not provided sufficient funding." There can be no other conclusion.

Every school board that goes to referendum in this province — or who went to referendum — effectively made a statement to the Minister of Education that your claims, Mr. Minister, about sufficient funding are false. That's what they said; they voted with their feet. They voted by going into the process of referendum, despite knowing that that is a perilous enterprise at best.

Beyond that unprincipled dimension of the bill I have been referring to, there is another problem. It probably has something to do with the history of this government vis-à-vis education. The history of this government, as we know, tends to be to make statements that are — to put it charitably — misleading. They are statements that are capable of more than one construction.

I would refer you briefly to the press release that accompanied the discussion paper from the Ministry of Education entitled: "Bill 11, School Amendment Act, 1990: Highlights of School Finance Legislation, 1990."

The press release attached to that document — indeed the first page of the document — states that the purpose of the measure is to "ensure a fair, predictable and accountable system." The reality is that none of those adjectives applies and obtains if one looks closely at what this measure is. Worse is the fact that we have also embedded in that first paragraph a suggestion that is patently misleading — namely, that this legislation "is another important step in responding to the call for change contained in the report of the Royal Commission on Education."

Nobody called for a referendum in that royal commission. That came as a great surprise to everybody, and the only call for the referendum legislation came from — we all know — the Premier, the great puppeteer of the province. He's the guy who pulls the strings, and all the other folks on the other side dance happily to those strings being pulled.

[10:45]

We also know that the Premier has made his position very clear on the subject of referendum. Indeed, he went so far as to tell the good burghers of Richmond — his own constituency — that he wouldn't vote for it; moreover, nor would his spouse. They wouldn't vote for it, for it was obviously unnecessary. What then do you think is being stated by the voters of Richmond today who have rejected that interference and that specific advice from the Premier of the province?

I heard my own leader being quoted on the radio this morning saying that he, the leader of the opposition, had revised his position regarding when the election would be called. Obviously the Social Credit Party and the Social Credit government recognized that whatever fond hope they had of being re-elected has been diminished accordingly in the last weeks. Of course, what happened with the Premier and the referendum in Richmond is a wonderful illustration of precisely that phenomenon. Given the slap in the face the Premier received in Richmond, I wonder whether this government will ever call an election. I suspect we might even have another constitutional crisis in this province worthy of Mackenzie King and Lord Byng or some such thing. It could be fun to speculate.

I want to turn briefly to another dimension of the referendum legislation. This one is beyond politics, beyond scoring points on the other side — which is rather too easy to do, and I sometimes feel guilty about shooting fish in barrels and such stuff. I want to focus on what I think is the fundamental flaw in using referenda for determining education funding.

A number of people have alluded to the fact that it is a prescription for a two-tiered system. Certainly the experience we have in the United States would demonstrate that that is the case. As we know, there

[ Page 9455 ]

are jurisdictions in the United States where school boards have literally had to sell their playing-fields to private contractors in order to meet their expenses. There are some scandalous stories from other jurisdictions that most of us on this side of the House, at least, are familiar with.

What I want to touch on — and it is so crucial to focus on it — is this. What's wrong with the referendum system and its propensity to create a two-tiered system is that it flies directly in the face of the view of society that I like to think all of us would share: the notion that we are or ought to be a society based on, at the very least, equality of opportunity. We on this side perhaps are somewhat more inclined to say we advocate a society that approaches more closely to equality; but let's for the sake of argument say that we are all united even on the proposition of a meritocratic society — a society based on equality of opportunity where we all have an equal opportunity to compete for unequal rewards. But what you get in that construct of a society is a commitment to mobility, a commitment that's built into the system so individuals who have not had the privilege to be born in privileged circumstances have an opportunity to improve their condition.

Throughout the history of North American society, that opportunity has been manifest in the education system. Our education system has made it possible for us to explain inequalities; because our education system, insofar as it's universal, accessible and roughly equal in the benefits it offers to all of our citizens, justifies inequality. It says we have an equal opportunity to compete for unequal rewards. But what if we don't have an equal opportunity to compete? Then what we are endorsing of necessity is a system of entrenched inequalities that will go on from generation to generation: a two-tiered system that, if you like, becomes institutionalized and that we turn our backs on and say we can't do anything about.

If this government believes in democracy, mobility and the right to equal opportunity, then this government should be positively zealous, positively fanatical in its commitment to ensuring equal treatment throughout the province to students everywhere. The referendum doesn't allow for that. It is just as clear as any piece of well-shone glass that the referendum is a propensity to create a two-tiered system. That's inevitable. There is no argument against that.

Interjection.

MR. LOVICK: What I'm trying to suggest to members opposite.... I understand the member from Burnaby has difficulty following anything that talks beyond dollars and cents. What I'm trying to articulate is that it's totally inconsistent with your own philosophy, with what you people purport to believe in. If you won't accept a proposition that we should have a society that is egalitarian, you will accept — you always have accepted — that our inequalities must be based on equal opportunities. What you're doing with this legislation, however, is systematizing inequalities. You're taking away the possibility for equality of opportunity. That's what's so indefensible about the referendum proposition. That's why my colleagues and I have spoken out against it.

I know a number of my colleagues are anxious to speak on this measure, so I shan't take up all the time I'm allowed. Instead, let me just offer a couple of other observations very briefly.

In my own constituency of Nanaimo, our trustees estimated we lost some $2 million in the shuffle — if you will — by the move to block funding. "Because my community has been through difficult times, because we are not a wealthy community" — whatever that may mean — "obviously the trustees decided they would not hold a referendum." I think they chose wisely. It was inevitable that we would have lost such a vote. The point, though, is that they, like so many other boards across the province, have effectively said that under protest they are not holding a referendum — just as those nine boards that went to referendum were staging a protest.

What we are seeing in this bill is, as I say, revenge of the worst kind: an assault on teachers, schools trustees and ultimately on children. The referendum aspect of this legislation is retrograde and a backward step. It seems to me the measure ought then to be defeated.

MR. SIHOTA: In the three and a half years that I've been a member of the Legislature I don't think I've thought as much about a bill as I have about this one. I don't think a bill has troubled me as much as this one has. I was thinking about it this morning, because I was recollecting the debate that we had about Bill 19, which was a rather heated debate in this House. Even that legislation and debate did not have the type of social impact that this legislation has. Even that legislation did not have the potential to cause as much long-term harm as this legislation does.

I find it very troubling that the government has introduced this legislation for referendum. I want to talk at some length about why it is that after a lot of thought I'm opposed to this bill and why I'm really concerned about the impact that this bill may have on education throughout British Columbia.

There's no responsibility in my mind that's been entrusted to us that is greater than the responsibility to ensure that we provide an education system in this province that ensures that we not only produce model citizens but also guarantees that we produce students who are capable of meeting the demands of the next century. Education, as everybody has said so often, is really the key to the future. It is absolutely vital that our young people have access to a first-class quality education system. If this legislation was designed to achieve that purpose, I'd have no hesitation in supporting it. I'd have no hesitation to break ranks with my caucus if this was what was required to do that, but this legislation is no way to run a school system.

[Mr. De Jong in the chair.]

[ Page 9456 ]

I was interested in reading this morning what the Times-Colonist and the Vancouver Sun had to say in their editorials with respect to this piece of legislation. I'm not going to read the whole editorial, but I quote from the this morning's Times-Colonist:

"But critics responded that the government's idea of adequate funding might not be shared by school districts. The system, they said, was bound to create inequities between rich and poor school districts; that referendums might succeed in densely populated, relatively affluent areas but would almost certainly go down to defeat in rural areas.

"With this system in place, it is hard to see how some B.C. school districts can avoid becoming educational ghettos lacking the facilities and special programs enjoyed by their urban counterparts. There has to be a better, fairer way of funding our school system."

I don't think I could have expressed my thoughts better than what is said in the Times-Colonist editorial. In fact, Mr. Speaker, let me go on to say that the types of disparities that that editorial talks about exist now. All that this legislation will achieve is to further exacerbate those disparities. For example, when one takes a look at my own constituency and takes a look at the kinds of disparities that exist between the Sooke School Board and the Saanich School Board, it's already clear that those areas of the province that are affluent tend to have a better education system than those that are not. The kinds of disparities that the editorial refers to exist right now.

The Saanich School District spends about $275 more per student than the Sooke School District does. It has, interestingly, a thousand fewer students than the Sooke School District does. I'm told it has about a hundred more teachers than the Sooke School District. Already, that school district in Saanich, in my view, is ahead of what we can offer our students in Sooke. For example, in the Sooke School District, as of today, we have no French immersion program. Many French immersion programs already exist in the Saanich School District. If I may say, in my riding there is only one school — Victor Brodeur, which is in the Greater Victoria School District — that offers a French immersion program.

[11:00]

In my riding — particularly with respect to the Sooke School District, since we're comparing those two — a major library study was completed, I believe, in February 1988. It concluded that we needed improvements to the tune of $300,000 to bring our libraries in the Sooke School District up to grade. Last year the school board found $40,000 to hire some aides and to begin the task of improving our libraries. This year they had to lay off the aides they had last year. We are behind in that school district with respect to the types of library programs, French immersion programs and computer programs we can offer.

There are disparities in the school district itself. For example, we have certain schools  — Sooke Elementary being one of them — where we have the kids running their little Macintosh labs and having proper facilities to do that. It's really amazing to see what those kids can do when they're put in front of a computer. It's remarkable to look at the skills they have — skills that I, being computer-illiterate, don't have — and at what they can achieve with access to computers. Yet I have other schools in my district where computers are tucked away in janitorial closets or out on trolleys in the halls, and we don't have adequate facilities for the kids to properly utilize computer programs.

We're lacking in that regard, and there's a tremendous need to find the extra dollars to provide computer facilities in the Sooke School District. It's essential, as I said earlier, if we're to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, that the Sooke School District have adequate resources and facilities for computer labs.

Mr. Speaker, the Royal Commission on Education talked about the four strands of education. One of those, of course, is fine arts. It said that we have to move in that area. As an example, of the 15 elementary schools in the Sooke School District, only five offer band programs. Despite the fact that other schools have requested that type of program, we don't have the dollars to provide the service. So not all kids get the same opportunity in the school district and in the province. As I was saying, the discrepancies are very clear when one takes a look at the comparisons I made between Saanich and Sooke.

Does this referendum legislation have the ability to put an end to those types of disparities, or will it accentuate them? The reason I'm speaking against the legislation is that I believe it will serve only to accentuate those disparities. I think the reasons are well reflected in the letter the school district directed to the Minister of Education. I'd like to put their letter of April 10, 1990, on the record. It says as follows:

"The board of school trustees of School District 62 voted to write to you concerning the new block funding and referenda approach for raising additional funds for education. As you know, for the 1989-90 school year, school boards were able to go to the local taxpayers for additional supplemental budgets. The Sooke School Board was cognizant of the concerns of our taxpayers toward increased local school taxes and only asked for a modest amount, although we needed more to achieve a lower pupil-teacher ratio, as in Saanich.

"Consequently, since the block funding for 1990-91 is based in large part on the prior year's budget, this district's base figure is lower than many others in the province. As an example, in 1989-90 the Saanich School District, which has 1,000 fewer students than Sooke, has a net supplementary figure of $5.7 million. This is contrasted with Sooke's net supplementary figure of $3.2 million. As a result, Saanich, which is adjacent to Sooke and in many ways directly comparable in terms of operating costs, receives $275 per student more in block funding.

"This reminds our trustees of previous inequities, such as the restraint program initiated in 1982. In 1981 the Sooke trustees rolled back their budget; approximately $800,000 was cut. Shortly thereafter, the government initiated its own restraint program and further trimmed from Sooke's already reduced base. This caused considerable hardship for the Sooke School District over the ensuing three years.

[ Page 9457 ]

"Our board has determined that it will not go to referendum in April 1990. We feel that the demographics of this district are such that a referendum would fail here. In another school district, where the demographics are different, the same referendum might pass. Consequently, the government has created a situation where students throughout the province can receive different levels of financial support and, ultimately, varying qualities of education.

"The present method of determining block funding to school districts and the referenda approach are inequitable, and can create disparities in education throughout the province. We ask that the government review these two aspects so that the situation can be rectified.

"Yours truly, Joan Hoffman, Chairperson, Board of School Trustees, Sooke School District"

Mr. Speaker, the trustees in my riding point to the demographics of their area. I think that underlines the real reason why the disparities that we have now will continue to be accentuated. In my riding, and particularly on the western end of my riding, we have a very large proportion of people who have very little in the way of disposable income. We have in this area the greatest proportion of seniors who are over 65 and on fixed incomes. Nowhere in the greater Victoria area — in fact, nowhere on Vancouver Island — is there as large a proportion of people on fixed incomes as there is in my riding. We have a number of people on limited incomes. We have a large group of people who have what I would describe as modest incomes, people who go out and work, day in and day out, and live from paycheque to paycheque. They don't have a lot of disposable income. It is unlikely that these people will be agreeable to a referendum that seeks to increase their taxes, that seeks to provide additional funding for education, as much as they would like to provide funding for education.

On the other hand, in the Saanich School District.... I regret to see that the Minister of Education has chosen to leave the room in the middle of this speech, Mr. Speaker. In any event, that's not unusual. I find that whenever I give a speech, the members opposite try to leave, as some way of irritating those of us who are speaking against legislation.

As I was saying, in the Saanich School District there just simply is a larger percentage of affluent people. There is a larger percentage of people that have more in terms of disposable income. There is a smaller percentage of people that are on fixed incomes. It is therefore more likely that they will be agreeable to a referendum than would be the case in my riding. Therefore the percentage chance of a referendum passing in the Saanich School District is greater than in the Sooke School District.

When you recognize, as I said earlier on, the disparities that exist between those two school districts already and the situation in which we find ourselves in the Sooke School District, it is therefore, I think, reasonable to assume that there will be an accentuating of the disparities between those school districts. As a Times-Colonist editorial put it, "the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer." The more affluent school districts with large populations are more likely to pass a referendum than are areas such as mine. Areas such as mine are already, as I said, behind.

Let me just indicate the extent to which they fall behind the other areas. If you take a look at class size, which is one variable, and you take a look at class size at the elementary level, of our 75 school districts, only eight have a larger average class size at the elementary level than the Sooke School District. We have one of the largest class sizes at the elementary level. At the secondary level, out of the 75 school districts, we rank sixty-second. So 61 other districts have offered to their students smaller class size than is the case in the Sooke School District. When one takes a look at other statistical evidence, again the same types of numbers emerge. For example, when you take a look at pupil-teacher ratios and the amount of money being spent on education by district, we rank sixty-sixth in amount of money spent on education and sixty-eighth with respect to pupil-teacher ratios. Those are 1989-90 figures. So we are at the bottom end. And it is going to be even more difficult for the Sooke School District to make it up.

In both that portion of the Victoria district that is situated in my riding and the Sooke School District — Vic West, Esquimalt and View Royal, of course, fall into my riding — a lot of people are poor, quite frankly, and find themselves caught in a cycle of poverty. For a lot of parents, and particularly single parents.... And I must say that in the last year alone there has been a 29 percent increase in the number of single parents living in my riding. For a lot of those parents who find themselves caught in this cycle of poverty, the only hope they have that their children will break from that cycle of poverty is an education system. They hope that their kids will have access to the best education system that can possibly be provided.

Given the disparities that I have already spoken about, it is clear that they aren't getting the best possible education system. It's clear that we have on the poor side of town — if I can put it that way — already larger class sizes, less teachers and less money spent on education than in the more affluent areas such as Saanich and Oak Bay.

Consequently there is no equality of opportunity, and it's going to be even tougher for those kids to break out of that cycle of poverty and for their parents to realize their dream of their children finding their way out. I think that's unfortunate. If this system was designed to attend to that very important social problem, I would feel differently about the legislation. But I don't see that happening.

I must say that it troubles me when I talk to parent groups in my riding and they tell me of the needs that they see there for education services. Some of the things that they talk about are very basic. Let me again speak first of the Sooke School District and then of that portion of the Victoria district that sits in my riding.

[ Page 9458 ]

On January 17, 1990, the Sooke Parents' Educational Advisory Council wrote to the finance and facilities committee of the Sooke School District. What did they want? They wanted computer labs and, as I have said already, the school district was unable to provide that. They wanted better band programs and, as I have already said, they were unable to provide that. They asked for funding for field trips, and that was increased only nominally.

On January 15, 1990, the Wishart School supporters wrote to the school trustees in the riding and asked for computer labs for elementary schools. The school district wasn't able to provide that. It seems to me that's a very basic need that is required today.

Interjection.

MR. SIHOTA: The minister says Courtenay has made the right decision. I'll also put on record a letter from Courtenay that I have here.

The Wishart School supporters asked for playground equipment. That was turned down by the school trustees. They asked for learning assistance programs and elementary counsellors, and were unable to get what they had asked for. Library programs, fine arts programs and elementary band programs were the other requests that they made. Again those were turned down.

[11:15]

I notice that the members on the Socred side are heckling away. I find it most disturbing that not one member of the Social Credit party has stood up this morning in defence of this legislation which has this type of impact, and on Friday I understand only one or two did. On the whole I think it's clear, if one takes a look at who's been debating on this, that 75 percent of the speakers so far have been New Democrats, and very few Socreds have even stood up to defend this legislation. They are ashamed of this legislation. They know that it is fundamentally and philosophically wrong, but they have been told by the Premier, who likes to impose his will on his caucus, that they have to vote for this bad legislation.

Savory Elementary on January 10 asked for a reintroduction of elementary school bands. That was turned down. They asked for French immersion. I have already told the minister through this speech that if the kids in that area want French immersion, they have to go to the greater Victoria area to get it.

Among the things that the John Stubbs home and school group asked for was additional teacher aids for difficult or integrated special students. That was not fully provided, and I must say they find it troublesome that the Ministry of Health is not prepared to assist in that regard. They asked for additional teachers to lower the class sizes and, needless to say, that was not provided.

Among the things that the David Cameron home and school group asked for was computer labs and playground equipment — requests that were turned down because the money wasn't there.

The representatives from the Belmont Secondary School parents' advisory council said that they would like to see the budget maintain the current level of education services for the students of the district. Again....

Interjection.

MR. SIHOTA: The member says that's exactly what was done. I can tell him that wasn't done. For example, on the supply side of the budget — and we're talking about pencils, papers, chalk and that kind of stuff — the budget doesn't reflect any cost-of-living or inflationary factors, so they were not able to maintain the level of education.

The Dunsmuir parents' advisory council said: "It is important to provide a maintenance budget for 1990-91. By maintenance budget, we refer to services and programs, not the level of funding." Again it was the latter that may have been maintained, but there was a real fall when one takes into account the inflationary figures and the fact that on the supply side they were unable to live up to the cost of living.

It's clear that there are tremendous needs in our education system, and they are very basic. I think computers are very basic in today's society.

I said I would talk a bit about the greater Victoria area. In the Greater Victoria School District we have the same needs. For example, we are seeing tremendous growth in the Vic West, Esquimalt and View Royal areas and tremendous growth in the number of young families moving there and therefore in the demands being made on our facilities. As a consequence, we've had to increase the number of portables in that overloaded component area. I think there are plans now to have five portables put in at Victoria West, and I'm told we have two now at Rockheights. I'm told by school board officials that it's likely we will see more being needed.

We have a beautiful school — Lampson Street Elementary. It's not only a potential school site but a heritage site that desperately needs funding. Again this government has been slow to provide funding for it. I want the minister to know that when we get to estimates, I will be pounding him hard to make sure we get the funding we require for Lampson Street School to assist us in dealing with the overcrowding and shortage of space that exist on the western side of the Greater Victoria School District.

I'm disappointed to see, with respect to those types of capital programs, that the Ministry of Education has said that it will grant it only an intermediate level of priority, which means they're not going to get funding this year. I'll tell you that I'm going to be pushing hard for a high-level priority so that we get the priority funding that ought to be allocated to the Lampson Street School, so that we can open it and get the $2 million needed to get it going.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

In the meantime, students on the west side suffer from inadequate facilities and a higher student-teacher ratio than on the other side of that school district. There are pressing needs in the area. The

[ Page 9459 ]

referendum system does not tend to any of these desperate needs; in fact, it will only accentuate the disparities that exist between the school districts to the extent that I've pointed out.

It is clear, as the Vancouver Sun said in its editorial today.... Let me quote it.

Interjections.

MR. SIHOTA: I'll only quote it because it seems to upset the members opposite, who prefer to heckle and not listen. It is entitled "A Second Look" and it says in the final line: "Referendum No. 1 has been a disaster. If there are to be more, Victoria should give the whole procedure a hard second look."

If the government wants to have referendums, then let's have referendums. But I don't think we should have referendums around these types of educational needs and priorities. This government builds the whole argument around democracy and the fact that the people's opinions must be heard. I wonder why this government doesn't hold referendums on some of the other decisions that it makes. Why is it afraid, for example, to go to referendum the next time the Premier wants to buy a jet? He spent $7 million on a jet for himself, a jet that we can't use right now. Talk about wasted money! Why don't we have referendums on that?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, we're really getting rambling. I realize that second reading debate has some sort of latitude to it, but to begin discussing another ministry and other ministries' administrative capacity on this bill.... I realize that the member is at a loss to think of something to say about this bill, but that's not our fault. I think the Chair should advise the member to speak to the principle of the bill, and the Legislative Assembly will be well served.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank the minister. I must note that the member was referring to referendums.

MR. SIHOTA: That's just typical of the Socreds when they feel a little sting. When they've been exposed for what they really are, all of a sudden they stand up, object and have these matters of order. Yet not one of them has spoken this morning on the bill. We've had three New Democrats in a row stand up and express their opposition to this bill, and not one member of the Social Credit Party has stood up. The same thing happened on Thursday, and with two exceptions it happened on Friday.

They don't want to defend this bill. If you want to have referendums, have them on the Premier's jet. If you want a referendum, have it on Meech Lake. If you want to have a referendum, have it on privatization. You just blew $13 million on privatization. Why don't you have a referendum on that? Do you want referendums? Have it on the ads you put on TV every night — $11 million of taxpayers' money wasted on television ads. If you want referendums, have them.

What you do instead is play politics, and in this case you are playing politics with kids.

HON. L. HANSON: Let's have an election.

MR. SIHOTA: If you want a real referendum, have an election. There are winners and losers in the referendum, but the real losers are the kids. If you want to have a political fight, have it with me, and have it with other members of our caucus. Don't have it against the kids. Pick on someone your own size.

MR. WILLIAMS: I have a highly detailed dissertation for the House this morning. Everybody knows what fond feelings I have for the school system, and I'm certainly here today to elaborate on that.

I think the really important point to make about this legislation is that it will accelerate the inequalities of the system. That's really the core issue. When you get a school district like Vancouver — as it has done just in this last weekend — voting for a referendum and voting on a base that is apparently substantially more than other districts, then the inequalities start widening. This is a government that seems, like so many other administrations — Reagan in the United States and Thatcher in Great Britain — to accept that widening gap and, in fact, to help push it and divide society more.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: How about Sweden?

MR. WILLIAMS: There's a thoughtful lob from the Minister of Education. Indeed, how about Sweden? It's a non sequitur, thank you very much. How about the vote in Vancouver on the weekend? How about the vote in Surrey on the weekend? How about the vote in Richmond on the weekend?

AN HON. MEMBER: Abbotsford.

MR. WILLIAMS: Yes. You know, it just pushes the gap wider between haves and have-nots.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: You don't understand it, do you?

MR. WILLIAMS: There's a have-not problem, and the have-not neighbourhoods in the city of Vancouver, by and large, voted for a tax on themselves. Now that's something. You check out the downtown east side; you check the polls at Carnegie Centre. For the folks over there who don't know where Carnegie Centre is, it's at Main and Hastings. It's a community centre that many of us in the city are very proud of, because it has provided a stimulus and opportunities in a community that wouldn't be there otherwise — no thanks to this government; that's a civic initiative.

Vancouver has lifted itself, in a broad sense, so far out of the way you mundane folks snooze over here that there is an urban economy just moving along, leaving you all behind. We get people now in places like Carnegie Centre who say: "Damn it, we're ready to vote for more money to keep our schools decent in

[ Page 9460 ]

this part of the city." That's at Carnegie. Look at Strathcona, in the heart of Chinatown — the same sort of response: "We're ready to vote for money for our kids and for the schools that we make use of."

But you've given them loaded dice to play with when it comes to the vote. You've taken away all of the assessed values there in commercial and industrial land. So you've got a rigged game, forcing those people to vote for higher taxes on their own small homes in order to provide the services that they agree with. You think about it. There's all of downtown Vancouver....

MR. SERWA: How many of them pay education taxes?

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you very much, Mr. Member from Kelowna. The real Socreds are standing up You have this wonderful, right-wing, narrow view that says: "Even of those voters who voted for the kids, how many really pay the tax?" That's what he said. You want to move back, like Mrs. Thatcher, to the Victorian era where there are these categories of voters and the non-property-owners don't have the franchise. Isn't that what you're really leading to, Mr. Member from Kelowna? You're saying that you don't really buy the modern, liberal ideal of one person, one vote. That's what you're saying. If we want to carry that to the ultimate conclusion, only the people in mansions, who know so much better than the undereducated, should really have the vote. That would move us right back into the Middle Ages.

[11:30]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Through the Chair, please, hon. member.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I find the member's dissertation very entertaining; however, I wonder if you might remind him that it is customary to address the Chair rather than individual members. And it is customary, in debate on a bill, to address the bill periodically.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, minister. I did mention a moment ago that the debate should go through the Chair, please. It applies both to the member on his feet and to the other member, from Kelowna.

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have every respect for the Chair, because I know how carefully he listens to the speeches and the points being made. I know what great interest he has in the subjects we debate in this House.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: You just got excited.

MR. WILLIAMS: I just got excited. There's some truth in that. I can remember when I was first an alderman in the city of Vancouver and people who didn't own property didn't have the franchise in terms of running for city council. That was changed just a short while ago. So there are some wonderful lessons in our history books. The member from Kelowna clearly never opened those history books when he was in school. I guess he had one of those National Rifle Association comics inside them.

Let's look at some of the results from the city of Vancouver. In the downtown east side, at Carnegie Centre, the vote was something like 79 to 7 in favour, in terms of the operating end, I guess, and 76 to 10 in terms of the capital end. I find that rather encouraging. I think the fact that some of those voters are not property owners is curiously irrelevant — unlike members on the government side.

MR. SERWA: References to the homeowner's grant, my friend.

MR. WILLIAMS: Oh, I see. Well, that's called damage control. This government is building up its capability in damage control but not quite to the level necessary for what's happening out there today.

At First United Church at Gore and Hastings, the results were something like 67 to 8 and 66 to 7. This is one of the great churches in British Columbia that has provided services year in and year out through most of this century. These are the poorest people in our community. God knows how they get by; I don't. But they came out and voted in favour. It really tells us something. And so with Strathcona School: the vote was 107 to 13 and 102 to 11. It's really extraordinary. It makes me awfully proud of those people in that part of my community. The really-have-nots are voting for these things. Some of the people in the middle class have mixed feelings about it, and that shows up in the election results. So you start thinking about that.

Why is that? Intellectually, one could understand why they vote against it. You can vote against these referenda for sound reasons, because you can say to yourself: "How does the province manage money?" You say: "Let's think about that. If the province manages money really well, then I guess I could vote for extra money out of my hide in terms of my property taxes. But if the province doesn't manage money well, then I've got to give them a lesson and speak out, because I don't like the fact they haven't kept their financial house in order."

The rational citizen will then pick up the auditor-general’s report and look at that. He'll start going through the auditor-general's report, and it will say: "They hid the numbers on privatization. They bought a quarter of a million dollars worth of signs that weren't there for the highway signs." Let's think about just that one. The thoughtful citizen going to vote in the referendum would say: "I actually analyzed the sign question when it was publicly owned. By doing that, I found that you can actually buy a sign for $25 — average cost. That's when it was publicly managed and owned. Now we find they spend $250,000 for signs they didn't get." A quarter of a million dollars were wasted because nobody monitored a contract.

[ Page 9461 ]

That citizen, thinking about that question, then goes into the polling booth to vote yes for more taxes or no — no more taxes. He might make the decision that too many taxes are being paid and wasted under this administration: "As a result, I'm voting against it."

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: Oh, yes, that clearly happened in Abbotsford and other places.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Strictly political.

MR. WILLIAMS: Do you mean the vote was strictly political? Or do you mean this speech is strictly political? I know the response is going to be strictly political.

That's the rational person. So you can go through those polls and you'll see people had a kind of Hobson's choice with the referendum, and the minister knew he was doing exactly that. He was setting up a Hobson's choice in terms of wanting to vote for more taxes against yourself. "Do you already know I'm wasting your money?" What a setup. So the person that really thinks about the way you waste money is going to say nix. "I'm not going to vote for more money for the schools even though there's a case for it. And if some of it's even for safety, for God's sake, in terms of that sort of thing, well, so be it."

Look at what the city of Vancouver wanted the referendum on.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: How much money are they wasting?

MR. WILLIAMS: That's a good question. I think waste is a concern overall, but you're the government responsible.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: We don't operate the boards.

MR. WILLIAMS: You're the government responsible, and you also set some standards in terms of waste.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Do you want them changed?

MR. WILLIAMS: Do I want waste standards changed? Indeed I do.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: For school boards?

MR. WILLIAMS: I think we start with the biggest areas of waste first. The biggest areas of waste are right here.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Are you talking about school boards?

MR. WILLIAMS: No, I'm talking about the citizen that is trying to make some sense out of this, and he says: "I don't like government waste." I see Mulroney with his entourage. I don't like the province, because they're wasting — and it's there. I don't deny that there may be areas that some would consider waste in the schools as well.

I don't deny that I am unhappy with the bureaucratization of schools, just as I am unhappy with the bureaucratization of most things around this place. I suspect that there are problems in terms of excess administration in some districts. They end up cutting back in the wrong areas. I think that's a serious concern, but I think you people, as government, can be on top of that. I don't think you are.

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: Oh, now we're getting into it. I'm so glad you're participating in this debate. Now you're starting to reveal the debate that was going on in cabinet. Right? That's what it is. Come on, you can tell us. It's just between us folks. You've had one big debate in cabinet over this, haven't you? And there are those of you that have said: "Hey, let's get rid of the school tax." Politically good stuff, eh? "We're in deep water. We're in the swamp up to here. The polls keep telling us we're down. Let's try and eliminate the school tax and do something for the poor taxpayer out there." That dialogue went on for a long time, didn't it? Why, it was almost a Carmanah-style debate. It was even longer than the Carmanah debate. Other people spend more time on the Carmanah, maybe. Anyway, you folks spent a lot of time on this one. Hatching this legislation, you all had a real dog-and-cat fight over there in the cabinet room, didn't you? Come on!

HON. MR. BRUMMET: You were peeking.

MR. WILLIAMS: The minister admits they had a real dog-and-cat fight over there. No, it was really more hawks and doves. The hawks were saying: "Let's eliminate the school tax. Let's eliminate it completely." Then the bureaucrats were brought in, and they found all kinds of complications and real problems, and so on. And then the others are saying: "Ha, ha, ha!" Part of your political problem is that for once you actually listened to the civil service a little on this one, and it complicated the simplistic political agenda that some of you wanted. So be it; those are the judgments you make. I think you made that one, and you are going to pay a price for it.

But, you know, the real follow-through was this debate, wasn't it? It goes something like this: "If we pay all the bills, then there are questions of accountability. If we pay all the bills, then what's the school board all about?" That's the debate that went on in cabinet. Then some in cabinet said: "That's right. We should get rid of the school boards. That's what we should really do."

[ Page 9462 ]

HON. MR. BRUMMET: On second thought, you weren't peeking. You made it all up.

MR. WILLIAMS: Sure. The real hawks are saying: "Get rid of the school boards completely, because if we pay all the bills, there's no kind of check and balance in terms of accountability in the tax system." That's the kind of discussion that was going on.

It was a compromise, wasn't it? It was an uneasy compromise that said: "No, no. It's got to be two steps: one step before the election, then another step after the election. That's the way we've stayed in power so many years in British Columbia."

HON. S. HAGEN: The reason why we stayed in power for so many years is that they don't like socialists.

MR. WILLIAMS: I see. Thank you for that profound offering from somewhere on Vancouver Island.

That's the hidden agenda here. How do you deal with these school boards? You deal with them this way. Then there's this likelihood, in terms of a second step, of actually getting rid of them entirely.

To get back to Vancouver, here's the sort of things they wanted to do: emergency earthquake preparations. There are a lot of brick schools in Vancouver. Last year, there was an earthquake in San Francisco — in the bay area. All of a sudden, thoughtful public administrators started wondering about things like schools that would fall down on the heads of children. That's a reasonable concern.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: With $10 million in capital reserves, I guess it wasn't a concern, was it?

MR. WILLIAMS: Where did the capital reserves come from? Did they have capital reserves from real estate? Is that what the minister is talking about? Is the minister talking about this legislation that scoops into those kinds of reserves that are once-in-a-lifetime...?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Money in the bank — and they won't spend it.

MR. WILLIAMS: Oh, I see.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Through the Chair, please.

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

You've got new legislation here that's going to scoop into those areas where there were opportunities for school boards to do some work in terms of excellence — where there could be some discretion and where there hadn't been. The public certainly agreed that emergency earthquake preparations were reasonable when you have brick schools. Do you have a program, Mr. Minister, to upgrade these schools forthwith? Have you got a program to do the kind of capital spending necessary to make these buildings earthquake-proof? No, not that I know of. The city is one of the oldest communities in the province, and we have a lot of these brick buildings. Indeed, Strathcona Elementary School is an old brick building in that downtown east-side neighbourhood that I was talking about. So it makes a lot of sense.

[11:45]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

The whole question of special work with respect to children in inner-city schools was part of that spending. Special programs with respect to native Indian students was part of that referendum question. For those that are aware, native Indians moving into the east-side community in Vancouver on a significantly growing basis is very real. The Indian friendship centre, which is their community centre, is down there. The number of native people in the city has grown by leaps and bounds. Those are special programs that are difficult and deserve special attention, and the city school board saw that that was a need and put that forth in their program.

You look back to these results again and reflect on this question of equality — the fact that there is going to be a difference between far too many districts. There have been court cases around this question in the United States. In California the courts have decided that these kinds of inequities are not constitutional, in terms of treating people equally or working towards treating them equally. We might reflect on that, because, with the Charter of Rights in Canada, we will now have more and more court cases, as the Americans have had. Questions of individual freedoms and liberties will be looked at through a different kind of prism than in the past in this country. Activities that push the different classes in our society apart to an even greater extent will be challenged — and, I suggest, successfully — in the courts.

That means that in the intervening period, the inequalities prevail. That means that for the people who need help and service, it's not there to the degree that it is needed. Think about it. Think about the citizen who wonders about fairness in taxation. Think of the citizen who knows that under this administration, corporate taxes have gone down by half a billion dollars in British Columbia alone. Then you, in turn, say: "If you want a better school system, you've got to tax your own home."

MR. ROSE: On 8 percent of the tax base.

MR. WILLIAMS: Is it 8 percent overall?

MR. ROSE: Yes, for residential property. They confiscated everything else.

MR. WILLIAMS: In Vancouver, it's even more. I suggest, Mr. Minister, that the referendum in Vancouver, if we were to have had one at all — and I don't

[ Page 9463 ]

agree with that — should have been based on all property values in the city, not just on residential property values.

Think about downtown Vancouver. Do you know what a 50-foot lot is currently worth in downtown Vancouver? Ten million dollars. Values in downtown Vancouver have increased to such an extraordinary degree that they've made those kinds of leaps from $10 million to $50 million virtually overnight.

That's the most legitimate area to tax in the city of Vancouver in terms of properties. Those are huge windfall profits being reaped generally by absentee owners. Most of downtown Vancouver isn't owned by local folks anymore. Those huge profits are being reaped by offshore owners — European owners, Asian owners and others, and pension funds from outside the city. Huge fortunes are being reaped.

It's reasonable that they be taxed. It's certainly reasonable that they be taxed in terms of schools. But they aren't, under your referendum. Instead, the load ends up on those little 25-foot lots in Chinatown, Strathcona and Grandview. What we're finding is that those people, despite a twisted system in terms of taxation and fairness, still voted with their school district.

HON. S. HAGEN: You're a good one to talk about twisted.

MR. WILLIAMS: Twisted, indeed.

There it is. The people on the east side voted for schools and improving schools, knowing that in the downtown area where fortunes are being made, there are no taxes being applied at all. We had a sense of it from the member from Kelowna just a few minutes ago, who was really saying: "But people voted who weren't property owners, in a sense." Does that really count?

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: No, not at all. The member from Kelowna seems to think that people who don't own property aren't impacted by taxes. They might be irresponsible and vote for school referenda. The people without property voted in favour of the referendum. The people with property voted in favour of the referendum. That tells you something about the people in the community that I come from.

Mr. Speaker, that clearly is going to accelerate problems in the future in terms of differences between school districts. Vancouver will end up with more per capita than other districts, and we started from that base as it was; they'll end up with even more. So those in other districts will not have the programs, the services and, indeed, the capital improvements that some districts have. That is why this side of the House will be voting the way we will.

MR. VANT: I just can't sit here and allow the socialist corner of the House to dominate this debate on Bill 11.

I guess a good question is: why the need for this referendum process and this amendment act? It appears to me that the supplementary budgets proposed by the school boards were right out of control. We as government, of course, allowed them in 1986-87 to have these supplementary budgets, and that year they amounted to about $66 million throughout the province. But then very quickly this appeared to be getting right out of control. Indeed, from the beginning of the supplementary amounts up to last year, the increase was a whopping 261 percent. In one year alone, it was an increase of 112 percent. That definitely appears to be right out of control.

Mr. Speaker, I firmly believe in the local autonomy of our school boards — to be sensitive especially to the needs of children, to be accountable to parents and also, of course, to make sure that they have the right teaching staff. With that local autonomy comes responsibility and accountability. But you know, it seems that in recent years the message from boards has been that the reason local taxes on residences are so high is that the provincial government does not provide enough money and therefore they have to raise local taxes. They were always putting the onus back on the provincial government, even though every year since I became an MLA in 1986, there has been an increase in the funding for education from kindergarten to grade 12. In the estimates that were tabled and passed in this House, there has always been an increase. Indeed, this year, if I read the estimates and the budget speech correctly, the increase is a whopping 15 percent for kindergarten to grade 12.

But the local school boards always try to make it look like we were always cutting back. Indeed, I would like to quote an article from the Williams Lake Tribune of Thursday, February 2, 1989. The headline is: "New Wages Net Hefty School Tax Hike." There's a picture of the current hon. second member for Cariboo (Mr. Zirnhelt) in connection with this. The picture was taken before he got his beard nicely trimmed and had a haircut. At the time, he was actually chairman of School District 27. It says here:

"School taxes will be going up — by 10 to 20 percent. The actual cost of the recently settled contract with the district's 420 teachers is still not known, says school trustee..." — the current second member for Cariboo — "as it will depend on the provincial government's contribution. If the ministry holds fast with its offer of supporting a 2.8 percent increase, local taxpayers will have to shell out 20 percent more than last year. However, district staff hopes provincial funding will cover closer to a 5 percent wage increase, which will result in a $320,000 shortfall, as local teachers successfully negotiated a 7 percent wage hike."

There you have it, Mr. Speaker: always referring to the provincial government as though we were cutting back and holding back.

Recently I met with Mr. Stu Westie and Mr. Jerry Urquhart. Stu Westie is president of the Cariboo-

[ Page 9464 ]

Chilcotin Teachers' Association. Jerry Urquhart is the president of the Quesnel District Teachers' Association. I met with them in my constituency office. One thing we did agree on was that no matter what we did as government, there'd never be enough funding. It seems to me that their perception was that we could never, ever, give them enough.

Later I will be answering some of those concerns that they expressed to me. I see the hour is approaching noon, and I will continue in the next regular session.

I now move adjournment of this debate on Bill 11 until the next regular sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

Hon. S. Hagen moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 11:59 a.m.

Appendix

MOTIONS

By leave, the Hon. S. D. Smith (Attorney General) moved —

That this House authorize the Select Standing Committee on Labour, Justice and Intergovernmental Relations to examine, inquire into and make recommendations on the matter of the Builders Lien Act with particular reference to the following:

1. the purposes of and continuing relevance of the legislation in today's society;

2. the policy consideration behind the Act;

3. the desirability of repeal or reform to any or all of the provisions within the Act; and

4. the policy directions which would guide any reform; and to report to the House as soon as possible, or following any adjournment, or at the next following Session, as the case may be; to deposit the original of its reports with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly during a period of adjournment and upon the resumption of the sittings of the House, the Chairman shall present all reports to the Legislative Assembly.

In addition to the powers previously conferred upon the said Committee by the House, the Committee shall have the following additional powers, namely:

(a) to appoint of their number one or more subcommittees and to refer to such subcommittees any of the matters referred to the Committee;

(b) to sit during any period in which the House is adjourned, during the recess after prorogation until the next following Session and during any sitting of the House;

(c) to adjourn from place to place as may be convenient; and

(d) to retain personnel as required to assist the Committee.

Motion agreed to.

[ Page 9465 ]

By leave, the Hon. M. B. Couvelier (Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations) moved —

That this House authorize the Select Standing Committee on Finance, Crown Corporations and Government Services to examine, inquire into and make recommendations with respect to the regulation of the financial planning and advisory industry, and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, to consider:

1. the desirability of a regulatory regime to regulate the financial planning and advisory industry;

2. the objectives which regulation of the industry should attempt to accomplish and the principles upon which regulation could be established;

3. the policy considerations inherent in regulating this industry; and

4. alternative approaches which would be used to design a regulatory regime; and to report to the House as soon as possible, or following any adjournment, or at the next following Session, as the case may be; to deposit the original of its reports with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly during a period of adjournment and upon the resumption of the sittings of the House, the Chairman shall present all reports to the Legislative Assembly.

In addition to the powers previously conferred upon the said Committee by the House, the Committee shall have the following additional powers, namely:

(a) to appoint of their number one or more subcommittees and to refer to such subcommittees any of the matters referred to the Committee;

(b) to sit during any period in which the House is adjourned, during the recess after prorogation until the next following Session, and during any sitting of the House;

(c) to adjourn from place to place as may be convenient; and

(d) to retain personnel as required to assist the Committee.

Motion agreed to.