[ Page 12565 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Tabling Documents –– 12565

Freedom of Information Act (Bill M205). Mr. Jones

Introduction and first reading –– 12565

Oral Questions

RRI plans for Richmond waste disposal site. Mr. Cashore –– 12566

Enrolment cuts at Vancouver Community College. Mr. Jones –– 12567

Victoria-to-Seattle ferry service. Mr. Blencoe –– 12567

SkyTrain operational problems. Mrs. McCarthy –– 12567

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Education estimates. (Hon. S. Hagen)

On vote 21: minister's office –– 12568

Mr. Zirnhelt

Mr. Brummet

Mr. Michael

Mr. Jones

Ms. Cull

Ms. Edwards

Mr. Guno

Mr. Barlee

Mr. Cashore

Hon. Mr. Fraser

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, I have a number of guests today: Ruth and Denis Doll from North Vancouver; Louise and Pat Mallaghan from Shawnigan Lake, whom I had the pleasure of having lunch with today; Lil Anderson, who lives in Victoria and is president of International Training in Communication for the northwest region; Ruby Moon, secretary-treasurer of International Training in Communication from Sydney, Australia; and last but not least, Dr. and Mrs. Robert Goldman. Dr. Goldman is chair of the department of health services management and acting chair of the department of marketing at Golden Gate University, and a lecturer at San Francisco State University. I would ask the House to make all these guests welcome.

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, in the chamber today are three gentlemen representing an organization in which I take some pride, and for whose help we can all be grateful. Representing the CNIB, B.C. and Yukon division, are: Glynn Spelliscy, Bob Nicholson and Frank Laird. Would the House please join me in making them welcome.

MR. CASHORE: In the gallery today is a good friend of mine, Mr. Jim Chisholm, a member of the board of school trustees in Surrey Would the House please join me in making him welcome.

MR. REID: I also welcome Mr. Chisholm, on behalf of the representative from Surrey–White Rock–Cloverdale.

In your gallery today, Mr. Speaker, I have two special friends from my constituency: Mr. Bob Wood and Mr. John Ackerley, from PBK Engineering. These two gentlemen represent the free enterprise system and are certainly doing a commendable job in dealing with this government.

MR. HUBERTS: In the House are two good friends of mine, Joe and Pat Heald from North Saanich, who have a friend with them from the United States, Mr. Laurence Surpless. Would the House please help me welcome them.

MR. LOENEN: In the members' gallery is a wonderful couple from Richmond, George and Sally Wood. They are retired now. Sally worked with B.C. Tel for some 30 years. George is a great volunteer and spends his time on behalf of the Optimist International. In fact, he is the lieutenant-governor-elect for the Pacific Northwest region. I would ask the House to please give them a warm welcome.

MR. LONG: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery today I have five constituents: Don and Bev Dunn, Wayne and Barbara Langdale and Shirley Clark. As well, Doug and April Banks from Parksville are here. They're all here for the fire chiefs' convention in Victoria, and I'd like the House to make them very welcome.

HON. MR. MERCIER: In the Legislature today we have a teacher, Mrs. Carol Taylor, with 30 grades 4 and 5 students from Armstrong Elementary School in my riding. Would the House please make them welcome.

MR. SERWA: On behalf of the second member for Okanagan South and myself, I would like to introduce Mike and Eva Jennings, who are constituents of ours from Westbank. They are accompanied by Helga Jennings and Phyllis Rivers. It would be of interest to note that Mike graduated from Victoria High School in 1941, and he's here in Victoria celebrating the fiftieth anniversary. They are here in the House today to watch the good temper and moderation which are characteristics of this House in question period.

HON. MR. BRUCE: Several days ago four gentlemen returned to my community, having just climbed to the summit of Mount McKinley — some 20,000-plus feet. Mike Taylor, Doug Whale, Jon Heshka and Terry Baum climbed the peak in a effort to raise money for cancer research. To date they have collected up to $20,000 in their effort to assist in the development of cancer research. I would ask the House to extend their congratulations to all four of these gentlemen.

MR. DAVIDSON: Visiting with us today are approximately 50 students from Seaquam Secondary School in North Delta. They are accompanied by, among others, Mrs. Diane Kelly, who is not only an outstanding teacher but also my sister. I would ask the House to make them very welcome.

MR. SPEAKER: Is it the wish of the House that a message be sent to the climbers from...?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair will undertake to do that on your behalf.

Hon. Mr. Veitch tabled a report of the lottery grants branch containing a comprehensive list of the Lottery Fund grants administered by the Provincial Secretary for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1991.

Introduction of Bills

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT

Mr. Jones presented a bill intituled Freedom of Information Act.

MR. JONES: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this act is to ensure that the citizens of British Columbia, who have lived too long under an administration with no legislative rights of access to information, will now have open access to public records held by government bodies. The act recognizes that citizens want to know and have the right to know what their government is doing. At the same time, this act recognizes that the government has an obligation to protect the privacy of individual citizens who have provided information to

[ Page 12566 ]

the government on a confidential basis. Under this act, access to public records cannot be denied unless and until the government has provided clear and cogent reasons for doing so, and any decision by government to deny access is reviewable by the ombudsman and the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

Bill M205 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral Questions

RRI PLANS FOR RICHMOND
WASTE DISPOSAL SITE

MR. CASHORE: My question is to the Minister of Environment. Is the minister aware that the business plans of Resource Recovery International's Richmond site include handling special wastes — that is, a facility to handle the most hazardous wastes?

HON. MR. MERCIER: Before I proceed to answer that, I'd point out that the member has been the opposition critic of this ministry for some time now, and it can be presumed

Interjections.

HON. MR. MERCIER: It's very relevant to answering the question. It can be presumed that he has an understanding of the hierarchy and rating of the soils and describing the same. So I'd ask that in all his comments that he refrain from using the word "toxic" when he knows full well — or he should know full well — that it's not applicable.

[2:15]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. A point of order.

MR. CLARK: The member can, in about three months, if he's lucky enough to get elected....

MR. SPEAKER: Order! A point of order must be addressed to the Chair, not to the member, so if you have a point of order, address it to me.

MR. CLARK: The member knows — just for guidance, Mr. Speaker — that he can ask questions when he's on this side of the House. He's a member of the executive council. He's asked to answer questions; he's chosen not to answer questions.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, questions may be asked of ministers. Ministers may or may not answer the questions, as they see fit. We have allowed preambles on both sides. The minister in this case wishes to put forward a preamble. This particular question happened to be short, and it would be wonderful if that was a guidepost. I appreciate the unsolicited advice from members, but the difficulty is that not all questions have that. So let's continue and get back to the subject.

HON. MR. MERCIER: Mr. Speaker, while the question may seem simple, this is a very complex matter — as the opposition critic should know, because he's been working on this case for some time. On the point of order, I did not ask a question. I asked that he please refrain from using the word "toxic" in cases where it's not applicable.

With respect to RRI, they are a private corporation. I'm sure they have business plans, some of which I'm aware of and some of which I'm not. With respect to the question, could you be more specific on which plan you're referring to?

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Speaker, I ask a legitimate question, and I get a lecture on this minister's definition. This minister will not decide what the definitions of terms are. We'll use the dictionary to decide on our definitions.

I ask the minister this: how can he justify the answer that he just gave, given that the business plan states that the project has been very well received at all levels of government?

HON. MR. MERCIER: First you actually look beyond the dictionary for the definitions. You look to the schedules in the regulations in the act. The first question did not define which plan was being referred to. I would like to answer, if you would tell me which business plan of RRI you're referring to.

MR. CASHORE: The minister is very well aware that we are referring to the RRI plan presented in 1989 to the National Harbours Board and that this plan relates to the site that we have been discussing with regard to Richmond.

A supplementary question. RRI's corporate profile clearly states that their venture depends upon the "goodwill of politicians and public servants." I quote again: "It is most heartening that to date the project has been very well received at all levels of government."

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Let's hear the question.

MR. CASHORE: Can the minister assure the House that his ministry has not already given the green light to this hazardous waste facility in Richmond, before there has been any public discussion of RRI's intentions?

HON. MR. MERCIER: The member has not specified the site, but I can make a presumption as to the site he's referring to. The green light that he's referring to would likely come from the Richmond council, which has control over that site for their zoning and development permit process. So I don't know which green light you're referring to that you would like from this minister.

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MR. CASHORE: The minister referred to the Richmond council. He knows that he has already been defeated by the Richmond council.

When your officials met with the Richmond council recently, they did so on the basis that they would not accept questions from the public. A public meeting has been set for June 19 in Richmond. Can the minister confirm that he has instructed his officials to keep that date with the people of Richmond to answer their questions about the future of that site?

HON. MR. MERCIER: I can confirm that we will do everything possible to keep the public informed and provide them with correct information, although the job has been made more difficult with all the misinformation that has been put in the public arena by someone who should know the specifics a lot better.

MR. CASHORE: Will the minister instruct his officials to attend that meeting to answer the questions of the people of Richmond about this issue?

HON. MR. MERCIER: The member should know that I have already asked that my staff be there.

ENROLMENT CUTS AT
VANCOUVER COMMUNITY COLLEGE

MR. JONES: This is a question for the Premier. Only a few weeks after your throne speech, Madam Premier, in which you said education is the most important and essential investment in our province's future, we see some 1,000 spaces cut from Vancouver Community College. The question to the Premier is: has she developed a plan to save those much-needed nursing and other program spaces at Vancouver Community College?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Thank you, Mr. Premier — Mr. Speaker.

Interjections.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, I know you haven't made your announcement yet. [Laughter.]

Might I once again suggest, as I do day in and day out when questions are put to me, that the question would more appropriately be put to the minister responsible.

MR. JONES: Madam Premier, this is your throne speech, it's your government and it's you who's confused about who the Premier is in this province. It's up to you to direct your minister.

Perhaps I could try a supplementary, Mr. Speaker. That Premier's government has allocated some $123 million in the Advanced Education budget under the title "Access Programs and Enrolment." How does the Premier reconcile that commitment to improving access and enrolment with cutting back existing programs at existing facilities?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: I may have erred in my address to the Speaker, but I can tell you one thing: we know who will not be the Premier after the next election — the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Speaker, may I once again suggest that the question be put to the appropriate minister.

VICTORIA-TO-SEATTLE FERRY SERVICE

MR. BLENCOE: I have a question for the Minister of Transportation and Highways. In the last week or so, the minister has not been able to answer any questions about ferries from Victoria to Seattle. But I'll ask him a question today that I think he might be able to answer. The Premier said recently in a letter to me that she believes B.C. Ferries has the ability to run a ferry to Seattle from Victoria. I wonder if the minister can tell us today whether he has considered — or will be considering — contingency plans to run a B.C. ferry from Victoria to Seattle, given that we have the potential to lose $100 million in revenue in this city this summer.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The member knows that just a slight turn of phrase could have actually made the question in order. Would he like to rework that question so it's in order?

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, I thought I used the turn of phrase. Has the minister decided to consider a B.C. ferry run from Victoria to Seattle?

HON. L. HANSON: The other day the member directed a question to me that should have gone to another ministry. I answered this exact same question about ten days ago with the simple answer: no.

SKYTRAIN OPERATIONAL PROBLEMS

MRS. McCARTHY: My question is also for the Minister of Transportation and Highways. SkyTrain has experienced a very serious breakdown recently, resulting in very great inconvenience to the riders — the customers of that service. In spite of the tremendous success of SkyTrain — it has even rejuvenated the whole community of New Westminster; a very great success — I do believe the riders need reassurance that GVRD residents will not be inconvenienced in the future. Could the minister tell us how he plans to overcome these inconveniences and these operational problems of SkyTrain?

MR. SPEAKER: That's pretty much an open-ended question. I'd ask the minister for just a brief response, if that's possible, or we will use all of question period.

HON. L. HANSON: That's really too bad, Mr. Speaker, because there is just so much information I could bring forward about how wonderful SkyTrain is. I'm really sorry that you've made that ruling, but in respect of your position and your ruling, the difficulty with SkyTrain the other morning.... It failed at about ten to eight, in the middle of the rush hour, and was

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back in service at about 11 o'clock, the difficulty being that the computerized system that controls the trains failed.

The difficulty, which everyone may not know, was not in the failure of the computer; that's what stopped the train. The time it took to get it back into service was the difficulty. The system we have in place now is being modified, hopefully to be in effect this fall. That will let us put SkyTrain back into service immediately. We now have the difficulty of having to physically take a driver to SkyTrain, take it into the station, take the passengers off, and so on. The number one issue, of course, is passenger safety, and we do deal with that. But we will have the computer system modified to allow that to happen early this fall.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

On vote 21: minister's office, $316,667 (continued).

[2:30]

MR. ZIRNHELT: My first question today deals with expenditures on education and B.C.'s relative position with respect to education expenditures as a percentage of gross provincial product. From the latest figures I have going back to '88-89, it's my understanding that B.C. is about in the middle of the pack. Mr. Minister, has that changed in the most recent year?

HON. S. HAGEN: I'm pleased to say to the member from Cariboo.... These are not my statistics. These statistics were developed by Dominion Bond Rating Service Ltd. When you look at the percentage of expenditures according to the total budget of the province, which is very significant.... In the budgeting process — and I know you haven't had the opportunity to go through that — you have to look at the total revenue available and how that money is to be spent. It's very significant to note that British Columbia spends the highest percentage of its total budget on education — the K-to-12 system and the post-secondary system. That percentage is 27.4 percent of total expenditures.

The percentage has increased each year: Dominion Bond Rating Service Ltd. has gone back four years to 1987, and indicated that in 1987 the province committed an investment of 23.3 percent of its total budget to education; that went up the next year to 23.9 percent; it went up the following year to 24.5 percent; and it went up this year to 27.4 percent. That's a very significant investment in education.

If you want to compare that to something, compare it to Ontario, the wealthiest province with the largest budget of any province in Canada. In 1987 the percentage of their budget spent on education was 21.9, which is about 1.5 percent less than us; it, declined the next year to 20.6; it declined the next year to 20.4; and it has declined this year to 18.4. It's important to recognize the relevance of those, and it's important to see the commitment to education this province has made over the last four to five years.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I've heard those figures and, while I haven't been in the House all the time, I've been listening and reading the Blues, so I've heard those figures before. I'm going by the Ministry of Finance. Obviously, the government's own reports consider it significant that you express expenditures in education as a percentage of gross provincial product. It seems to me that you either have the figure for this year or you don't. The figure for '88-89 was that B.C. spends 3.5 percent; it's gone up to 3.74 percent. But how do we stand compared to other provinces in this respect? As of two years ago, we were number six in Canada — as I say, the middle of the pack. So that's another measure, because education is, broadly speaking, an investment in social capital, and I don't define social capital as simply buildings. The people are the social capital. That investment is very important for keeping a competitive and productive labour force and for investing in research and development indirectly through investment in the school system. If your Ministry of Finance considers it a significant measure, I only ask that we compare ourselves to other provinces with respect to this particular measure. Do you have those relative figures?

HON. S. HAGEN: I thank the member for the question. I find it interesting that the member opposite refers to expenditures on education. We on this side of the House prefer to look upon it as investment in education, because we are indeed investing in our future. I can tell you that the budgeting process is not simply a decision of the Minister of Finance as to what the investment in education is going to be.

My predecessor, the member for North Peace River, fought the good fight at Treasury Board table constantly and consistently to make sure that the proper investment was made in education over a four-year period. The fact that the percentage of investment compared to total expenditures.... After all, we're talking about the amount that the taxpayers have to spend, because the money comes from taxpayers. So you can talk about the gross domestic product all you want. What we have to deal with are the dollars that are provided to us from taxpayers. That challenge was taken up by my predecessor and was taken up this year to assure that the needs of the students of British Columbia are being well met.

MR. BRUMMET: I had not planned to say any more, having made, I guess, a fairly strong statement after a difficult decision and a lot of soul-searching because of my concern for the new directions in education and because of my tendency not to want to work on a team and be critical of it. I knew that I was so concerned about the future of the Year 2000 program that I wouldn't have been able to keep my mouth shut, and so I thought I would fade away. But having read an article this morning in the Times-Colonist, I felt I needed to say something, because there are so many things reflected

[ Page 12569 ]

in that article that are both wrong and dangerous to the future not just of the Year 2000 program but really of the education of children in this province.

In this debate there has been a lot of talk that many things were done without consultation. That is incorrect. Hundreds of educators sat together and put the program together. There were many discussions, but I guess the BCTF version of consultation happens to coincide with the NDP version of consultation: if you don't do everything that we demand, then there ain't no consultation. That's the sad thing.

The BCTF representatives were members of the advisory committees that approved work plans. I might say that the advisory committee's idea of having a consensus from all the players in this province was to have a majority of members on the advisory committee so that they would have voting power and control. That is their idea of consensus: put five other people on with eight of us so that we can vote everything our way. That's what they demanded, and that's what we did not give them. That's their idea of consultation: do it our way or else. Then, unfortunately, they get out this constant harping on lack of consultation and no consultation, which gets broadcast all over, and then people get the impression that it is a fact.

Similarly, as the minister has been facing, we hear: "Cutting expenditures in education. Underfunding, underfunding, underfunding." I guess if you say it enough times people believe it. Unfortunately there are a lot of people in the province who believe there was underfunding, because it's been said so often. It is not true. There is plenty of money for a good-quality education system. I think that the people who constantly snipe at the funding for their own partisan political purposes are doing a great disservice to the people of this province and certainly to the students.

Yesterday there was a considerable debate about the extra funding for the new initiatives and changes. I heard the Education critic — presumably the most learned of the group over there on educational matters — saying: "Are you going to keep the new funding in place forever?" If people would just stop and think for one minute that when a student first enters school there is a funding entitlement for that student — let me use that analogy. In future that student is one of the enrolment, and the funding entitlement is there for that student on a continuing basis. You do not say, "This student is new this year, and they promised that we would have ten years to do this program; therefore for ten years this student is going to count as new and regular" — in other words, double funding for students. It's so ridiculous that you wonder why there was an hour's debate on it, that you start something and you've got to keep starting it or paying for the start all over again even though it's an ongoing thing. I'm very concerned about that, Mr. Chairman.

I guess what it boils down to is that you have a lot of lip-service from the critics about the desirability for change in education and the desirability to do for the students, but when it comes to actual fact, by sniping away at each item, it destroys the ability of the system to make those changes. "Yes, we want significant changes, but don't change this and don't change that." I get the impression that they're all in favour of change so long as you do not change anything.

There's a definition of critics that says they sit on the hill while the battle is going on, and then they come down and shoot the dead — which is a pretty rough analogy, but I sometimes wonder if it doesn't apply. In other words, lip-service to change, but sabotage every element of change — and that is a shame.

The Premier gets lambasted for the amount of money that has gone through the capital program in her constituency. A big deal has been made of that. There seems to be absolutely no recognition of the fact that two years ago they got about 33 percent of the capital funding because the need was greatest there. We still couldn't meet it all, so they increased their request for the next year. The next year we increased the budget, and they got a quarter of that — a quarter for one of the 75 districts. In that quarter they got last year was a lot of planning money to acquire the property and develop the plans to do that. So it was a logical follow-up. I'm surprised that with all of the planning that was done Surrey got only one-fifth or one-quarter of the money again this year. Yet the Premier is being blamed for collecting that politically.

Those people know it. The president of the B.C. School Trustees' Association knows it, yet look at the reaction she had. I hope she's not speaking for all of the trustees in this province, because look at her reaction when the minister announced the $650 million capital program, which was discussed with the school trustees' executive last year — that hopefully it would be that much. The reaction was purely partisan: "It's an election ploy. Why didn't they just do it for other reasons?" So we have all of those things.

Look at the reaction of the president of the BCSTA when the dual-entry cancellation was announced: "Oh, they probably don't have the money to carry on with it." She must have read the press release and the information that the school boards and the trustees got earlier in the year that the money was in place. That was not the reason for the cancellation. However, let me suggest that a system.... The larger the system, the more inclined it is to fight to perpetuate itself, to preserve the status quo. That is exactly what is happening.

[2:45]

The Times-Colonist article this morning is headlined: "Some Kids May Repeat Kindergarten." After three years of discussion, after a royal commission report, after all of that — I don't know whether that's the reporter, the editor or whoever — the attitude still prevails.

First paragraph: "Children caught in B.C.'s failed dual-entry experiment may have to repeat their kindergarten year." This is from people who on committees and everything else had paid lip-service to continuous progress, to the mission statement of the ministry that each child develop according to his or her potential.

Here's another one. It just blows your mind, really, that they say that these students are going to be "out of step with their peers." Sullivan and the education system all know that there is diversity in the learning

[ Page 12570 ]

rate of students. But I guess the Greater Victoria School District is considering splitting the January entry group, putting some into grade 1 in September and keeping others in kindergarten — like it is absolutely impossible organizationally to keep some kids in a group and let them learn at the level they're capable of learning at. That was the whole philosophy of the primary ungraded program.

There is a primary teacher — despite the fact that many primary teachers put the program together — who's against dual entry in Victoria and who says that moving "dual-entry students into grade 1 would create an age gap." Well, there was an age gap of up to 12 months under the regular entry system. This intelligent person goes on to say: "'There's a real grey area, ' said Pearce, an opponent of dual entry. 'Now is the time to really watch these kids. They're just babies, some of them, maybe two years out of diapers'."

This is a person who, because of being against dual entry, has got what the BCTF put out in their issue alerts and what the NDP has gobbled up, which is: why are kids starting school earlier than they used to? Despite the fact that under the single-entry system the youngest age at which a student could enter school was four years and eight months.... The youngest age at which a student can enter school under dual entry is four years and eight months. The difference is that the oldest student doesn't have to wait until the age of five years and eight months; the oldest they can be is five years and four months. Yet these are the educated people.

I will agree with one quote from that primary teacher. She said these children "deserved a more positive first experience with school." Maybe had she made the effort to provide it, I will agree with that quote. Even somebody from the Sooke district who thinks the program is working says: "There was no consultation, no warning; nobody asking...." So you have that.

Let me just suggest that some people, particularly those in the education system who have had a lot of courses in the theory of learning, should maybe read the royal commission report. I'm sure the minister has; I think I've read it.

Going back to the major portion of the report, I just want to read a couple of sections. I think it's worth saying. This is from page 93 of the report of the Royal Commission on Education:

"At the present time, admissibility to kindergarten is determined by chronological age. School districts must provide a kindergarten program for all children who turn five in that calendar year; all children enter the same program, regardless of their date of birth within that year. Given the emphasis that early childhood specialists place on the developmental needs of children and the importance of adjusting programs to suit those needs, the use of such arbitrary criteria seems unwise. Once started into that traditional system of consecutive grades, the expectation is that every year will mean another grade; anything less is considered a failure."

And the concluding part of that quotation is: "Such a system obviously requires revision."

In the abbreviated version of the report, the Sullivan commission, assisted by educators, says: "...the commission registers its concern about the number of students who leave school early. The educational system and society it represents should not be prepared to tolerate a situation in which approximately 35 percent to 40 percent of the students who enter grade 9 fail to meet grade 12 graduation requirements."

There seems to be complete and total agreement that it shouldn't happen. But somehow the critics seem to feel that the way to stop it is to put a rock on their heads or a chain on their legs so that they can't leave, rather than to deal with the cause — that is, from the beginning of education to encourage them to want to stay in school. You can't keep them chained to the desk.

Anyway, to go on with the quotation, Mr. Chairman: "To provide better service to British Columbia students, significant changes must occur in the character of school programs and in the way they are delivered to the classrooms." Could I repeat that? "Significant changes must occur in the character of school programs...." To go on: "If curriculum and instruction are to be responsive to the developmental needs of learners, then change must begin at the school-entry level." I have to refer to the critics who said: "Well, we're all in favour of change, but not at the beginning" — that is, just after they get there on the old system.

To go on with the quote: "Children must be assessed and directed to programs.... To provide for the wide range of developmental needs, flexibility must be increased in the primary years; the curriculum must facilitate flexibility and responsiveness by removing the rigid structural constraints of the grade system."

Mr. Chairman, I guess a lot has been said; perhaps a lot will be said in the future. And maybe more will be said by the people who know and are working the system. It's happening, and it's doing very well for the kids involved.

When I say the system is inclined to perpetuate and preserve itself, I probably go to the extreme: the university professors.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Time, hon. member.

HON. S. HAGEN: I know that all of us were listening very carefully to what the former minister had to say. I for one — and I think I speak for all of us on this side — am very interested in hearing some more thoughts that he may have.

MR. BRUMMET: Mr. Chairman, I will be brief for the benefit of others. As I said, the university professors.... When a report came out recently that students from British Columbia's school system had done very well in a national mathematics competition, the reaction from a university professor — who I guess doesn't want to change the lesson plans which he's had for the last ten years — was: "Why change anything? It's the good curriculum that makes it possible for these students to perform." Has that professor ever asked why these kids do so well on these tests? It's because they're not restricted to the textbook. They have ability.

[ Page 12571 ]

The professional teachers go way beyond the textbook. It's not because of an ordained curriculum, but because the student has taken a keen interest in learning in that field, and the teacher has assisted that student. The students who go beyond the curriculum are the ones who are excelling in the tests. Am I to believe the viewpoint of some university professors that students cannot learn as well or as much if they are interested and excited about what they're learning as they can if they are constrained to an imposed curriculum with a selected set of facts? I maintain that the professors must feel very threatened. They have memorized a certain set of facts, and these critics don't want students coming there knowing something that the professor hasn't seen recorded in the textbook. That's the only suggestion I can make.

I wish the minister and the ministry well. I am very concerned about those people in the system who have been so busy doing a terrific job making the program work — individualizing and so on. They haven't been vociferous. So the impression through the media, in various ways, is from the critics, the opponents of the system.

Let me conclude that everybody in education knows that there is a diversity among children. The Sullivan commission and others have said that you've got to capitalize on that diversity, recognize it and pay more than lip-service to it; in other words, acknowledge it. But we have a teacher saying that these kids are going to be out of step with their peers. I taught for many years, and I never had the good fortune to have all the kids in the class at exactly the same level. I don't think we ever will have that. The only way we can have equality of ability in a class is with the lowest common denominator.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to suggest to the minister that whatever changes are made, children can be physically grouped according to criteria that make sense. They don't have to be put into grade 1 or into kindergarten. In other words, we don't have to relabel the pigeonholes and then work harder at stuffing them in them. In those groups, they can learn at a level which is commensurate with their individual ability. Actually, anything to the contrary has to be suppression, because children do learn at the level commensurate with their individual ability. To lock them into a "curriculum" to best suit the organizational structure is wrong. It may be convenient, but it is wrong.

It is far more productive — and it can and must be made an easier workload for the teachers.... I didn't say easy; I said it can be easier, once they adapt to the guidance of learning activities of those students instead of adapting current teaching methods to...individual progress. I guess that is still to come, because change is never easy. Public education is a system supported by the universities; it's a large system that tends to fight for its own perpetuation.

I guess I'm concerned, and I would hope that the professional educators and others in this province will take hold of the vision that Barry Sullivan and his group of people gave us to develop all students to their maximum potential, to make the system serve those kids instead of making the kids fit the system. If we can accomplish that, as Barry Sullivan said, we will leave a great legacy for our children and for the future of our province.

HON. S. HAGEN: I wish to thank the member for North Peace River for those words of wisdom and guidance. I want to remind the members of this House that it was under the former Minister of Education that the following mission statement was adopted for the Ministry of Education: "The purpose of the British Columbia school system is to enable learners to develop their individual potential and to acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to contribute to a healthy society and a prosperous and sustainable economy." That will be the member's legacy, my friends, and we thank him for it.

[3:00]

MR. ZIRNHELT: Had I known that the former minister was going to speak and allude to his legacy, I would have been happy to defer to him. I'm glad to have had my line of questioning interrupted to hear what he had to say, and I second much of what he said. I was chair of a school board that sought to pursue some of the goals of the Sullivan commission which have been, we hope, constant over the past two years and will remain constant in the future.

What we're debating here is an overview of education that I wanted the minister's feelings on. If he hasn't got the figures, that's fine — they'll come out in due course. But I'm really interested in the fact that he picked up on me saying that education is an expenditure. It seems to me that I prefaced my comments by saying that expenditures on social capital equal an investment. I mean, I said the same thing. I don't want to quibble with words, but I say that this investment in social capital may be critical not only to our social success but our economic success. I allude here to A Nation at Risk, a document produced in the United States in, I believe, 1984, where they suggest that there is a strong correlation between expenditures on education — or investment in social capital, if you will — and productivity and prosperity in the economy. I'm just asking that if you have other measures, which I suggest the government has.... I want to know if he has a measure for that last year. B.C. was 3.5 percent of GDP spent on education in '88-89, up to 3.74 in '90-91. Do we have that figure for '91-92? I will assert that it's as important a figure as a percentage of the budget.

HON. S. HAGEN: I find the line of questioning very interesting. I want to reiterate that if education was not the number one priority of this government, we would not spend on education the highest percentage of our total budget of any province in Canada.

The member opposite can play with old figures — he's talking about 1984, and I know the other one was 1989. I'm talking about 1991, this year. The year we're talking about now is 1991.

It's significant to all British Columbians that this government spends the highest percentage of total budget on education, not like in Ontario, where they spend more money on welfare than on education.

[ Page 12572 ]

That's a very sad state of affairs, coming from what used to be Canada's wealthiest province, the industrial heartland of our country. Not so in British Columbia. We have our priorities straight, and our priorities are students in the school system.

[Mr. De Jong in the chair.]

MR. ZIRNHELT: I could simply score a point by saying that if it's such a high priority, then perhaps it should be the highest percentage of GDP. I simply wanted some facts. If you haven't got the facts, that's fine. I'll go to my next point.

The issue I'd like to address next, Mr. Chairman, has to do with the situation in School District 27 in the Cariboo riding. I'm concerned, as they are, about the stability of financing. As the minister knows, the increase in that district was 0.6 percent this year, after a double-digit lift last year of 12 percent. They were fully expecting that at least the stability in the system was there after having made major changes last year, only to find out that this year they decided to change the level and only give them 0.6. This was after contracts had been signed in the area. They felt they could have lived with the provincial average of 3.75, only to find that they only got a 0.6 percent increase plus a special one-time grant.

I'd like to ask the minister if he is prepared at this time to meet with the school board from School District 27 to discuss the reasons for this. When they met with your deputy and other officials, they weren't satisfied with the fact that they were told, basically, that you get the same for operating a school in an urban area as you do in a rural area. I'm alluding here to the fiscal framework that didn't detail the reasons for the changes in the dispersion factor.

HON. S. HAGEN: I can assure the member that these questions were already raised by the member on our side of the House yesterday. However, I am always prepared to meet with school districts, and I do meet with school districts around the province as my schedule permits. Obviously, when I'm in here doing my estimates, I can't meet with school boards; but I would rather meet with school boards, as a matter of fact. I'm quite prepared to meet with school boards, and I'd be pleased to meet with the Cariboo-Chilcotin School District as my schedule permits.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I'm pleased to hear that, Mr. Minister, and I'm glad that you responded to assist in a problem in the Quesnel area, School District 28 — the Pinecrest Elementary School. You went up there to break the logjam that had developed there, and I'm sure you were also helpful to the candidate when you were there. Next time you go to Quesnel, do stop off in Williams Lake if you have an invitation — which you did have — and you would solve their problem too, I hope.

The concern we have there is that, again, stability is something you have to maintain in this system. We can discuss the levels, the ability to pay and so on, but more than anything, what's needed is some stability in the system. You'd have to admit that with a 0.6 percent increase and a 1 percent special purpose grant, it doesn't constitute a stable environment. I'm quite concerned that the efforts that have been made over the years to adjust to the changes in the system were coming along quite nicely, and there was an erosion because of the breakdown over the contracts and the fact that they couldn't maintain contract agreement. But they're working together again to try and raise the profiles — working together, working with the community — and what's coming out of that is some sense that we want some fairness and stability. Will the minister give some assurance that he will restore some stability to the financing in that area?

I listened very carefully to the answers that you gave to the first member for Cariboo, and you indicated that the one-time special purpose grant of roughly 1 percent was there because those districts that overspent are being brought down to the level slowly over two years. That would tell me a couple of things: that there will be another special purpose grant next year, or this one-time special purpose grant is fixed; if it is, it doesn't ease the transition, assuming that your level is fair. Is that one-time special purpose grant going to be forthcoming in another year?

HON. S. HAGEN: I would suggest the member go back and read the Blues again, because that's not quite what I said. What I said was that there are school districts in the province who were bigger spenders than others, and there are school districts who were lower spenders than others.

In the case of this school district, they were a lower-spending school district, so we've brought them up closer to the line. We are also bringing the heavy spenders down to that line. We were being fair to the low spenders because we have brought them up in two years. We're bringing the other ones down over a period of three years, because it's always more difficult to bring your expenditure levels down than it is to bring them up, as I'm sure you'll agree. So the one-time special purpose grant for this year was the amount of money it took to bring them up from where we had brought them up to last year to the line, and it is a one-time special purpose grant.

MR. ZIRNHELT: The relatively larger increase of last year was an attempt to bring the lower spending levels up to the line. So the two years you're talking about are last year and this year.

The other issue that still needs to be addressed is the dispersion and the sense this school district has that the ministry considers the cost of running rural schools and urban schools to be roughly the same. Words to that effect have been used in meetings. It's certainly the impression conveyed to me by everyone I've spoken to. That does not take into account the fact that these small schools all have a fixed administrative overhead and can't move the schools and consolidate them to achieve any efficiency without increasing busing costs and a lot of other costs to the youngsters. There is no satisfactory explanation of the dispersion dealing with the rural districts.

[ Page 12573 ]

HON. S. HAGEN: The changes to the service levels that you talk about — the dispersion issue — were recommended by the fiscal framework review committee, which I'm sure you understand is made up of four superintendents and four secretary-treasurers. They made those changes because they saw some areas that weren't quite fair. I guess what happened was that some school districts won, and some lost. That is not an issue that I deal with personally. I think it is an attempt to make it as fair as possible, so that we can't be accused of political interference in determining these things. These things are determined by people in the field from the secretary-treasurers' association and also the superintendents' association. They are looked at every year. The committee sits and assesses during the year and then makes recommendations once a year. The changes to the dispersion factor were given to the boards on March 4 of this year — so they have those, of course. But I stress that the changes were made because they were felt to be fair.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: In the gallery this afternoon we have 66 grades 4,5 and 6 students from Berkshire Park Elementary School in Surrey, accompanied by their teachers. I would ask the House to please make them welcome.

MR. MICHAEL: Mr. Chairman, I would first of all like to commend the minister for the way he has responded to the idea of provincewide bargaining for teachers. I'm certainly very pleased. It's something I have advocated for over eight years now. It's very welcome news, and I believe it will prove very beneficial to the education system. It will provide the teachers with more opportunity to spend longer hours in the classroom. It will save the educational community a great deal of money, time and effort, and will permit the senior staff of the school system to spend more time in restructuring the school system and looking at deficiencies and better ways to teach our children.

I'd like to ask: is the minister giving any consideration at all to any form of vouchers for students, perhaps starting in grade 11 or 12? Has the minister put any thought into providing for a voucher system, whereby a student could go to a private institution and perhaps take an upgraded course in computer technology or a particular training in a trade that he or she has an interest in — the agricultural area, horticulture or whatever?

[3:15]

HON. S. HAGEN: Yes, as a matter of fact, I have looked at the voucher system. I understand the voucher system was considered for at least four years by the previous minister. I have determined that it is not the way to go.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I understand that the minister will make his announcements on the capital program next week, but I wanted to raise just one issue to underline the importance of one project that may or may not get funding. That has to do with the Williams Lake Junior Secondary School. Renovations are badly needed because of a serious roof and heating problem. In the spring the temperatures go up to over 90 degrees in the rooms, and they can't control it. It's a serious problem, but we're not confident that the planning dollars will be available. It is really important to investigate what alternatives are available to that school — whether the building can be renovated — because you are doing planning on some of the other high-school buildings in the area. So it would make sense to plan comprehensively Can you give some assurance that you will provide planning dollars for that particular project?

HON. S. HAGEN: I'm unable to give that assurance to you today. I know that you would like to have that assurance, but I'm afraid that I can't do that. The funding announcements for capital will probably be made within the month.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I didn't want to pre-empt the minister in his statements, but I want some assurance that he will discuss this with his officials and make sure that there is a satisfactory answer given as to the funding of this particular project.

The next issue that I'd like to canvass with you is native education. You'll no doubt hear from others on that. It has to do with clarifying where we stand on responsibility for funding for native education. I understand that presently two-thirds to three-quarters of the full-time-equivalent block is funded by the Department of Indian Affairs and that the rest of the block is picked up by the province. Is that correct?

HON. S. HAGEN: We bill the federal government whatever the block amount is in a particular district, and they pay that amount to the province.

MR. ZIRNHELT: The whole of the block amount? Is that correct? Okay.

So you're accepting that the funding for native education is fully a federal responsibility. Or are you accepting some responsibility for basic funding for native education?

HON. S. HAGEN: Just to clarify that point, we as a province — through the taxpayers — fund all the educational services provided to native students. We bill the federal government for the amount of the block.

MR. ZIRNHELT: In addition to the block, I understand there's $700 to $800 for native education students — students who are identified as being on reserve. So there is a topping up of the block amount for native education students.

HON. S. HAGEN: While students may have different cost factors — for instance, ESL students, special needs students, special-ed students — the province

[ Page 12574 ]

funds all of those programs. But what we bill the federal government is the average; in other words, the block amount. There is no extra to the block. The block is all-encompassing.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I'm wondering here if we don't have a double taxation system where native people that work off reserve or purchase off reserve — whether or not they're living on reserve — do pay taxes; they pay 85 percent of the taxes we pay, not in dollar amount but 85 percent of the range of taxes that are paid. So on the one hand as provincial citizens they are paying taxes that contribute to revenues, yet we're getting money from the federal government exclusively to come back and cover the full 100 percent of the block amount. Is that not correct?

HON. S. HAGEN: In dealing with the area of taxes, the member should maybe direct his questions to the Minister of Finance.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I would be happy to discuss that with him in his estimates when we get there. The point is that there is a special cost regardless of whether they fit into special needs, often because it's English as a second language or there's a high concentration of a number of factors that have an effect. I wonder if you accept some responsibility for this in the block funding and therefore charge that amount back to the federal government.

HON. S. HAGEN: Let me just go through it again. Each student or each group of students may have a different cost factor. Whatever the cost of educating that student is, the cost comes from the provincial government. Let me just use an example. If there was a large percentage, for instance, of special-ed students — which would have a higher cost of education — the province, through the taxpayers, pays that cost. What we invoice the federal government for, though, is the block amount. So in that case the province would be subsidizing the extra cost of those students, because we bill the federal government for the block. If on the other hand there was a group of students who were less expensive to educate, then we would still be billing the federal government for the block.

The question is whether or not it balances out. I don't know; you'd have to look at each district, I guess, to see what group the students were in.

MR. ZIRNHELT: So questions about the federal-provincial agreements — the master tuition agreements and so on — as they pertain to whether there's double taxation, are a matter for the Minister of Finance.

I'm interested in the local education agreements that are now being made all around the province, where there is in effect, through the negotiation between the local bands and the local school boards.... They're actually coming up with a higher figure. I understand that some $12 million in additional costs has been negotiated, which obviously reflects a need in that area, and that the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has agreed to pay for that amount. Is this true, or is it totally independent of any of your discussions with the federal government?

HON. S. HAGEN: It is a right and a possibility for each board to negotiate its own agreement with the federal government in lieu of the federal-provincial agreement.

MR. ZIRNHELT: In which case, then, there is no provincial involvement in the funding?

HON. S. HAGEN: We would still recognize any additional costs that weren't picked up in that agreement, whether they be for space or buildings or that sort of thing.

MR. JONES: Id like to raise a social issue with the minister. The members on that side like to suggest that it's not just this side of the House that cares about social issues — that there is real caring on the part of the government. They've had ample opportunity to demonstrate that with respect to hungry children.

I'd like to approach this question sensitively, because it is a sensitive issue, and it's one that I hope the government is approaching with sensitivity. It is just as important to protect the dignity of poor children in this province as it is to assist them with their nutritional needs. What we've seen for a number of years in this House and in this province is an abysmal record on the part of the government — some of which is recorded in Hansard — in dealing with this issue.

When my colleague the member for Vancouver East raised this issue some four years ago in the Legislature, the response from the government was very negative. The government argued against school lunch programs; it argued against feeding hungry children in this province. In fact, that government went so far as to question whether or not the parents of hungry children love their children. Not only that, but the response at that time from that government that questioned the love of the parents for their children was to ask the schools to identify those children.

The purpose of that identification was a shameful one on the part of the government. The purpose of identifying those children was so they could be taken away from their parents. This government perceived that they weren't loved by those parents — clearly totally lacking any sensitivity. If human beings anywhere understand one thing, they understand that there can be nothing more devastating for children than to be separated from their parents — and that was the purpose of that identification.

What we're talking about here is kids. One in six kids in this province is poor. These are kids who are loved by their parents; these are kids who are hungry, and because they are hungry their ability to learn in our school system is impaired. Their only crime is that they come from poor families. I think we can appreciate the kinds of experiences they have, with a diminished ability to learn, because of nutritional problems. These are the students who experience difficulty, who fail and drop out of our school system and create social problems. Some of these children will end up creating

[ Page 12575 ]

social problems, the cost of which we, as taxpayers, will have to pick up.

I would remind the minister that a school lunch program is not very expensive, but it costs something between $40,000 and $50,000 a year to incarcerate an adult. As the minister has talked about education spending being an investment, so I would see these programs being an investment as well.

What has the response of the government been? When the Vancouver School Board, Vancouver city council and community groups appealed to this government, up until very recently they were basically rebuffed. In fact, they were more or less told to get lost, a totally inappropriate response to individuals advocating on behalf of perhaps the most vulnerable in our society — those hungry children.

There's been a change in recent weeks. At least there have been some promises. I suppose promises are better than nothing. Even the Premier has indicated that we should not judge this government by its promises but by its action. We've seen no action, and that's why I'm on my feet at the moment — to ask where the beef is, where the action is. Basically the Premier said: "Don't trust me. Watch what we do; don't trust my words."

It's not just that statement....

[3:30]

Interjection.

MR. JONES: I didn't mean to twist that in the sense that there was any untrustworthiness. Judge us by our actions; don't judge us by our words. I don't want to judge you by your words; I want to see the actions. It's not just that lack of action that I'm concerned about. There are a number of other things that do make me a little skeptical. Let me outline what they are, other than just the statement about judging the actions.

The second one is a line that was in the Vancouver Sun yesterday, attributed to the member for Saanich and the Islands. That member said that the Premier is not sincere about the reforms she is promising. I'm wondering if he's referring to the line in the throne speech about providing for hungry children as one of those reforms about which the Premier and this government is insincere.

The third item that makes me skeptical about the sincerity of the government with respect to this program is what happened the other day regarding what has been described as "using schoolchildren for a political backdrop." The government has been very strongly criticized — as it should be — for its abuse of schoolchildren to try to prop up its image.

The last one is a meeting that I think the minister would be very interested in. This was a meeting between the three Burnaby MLAs — two of whom are cabinet ministers in this administration — and the Burnaby School Board. At that meeting there were four items on the agenda, and three of them, in my view, were not particularly fruitful discussions in the sense that the ministers did exactly what the Education minister did. They had all their statistics there and we ended up arguing about statistics — wasting our time, spinning our wheels on disputes on the figures.

The fourth item on the agenda was a school lunch program for the Burnaby School District. I said to the two cabinet ministers: "Look, we're wasting our time on the funding issue, the Bill 82 issue and the other economic issues, but there's one issue that apparently this government agrees with. Let's use the time in this meeting with the Burnaby School Board to see if we can find some common ground in terms of feeding the one in six children who are hungry in the Burnaby School District."

I was quite surprised by the response, because the Premier had been quite vocal about her support. They were creating a new government image, one that was caring and concerned about issues such as a lunch program for children. Yet the response of those two ministers was not very positive to this program. Again, we ended up arguing about the merits of the program. This was a real opportunity for those ministers, who I assume are on-board with the Premier on this issue — even though they didn't seem like it — to get behind it and help develop a program in the Burnaby School District that could help meet the needs of those children.

I'd like to provide a platform for this Minister of Education to outline the steps that have been taken. I assume that his ministry is the lead ministry in promoting this concept and that most of the planning has gone on to deliver this program to the hungry children of the province through the Ministry of Education. There must have been considerable work done. I would like some evidence that this isn't just smoke and mirrors — as myself and the member from Saanich and the Islands suspect it is — that there is some real planning going on, some real commitment of funds and some real thought about a sensitive, non-stigmatizing program that will meet the needs of those children; and that the minister understands the importance of this issue.

HON. S. HAGEN: I certainly do understand the importance of this issue. However, I would remind the member for Burnaby North that the lead minister in charge of putting this proposal together is the Minister of Women's Programs and Government Services and Minister Responsible for Families. He should propose his questions on the process that has taken place to that minister when her estimates come up.

MR. JONES: The minister says that there is.... I don't want to put words in his mouth. Let me ask. Is the minister saying, then, that there is no money in his budget — and I don't expect all the funding to come from the provincial government — to help set up programs to meet the nutritional needs of hungry schoolchildren?

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

HON. S. HAGEN: The money in my budget for lunch programs is to fund the programs that have been in existence since 1989-90 with the Vancouver School Board. Those programs were in place prior to the

[ Page 12576 ]

implementation of the block, which I'm sure you understand, and were rolled into the block.

You're talking about future policy here as well, I might add. Any additional funding that might be for new programs will be in the ministry that I mentioned before this: the Ministry of Women's Programs and Government Services and the Ministry Responsible for Families.

MR. JONES: The minister is saying that there is money in his budget to continue the program in the Vancouver School District, but there is no money in his budget to establish programs in Nanaimo, Coquitlam, Burnaby, Duncan, Sooke, Prince George or Maple Ridge. Can the minister advise the House: does he have any knowledge of the program that will be set up by that ministry? Has the minister been advised by the lead ministry of any planning that's gone on to meet the nutritional needs of those hungry children?

HON. S. HAGEN: I have been very kind and patient with the member for Burnaby North, and I've explained to him twice that the questions he is posing to me should not be posed to me. They are not questions involved with my estimates. They are questions that should be directed to another ministry, and he knows what that ministry is. They are also questions with regard to future policy.

MR. JONES: What I asked the minister is not future policy. I asked the minister: has he seen the plans? Can he advise the House of any of the details of a policy that's already been announced? It's not future policy. It was a promise. The Premier said: "Don't judge us by our promises. Judge us by our actions." I want some indication from that minister that there's something there, that there is some action, that his ministry will be the one that delivers this program. This program will be delivered primarily by the Ministry of Education in 1991-92, unless it's all smoke and mirrors. Then this program will be delivered in the schools, will be delivered through the Ministry of Education to the schoolchildren of this province.

The Minister has already indicated that he funds part of this program in one school district. I don't think he has seen any of the plans. I don't think he has thought about it. I don't think he knows anything about it. I don't think he cares about it, and if he does, then let's hear some of the details right here and right now.

HON. S. HAGEN: Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry to say that the member for Burnaby North is being deceitful and trying to ask questions about....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Sorry, minister. Would you withdraw the word "deceitful, " please.

HON. S. HAGEN: Yes, I'll withdraw the word "deceitful." The member for Burnaby North, Mr. Chairman, is not being honest and upright in his line of questioning.

MR. MILLER: Point of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm already going to take up the point, hon. member, unless you have something else.

MR. MILLER: Mr. Chairman, the minister doesn't want to deal with the topic and resorts to hurling barbs at the questioner. He'd be better off if he simply answered the question.

MR. CHAIRMAN: My understanding, hon. members, is that this doesn't fall within the purview of the Minister of Education but of the Minister of Women's Programs and Government Services. This is what I understand.

MR. JONES: That minister has indicated that the lead ministry is the Ministry of Women's Programs and Government Services. I have no argument with that. The delivery of this program will be primarily through the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Education is not the lead ministry, but clearly the schools of this province are going to be the vehicle for the delivery of that system.

Now I don't mind if the minister wants to be evasive and wants to use these technicalities to avoid the issue. That's fine; it's on the record. I asked the minister if he had any understanding, any concern, any of the details of the delivery of this service through the school system, and he declined on a technicality. If that's where the minister wants to leave the record of Hansard in the province of British Columbia in these legislative debates, that's fine with me. That's clear. I have to come to the conclusion then that it's smoke and mirrors.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The minister on a point of order.

HON. S. HAGEN: That member, Mr. Chairman, knows full well that he is stretching the truth and that what he is saying is more fiction than truth. He is talking about something that is not part of these estimates. They are part of the estimates of another minister. Now if he can't understand that, I'll write it out in a letter so he can understand it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think what we've run into here is something that's happened a few times latterly, and that is that we've got a difference of opinion between two people. The minister has taken his stand — and we accept that — and so has the member. Perhaps it would be in the interests of going ahead with the estimates that we move on to another subject.

MR. MILLER: Mr. Chairman, referring to the previous point of order which I raised, you said you would deal with it, but the minister did not withdraw his comments referring to the honesty of this member. I would ask that you instruct the minister to withdraw those comments.

HON. S. HAGEN: I'll withdraw those comments.

[ Page 12577 ]

MR. JONES: I will move on to another topic, because I think the position of the minister on the issue of hungry schoolchildren is very clear.

Let me raise another issue that I was told by that minister was in the purview of his ministry last Friday. I hope that he will be a little more forthcoming on this issue than he was on the other one. The minister has had advance notice, so there's no good reason why he will not be forthcoming on this issue.

Let me start off with a very simple question about the kaon project. I'm wondering why, whereas feeding hungry children isn't within the purview of that ministry, the kaon project is.

HON. S. HAGEN: I think the member for Burnaby North knows this full well: any moneys dedicated to the kaon factory proposal are not in the Ministry of Education.

[3:45]

MR. JONES: We are dealing with the minister's administrative budget. The minister is responsible for the kaon project. That minister is on record, as is the Minister of Advanced Education, Training and Technology, from last Friday night suggesting to me that he is the minister responsible. What I'd like to hear from the minister is that he is not the minister responsible for the kaon project and that he doesn't deal with the kaon project from his administrative office as Minister of Education.

HON. S. HAGEN: My understanding is that we are here today to talk about the estimates of the Ministry of Education. I assume that that's your understanding as well.

Any moneys budgeted for the project that the member is referring to are not in my budget. I don't know how much clearer I can be.

MR. JONES: We are here today discussing the estimates of the Ministry of Education. We are dealing specifically with a budgetary item — the minister's office. Everything the minister does from that office or is responsible for is open to debate, in my view, in this chamber. Now is that minister responsible for the kaon project or not?

HON. S. HAGEN: Far be it from me to suggest that the member is out of order, but I think anyone who reads through the estimates can see that there is no budget for the kaon project in the Ministry of Education.

MR. JONES: For the third time I'll try the question Has that minister been designated by the Premier of this province as the minister responsible for the kaon project?

HON. MR. BRUCE: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. This is getting to be fairly tedious and repetitious, I would think. We are here to deal with the estimates of the Minister of Education, and it would seem to me that the member opposite ought to be directed to deal with the estimates of the Minister of Education. This is going on and on, and I think the people of the province of British Columbia would like us to deal with the estimates of the Ministry of Education. So I would ask that you direct that member to do so.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I thank the minister for his help. I believe there was a question posed to the Minister of Education, and he is not obliged to answer the question. I think the minister also stated fairly clearly — for my ears — that this does not fall under his responsibility. But if he would like to respond to the last question of the member for Burnaby North, it's perfectly okay by me.

HON. S. HAGEN: I would be pleased to answer any questions from the other side of the House — or from this side of the House, for that matter — dealing with the budget estimates of the Ministry of Education.

MR. JONES: Very clearly, this minister, as he indicated in the House last Friday night, and confirmed by the new Minister of Advanced Education, Training and Technology, is the minister responsible for the kaon project. He will, in his promotion of that worthwhile project, handle phone calls in his office....

MR. SERWA: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. With respect to standing order 61 (2) and the point of relevancy, the hon. member opposite is clearly not relevant to the debate.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It seemed to the Chair that the member for Burnaby North was leading up to something there. I think that was a preamble that he just threw in to make the point. Would you like to continue?

MR. JONES: Very clearly, the record of the debates of last Friday night will show who is responsible for the kaon project for which this minister, in his perambulations through several ministries, has retained responsibility. I think he has done an excellent job of promoting the kaon project in this province.

Why at this time he wants to hide behind a technicality and not own up to the fact that he was appointed by the Premier to be responsible for the kaon project, I don't know. Obviously he has something to hide, and I will move on to new territory. But let the record show that the minister had advance notice of some of my questions. We had a private conversation where I indicated concern about the large dollar amount that's being expended in the lobbying for the kaon project. In his usual charming manner the minister laughingly accepted responsibility, but today in the House where in answering questions he would have to be forthright....

MR. KEMPF: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, this is clearly out of order. A number of times members on this side of the floor have stood on a point of order ruling this member out of order in the debate that's

[ Page 12578 ]

going on. I know it's very difficult for the members opposite to find fault with this minister's budget, but I don't know how many times I've heard the minister say the kaon project has nothing to do with his estimates. Any discussion thereon is out of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, hon. member. Member for Burnaby North, perhaps we could be relevant when dealing with these estimates. I think the subject with respect to kaon has been relatively well covered on both sides. Perhaps we could move along to something else.

MR. JONES: I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, but obviously the member for Omineca wasn't here last Friday night when I asked the Minister of Advanced Education, Training and Technology about the kaon project, and he said he wasn't the minister responsible and I should raise it under the estimates of Education.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member!

MR. JONES: I'll move on, Mr. Chairman.

Let me first of all clarify what this minister is responsible for. Is this minister responsible for school boards in this province? I think it's a correct assumption that he is responsible for school boards. Let me ask a question about school boards.

In 1975 Bill Bennett ran on a platform of restoring autonomy to school boards, and what we have seen from that day till today is a continual reduction of the autonomy of school boards in this province.

In an earlier debate with that minister, when again he wasn't responsible for things, but he was responsible for post-secondary education at the time, we were talking in this chamber about restoring democracy to college boards, and I used the analogy of school boards as being the democratically elected local body responsible for education and that they were a good model of how we might consider restoring democracy to our college boards. The Minister of Education said at that time that he really didn't want to get into that kind of democratizing college boards because those school boards "engaged in political posturing" — that's a quote. He didn't like school boards very much in those days. Yet what we hear in this House is that he receives all kinds of input from school boards, that he's very sensitive to the concerns of the major stakeholder groups in education, and that really they play a major role in shaping the decision-making that his government engages in.

What we have seen year after year after year is this government running roughshod over the views and the rights of school boards; running roughshod over their ability to tax; forcing them to go to referendum; confiscating the non-residential property tax; destroying bargaining rights under the compensation unfairness program; and now today we see another knee-jerk reaction that has not been called for by anybody.

Clearly the only call that we've seen for the announcement the minister made today was from the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke — the member from Queest Beach resorts. In a statement last Friday he called for provincewide bargaining and said he had been banging on the door for eight years for this government. Nobody else had been banging on the door except the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke.

What we see is another knee-jerk and another jerk lurching back and forth from one side to the other in terms of education planning. There is no forethought or consultation — just closing the barn door and then deciding to talk to the stakeholder groups. It's a shameful record in this province continued by this minister in terms of appropriate consultation by school boards. This announcement today is a continuation of the thoughtless approach this government takes to education. It does nothing to restore the stability that we thought a couple of years ago, under the previous minister, was beginning to get on the right track. There were proper consultation processes, and there was some predictability, some planning and some forethought. This minister has destroyed much of the belief that school boards in this province are to be respected and that proper planning can take place.

Again, Mr. Chairman, it is a sad announcement from the minister today which is again running roughshod over a proper consultation process.

HON. S. HAGEN: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman; I didn't realize that the member for Burnaby North was finished.

MR. JONES: Do you want some more? I can give you some more.

HON. S. HAGEN: I'm sure he's got some more.

I could not help but catch some of the comments he made. It's pretty obvious to me that the member for Burnaby North is playing up to the BCTF today. I can only assume that he must have a job application in there, so when he's defeated in the next election he will have someplace to go. It's shameful and sad that the members opposite are so controlled by special-interest groups.

I can remember when the member for Burnaby North was on the school board. He was on the Burnaby School Board, as I recall, and I think he was a teacher in an adjoining school district at the same time. Of course, he was voting on pay increases and other benefits. I'm sure he sees no conflict of interest there, and I'm certainly not insinuating that there might be one. I think some people might see that as a possibility — just a possibility — when you sit at the table and negotiate collective agreements which might have some benefit to your income or other things. However, it's always interesting that when it's on that side of the House, it's okay. I'm going to leave it at that.

However, I want to address his vociferous complaint about the announcement I made today. It gives me an opportunity to expand on that announcement. The reality in education is that the one-year cost impact of agreements negotiated between school boards and the teachers' unions around the province amounts to 9 percent to 13 percent. When you look at the growth in the economy of the province, which is somewhere between 0 percent and 1 percent because of

[ Page 12579 ]

a downturn, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that that system is not sustainable on this basis. The boards have been doing the bargaining with the teachers' unions. It's pretty obvious that the unions have done a great job. They've won every battle at the bargaining table. Some people would say that's fair, if you're on that side of the bargaining table.

[4:00]

I heard the member for Burnaby North complain that we had taken taxing powers away from the boards. I expect there are a lot of taxpayers out there saying: "Thank goodness for that, because we couldn't afford to pay any more taxes."

MR. SERWA: Mr. Krog is the only one who would have known that.

HON. S. HAGEN: Mr. Krog, one of the upright NDP candidates who speaks from the heart, has admitted that the NDP would have no alternative but to raise taxes. Or if you look at Ontario, which is the only provincial government in Canada with an NDP government...so I think it's only fair to refer to that.

Interjection.

HON. S. HAGEN: It's a socialist government. They not only raise taxes but have a $10 billion deficit this year. I see some of the members shaking their heads and saying: "No, no, that's not a deficit." You know what the NDP candidate in North Vancouver has said about the federal deficit? He says: "It's not a deficit. It's like a loan within the family. It's no different than advancing your children's allowance." Mr. Chairman, I've got five children, and I'm glad I don't have to advance my children's allowances to the tune of $10 billion. That is absolutely irresponsible.

The member referred to the lack of consultation. Let me explain what I announced today. I announced that the government of British Columbia is moving to provincial bargaining with teachers — but not tomorrow or next week, because we want to allow time for the consultative process to work. I'm extending an arm of invitation to the BCTF, the B.C. School Trustees' Association, the Association of B.C. School Superintendents, the B.C. School District Secretary-Treasurers' Association, the B.C. Principals' and Vice-Principals' Association, the Business Council of B.C. and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business — people who deal with this issue all the time — to give me advice so that I can develop a proposal for provincewide bargaining for teachers and bring some equality and rationale back into the system.

Because of different districts bargaining at different times, we presently have things happening in the districts that are very sad to me. It's very sad to me when you have teachers in a district who tell their grade 12 students: "You know that you may not be able to graduate this year. You may not be able to go on to university. You may not be able to qualify to sit for government exams. Therefore you will not qualify for bursaries or scholarships." I ask the House: is that a fair way to bargain? I don't think so.

Interjection.

HON. S. HAGEN: The second member for Vancouver East said we designed it. We did not, in all due respect, Mr. Member, design a system where teachers can hold students to ransom in order to come to a collective agreement. That may be your idea of fairness, Mr. Member, but it is not my idea of fairness. It is not fairness to these members on this side of the House. If you think that's fair, you're living in the wrong country.

Let me get back to the consultative process. It's very important to me that we involve people who deal with labour relations to come up with a provincewide bargaining system that is fair to all parties. I believe that the bargaining process must be fair to all parties, and that's why we haven't imposed this.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

I know members on the other side of the House might have said: "You should have brought it in right away." No, we're not going to do that. We're seeking input for the best possible process designed in British Columbia for British Columbia issues. That's what we've done, and I think that the people of British Columbia — particularly the people in the Peace River country, in the Fraser Valley, on Vancouver Island and in the Okanagan — will be very pleased with this announcement today that finally....

I was a school trustee in the seventies, and school trustees were talking about this issue then and have never come to grips with it. Finally, today, we've come to grips with it so that we can continue to guarantee the best quality education for the students of British Columbia.

I'm getting a lot of interruptions from the people across the floor. When I start talking about the students of British Columbia, they want to interrupt because they don't want to hear that. They think the system is there to employ their friends and special-interest groups. The system is there to educate children.

Yes, we need good high-quality teachers, and we have them in the system. And yes, they should be fairly paid. But I believe that $51,000 a year average, including benefits, is a fair wage. We believe in fairness; that's why we've designed the process this way, why we're getting the input and involving the expertise.

MS. CULL: It's interesting to hear the minister talk about consultation. I just would like to note that it's in the traditional Social Credit manner of announcing the decision and then following with the consultation.

I want to change the subject a bit. I want to talk about facilities and planning for a little bit, and I want to begin by asking the minister to bring us up to date on what has happened with the implementation of the Cornerstone study, which was done in 1989 and continued into 1990. The minister last year advised us that the recommendations had been received and were being looked at. I'd like to hear, in terms of facilities planning, what has actually been implemented in the ministry.

[ Page 12580 ]

HON. S. HAGEN: I apologize to the member. I was busy writing a note here — a very important message that I have to send out — and I missed the question. Could I ask you to repeat it?

MS. CULL: Perhaps he's just rewriting the last press release in terms of the consultative model.

I was asking about a study that was done for the ministry by Cornerstone Consulting. It started in 1989, I believe; it was completed in 1990. It looked at the entire facilities planning process for the Ministry of Education. In that case, as I understand it, it did get the consultation and decision-making in the correct order. A lot of consultation was done with people interested in facilities planning in education. A number of recommendations were made. Last year the Minister of Education advised me, when we discussed it during the estimates debate, that the recommendations were being considered. I would like to know what has been done to implement the recommendations brought forward from that study.

HON. S. HAGEN: I am not sure whether there's any budget implication to that, so I'll wait for my staff to arrive and ask that question; then I'll give you an answer.

MS. CULL: I see the minister's staff have come back, and I'm hoping that he will have a chance to put the question to his staff so I don't have to repeat it a third time, and then find out what the answer is. Is the minister ready to answer the question about what's happened to the Cornerstone facilities planning study, and which, if any, of the recommendations of that study have been implemented by his ministry in terms of their administrative procedures, which I believe is part of what we're here to do in this debate?

HON. S. HAGEN: I apologize for the delay. Thank you for the question, and I'm pleased to inform you that in fact Cornerstone Consulting have done an excellent job. As a result of their study we have informed the boards that we are working on five-year planning and we are taking many of the suggestions in the report and putting them into practice.

MS. CULL: I wonder if the minister could be a little more specific. One of the recommendations was for multi-year funding. Another was related to the coordination with other ministries. Another recommendation related to assistance to boards for planning — and I don't mean the kind of planning that is already part of the budget, which is site-specific and school-specific, but district-wide planning. I could go on with some of the other recommendations, but I would like to hear more than just the generality of: "Yes, it was a good study and we're looking at it." A full year at least has gone by.

HON. S. HAGEN: I am pleased to report that besides the five-year planning process, one of the items that came out of there was the disposition and sale of assets. We are working with Lands very closely on identifying land on reserve or Crown lands.

MS. CULL: Could the minister advise me as to the progress of multi-year funding approvals? .

HON. S. HAGEN: I remind the member that we are already into two-year funding commitments because of the planning and then the construction cycle. We are working with the boards on five-year planning cycles.

MS. CULL: I'm sorry to keep going down through this list, but since the minister is not answering the total question, I'm just going to run through the list.

Could the minister tell us what is happening with respect to coordination with other ministries in the facilities area as a result of the recommendations?

HON. S. HAGEN: As I mentioned, we are working with Lands to reserve Crown lands that are properly situated in growing communities. We're also working with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

MS. CULL: Is there any coordination going on with other ministries that have capital budgets to build facilities that might be built in cooperation or in conjunction with school facilities — in other words, side by side, at the same time? The ministries identified at the time in the study for Social Services and Housing and Health would like to hear whether they are also part of the consultative process.

HON. S. HAGEN: Yes, I'm pleased to inform the member that we are working very closely with Treasury Board to coordinate all the capital projects, to make sure that there is no duplication. I might also say that in my meetings with the BCSTA and with school boards I encouraged close cooperation between school boards and city councils, so that — particularly in areas where there is a fast rate of growth — there can be a coordinated effort to identify school sites, and also so that city councils can get a look at the proper zoning that would be necessary.

MS. CULL: One of the other recommendations was for planning assistance from the ministry. A lot of discussion took place about the models used by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, in terms of providing planning assistance to municipal councils. Suggestions were made by the Cornerstone study that similar initiatives be taken by the Ministry of Education. I was wondering if the minister could tell us what has been done in that area.

[4:15]

HON. S. HAGEN: That's a very interesting area, and it could be one that you end up pouring a lot of money into. However, I'm not downplaying the importance of planning. We do have a couple of pilot projects in districts that we're dealing with, to see exactly how it might work.

[ Page 12581 ]

MS. CULL: Could you tell me which districts the pilot projects are in, Mr. Minister?

HON. S. HAGEN: Surrey and Nanaimo.

MS. CULL: As I understand it, one of the things discussed in the study was this notion that the ministry provide some support to overall district-wide planning. The staff of your ministry has provided good assistance to districts on site-specific planning initiatives. When an area is identified as needing a school and a decision is made, all the support is there. I know you have the technical and professional staff to do that. But the Cornerstone group identified the need for more generic, district-wide planning. That's something the Ministry of Municipal Affairs discovered about ten years ago, when they had to implement a system to encourage all municipalities to put a plan in place. In fact, the Municipal Act requires municipalities to have in their official community plan a five-year supply of land for residential purposes. Is the ministry working with school districts to put in place a similar model for school districts? Will there be professional planning assistance to school districts on the broad, generic district-planning? Will school districts be required to prepare a five-year plan identifying their needs into the future? Similar to municipalities, will they be required to estimate their facilities needs more than just one or two years ahead, which is now the case?

HON. S. HAGEN: Well, I couldn't agree more that planning for the future is important. Boards are now, in fact, carrying out five-year capital plans. I mentioned the pilot projects that we had. We're going to let those continue and deal with some of these issues. But I can't stress enough the importance of boards working very closely with municipal councils. In most cases they do. As I travel from district to district, it's sometimes very easy to see the boards and the staff that are working closely together so that they're aware of where growth is taking place and can see far in advance where new school sites should be located. I would describe Campbell River as one of those communities where the board is working very closely with the council. In Courtenay it's the same; it's been that way in Courtenay for probably 20 years.

Those are some of the results that came out of that consultant's report. I should also say that we're not carrying out all of the recommendations; but I would guess that we're carrying out most of them, and we'll continue to monitor those pilot projects. Burnaby, by the way, is another district with a pilot project.

MS. CULL: Can the minister tell me whether the block funding includes an allowance for a district to hire a planner to carry out the five-year planning studies? Is that costed into the block funding?

HON. S. HAGEN: Well, the benefit of block funding, of course, is that a board can choose whatever they wish to do with that money. So if a board chooses to hire a planner, they can do that. With that choice, they may have to choose not to do something else.

MS. CULL: Mr. Chair, the minister was just agreeing with me about the importance of planning to school districts. Considering the kind of budgets we're talking about for capital facilities, I think it's very important that we do this in a professional manner and that it's well thought out and well planned. The minister has said that it's basically up to the board: if they want to hire a planner, then they're going to have to take the money from somewhere else in their budget.

In calculating the block, the minister adds up a number of things that are considered to be the basic requirements of education. Those items go into the basis of the block, and the block is calculated on that. Is a facilities planner or a portion of an FTE for facilities planning included in the block calculations that come up with the basic per capita amount?

HON. S. HAGEN: I think maybe the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head had better get together with the member for Burnaby North. The member for Burnaby North is saying that we've taken all the discretionary powers away from the boards, that we don't give them enough discretionary powers; the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head wants us to dictate to the boards what they spend their money on. You can't have it both ways. You've got to have flexibility in there and give the boards some choices, or we might as well just dictate to them line by line how they're going to spend their money. If that's what you're advocating to me, I can't agree with it.

MS. CULL: The minister knows full well that there are funds attached to spending and that there is a way the board actually goes about spending that money. I'm not saying this quite correctly, so let me back up.

The ministry, in calculating the money that it's going to give to a school district, just doesn't pull a figure out of thin air. They look at what they think is needed to run the education system, and they calculate into that amount of money the services and facilities and staff. Everything from supplies on up to the district superintendent, I imagine, has been looked at to see what it costs to run a school district.

Having given that block funding to the school district, then, of course, it is up to the district to determine how they're going to spend that money. I think that is entirely appropriate. I'm just asking the minister to tell me, when his ministry tots up all the numbers for the global budget that will be used to determine the block funding, if facilities planning is important enough to his ministry that some allocation is made for hiring someone to actually undertake that job at the district level.

HON. S. HAGEN: It's interesting to me that the answer to everything from the other side is to hire more people and spend more money. But I'm pleased to inform the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head that school boards that I'm aware of already have people on staff who are good at that function, unless you have a job creation program for planners. Secretary-treasurers and facilities people on staff have been doing this for many years in some districts; they have been operating

[ Page 12582 ]

very successfully. As I said before, if the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head wants me to provide specific money for a specific function in the board office, then maybe we should look at how many principals, vice- principals or counsellors a board employs in a school. I see a nodding of agreement there. That's why the block functions the way it does. It's flexible, and it gives the boards the opportunity to place their emphasis exactly where they want to place it.

MS. CULL: I think the minister, in a long and roundabout way, has said no, that money is not in there and that, while there are a lot of fine words about the importance of planning, that's certainly not one of the things that's funded. I know that in some districts people are assigned to do this work, and there are people in districts who do it. In any event, they have to do it. We don't hire planners to teach our children, and I don't really know why we would expect educators to do planning in this fashion. But no money has been allocated, and districts will have to make their own choices, as they have been doing all along.

I want to ask about the timing of capital budget submissions and approvals. I wonder if the minister could tell me if there is an annual date set by which capital budget requests have to be submitted to the ministry.

HON. S. HAGEN: We did canvass this yesterday, but I don't mind repeating it. I would love to get into my dissertation on capital budgets again, but I'll answer the question very briefly. It's August 1.

MS. CULL: Could the minister tell me if there is also a date by which the ministry undertakes to advise the districts of the approval of the capital budget? They submit it on August 1, and some time must transpire and then they must hear the word. Could the minister tell us if there is a set date? And if there is not a set date, could he tell us what date will be met this year? If I'm correct, they have not yet been announced on an individual basis to the districts. I'm not certain.

HON. S. HAGEN: We did canvass this before, but I appreciate that the member may not have caught it. There is no date set as a deadline for the announcement of capital programs, but I think it should be clear that Treasury Board has to assess all capital requests from all ministries. While the Ministry of Education is the largest, they also have to look at Health, Solicitor-General, Attorney-General, Advanced Education, Training and Technology and any other ministries that have large capital envelopes, because it obviously affects the borrowing capacity of the government.

I'll be very quick in finishing this. Historically, I think, capital announcements have been made during the summer months. We have tried to move that forward in the year. As I said to the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew yesterday, in order to take advantage of the construction season, particularly in areas in the central or northern part of the province, some announcements have been made in individual districts. I expect they will all be made by the end of June.

MS. CULL: I'm sorry I wasn't here yesterday. I was with the Minister of Health at the Oak Bay Lodge dealing with their three-year accreditation celebration, so I apologize for having missed that.

I want to explore submissions that have to be made to the ministry by August 1; obviously work has got to be done in the districts some time prior to that — several months prior to that — to do their work and determine what should be at the top of their priority list: what projects need doing, what's new and what's emerging from last year. Even with the best planning process, it's going to take some time to prepare. The difficulty many districts face is they don't hear about their capital budget for almost a full calendar year. I appreciate what you just said about trying to shorten that time.

The point I want to make here about the difficulty is that when you don't hear about last year's budget until the end of June, you can't prepare for the next stage in next year's budget if you don't know what you've got approved.

One of the problems we have in greater Victoria is related to earthquake safety. The district has put forward a number of proposals to undertake the studies that are needed. One can't go out and fix a building until one knows what has to be done to it. I understand this district has just learned that funding may be available for earthquake safety, but another year will have to come along before they can put in the proposals for the continuation of the funding.

Would the minister agree that this time cycle from the ministry is taking too long. There has to be some chance of the district's getting an earlier announcement so they can prepare for the next budget cycle. We're not going to be able to have a five-year planning cycle if we have these missed years in between because of the length of time it takes to get the announcement from the ministry. Would the minister agree that this is very important and does need to be pushed back, and that the end of June is just too late?

HON. S. HAGEN: I don't want to be too hard on the member for Oak Bay, but I'll take you back to our discussion on....

Interjection.

HON. S. HAGEN: No, it's not condescending. I could have come out very heavily against her.

We just talked about five-year planning processes. We are in a five-year planning process, which is updated each year, so as announcements are made, those projects drop off the list because they're going to be built or purchased, and you move into the next year. The planning process is continuous. There's no delay; there's no lost time in the planning process. It's a five-year process which gets updated each year. As this year drops off, you pick up a year five years down the road.

[4:30]

[ Page 12583 ]

MS. CULL: The member for Vancouver East said that you basically only have two months to prepare for this in the best of all situations. In many cases, it's just not enough. You have to actually get into the queue of the five-year planning cycle to be able to prepare for the next. If you keep putting it in, and you don't know for a full year whether you've got the funding, you've already prepared the next year's capital budget before you know whether you're getting the funding for year one. That's the problem with this system.

We need to tighten this up a little bit. If the minister is really concerned about planning.... We should all be concerned about facilities-planning given the importance of the work that needs to be undertaken, particularly in the area of safety to students. Given the size of the budget in the overall provincial capital budget, this is one area that the minister should address. It's an area that was identified by the Cornerstone study and by all the people who participated in it.

I'd like to know whether the ministry has, as a result of its change to a five-year planning cycle and support for more long-range initiatives, changed from what was characterized by one of your staff as a "whites of their eyes" policy. By that I mean that the ministry basically funds schools when the children have arrived in the district and can be counted as being there and requiring a school, even though it may take 18 months to two years to actually build that facility. Is the ministry now prepared to fund site acquisitions and the construction of additions or new schools, if necessary, on the basis of planning work that has been done in conjunction with municipalities, to meet expected future growth, so that we can acquire some of these sites while the land is still relatively undeveloped?

HON. S. HAGEN: Yes, the decisions are now being made on projections.

MS. CULL: I want to ask the minister about another item that the former Minister of Education spoke about last year, and that is the acquisition of land for schools. Earlier, in a response to another question, the minister did say that consultation has been going on with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. Could the minister tell us what progress has been made with respect to changes to government practice to allow school districts to acquire sites at the time of development? Last year the former Minister of Education suggested that schools should be an integral part of development and that it would just take a little imagination to have this happen. Has the ministry advanced at all on that in the last year?

HON. S. HAGEN: Yes, there are discussions going on between my ministry and the Ministry of Lands — not Municipal Affairs. Any changes in practices would require legislation. However, the discussions are taking place now between those two ministries.

MS. CULL: Did I hear the minister correctly? Did he say that discussions are taking place with both the Ministry of Lands and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs on this, or is it just with Lands? He's nodding and saying both.

The Ministry of Lands is fine in those areas where we have Crown land available to be developed and therefore available for school sites. Unfortunately, in most of the critical growth areas, right now in the lower mainland and greater Victoria, Crown land just isn't an option in providing for school sites. Is the minister telling me now that, like his predecessor, he is prepared to ask the Minister of Municipal Affairs to consider whatever legislative changes are necessary so school districts can acquire sites at the time of development?

HON. S. HAGEN: As I said before, we're working on that.

MS. CULL: Well, Mr. Minister, you were working on that a year ago. Has any progress occurred in the last year?

HON. S. HAGEN: I wasn't here last year, so you've only asked me once. I can tell you that progress is being made. At the last meeting I had with the BCSTA executive, this was a topic of discussion, and the BCSTA executive has one person designated to work with us on this issue.

MS. CULL: I appreciate the minister wasn't here last year. But sometimes, with the way cabinet shuffles have been going on, it has been hard to keep track of who is in fact responsible and who you put the questions to the last time.

I just have one final question related to the whole area of facilities planning. It's somewhat related to the Cornerstone study, but it's related to a number of concerns that people have when new schools are being built. When a school is built in a new neighbourhood — and we have an awful lot of opportunities in Surrey and Saanich and places that are rapidly growing right now — there is also the opportunity to have other community facilities there at the same time. I'm not suggesting that the Ministry of Education budget would cover the cost of building or operating those facilities, but certainly the opportunity is there for schools to also house day cares, health centres or community activity centres. Many of these other kinds of community activities are funded by other provincial ministries. The difficulty arises because a school is built through consultation with the Ministry of Education, and there doesn't seem to have been in the past any ability to deal with the other ministries which might also be looking for space in that community to carry out their activities.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

Can the minister tell me, in the last year has there been any discussion with the Ministry of Social Services and Housing and the Ministry of Health about joint use of facilities, about pooling of capital resources and about the ability to build more community-based structures, rather than a school which is essentially

[ Page 12584 ]

available for the use of children in the daytime Monday to Friday?

HON. S. HAGEN: I'm pleased to give a very positive reply to that question. In fact, districts are now encouraged to do some joint planning and joint looking at things with their municipalities. The ministry encourages this. As I mentioned before, Treasury Board coordinates this because of all the capital projects that are underway.

I'll give you two examples in British Columbia that are very successful examples of this type of planning process. One is the Thomas Haney Centre in Maple Ridge, and the other is the Burnaby South 2000 project in Burnaby.

MS. CULL: I'm not familiar with either of those two projects. Who are the partners besides the school district? Are they municipal, or is the Ministry of Social Services and Housing one of the other provincial ministries involved?

I'll give my second and hopefully last question at the same time. I am pleased that the ministry is encouraging school districts to coordinate with municipalities and other local bodies. They have been doing that for some time, as far as I am aware, and doing it as successfully as they can. My question is: is the minister now doing that with his counterparts in Social Services and Health?

HON. S. HAGEN: Again, the answer is a positive yes.

You asked me for the partners in these two projects. In the Thomas Haney Centre it's the Ministry of Advanced Education, Training and Technology, Douglas College, the municipality of Maple Ridge and School District 42. In the Burnaby South 2000 project the partner is the municipality of Burnaby.

You made the point that we are encouraging the working at the local level, and that's in fact what we're doing. We're not imposing anything onto them; we're just saying: "Have you looked at this?"

I think of another project up in the Cariboo, where we've had a submission from the municipality with regard to a joint project.

MS. EDWARDS: Since you've been talking about buildings and so on, I'll ask my one question which is related to the capital funding. Some time ago the Minister of Education — I'm not sure which one, but a Minister of Education of this government — said that in capital funding, any building more than 35 years old would have some priority in attention. We have a school in Cranbrook which is more than 40 years old and which is on the list. We have no announcement yet as to what capital projects will go ahead in School District 2. I wonder if the minister could tell me whether that will continue to be a priority. Would a building that is 40 years old be likely to get some priority in this decision?

HON. S. HAGEN: I don't understand why the member for Kootenay has difficulty keeping track of the Ministers of Education of this province. There have only been two in this term.

With regard to your specific request for your specific district, I can tell you that the capital announcement for that district has not yet been made but will be made shortly. The answer to your question will then be known to you.

MS. EDWARDS: I'd like to thank the second Minister of Education in this government. It must be a record for this government to have a ministry that only had two ministers. I wonder if the minister could answer my question, which is: do buildings more than 35 years old have priority in the minister's decisions?

HON. S. HAGEN: The answer is yes.

MS. EDWARDS: I want to deal with a point — a fairly short one — related to the recent decision of the minister to end dual-entry kindergarten. I have some concern with someone in my constituency. Of course, I won't say what the occupation of that person is, because I'd hate the minister to be prejudiced against that person if I happen to admit they might be a teacher, a trustee or whatever working for the school district. The minister has strange feelings.

It was mentioned to me that it seems, with the whole process we'll have to go into in dismantling the dual-entry kindergarten system, that there are really no ways that would be general right across the province. The suggestion was made that it would be an excellent idea to have individual districts be allowed to decide how they would dismantle the program, move into the next phase and deal with those children who might have to have a six-month hiatus or whatever. I wonder if the minister would answer whether or not he is going to give a fairly free rein to the districts to decide how they will dismantle the dual-entry kindergarten process.

HON. S. HAGEN: I just want to clarify a statement the member made. I think she was questioning my feelings towards teachers. I can assure the member that I have the utmost respect for teachers in this province or anywhere else. My sister is a teacher, and my wife is a teacher. I hope that two or three of my children become teachers. I wouldn't want her to cast any feelings on that.

My difficulty that you probably just walked in on when I was discussing with the member for Burnaby North.... The only time I have difficulty with teachers is when they serve as school trustees at the same time. Otherwise, I have the greatest respect for teachers and the teaching profession.

With regard to your question of whether or not the move from dual-entry might be optional, the answer is no. The people in the system with whom I've checked — and I've talked to teachers, parents and administrators — assure me that it would be an absolute disaster.

[4:45]

MS. EDWARDS: I think I'm going to move on to block funding and talk a bit to the minister about the

[ Page 12585 ]

problems that are occurring in School District 2, the Cranbrook district. That district is now suffering the problems that were predicted by a number of us at the time block funding came in: if the block funding was not administered as well as it might be, some of these school districts were going to have very difficult times as it went ahead. It seems that school districts that are medium-sized — 4,000 to 8,000 students — getting the main impact of the difficulties with the block funding these days.

The Cranbrook School District is one of those districts, and it is having a very severe time this year. It is going to have to make a $1.4 million cut in its budget — just in the budget needs — to continue the programs that it already has. It had begun putting together some programs that had been requested, and which would have been logical — extensions which would have been reasonable improvements on the programs that are there. They finally quit doing that when they were at another $1.4 million.

That's not to say the board would have spent that money, Mr. Chairman, but it does say that there are needs there. Even to stay at the level the district was at would take at least $1.4 million. The cuts that this school district had to make included some very important things. It included nearly half a million dollars' worth of capital equipment. That equipment, if it isn't bought or replaced, has a major impact on what happens within the school system. It included a wellness program, maintenance funds, cultural programs and recruitment.

I might mention to the minister that because the district is right next door to a number of other districts which are under the new rules that were introduced and under which school districts have to work, the ones next door are not going to have staff under the direction of the compensation commissioner. Therefore they will able to pay teachers and recruit teachers much more easily than our district is. Despite that, the budget will have to be cut by $30,000, which is going to have a major impact on our district. It's going to be extremely difficult to recruit teachers in a district that is under the compensation commissioner, when you're right next door to districts that are not under the compensation commissioner. They are going to have to cut their recruitment budget even so.

In fact, what the school district chairman has said about the cuts that have had to be put in — and of course there are whole extracurricular programs that have had to be cut — is that the budget cuts the board is contemplating are worse than the measures the board of school trustees had to take during the restraint program of the early eighties. We all know that was a time of extreme cuts, and that there were very great damages to the school system at that time.

So these cuts that are now happening to School District 2 under this block funding are extreme, Mr. Minister. I would like the minister to respond to this issue. It seems to me that there is no excuse in the world that we should.... Does the minister support wellness projects or cultural programs? There are a number of professional development activities that won't be carried out.

The minister already has a letter from the Cranbrook district parent advisory council, which has said that the devastating cuts will affect all students, but in particular the special-needs students. It said that "our district already lacks adequate funding for special education. The impact to extracurricular programs is immediate and lasting." They go through the whole thing.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the minister if he is planning to answer the letter he received from this group — I'm not sure when he received it; it was sent on April 23, 1991 — and whether he has any answers for this group, who are seriously committed to the welfare of the students in School District 2.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Labour would like leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. RABBITT: Today we have with us 38 grade 7 students from C.E. Barry Intermediate School from the great little community of Hope, which is at the top end of the Fraser Valley and the bottom end of the Fraser Canyon. They're here in Victoria visiting some of the finer sights and partaking in their education. They've come to the House today to listen to the estimates of the Ministry of Education. I'd like the House and all the members here to give these students a warm welcome.

HON. S. HAGEN: I'm pleased to respond to the question from the member for Kootenay. I just want to go over some statistics with regard to School District 2 in Cranbrook. Over the last two years Cranbrook School District has received an increase of 15.6 percent. They have a very slightly declining student population. I appreciate the comments with regard to the challenge of funding under the block. The request, as I hear it, is that I should interfere in some way and provide extra funding. The difficulty I have to deal with is that I don't want to interfere with their programs. The only instance that I've interfered with school districts this year was when they attempted to cut special-education programs, and I said: "No, you won't cut special-education programs." However, I'm very reluctant to get into how they develop their budget.

There's one other set of figures that I want to place before the House with regard to the board's difficulty in balancing their budget. That is the collective agreement between the board and their unions calling for a 7 percent increase in each year over two years. I'm not sure if the member is saying to me that the board concluded a collective agreement that they can't afford or that they're having to cut educational programs because of it. Maybe she could clarify that.

MS. EDWARDS: The Cranbrook School District did indeed settle a contract with the Cranbrook District Teachers' Association for 7 and 7 basically. That was not unusual across the province. If this school district paid that contract, under the block funding the school

[ Page 12586 ]

district would still be short $900,000 to keep the same programs it had last year.

What I'm saying to the minister is that the block funding is not doing what it should do. When it was introduced, the districts were told that we would look at what the districts had put into their school budgets, and that the block funding was to see that they would continue to have not only a fair share, but a fair share based on what that community was willing to put into its school budget.

In Cranbrook there has been very careful management of the budget. This year there will be huge cuts, many of them extremely unpopular. They are going to happen whether or not the decision of the compensation commissioner comes into place. So the welfare of the students in the district is going to be affected. I believe, Mr. Minister, and certainly the members of the Cranbrook district parent advisory council believe, that special-needs children are going to be affected as well. It's going to affect right across the board. It's going to particularly affect the implementation of the Year 2000 program. There is a real problem with the budget on that, with the ministry, because there is no particular area where we can track anymore — that the minister even wants to say this much, as last year, is for the implementation of Year 2000.

Believe me, there are some people in the district worried that the work that has already gone ahead will no longer be able to go ahead, or that what has been done will be erased or we will be stepping backwards. In fact, what is happening in the district is that there is not going to be the professional development, the curriculum development and the input that is needed to continue that program. In our district we not only had the primary program going, we also had the intermediate program and the graduate program going ahead.

There is nothing in the budget — nowhere that you can tell — that there will be money specifically to keep the initiative and the impact of that program going ahead. The district has had to cut back because of the implications of the block funding, and there are some major worries about whether Year 2000 can go ahead.

Can the minister assure the people in School District No. 2 that he is going to help the district see that that program goes ahead? We don't know if the program's going to go ahead. Maybe the minister is going to say it can't go ahead anymore anyway, except for the primary program. Is that what's going to happen? Has the minister made up his mind what's going to happen? How is the district supposed to cope with that?

HON. S. HAGEN: I'm sorry that the member wasn't here yesterday, because we had a very good discussion on the royal commission program and the Year 2000 program. The official critic for the opposition, I think, understands that there is $185 million in this year's budget for the Year 2000 program. That was the question that was out there, and I could not discuss it until I tabled my estimates in the House.

The member, I guess, is saying: "Is the district in which I live going to be able to implement the Year 2000 program? What about the cuts that may have to be made to educational programs?" She even mentioned that there may have to be cuts to special-ed programs.

I will state again that there will not be cuts or reductions to special-ed programs in the province, because those are totally funded by the province. If boards choose to cut those programs, the lever we have is that we can reduce the funding. But I've chosen not to do that. I've chosen to ask the boards very strongly to continue the special-ed programs, because I happen to think that they are very important, and important to the students in those programs.

There is money in the block to implement the Year 2000 program. As soon as I am able to send the funding letter to each board, they will then see what other moneys are available. I will do that as soon as I've got my estimates passed through this House.

MS. EDWARDS: I'd simply like to say, Mr. Chairman, that in School District 2 they were looking at continuing the programs and putting them together so they could maintain the impact of the programs. In just a partial list of where they would have liked to have gone with special education, which would have been an extension from last year and would have gone a little further.... There were $118,000 worth of projects here which were just on the very lowest level. But most particularly, I'd like to point out a request — a desire — to have a speech pathologist. That, of course, is absolutely out of it. Perhaps the minister understands how important it is for children who have any kind of speech problem to have it fixed when they're very young. In School District 2, that plan had to go by the boards.

[5:00]

There are a number of other programs that have had to go by the boards. One of the ones I visited and found very useful is Project Heavy Duty. It's a $10,000 program, and it had a huge impact. It was a program in which the whole community participated: heavy-duty operators, first aid people, and so on. It went on for a full week, where students in the high school went out and had a hands-on opportunity to drive a cat, move a grapple-skidder or do those marvellous things that both young women and young men in high school might never do otherwise. It's not a project for which the school district pays a very large share; it's probably about one-tenth. But it had to be wiped out. You can't even find $3,000 to take children to Fort Steele.

Mr. Minister, when we talk about the block funding being adequate, the people in School District 2 don't think so. I'd like to suggest that the people in School District 1 have some concerns too, because they're not sure what's going to happen when you again have what we call a whites-of-their-eyes-policy. We have threats of mine closures, which means large numbers of people will be laid off. What's going to happen to that district if that happens to their community?

It just seems to me that the minister should have some concern about this. Does the minister have any concern about the problems of trying to recruit staff in those two districts in the corner of the province that are surrounded by other districts that are not having

[ Page 12587 ]

any problems recruiting teachers because their collective agreements were allowed to stand?

HON. S. HAGEN: Mr. Chairman, the member from the Kootenays has raised a very serious issue. I can assure you that I am very concerned about the issue she has raised. The member gave examples of two programs the board says it can't fund. One is Project Heavy Duty; I'm familiar with that project. The cost of that project is $10,000. Is the member telling me that in a budget of $23,439,000 the board can't find $10,000 to do that project? I have difficulty understanding that.

More serious is the allegation that the board of school trustees is dropping the speech pathologist. As a government, we provide, through the taxpayers, special and additional funding for the speech pathologist. My question is: what is the board doing with that money? That money is designated for a speech pathologist. If they're not using the money for a speech pathologist, what are they using it for? If the member wishes to make a request, I'll be pleased to send in an auditor to audit School District 2 to find out where they are spending the money.

MS. EDWARDS: I'm quite sure that our school board is not doing anything improper or illegal with the funds put there by the minister. I am staying with my school board right down the line. The implications that the minister makes are improper, I think. Believe me, I will watch you, Mr. Minister, because that kind of accusation against my school board is improper.

I'd like to suggest that this list of things that this school board can't afford anymore.... They will apply what money they have to other important programs. They have had to make very difficult choices, and I think that the minister suggesting that $10,000 is just peanuts in their budget is an insult.

HON. S. HAGEN: I would like to clarify for the record that it was the member for Kootenay who made the allegation about the school board cutting the speech pathologist. It wasn't me; it was the member for Kootenay. I will not see boards attempting to balance their budgets on the backs of special-needs children in the Kootenays or anywhere else in this province. Furthermore, if the member is asking me to send in an auditor to find out what happened to the money given to that district for a speech pathologist, I'm quite prepared to do that.

MS. EDWARDS: I believe that if the minister had been listening as well as he said he was, he would have known that I said this speech pathologist was on the list of things that the district had hoped to do as an expansion. I think the minister is making a big issue, and I hope he considers that he is doing well.

MR. GUNO: It's a pleasure to take part in this estimates debate today. I'm going to be brief, because I really want to focus just on the issues that pertain to the two districts located in my riding.

[Mr. De Jong in the chair.]

First of all, my main focus will be how this budget has responded to the educational needs and priorities of people in the north. One of the central concerns expressed to me over and over again by parents, teachers, administrators, trustees and even students is the trend towards centralization as a result of this funding formula that they have to operate under. Increasingly, these boards in the Nass — the Nisga'a and Stikine School Districts — have to deal with some unique problems and challenges in trying to operate, administer and provide quality education in conditions that are simply not found in any other part of B.C.

In particular, one of the problems in the Nisga'a School District, School District 92 — I think you're aware of this, Mr. Minister — is that one of the more innovative programs introduced early on when that school district was established was the recognition that the Nisga'a language and culture should somehow be incorporated into the curriculum. I think it has worked very well and has developed to a point where it has become a model throughout the province. The problem today, as I understand it.... I know you're aware of this problem, so I just want to canvass what has happened since the meeting you had with certain representatives from that school district. They pointed out that while they had this unique program — what they call a bi and bi program, a bilingual and bicultural program — which has not been established in any other school district, they're treated the same way and are being provided with the same funding, and this very vital program has now become jeopardized as a result. Has the minister had an opportunity to review the present policy of more or less treating this district the same as other school districts and not recognizing the commitment that was made that this particular program would be funded so it can be effective?

HON. S. HAGEN: I appreciate the question. Yes, I had a very good meeting with the school board trustees from Nisga'a School District. What you're talking about is the local language and culture grant program. I've just been informed by my deputy that as a result of that meeting, there is a paper coming to my desk with some recommendations and points on it that I'll be considering.

MR. GUNO: The commitment that I and, I think, the school district and the Nisga'a people would feel assured about would be some recognition of the principle that it is a unique situation. I think the chairman referred to kind of a gentleman's agreement reached with the government of the day — which was an NDP government — that the particular uniqueness of that kind of initiative was going to be maintained. Like all gentlemen's agreements, it became lost in the fog. I was wondering if that particular commitment is going to be maintained.

HON. S. HAGEN: Yes, I was made aware of the board's understanding of that gentlemen's agreement. The difficulty I've had is that I can't find anybody here who knows about that agreement. There actually were people here.... When I say "here, " I mean on staff at

[ Page 12588 ]

the time. But whether or not that agreement is in place I don't think will have that much impact on how I look at that particular program. If the arguments are made to me that the bi and bi program that you're talking about is in fact unique, then I will consider it in light of the program itself.

MR. GUNO: I just want to shift the focus to the Cassiar school district, which is further north in the Nass Valley. As I understand it, they face some pretty drastic budget cuts this year in spite of the fact that there has been some undertaking by your ministry to increase their funding by 3.5 percent to 4 percent. This has resulted in some very tough decisions that have to be made by the board. I listened with interest to the presentation of my colleague from the Kootenays. I agree that they're often faced with some really difficult decisions in terms of what area to cut. No matter what it is, in the north there's really not that much room to move because of the tremendous expenditures in travel and material. This ability to be flexible is being curtailed because of the formula these two school districts have to operate under. It presents problems in recruitment and in trying to attract good teachers who can provide the kind of quality education that is taken for granted in other parts of British Columbia.

Cassiar school district will be cutting back their janitorial and library services and a great deal of their administrative capacity. Does the minister have anything to assure the folks from Cassiar school district that they will fulfil the undertaking they made earlier?

HON. S. HAGEN: I want to run over a couple of numbers with regard to School District 87, Stikine. It is a unique district because of the small numbers. Nisga'a also has small numbers. There are 447 students in this whole district. We have many schools in the province where there are that many students in a whole school.

Prior to the implementation of the special purpose grant, there was a decrease in the budget. Stikine qualified for that one-time special purpose grant this year — which was $118,000 — and compensated for the decrease. That should have given them a net increase of $46,509. The increase over the last two years has been 9.7 percent, and because of the way the block is calculated, the block in Stikine is the highest amount of any block in the province. While the average is $5,500, the Stikine district is funded at a rate of $12,106 per student. Obviously the reason is that it's a very tiny and rural district. There are high costs in getting students to and from school, heating costs and other things that take place.

[5:15]

The only answer I can give you is that the fiscal framework is reviewed each year and takes input from the secretary- treasurers, which is submitted to that committee. I have no other answer that I can give you. If I was to say that we would give this district an extra amount, of course, we would have to take it away from another district.

MR. BARLEE: I listened quite attentively to the minister last Friday when he was discussing the number of districts that were over 19 percent which had been awarded, and one which rather piqued my interest was the 34.2 percent awarded to the Keremeos School District. This is quite a massive increase. I would think this means that the district has been historically underfunded, to receive such a significant increase in one year. Is that correct?

HON. S. HAGEN: I think the member misses the point of the block funding and the supplementary grants, or the special purpose grants. The reason they have received larger increases is that the board had smaller supplementary spending; in other words, the board had not gone to the taxpayer for supplementary spending. In order to raise that board up to the line, it is receiving substantial increases — in this case, 34.2 percent over the last two years. The special purpose grant this year for Keremeos was $154,719. They also have a 9.3 percent growth in students. But you shouldn't be too deceived by that, because it's a fairly small district.

MR. BARLEE: I thank the minister for his answer, but I believe he just proved the point that this district indeed did suffer under some significant fiscal disadvantages over the years, to receive that 34.2 percent.

I also noticed something else when going over the figures of Friday. The minister is quite entertaining; he throws in words like justice, equality and fair play. After listening to him for some hours, I have a few questions.

A cynic might wonder whether the minister is motivated by a sense of fair play or motivated politically. I would hope that all the decisions made by the ministry are motivated by a sense of fair play and necessity. Is that correct, Mr. Minister?

HON. S. HAGEN: I hope this isn't the start of something new from over there. I think we've had a pretty broad-ranging discussion on my estimates over the last three days, and possibly that will go on. I may be mistaken, but I thought that I had made it quite clear that decisions — for instance, the calculation of the block and many other decisions — are not politically made; they are made by mathematical calculations, by taking input and information from the districts. They are, in fact, made on advice given by the fiscal framework committee.

The fiscal framework committee does not include politicians; it is made up of four secretary-treasurers and four superintendents. I do not choose those people, nor do my staff; they are chosen by the associations that they represent. So I really am disturbed by the subtleness of the accusation that some of these decisions are made on a political basis. I'm quite disturbed.

I want to go back to your comments on Keremeos. What you say is not true; it is false. It is not a result of underfunding; it is a result of the decision of that school board, over the years, not to seek supplementary funding. They did not go to the taxpayers to get supplementary funding to supplement their budgets, and I want to make that very clear.

[ Page 12589 ]

MR. BARLEE: The reason they didn't go to their taxpayers is that in 1980 that particular district had an average income of $16,000 per household, when the average in British Columbia was $26,000, so they average about $10,000 per family less than the average income in British Columbia.

In reference to the minister's reply that this is not based upon any political decisions, that may be true, but the scale of probabilities is rather curious. I read over the first 13 districts that were awarded more than 19 percent — that is, 24 percent right to 35 percent — and the list is rather interesting: 24.7 percent to Shuswap, which is a Social-Credit held riding.... By the way, the NDP holds almost 40 percent of the seats in this House — 38 to be precise. In Penticton, which is a split riding, 25.2 percent; 26.3 percent to Sunshine Coast, which is held by the Social Credit candidate; 26.4 percent to Courtenay, which is a Social Credit candidate; 26.7 percent to Summerland, which is a split riding; 28.7 percent to Kitimat, which is a Social Credit riding; 28.8 percent to Chilliwack, and I believe that's a Social Credit riding as well; 29.7 percent to Central Okanagan, which is a Social Credit riding; 31.3 percent to Abbotsford, and I believe that's a Social Credit riding; 31.9 percent to Agassiz-Harrison, a Social Credit riding; 32.2 percent to Merritt, a Social Credit riding; 34.2 percent to Keremeos, which is split; and 35.9 percent to Armstrong.

If you had an actuarial table, we would have five of those ridings; we got none. What we did get was zero out of 13, and the government side got 13 out of 13. Let's take a look at the first 35 that were mentioned. Out of that first 35....

Interjection.

MR. BARLEE: No, not selective. These are the figures read out by the minister. Out of the first 35 that got over 19 percent above the average awarded to all school districts in the province, 32 of those ridings or constituencies were Social Credit–held constituencies and three were held by the NDP. The committee chose extremely carefully. Based on a scale of probabilities, that is almost mathematically impossible, and I find that very strange. In fact, almost without exception, the NDP-held ridings were below the 19 percent figure.

The minister is affable, but I think he's very shrewd. Does the minister find those figures interesting?

HON. S. HAGEN: Let me tell you, Mr. Chairman, that I am very pleased to respond to this. The second member for Boundary-Similkameen has just stepped in it, and I can tell you that it's very interesting.

Let's go back to Keremeos. He said that the reason for the board not going to the taxpayers for supplementary spending was maybe because of the incomes of those families. We went to block funding precisely so that there would be equal and good education provided in all areas of the province, and Keremeos has benefited from this government's decision to go to equal-opportunities type of funding. It's a great example of a district that was having difficulty because of socioeconomic realities, and because of block funding those students have the same opportunities as anyone else in the province of British Columbia. That's good government.

I find it interesting that the percentages related by the member for Boundary-Similkameen would be such a revelation to him. If you look at those percentages, and if you look at those districts, those are conservative districts. That means that those school boards were elected by people who had a conservative frame of mind — not big spenders. They provided good-quality education but were fiscally responsible — a term, my friend, that you have yet to learn. Fiscally responsible boards. What we're doing is giving those boards a little extra lift to bring....

Interjection.

HON. S. HAGEN: The member says we penalize them. How in the world can we penalize them by giving them 24 percent? We didn't penalize them. The boards made those decisions.

With all due respect, Mr. Chairman, I think the member should quit while he's behind.

MR. BARLEE: I'll take that chance. Perhaps the minister did not understand that 91 percent of those 35 school districts I mentioned were held by the Social Credit Party. Indeed, we should have had 13 or 14 of those rather than three. But as usual, we get our three. I don't think it's coincidence. I don't think the minister thinks it's coincidence. The minister states that this was because these various school districts held down the costs. This is certainly not the case in some of the school districts I know. It is not the case in Central Okanagan, and it is certainly not the case in Kitimat and other districts there. I don't have all the figures at my fingertips, but it doesn't wash too well.

HON. MR. RABBITT: Tell the whole story.

MR. BARLEE: We've told the whole story. Our score out of the 13 is zero percent and the government's is 100 percent. That's the score.

MR. CASHORE: I'd like to visit a couple of issues I dealt with yesterday We were talking about the French-immersion funding for School District 43 in Coquitlam. As I pointed out, it is the pioneer district in British Columbia in French immersion, having that historic francophone community of Maillardville, which is such a proud part of British Columbia's history. At that time, I pointed out that in 1990-91 the budget for French immersion was $375,000. In actual fact it ended up being $357,000 because of a slight reduction in the number of students enrolled. But it turns out that in this fiscal year the district is receiving $161,000 less — almost half the budget they received last year for this French immersion funding.

I have mentioned that people from the district have called and written to the minister's office and have not received replies to their inquiries. I want to ask two very specific questions: how much is expected to come in this fiscal year in federal transfer payments for

[ Page 12590 ]

School District 43 French immersion? By how much has the federal transfer payment contribution decreased in this fiscal year compared to the previous fiscal year?

[5:30]

HON. S. HAGEN: If the member is correct — and I say if — in his numbers, that reduction would, of course, be for two reasons: the adjustment in service levels and the reduction in the number of French immersion students. In fact, they get funded for all of the students in the system.

I cannot answer the question that has been asked with regard to how much money we're getting from the federal government for the Coquitlam School District. We don't have that information yet, and we won't have it until later on in the summer.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Chairman, yesterday I pointed out that there was no reduction in the number of students. In fact, there's been an increase in the number of students. What the minister is trying to get this House to believe simply doesn't make any sense at all. We're seeing a reduction of almost one-half of the budget, and the only explanation the minister can come up with to defend the situation is that there must be fewer students. That is not the case; there are more students, not fewer students.

If the minister is not able to tell the House how much is expected in transfer payments this year, then on what basis did he reduce the budget to the amount to which it has been reduced? When the minister says "if the information is correct, " he knows very well that he has received that information from School District 43 and there has been no response. So I would hope that when the minister responds to another question that I'm going to ask now he will deal with that. How can he stand by that answer when he knows that there's an increase in enrolment, not a decrease? That's a whopping amount of decrease, Mr. Minister: almost half of that budget.

I'd like to move on now to the question of capital funding. The point with regard to capital funding relates to the point that was just made by the member for Boundary-Similkameen. We have heard announcements made very often through Social Credit MLAs who happen to be the candidates in their ridings of capital funding in their districts: an amount of $40 million for Richmond; over $100 million for Surrey; an amount in the neighbourhood of $20 million for Vernon. These announcements are being made...

Interjections.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Chairman, the minister will have his chance. I would ask the Chairman to call the minister to order so that I may continue.

... yet we do not have an announcement with regard to District 43. The fact is that the capital budgets should be announced all at the same time, and what we are finding is happening.... This is the result of a discussion that I've had with the treasurer of the Coquitlam school trustees.

HON. S. HAGEN: Point of order. The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam is misleading this House. He stated that candidates were making these announcements. I'd like to point out that the announcement in Surrey was made by the Premier of the province. Id like him to withdraw those statements.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It's not a point of order, hon. members, and I believe that the minister will have ample time to respond to the comments made, after the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam has finished his comments.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Chairman, I would point out that the member used the word "misleading" with regard to me, and he has not withdrawn that comment. I expect him to withdraw that comment. That is unparliamentary language, and the minister knows it. He has just been told by the Chair that what he said was....

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

Because of the shortness of time, Mr. Chairman, I would like to finish getting on to my questions.

This minister has just said that an announcement was not made by a candidate; the announcement was made by the Premier. That is playing with words. That is true, but what I said was also true. That minister has accused me of misleading the House, and he has not had the courage to stand up here to withdraw that unparliamentary language. That's what the record will show.

Mr. Chairman, now that we get beyond his bafflegab, I would like to get to the point that I think he needs to respond to. The unfair process used by this minister is resulting in districts not being told what their capital budgets are. They are at a very real disadvantage, and the reason is that the districts that are told what their capital budget will be are able to put their projects out to tender before the market heats up and to get a lower price from the cream of the contractors, which leaves the other districts that do not get the information on their capital budgets to go out there with their projects at a time when the best contracts are not available.

That's absolutely inappropriate and unfair, and I would like the minister to respond to that.

HON. S. HAGEN: I'm more than pleased to respond to that bafflegab coming from the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam.

I want to clarify another statement. That member stated that the announcement for capital in the Richmond School District was made by a candidate. That is an incorrect statement, because the announcement for capital in Richmond was made by the Minister of Education. His statement was wrong. Mr. Chairman, these members should not be allowed to make incorrect statements unchallenged.

MR. BLENCOE: On a point of order. The minister may be under pressure — he knows that we're tabling

[ Page 12591 ]

some interesting figures in terms of school board funding — but he did make a very serious accusation that my colleague was not telling the truth. That minister has been in this House long enough to know that you do not reflect on the honour of other members. Maybe the minister could reflect on that accusation. The minister did accuse my colleague of not telling the truth, and that, of course, is totally unparliamentary in this House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, it's getting late in the day. Perhaps the hon. member would take his seat. It's been a long day, and everybody's getting a little testy — I think that is not a bad word. I would like to remind you of something that those of you who have been here a long time have heard many times, but it holds particularly true at a time like this: good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language. If we can follow that on both sides.... I suppose "bafflegab" upsets some people, but I don't think that's particularly unparliamentary. But that kind of language....

Anyway, if we could just proceed on the basis that the hour is getting late and it's almost time to go home for the evening, let's leave in good temper so that we'll enjoy our dinners.

MR. CASHORE: I would now like to....

MR. CHAIRMAN: The minister is not finished, hon. member. I apologize. The minister did have the floor when the second member for Victoria got to his feet.

HON. S. HAGEN: Mr. Chairman, I took my seat because my understanding is that when you're talking, we're supposed to be seated. I hope the member for Coquitlam understands that.

I want to carry on with the statements made by the member for Coquitlam. He seemed to be insinuating that there was some inconsistency with the way we were announcing capital. There is no inconsistency. I stated yesterday in the debates that by the end of June, all the capital announcements will have gone out. You have to understand: we have $650 million worth of announcements to make this year.

AN HON. MEMBER: And you can't make them all in one day.

HON. S. HAGEN: And you can't make them all in one day. I am going into an opposition-held riding on Monday to make an announcement. We're treating people equally, and we're being very fair. It's going to be a very welcome announcement. The other thing is that we have letters drafted, and we're going to get those out post-haste. I made a commitment that those announcements would be completed by the end of June. That's doing pretty good for $650 million.

MR. CASHORE: My next question is about dual entry. When the budget was drafted by this government, the government had not made the announcement concerning dual entry. Will the minister advise the House, given that there have been extra costs that came along after the budget was drafted and after the budgeting process had gone on within the school districts — extra costs with regard to MSP, UIC and GST.... Given that the announcement of the cancellation of dual entry came after the government's budget was brought in, will the minister assure this House that those dollars will not now be clawed back by this government and will be available to be used by the districts for necessary expenditures within those districts? Will he give that undertaking?

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Chairman, I always like to get into the debate on education, especially after I hear a remark like that. He asked if we cared. "Will we let the money hang out there, even if it isn't necessary?" That's the kind of fiscal philosophy they have. They just don't care what happens to the money or what happens to the students. They never seem to care. Perhaps the tie-in with Ontario is becoming more and more conspicuous to everybody. When we think that you can take two loonies and place them side by side, 9.7 billion loonies will take us all the way from here to Ontario and back twice. And there, Mr. Chairman, is an exact example of what happened to the people of Ontario.

He asked if we, as a responsible fiscal government, would just leave the money out there when there was no need. The answer is: why would he care? How would he know how hard our people work to make the money that he is going to just let out like that?

He should be talking about whether the college has standards and codes of ethics for teachers. Are they being responsible to the public and to the college in their review of teachers? Most teachers, if not virtually every teacher, are doing a nice job. But how tough is that college with respect to other professional associations? Maybe the minister could give us some hints on that.

[5:45]

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: Isn't it interesting! The member for Prince Rupert would rather watch a comedy than take part in this serious discussion in the House. I suspect, Mr. Chairman, that he is at the level.... He just got finished with Bugs Bunny. Awful! The display of the lack of care and attention for taxpayers' dollars is abysmal. No wonder they lost. They will continue to lose. That's why this minister over here has been appointed to look after the interests of the teachers, students, parents and the future of B.C. What a good minister we've got here!

HON. S. HAGEN: In answer to the member from Coquitlam's question, that decision will be determined by the Treasury Board.

MR. CASHORE: Just one last point for the record. Yesterday in the debate, with regard to School District 43, the minister said that with regard to the teachers, the settlement over one year was 10.6 percent. I've just been talking to the treasurer of the school board. He

[ Page 12592 ]

tells me the settlement was 5 percent September 1 and in January it was 1.9 percent, with an end lift of 6.9 percent. We tried to figure out between the two of us what kind of creative accounting was going on here on the part of the minister, and we concluded that what the minister was doing was taking the fact that there's an increased enrolment in School District 43 and using the figure that applies to the increased service levels rather than the figure that reflects the actual increase in the wages for the teachers. In other words, he was trying to make it look as though they were receiving a much higher increase than they had received. I just wanted to make that point for the record, because I don't think that's a very appropriate way for the minister to behave in this House.

HON. S. HAGEN: I want to correct the member from Coquitlam again. The wage settlement for the Coquitlam School District 43 and the teachers' association, July 1, 1990, is 8.52 percent, and January 1, 1991, is a further 1.59 percent. July 1, 1991, is a metro-mean; and January 1, 1992, is the metro-mean. So those two figures add up to 10.11 percent.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Leave granted.

Hon. Mr. Richmond moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:49 p.m.