[ Page 12689 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Crown Counsel Act (Bill 10). Hon. Mr. Fraser

Introduction and first reading –– 12689

Tabling Documents –– 12689

Oral Questions

Use of government aircraft. Mr. Rose –– 12689

Dual entry in school system. Ms. A. Hagen –– 12689

Sales tax on imported goods. Mr. Clark –– 12690

DND contract for light wheeled vehicles. Mr. Serwa –– 12690

Sheriff service cutbacks. Mr. Sihota –– 12690

Access to government information. Mr. Jones –– 12691

James Tyhurst case. Mr. Vant –– 12691

Access to government information. Mr. Jones –– 12691

Government rental of office space. Mr. Clark –– 12691

Mailing of partisan material from minister's office. Hon. Mrs. Gran –– 12692

Ministerial Statement

High-seas driftnet fishing. Hon. Mr. Chalmers –– 12692

Mr. G. Hanson

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

On vote 21: minister's office –– 12693

Ms. A. Hagen

Ms. Cull

Hon. Mr. Fraser

Mr. Guno

Hon. Mr. Bruce

Mr. Rose

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Health estimates. (Hon. Mr. Strachan)

On vote 38: minister's office –– 12702

Mr. Perry

Mr. Barnes

Mr. Clark

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 1991

The House met at 2:05 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, today is the anniversary of a historic moment in the annals of this province. Exactly 39 years ago, on June 12, 1952, William Andrew Cecil Bennett formed a minority Social Credit government which was to pave the way for a vibrant and prosperous future for decades to come.

British Columbians have now enjoyed many years of buoyant growth, fostered by a firm belief in their own individual worth and their ability to succeed. Moreover, to assist them in building for the future, they have continued to re-elect a government which reflects, encourages and makes possible the realization of those dreams. This same Social Credit government will continue for many years to come to champion the cause of a strong, progressive, dynamic and free enterprise people. William Andrew Cecil Bennett would be proud.

MR. ROSE: On behalf of this party, I am pleased to rise and honour the thirty-ninth election anniversary of a renowned British Columbian, Premier W.A.C. Bennett. Mr. Bennett, who in 1952 was known as the stormy petrel of B.C. politics, toppled a rotting coalition government of Liberals and Tories which had been patched together to keep the CCF from achieving power. In 1952 B.C. voters faced political turmoil and chaos not unlike the kind they face today.

At the time, in 1952, I lived on the Bennett property, and Cec, as he was known to his friends, and his wife May, were extremely kind to my wife, young children and me. In fact, my kids still refer to W.A.C. as Pop Bennett, because that's the way he wanted it. It may come as a surprise to some that as a naive young schoolteacher, I voted for Mr. Bennett. I voted for him because I believed him when he proclaimed fair treatment for all and special treatment for none. But Social Credit today is no longer the party of W.A.C. Bennett. Today special favours to friends and insiders have become its hallmark. The party has lost its vision and has lost the confidence of British Columbians.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair certainly appreciates seeing the introduction period being its usual non-political, fair and good-tempered self. Are there further introductions, hon. members?

HON. MR. VEITCH: I would like to introduce to the House the Ambassador of Ireland to Canada, His Excellency Edward J. Brennan. Would you please make him welcome.

HON. MRS. GRAN: Visiting the House today are 40 grade 7 students from Simonds Elementary School in Langley, along with their teacher Mr. McGowan. Half of those students are in the House now. Would the House please make them welcome.

MRS. McCARTHY: In 1989 our Legislature was well served by a young intern, Barry Penner. In the gallery today are his brother Reg Penner and his wife Edith, and their two young daughters, Camilla Mae and Kristen Danielle. They are in the gallery today for the very first time, enjoying a visit to Victoria for a family vacation. They live and work in Chilliwack. I would like the House to give them a very warm welcome.

MR. REID: In the gallery today are 25 students representing Hall's Prairie Elementary School in South Surrey. I wish the House would give them a special welcome.

Introduction of Bills

CROWN COUNSEL ACT

Hon. Mr. Fraser presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Crown Counsel Act.

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, this bill enshrines into legislation the culmination of months of work by ministry officials based on the report of special commissioner Owen.

Bill 10 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.

Hon. Mr. Richmond tabled the annual report of the Ministry of Forests for 1989-90.

Oral Questions

USE OF GOVERNMENT AIRCRAFT

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Government Services. What is the minister's policy restricting the use of government jets for the Socred leadership campaign?

HON. MRS. GRAN: Mr. Speaker, I wouldn't want to view that as a political question. But I can tell the member opposite that government airplanes are used only for government business.

DUAL ENTRY IN SCHOOL SYSTEM

MS. A. HAGEN: I have a question to the Minister of Education. Last October the ministry issued the results of a poll conducted on parent and teacher satisfaction with the dual-entry program. The press release said: "Poll Finds 96 Percent of Parents Happy with Dual Entry." Yet last week the Ministry of Education cancelled this program. Could the minister please tell us how he reconciles his statements on the opinions of parents with his own ministry's poll of just seven months ago?

HON. S. HAGEN: As a matter of fact, your figures are out of date, because more recent public surveys

[ Page 12690 ]

have indicated great support for the decision the ministry has taken.

MS. A. HAGEN: Mr. Speaker, this minister has either discovered a massive change in public opinion, or there was something less than scientific in the polls the ministry conducted last October. Has the minister decided to let taxpayers see the results of the study they paid for — both of them, if there's more than one — and table in this House all documents relating to his ministry's public opinion surveys on dual entry?

HON. S. HAGEN: Mr. Speaker, you know, it's interesting. I've been in my estimates for five days, and this issue has been canvassed very thoroughly. The opposition critic stated that she favours this decision, and members of the opposition have supported the decision. So I'm really not sure what point they're trying to make and whether this is pressing and urgent business.

MS. A. HAGEN: A question to the Premier. When the Premier was sworn in she indicated that her government would have nothing to hide. These polls were paid for by taxpayers. Has she decided now to advise her minister that he should make that information public, since these polls are public information paid for by taxpayers' dollars? It's a freedom-of-information issue, Madam Premier.

HON. S. HAGEN: I can tell the critic and all members of the opposition that this government has nothing to hide. It was the correct decision to make for the children of British Columbia. That's what we're talking about.

[2:15]

SALES TAX ON IMPORTED GOODS

MR. CLARK: A question to the Minister of Development, Trade and Tourism. As recently as this past weekend, the minister was still insisting that the province would be collecting provincial sales tax on goods purchased in the U.S. This view does not appear to be shared by all of his cabinet colleagues. Can the minister inform the House what exactly is the policy of this government — at least today — on the collecting of provincial sales tax at the U.S. border?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Mr. Speaker, I defer that question to the Minister of Finance. The collection of taxes is in his realm.

MR. CLARK: To the Minister of Trade. This minister had a press conference with Otto Jelinek to discuss a new government policy. On the weekend this minister was announcing to people in Nelson that they were going to collect provincial sales tax at the border. Does this minister and his ministry have a policy on the government's decision to tax people at the British Columbia–U.S. border?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Mr. Speaker, all these questions from the opposition over the last few days seem to be coming from misinformation gathered when the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew was in my constituency. If he had actually paid a little attention to the people I talked to, he would not be coming back with misinformation of that nature.

DND CONTRACT FOR
LIGHT WHEELED VEHICLES

MR. SERWA: My question, Mr. Speaker, is directed to the Minister of Development, Trade and Tourism. Western Star Trucks has bid for a $300 million Department of National Defence contract for light-wheeled vehicles. The final decision is expected within the next two or three weeks. Forty percent of the value of that contract is in direct benefits that would accrue to the province of B.C. All of the western provinces, and their federal caucus, have supported this; the western caucus has supported it and the federal government caucus has not raised any objections to it. Will the minister consider strong support from the government of the province of British Columbia for this very important contract?

MR. SPEAKER: The question is out of order. The member might be invited to rephrase the last sentence of the question so that he could get it answered.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Has he decided?

MR. SERWA: Thank you very much to my colleagues on this side of the House and opposite. Has the minister decided to come out in strong support of this bid for British Columbia and Western Star Trucks?

HON. MR. DIRKS: We find ourselves a little on the horns of a dilemma, because two bids have been placed by British Columbia firms for that particular contract. Since there are two competing bids from the province, we agreed in a meeting with the president of Western Star that we would take a neutral stand on which British Columbia company should be awarded the contract. However, we will be impressing upon the Minister of National Defence the need for British Columbia to get its fair share of any contract that is given out. We'll certainly be pressing them to award it to a British Columbia firm. I understand that there are only four firms bidding — two from Ontario and two from British Columbia. We will do everything in our power to ensure that that contract does come to British Columbia.

SHERIFF SERVICE CUTBACKS

MR. SIHOTA: I have a question for the Premier, who I'm sure would agree with me that one of the ways to deal with increased crime levels is to increase the number of police officers on the street. Because of the government's decision to cut back sheriff services, police officers are now required to serve subpoenas, issue summons and do additional paperwork, which

[ Page 12691 ]

keeps them off the street. Is the Premier now prepared to concede that the cutbacks in the sheriff program have kept police officers off the street? Is she now prepared to restore sheriff levels to previous levels?

HON. MR. MESSMER: I'll answer that as far as the police officers are concerned. We have not cut back on police officers serving in municipalities or in the RCMP. We also have a great number of volunteers who assist us in that. The sheriff department comes under the Attorney-General.

MR. SIHOTA: The Premier passed the question to the wrong minister when she passed the question about sheriffs to the Solicitor-General.

I want to ask the Premier again a question with respect to law and order in British Columbia. You could put 48 police officers on the streets of Vancouver tomorrow by simply asking them to no longer do custodial work and to go back on the streets. That custodial work can be done by sheriffs or corrections officials. Police officers are highly trained for other responsibilities and are underutilized. For all the Premier's tough talk on matters of law enforcement, this is another area of lack of government action. A question to the Premier: are you now prepared to deal with this issue and to direct that additional services be put into custodial requirements in Vancouver so as to release the police officers onto the streets?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: I find amusing the types of questions that members opposite continually refer to the Premier. The members opposite realize full well that we have ministers responsible for each of those areas. The absent Leader of the Opposition, who once again is not in the House, should have properly informed members of his caucus how the question should be placed. I would suggest the question would be more appropriately put to the minister responsible.

ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT INFORMATION

MR. JONES: A question to the Premier. The Premier's throne speech promised long-awaited access to government information. Can the Premier tell this House if she has seen a draft of how that might operate or if she has seen a timetable for implementation? In other words, can the Premier advise the House that this proposal has even progressed that far?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Might I suggest that the question is out of order?

JAMES TYHURST CASE

MR. VANT: My question is to the Minister of Women's Programs, who yesterday apparently could not hear clearly my question over the locker-room jock talk and the guffaws and laughter coming from the NDP corner of this House. My question today concerns a basic human rights issue especially hurtful to female victims of abuse from men in positions of leadership. Will the minister advise this House whether she has considered investigating issues raised since Dr. James Tyhurst's conviction, especially since the recent disclosure that complaints were raised as long ago as the early 1970s? Further, can the minister investigate why the response to those complaints was to transfer the victim instead of dealing swiftly with the abuser? Madam Minister, will you find out who in high places this man knew? Who covered up for him? And why, even today, is this issue being met by deafening silence by those usually willing to speak out?

HON. MRS. GRAN: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to apologize to my colleague from the Cariboo. I was having difficulty hearing the entire question.

Reflecting on the answer that I gave yesterday, I decided to take some action. Deputy Minister Isabel Kelly has contacted Dr. Strangway's office at UBC and will hopefully be meeting with the sexual harassment committee at UBC. I think we should all be concerned about this kind of issue. I do wonder, though, why the question hasn't come from the two members for Vancouver–Point Grey, particularly as one of them is the critic for Women's Programs. Perhaps the laughter yesterday tells us the answer.

ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT INFORMATION

MR. JONES: I put a question to the Premier, the first minister of the government of British Columbia and the spokesperson for that government. Has the Premier decided to answer questions put to her in that capacity?

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. If the question is out of order because it involves future policy, and then the question is rephrased to say "has the minister decided," then we're really stretching the point. I think the member has had an opportunity to reflect on how he might phrase the question in the first place, and you still have an opportunity to do so. If you ask the question now, you may elicit an answer.

MR. JONES: Has the Premier decided to honour her throne speech commitment to ensure that before we adjourn this Legislature there will be freedom-of-information legislation on the statute books of this province?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Well, I can respond to the member's question in this way: that reflects future policy.

GOVERNMENT RENTAL OF OFFICE SPACE

MR. CLARK: A question to the Minister of Government Services. Will the minister confirm that as of April 1991, 8,600 square feet of empty office space at 815 Hornby Street in Vancouver is leased by the government and that taxpayers are paying over $136,000 per year for that empty office space?

[ Page 12692 ]

HON. MRS. GRAN: I can't answer that specific question, but I can give the NDP member some comfort. They have asked BCBC several questions about office space in the last few weeks, have received detailed answers and I think have been accommodated very well. All of the members on that side also know that B.C. Buildings Corporation is one of the top-rated corporations in this country, and the vacancy rate is the lowest in Canada. It is lower than 1 percent. Whether the space that you speak of is part of that....

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to make an introduction or a short statement.

Leave granted.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, in view of the great feeling in this House about the tennis match coming up this weekend against the press gallery by some members, I thought the House would like to know that Canada's Grant Connell has scored the upset of his career. The North Vancouver native upset the defending champion Ivan Lendl at the Queen's Club tennis tournament in London today. He won the second round match 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, and I'm sure this House would like to congratulate him.

MAILING OF PARTISAN MATERIAL
FROM MINISTER'S OFFICE

HON. MRS. GRAN: I wish to answer a question from the opposition House Leader taken on notice yesterday regarding mailing privileges, in particular a piece of mail that came out of my ministry.

I want to first clarify that the postal distribution branch is in the Ministry of Government Services and that's why the envelope used was in my ministry. The piece of correspondence came from a private member. All private members on both sides of the House have mailing privileges to communicate with their constituents. I want to table three pieces of communication from the other side of the House, just so that we can demonstrate that both sides of the House use the privilege and not just one.

I want to go further and share with this House exactly what it cost the taxpayers of this province last year for mailing privileges for our members. For the Social Credit....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I appreciate the coaching; nonetheless, I'm bound by the rules that I'm given. When a question is taken on notice, the minister is entitled to answer the question — within the scope of the question. If, in answering that question, there is an elaboration beyond the scope of the question, that's acceptable; but if it gets into a matter which could be argumentative or debatable, then it's going to have to be treated as a ministerial statement. So it can be handled that way, but I would appreciate it if the answer was restricted to the question and did not get into what I suspect is coming.

[2:30]

HON. MRS. GRAN: Mr. Speaker, my statement is not argumentative; it's fact. Because of the question yesterday, the matter of cost was raised. All I want to say is that for the Social Credit caucus it was $116,000; for the NDP caucus it was nearly $405,000.

Ministerial Statement

HIGH-SEAS DRIFTNET FISHING

HON. MR. CHALMERS: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make the House aware of the scientific conference on north Pacific driftnet fishing being conducted this week at Dunsmuir Lodge in Sidney.

Monday evening, on behalf of the province of British Columbia, I welcomed teams of top-notch fisheries and oceans scientists from eight Pacific Rim countries. They are here to exchange information on the impact of driftnet fishing on the high seas and will produce from their conference a set of recommendations for debate at the United Nations General Assembly this fall.

The international driftnet fishery fleets have the potential to decimate British Columbia's salmon stocks. Moreover, the thousands of kilometres of nets deployed capture countless non-target marine mammals, seabirds and fish, thereby endangering the entire marine ecology of the Pacific.

Between May 13 and 18 of this year, a government of British Columbia fisheries biologist accompanied Department of National Defence Pacific Air Command surveillance missions over the north Pacific. These missions observed activities of the Pacific high-seas squid-fishing fleet. As well, searches were made for pirate driftnetters operating north of the legal limit for this fishery, targeting juvenile salmon. The four-day mission covered 720,000 square miles of north Pacific patrol.

The mission uncovered two illegal salmon driftnet boats. Documented photographs of the pirate ships, for example, are leading to their identification and documentation, and may facilitate their eventual arrest in harbour. Identification of these salmon pirate ships helps to build international pressure on governments to crack down on illegal fishing.

Through hands-on participation such as this, British Columbia is clearly fulfilling a leadership role in meeting the challenge presented by this complicated international issue. Since the British Columbia-led North Pacific driftnet declaration in 1989, B.C.'s input into the international decision-making has steadily grown. This year British Columbia's contribution to the United Nations' debate on a moratorium on driftnet fishing will not be limited to the work of political leaders and scientists. The voice of all British Columbians will be heard by the United Nations through a document compiled from presentations made at the B.C. driftnet symposium this spring.

Over the past few months, thousands of British Columbians have contacted my office with petitions, letters, posters and a variety of personal appeals. I'm sure you will join me in wishing the delegates to the international driftnet meeting success in their delibera-

[ Page 12693 ]

tions. The nations of the Pacific Rim hold the living resources of the ocean in trust for all generations who follow us. British Columbia continues to uphold that trust. We will work to ensure that our salmon fishery is secure and the Pacific marine resources are sustainable in the long term.

MR. G. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to point out to the minister that eight years ago this side of the House first raised our opposition to what has been called the "curtain of death" — the strip-mining of the oceans — and our opposition to the high-seas driftnet fishery.

We pointed out at that time that it was a threat to the incidental catch of salmon and other anadromous fish — steelhead — that have part of their life cycle in the Pacific Ocean and are subject to risk by high-seas driftnet fishery. We pointed out that there were other nations — Korea and Taiwan — that were renegades outside of the normal international arrangements, that had fleets and were taking these fish. We pointed out that our precious salmon resources were at risk, and that action had to be taken quickly.

Mr. Speaker, this House has long heard the voice of the opposition on this matter. We support any initiatives to have this action stopped as quickly as possible for the good of our resources and the good of British Columbia's future.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Just before we go to Committee of Supply, I would ask leave of the House for permission for the Special Committee of Selection to meet this afternoon at 2:45.

Leave granted.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

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

MS. A. HAGEN: Mr. Chairman, it's always a pleasure to have you in the chair, especially when we're dealing with a set of estimates in which I know you have a very great personal interest.

Interjection.

MS. A. HAGEN: No, he's a good friend. I think he's an excellent chairman, and we should sometimes acknowledge that in the House.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to begin my discussion this afternoon with a question to the minister about access-to-information policy within the ministry itself. Could the minister please advise us what the policy of his ministry is regarding requests that come from MLAs for information on ministry policy?

HON. S. HAGEN: I can be very brief on that answer. If it is public information, any MLA who requests it receives it.

MS. A. HAGEN: Could I ask if the minister considers the information he sent on June 7 to all board chairpersons, carbon copied to all superintendents and secretary-treasurers, to be public information yesterday?

HON. S. HAGEN: Could the member for New Westminster please tell me what the memo was? We send out many memos.

MS. A. HAGEN: This is a memo from the Ministry of Education to all board chairpersons by fax only, dated June 7, signed by the minister and addressed: "Dear Board Chairperson. Re: Year 2 Funding for January 1991 Dual-Entry Students. CC: All Superintendents and All Secretary-Treasurers." Could the minister advise if that was public information yesterday?

HON. S. HAGEN: The answer is yes.

MS. A. HAGEN: Then could the minister please explain why, when a member of my staff called his ministry to ask for a copy of that letter, he was assured it would be sent, yet was phoned back a few minutes later and told that the matter had to go through the ministry office and that the minister and his ministerial assistants were absent? Therefore the whole thing was left in limbo.

HON. S. HAGEN: I don't know anything about that, Mr. Chairman. If the member opposite would care to give me the name of the person she spoke to, I would be pleased to take it up. You probably have a copy of that letter by now.

MS. A. HAGEN: The issue is not whether I have a copy of the letter but whether the ministry was prepared to provide me with a copy of it. I probably would not raise this question so specifically if it was the first time this had happened, but I have on occasion called the minister's office and asked for information relating to existing public policy, and have found since this minister came into office that I am advised by members of his staff that before they can answer the question it has to go through the minister's office. In fact, quite often the answer comes from the ministerial assistant, who frequently refers me back to the person I asked the question of in the first place. Would the minister care to comment on the practice of his office with respect to policy that he says is his policy: namely, that if the issue is public information it is available to MLAs. I haven't necessarily found that to be the case.

HON. S. HAGEN: All I can say is that my instructions to my staff are that public information is certainly to be released to MLAs. If the member opposite has specific instances that she wishes to draw to my attention, I would be very pleased to hear from her and deal with them. I can't deal with generalities, but I

[ Page 12694 ]

would be pleased to deal with specific instances. If information is public, it will certainly be released.

MS. A. HAGEN: I would note to the minister that I'm referring to a very specific piece of information. I don't intend to name the ministry person at this stage of the game, but I will read you the memo from my staff person about his experience. "I spoke to...." He names the person in the Ministry of Education. "The funding announcement was made in the form of a letter from the Minister of Education which was faxed out to all school board chairpersons and copied to all school superintendents. This person agreed to fax me a copy of the letter." I would note that I found out there was a new policy through the newspaper; there was no press release. I'll come back to that in a minute. "A few minutes later this person phoned me back. He was told that my request would have to go through the minister's office."

Mr. Chairman, I think the case is very specific. I wonder if the minister could give us some further assurance in respect of this issue — which is not the first issue where I've had this problem — about how he intends to ensure that when I or any other MLA calls his office about a matter of public policy, we will receive the information post-haste.

HON. S. HAGEN: I guess I'd have to ask the question: did the member get the information, or did she not get the information?

MS. A. HAGEN: This is not the first time I've had to go to my school board and ask them to fax me information about this minister's policies. I find it a very reprehensible state of affairs that a minister in this House, in as important a ministry as the Ministry of Education, requires me to dance through hoops in order to get information about public policy statements of the ministry. That's the issue. It's not something that is acceptable to us.

Access to information is something that all of us are entitled to in order to do our job and represent our constituents. I can cite any number of examples in other ministries where I have been accorded the greatest courtesy and timeliness in response. I raise my concern in this public place that this minister, through his ministry, has not been so forthcoming.

Let me go on, Mr. Chairman. When I am finished, the minister may wish to respond. We spent some time last week discussing the issue of dual entry, and we requested very quick action on the part of the minister in respect to the 14,000 young children who were in dual entry in 1991 and what arrangements would be made for them next year. The minister obviously made a decision on June 7, which was last Friday. We were in the House until 1 o'clock. He gave no indication in the House of that information; nor, to my knowledge, has there been any press release to that effect. There has been a letter to school board chairpersons, copied to superintendents.

[2:45]

Some 14,000 families in this province are awaiting information about the minister's decision on dual entry. This ministry has increased its information and advertising budget by 2,000 percent, from $140,000 to nearly $3 million, and this minister hides this information under a barrel in a letter to board chairpersons, leaving it to school boards, presumably, to get that information out to every parent. That is another aspect of access to information about public policy. I don't think that there's any issue in the public domain right now that is of more importance and interest to the parents affected. I really believe that this minister has not served those parents well: first of all, by not having his act together around the whole dual-entry decision when he made the announcement; and then making the announcement by the most circuitous route that you can think of, making it difficult for people to know about it, failing to provide any kind of public announcement on that policy.

Mr. Chairman, we are concerned that public policy should be something that is readily available to people. This minister has failed. He may have some feeble excuse to make for that failure, but I believe it's clear for all to see that the whole dealing with dual entry, including its cancellation and informing parents about what is happening to them and their children next year, has been botched. I think this little case study is sufficient unto itself to place in question the minister's openness and willingness to have public policy out there where the people affected know about it and then can act on the information that they should have readily available to them.

HON. S. HAGEN: May I point out to the member opposite that if she had had the courtesy — the single courtesy — to ask me those questions instead of taking the liberty of phoning up any person in my ministry thinking that they have the authority to deal directly with you, she would have gotten the answers that she wanted. All that that member or any other member of this House has to do if they seek information is drop me a note, stop me in the hallway and ask me, or send me a note across the House, and they will get that information. So don't be so coy in sitting there that you think you can just phone up any person in my ministry and seek that information. If you want to know information in the ministry, just have the courtesy to ask the minister. That's all you have to do: just send me a letter, make a phone call to me or send me a note, and I will certainly provide you with that information.

With regard to her criticisms on how we have handled that announcement to school boards, if I don't send the information out to school boards, who am I supposed to...? Would you do away with school boards? Would you take total control from here and do away with school boards? Is that what you're suggesting? Is that what you're getting at?

I deal with school boards. School boards are the publicly elected bodies that are charged with the responsibility of providing the education in their individual districts.

The other thing is that I could not be more specific because, for the member's information, this requires legislation, and legislation has not been introduced. It will be introduced, and as soon as the legislation is

[ Page 12695 ]

introduced then the details will be known. I think the member knows very well that I can't be more specific until I introduce the legislation.

She made some offhand references to the communications budget in my ministry. I want to just point out what the communications budget entails and what it's for. It's mainly for the distribution of Year 2000 materials, but it also includes the annual report. It includes information on the deputy's newsletter, the Year 2000 program, the primary program, intermediate program draft, graduation program draft, progress report, newsletter, media relations, informational ad campaigns, direct responses — because we want responses from the public; we don't arbitrarily make policy without getting those very important responses from parents and other members of the public. We have FaxNet, the specialty responses to the Year 2000 program document, steering committees, development sites, the Education Policy Advisory Committee and the Education Advisory Council. All of this is part of the consultation and communication process that we have in the Ministry of Education.

MS. CULL: The minister says that if we on this side want information, all we have to do is call the minister's office, and we will receive it. The last time we were talking about this in the House — on Friday — the minister said to my colleague the second member for Victoria that if we wanted information on the capital funding announcement, all we had to do was ask. We took him up on that. We believed the minister was extending an honest invitation to come to the capital funding announcement, and we talked to him in the corridor immediately afterwards. He said that he would be sure to let us know when and where it was.

On Monday morning I phoned his office four times — not just any staff member in the ministry, but the minister's office. It took four phone calls to receive an answer to that question. So I would like the minister not to stand up and say: "Gee, just give us a call, and we'll be able to provide the information to you." It's extremely patronizing to receive those kinds of comments from this minister when, as my colleague from New Westminster has demonstrated, the information is not always forthcoming from his ministry — despite the fact that it should be public information available to us all.

However, I would like to give the minister one more opportunity to deal with something on a direct request from a member of the Legislature. This is something I haven't had an opportunity to raise with the minister because I've only just become aware of it this week. It relates to the dual-entry funding program. When we were discussing it earlier in committee, I raised the point that the cancellation of the dual-entry program affects not only the public school system, but also independent schools and day care centres throughout the province. They are having to adjust to the change in enrolment.

There is in my constituency a Montessori preschool that offers a kindergarten program as well — they stop at kindergarten. It's called the St. Christopher's Montessori School. As a result of the cancellation of the dual-entry program, they will be losing from their operating budget this year between $8,000 and $16,000. On the face of it, that doesn't sound like a large amount, but that is 4 to 8 percent of their budget, and for a non-profit organization that's a very significant amount of money. The loss occurs because the school is not able at this late date to juggle its kindergarten students around. It cannot refuse the students who have already been accepted for September and replace them with students who would be eligible for the funding. So I would like to ask the minister if he will make a commitment now to look into the funding for schools such as St. Christopher's Montessori and see whether something can be done to assist them with their budget problems, which are a direct result of this late change to the dual-entry program.

HON. MR. FRASER: I always like to get into the debate on education because it's such a critical thing for the students and the population of B.C. One of the reasons I wanted to jump in at this particular moment is that it's so interesting to listen to the questions from the members opposite — the members who say: "We will take over MacMillan Bloedel if we have to, if they leave the Alberni Valley"; the members who say: "We'll fight tough policies whenever the election comes"; and the same members who will go to a big convention where their leader, in making a significant contribution, will do what he has to do to evade discussing any kind of difficult question. So the members who brag about being tough and strong when it comes to leadership — "We'll do all these amazing things" — now ask the minister about answering the phone. It's really incredible, Mr. Chairman, how we can go from the Education minister's office to these magnificent policies. While they talk big when they don’t have to do anything, when it comes to asking a question they can barely get out the question. Would the minister mind answering the phone! Of course he'll answer the phone. He answers the phone all the time. He answers the phone to constituents. He answers the phone from school boards, getting out the message of education, its importance to all the students of British Columbia; getting across the message that the students in B.C. are doing well — especially well compared to other people in other provinces. He's getting across the message on the costs of education to the people of British Columbia, telling everybody that the change in the size of a classroom to one pupil less across the board would cost $100 million a year. And then we get into the petty, small stuff. Where is the policy? Where is the argument from the other side? All we hear about is: won't the minister answer the phone? What a devastation! What an admission of failure, Mr. Chairman! No wonder they will never lead.

HON. S. HAGEN: I'm pleased to respond to the member's questions about her telephoning my office. I am informed by my office staff that she did indeed phone my office, and that she was called back and informed that there was no formal announcement but that a press release would be going out that day.

[ Page 12696 ]

Mr. Chairman, I think it's important for all members to hear why we sent out a press release for the Greater Victoria School Board announcement, instead of holding a press conference. I think it's very important for the members of the House to understand why we did this. Victoria is a major school district in the province of British Columbia, and they have major needs that we were addressing — and are addressing; and addressed, as a matter of fact — in the press conference. We had a situation where my staff phoned up the Greater Victoria School District, and said: "The minister would like to make an announcement on your capital program." The chairperson of the Greater Victoria School Board said: "It's inappropriate that the Minister of Education would make that announcement in the school board office."

My staff then went out to try and rent space to hold a press conference. When I learned that my staff was trying to rent space because they couldn't use the facilities of the Victoria School Board, I said: "No, we are not going to spend public funds on renting space to hold a press conference." So I instructed my staff to send a press release out instead.

I know the member is miffed because she wanted to be at the press conference to try and take credit for something that she had had nothing to do with. However, I would not expend, or commit to expend, public funds when the board office was not made available. I might add that that is the only instance in the province of British Columbia where the board office was not made available for an announcement on capital funding.

Here we are building schools to house children, to replace portables, to reconstruct schools for earthquake preparedness, to buy school buses, to do minor capital and major capital, to purchase land for new schools and for additions to schools, and the school board office was not made available. That's why we mailed out the press release.

MS. CULL: The minister is not disclosing all of the information about that press conference. He failed to tell the committee that the school district — the board chairman here — did not refuse the minister the opportunity to come and make an announcement in the school district boardroom. In fact, the board chair phoned the minister's office back to make it perfectly clear that the minister himself was more than welcome to use the boardroom for that purpose.

What the school board of greater Victoria objected to was the minister's attempt to turn it into a partisan event by inviting only two of the six MLAs in the area that greater Victoria covers. The two MLAs happen to be the Social Credit MLAs, and the other MLAs who worked every bit as hard for the school district in their ridings were not invited and in fact could not find out where the event was going to be. It was only after repeated calling of the minister's office — which was done because the event was about to happen — that we learned it had been cancelled.

So, Mr. Minister, please stand up and tell the whole story when you want to talk about people playing around with capital funding, because I believe it is you who is manipulating this process for purely political purposes, when in fact it's something that all of the children, teachers and parents in this province are very interested in.

[3:00]

Furthermore, I don't know why we have to drag this out as some kind of circus. If this is so important — and it is important that school districts find out when their capital funding is available — surely it's important that they learn it at the earliest possible opportunity. That could have been done several weeks ago, right after the announcement was made at the B.C. school trustees' convention. The amount of money was known, the global budget was known, and surely the amounts for each of the districts were known. The Premier was able to go into her riding and make her announcement, but the rest of them had to wait until some kind of staged event for Socred MLAs could be arranged so that each district could find out what it wanted.

When we were talking about capital budgets a week ago, Mr. Minister, you told me you were concerned about the late date of capital funding announcements, and you assured me that your ministry was in fact trying to bring that date forward because of the building season in the north and because of the whole capital budgeting cycle. At that time I didn't know that you were just stringing these out into a series of political circuses.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

I think, Mr. Minister, that you should go back to the comment that you made to me. If we really are interested in getting on with improving the school facilities in this district, then getting that information out to districts at the very earliest opportunity and all at the same time — the way it's done for most of your other ministries — is the way we should be conducting our business here.

HON. S. HAGEN: I admit that I did not tell the whole story, and here's the rest of the story. When my staff phoned the Greater Victoria School District, they did not even talk about which MLAs were going to be invited or not invited. All they asked for was the use of the board office to make the announcement. There was no discussion about which MLAs were going to be invited.

There is one other small omission on my part, which is that I understand that the chairperson of the Greater Victoria School District desires to be the Victoria Member of the Legislative Assembly — I think it's the Hillside seat. I read it in the media — it must be true. I'm sure that has nothing to do with it. I'm sure that she has no political aspirations, except maybe to run for the opposition. Why anybody would want to run for a party that is always going to be in opposition, I don't know; the party opposite is always going to be in opposition.

That's the rest of the whole story, Mr. Chairman. There was no discussion about which MLAs would be present, and secondly, the chairperson of the Greater

[ Page 12697 ]

Victoria School District wants to run for political politics.

MR. GUNO: It seems we have a sort of dispute over facts.

I have a very specific question to pose to the Minister of Education relating to a specific capital project that apparently is pending in the community of Dease Lake in my riding. I'm sorry I haven't had the opportunity to phone you, Mr. Minister. I just heard about this today, and I thought this would be an opportune time to point out exactly what is happening with regard to this capital project, which is an expansion of the present facilities in Dease Lake.

The problem with the fact that there seems to be some withholding of the final formal announcement of this project is that the construction period in the far north is fairly short. The people from the Stikine district are quite anxious to get on with planning and developing this project so they can meet their target date of September 1992.

Can the minister cast any more light on the status of this project and whether there is going to be an announcement fairly soon? Unless that happens, I think the target date will have to be moved even further back. In Dease Lake there are a lot of activities going on, and the population is growing. The present facilities are overcrowded. Can the minister provide us with some answers to that?

HON. S. HAGEN: I appreciate the question and your interest in that particular project as well as the interest in your districts that you always express. I cannot comment specifically on that project, but I can tell the member that the overall capital announcement for your school district will be made within the next two days. However, I am unable to comment on the specifics of the announcement, because I wish to inform the school board first.

MS. A. HAGEN: I'm sure the minister is getting a very strong plea from all our members to get those announcements to school districts immediately. It is something that shouldn't — and can't — wait. If the minister is prepared to provide information to all districts in the next two days, I'm sure it will earn him a great many Brownie points, even if he doesn't end up traveling to as many districts around the province to make those announcements in person.

We believe these announcements should be made in the interests of the districts, not in the interests of the fact that we are coming up to an election, when people like to have photo opportunities and all that sort of thing. Kids shouldn't be a part of that political process.

I would note that my colleague from Atlin is indicating that the Stikine School District meets on Friday. With the distances that exist there, I know that a meeting of the school board is not like a meeting in my riding, where it takes people ten minutes to walk — let alone to drive. I hope the announcement within two days is indeed going to be by the end of the week when that school district is meeting. We note that the minister is affirming that across the floor. On behalf of the member and myself, that's helpful information.

I want to stay with a theme that has been around since we started meeting this afternoon: access to information. I want to go back for just a few minutes — and I don't intend to spend too long — to some of the discussion we have been having around royal commission funding. Access to information about government policy and funding to support that policy and royal commission are, I believe, very important. All sides of the House agree that the royal commission and the initiatives coming out of it are the most important ones on the public's mind these days as they look ahead to their children's education.

Just to do a brief reprise — we discussed this last week during debate — the minister has declined to provide any information about what he says is the $115 million for royal commission activities that is — I think you've used these words, Mr. Minister — "in the block." He says that he wants to inform school boards directly before he makes any public announcements. I'd like to ask the minister if that is a personal policy that he has adopted, because it's quite different from the policy of the minister last year.

Last year the Education estimates took place between May 10 and May 14. On May 2, a full week or so before we went into estimates, the Minister of Education issued a press release. Because the former Minister of Education has retired from the House, I can use his name: "Brummet Provides Details of School Funding in Addition to the Provincial Block." That press release goes on to list royal commission activities and the amounts for those activities — not district-by-district but global amounts. We have asked in this House for the minister to provide us with some information about the global amounts that will be allocated for various activities that will be in the block. Could I ask the minister if he has a personal policy that says that he has decided not to provide the public with that broad framework of information during his estimates, and on what basis he made that decision?

HON. S. HAGEN: I'm informed by staff that the information we have given out this year during the estimates is no different than the information given out last year during the estimates.

With regard to releasing specific information, as the minister it is a matter of courtesy on my part to the boards of the province that I release the information to them first. What I said last week.... I have no difficulty in going through all of the details again, which are already on the public record. If you want to take up the time of the House, I'm quite prepared to do that. I detailed all of the information on the amount of the Year 2000 funding related to the block. I am not prepared to give out any further information until I release it to the school boards. What I said to the member last week was that I will send the letters out to the school boards immediately upon my budget going through the House. I don't think that's radical or difficult to understand. But I think that the school boards out there would appreciate the courtesy that I've extended them to notify them of the funding that

[ Page 12698 ]

they are about to receive, and will receive in this fiscal year, with regard to the $185 million available for the Year 2000 program.

All of that money is allocated for testing, assessment, learning resources, program implementation, parent advisory councils — all of those topics that I discussed last week — full-day first-year primary, teacher assistants, transportation program implementation, equipment support, a portion of non-teaching days, accreditation and a portion of learning resources.

MS. A. HAGEN: With respect, Mr. Chairman, last year there was a different system. The global amounts that would be in the block and that would be going to school districts were announced prior to the estimates. I am going to pursue a line of questioning for a few minutes to see if the minister is prepared to provide us not with district-by-district information but with global amounts under some of the headings.

For instance, last year on May 2, one week before the minister's estimates were before this House, the minister's press release stated: "September enrolment adjustments and January adjustments for first-year primary, $64.2 million." Is the minister prepared to advise us what amount of money is within the $115 million globally for September enrolment adjustments and first-year primary?

HON. S. HAGEN: As I said before, I'm prepared to send that information out to school boards upon the passing of my budget through the House.

[3:15]

MS. A. HAGEN: Let me pursue this question in another vein for just a moment. On May 2, 1990, the then Minister of Education announced that there was $64.2 million in dual-entry, first-year primary September enrolment adjustments. On March 4, 1991, the minister announced that there was $23.5 million for children entering first-year primary in January 1991. Can the minister provide us with an explanation for the difference in those figures?

HON. S. HAGEN: The difference is based on enrolment differences.

MS. A. HAGEN: Mr. Chairman, is the minister saying that on May 2, 1990, they anticipated enrolment that would cost $64.2 million, and by March 4, 1991 they found in fact that they had enrolment that cost only $23.5 million? If that's the case, can the minister explain why such a massive discrepancy in their estimating?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall vote 21 pass?

MS. A. HAGEN: I think, Mr. Chairman, I have asked a question that the minister is having difficulty getting a response on from his officials. There's a $40 million discrepancy in last year's royal commission funding estimate for dual-entry and first-year primary. The estimate was $64.2 million, and an official statement from the ministry in March of this year indicates that school districts received $23.5 million for children entering first-year primary in January.

HON. S. HAGEN: That question pertains to last year's estimates, and I'm afraid I don't have that information.

MS. A. HAGEN: Perhaps I could ask the minister to undertake to provide that information for me — I will formalize that. But usually in estimates when we don't have information available, the ministry takes the question on notice.

I want to return to the May 2, 1990 press release of the ministry — a week before the estimates — in which the minister announced that for school district activity, such as teacher orientation, lead schools and parent information, there was $6.8 million. Is the minister now prepared to provide information about what will be available in learning resources and assistance to teachers for Year 2000 in the global amount under the $115 million that he is keeping under wraps?

HON. S. HAGEN: I have already done this at least once last week, but I don't mind doing it again. I'm pleased to detail both the headings and the amounts, which, as I say, I gave out last week. The money pertaining to the royal commission communication and implementation activities, grants to school districts directed to teacher activities to develop parent support and participation and to foster leadership and innovative ways of implementing the plan is $10,953,000; the expansion of teacher education programs, grants provided to universities, $10,580,000 — that includes the rural teacher education program; the forgivable loan program to teachers, $690,000; provincial teaching awards....

MS. A. HAGEN: That's in the $115 million, not the $71 million?

HON. S. HAGEN: That's in the $115 million.

Interjection.

HON. S. HAGEN: No, that's the same thing I said last week; I read it out.

Provincial teaching awards, $150,000; native language and culture programs, $1.3 million; independent school contributions, $23.3 million; independent school monitoring, $193,000; research and development grants, $175,000; support services to schools, which are grants to school districts and funding directed through the Ministries of Health and of Social Services and Housing to support interministry protocol agreements dealing with health care services for all students in the school system, $6 million; curriculum development resource materials, which will focus on the primary program curriculum, $7.9 million; assessment and accountability, support to schools for development and operation of learner-profile systems, $8.2 million; gender equity programs — remember we discussed that last week — $405,000; sexual abuse program — we dis-

[ Page 12699 ]

cussed that last week — $600,000. That makes up the $114,956 million.

MS. A. HAGEN: It's quite obvious that the minister is not prepared to provide some information to this House. I want to quote from last Wednesday's Hansard. I asked him how much of the funding for the royal commission was in the block. He said $115 million dollars: "The amount that isn't in the block is $71 million...." What I'm asking the minister to provide is information about the $115 million that is in the block which, according to him and again quoting Wednesday's Hansard, covers such matters "as dual entry, full-day first-year primary, teacher assistants, transportation, program implementation, equipment support, a portion of non-teaching days...testing, assessment, accreditation and a portion of learning resources" — and home-school student registration.

I have a very simple question, Mr. Chairman, that if the minister was prepared to answer, we would be able to get on with the estimates. I am simply asking him for the global amounts for those particular activities — global amounts that were announced last year a full week before the estimates, and which he is declaring he is not prepared to announce. I am not asking this minister for information about what is going to boards from any royal commission activities. But I am asking him to provide the public, through these estimates, with information about those dollars for those activities.

He has declined for a reason that I don't believe has any justification or precedent. His predecessor clearly believed, as this minister appears not to, in the fact that his estimates and his announcements should be there to inform the public. It's passing strange that we're dealing with the minister's estimates, he's outlining programs, and he's not prepared to tell the public what the global amounts are for those matters. If he is prepared to answer that question now, as his predecessor Mr. Brummet did, I will be delighted. If not, I think the case is made that this minister is not prepared to be open with the public around budget matters that clearly he has information about.

He says he has the detailed information drafted and ready to go out to school boards. What are the global amounts for those various programs, Mr. Chairman?

HON. S. HAGEN: In deference to the member for New Westminster — and it will be on her head that she found out this information before the school boards — I am quite prepared to list out this information. I will list it out with the dollar amounts: parent advisory council, $263,000; equipment support, roughly $6 million; learning resources, $19.45 million; testing assessment and accreditation, $12.75 million; non-teaching days, $20.47 million; program implementation, $13 million; primary transportation, $3 million; teacher assistants, $4.8 million; home schoolers, $690,000; full day first-year primary, $4.7 million; first-year dual entry, $29.28 million.

HON. MR. BRUCE: I have kind of a different nature of questioning that I'd like to get into with the Minister of Education. I'd like to deal initially with a little more philosophical view. This year, as I understand it, about 28 percent of the B.C. budget will be spent on education. In comparative numbers, as I understand it, in Ontario — it being an NDP government — only 18 percent of their global budget will be spent on education.

I bring this forward as a comparison. I think it's important, particularly when we are as close as we are to a general election, that people in this province understand the differences of priorities that one form of government would have over another. It's important that we take a look at what has happened in the Ontario situation with an NDP government and what's happening in British Columbia in education in respect to a Social Credit government. The actual difference of 28 percent of the global budget of British Columbia being spent on education, whereas in Ontario it is only 18 percent.... I suppose numbers could be argued every which way.

What concerns me even more than that aspect is philosophical change. Indeed, in the province of Ontario, under an NDP administration, they are now spending more money on social services and welfare than on education, whereas here in British Columbia under our administration — the Social Credit government — we have health first in our expenditures and education second. In fact, in Ontario, with the NDP government that they have, welfare spending has increased some 40 percent to $4.9 billion. That's about a 100 percent increase over the last two years. Just as an aside — it is not in reference to this particular ministry's estimates, but I thought you might be interested — metro Toronto's welfare allotment is more than the entire budget of Prince Edward Island.

What I would like to ask the minister about in respect to the philosophical bent of his ministry is, in his discussion with other Ministers of Education across the country, this whole aspect of priority of spending. I'm sure that discussions must go on, and I would be interested in your comments in regard to priorities when a government is looking at its expenditures. The priorities set, be they health, education or welfare.... Obviously at this time you are placing our emphasis on education, well in excess of the welfare side — contrary, I might add, to what's happening in NDP Ontario. I would be interested to hear the comments you may have in respect to other Ministers of Education on the philosophical side.

On a more practical side, which bothers me greatly, I hear members of the opposition, virtually whenever they speak about education, talking about cutbacks. It makes it sound like there has been cutback after cutback after cutback in the Ministry of Education. As I understand it, this year we are going to spend some $3.3 billion — I believe that's the estimate for the Ministry of Education. If I'm correct in my recollection of the amount last year, I think it was around $3 billion. That would say to me that we are about $300 million more in projected expenditure this year from last year. I have a hard time understanding, when it was $3 billion or so last year and it's $3.3 billion this year, how that translates into the misconception that

[ Page 12700 ]

the opposition tout that that translates into any form of a cutback. Could the Minister of Education tell me, when one looks at the global budget of Education over the last five years, if there is any cutback? What was the real amount of dollars spent in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1991? Is there any way he can show me, in real numbers, a lesser amount spent in the one year from the previous year? I would be really interested to hear from the Minister of Education the philosophical side, as I was mentioning, as to what's happening in NDP Ontario with their emphasis on welfare rather than education, as compared to our emphasis here in Social Credit on education and encouraging people to find work rather than going on welfare. I would also like to hear from the minister on this whole issue of exaggeration when on& talks about cutbacks. I would be interested to hear from the Minister of Education on both those lines.

[3:30]

HON. S. HAGEN: I appreciate the very good questions from the member from Cowichan. From time to time I also read articles about opposition members talking about cutbacks to education. It's important for the House to know that in the last four years increases in the Education budget, on a per-pupil basis, have been 39.6 percent. Let's be specific about the dollars being spent. I can do better than the member requested I can go back over the last ten years. Let's go back to the year 1981, the amount of money that went into the Education budget at that time was $1,606,245,000. We had an enrolment at that time of 492,000 students. Our budget in 1991 is $3,286,151,000, an increase of 104 percent; the per-pupil increase in the same period is 75 percent. But the members of the opposition ask: what about the growth in the number of students? It's significant that while the budget has grown by 104 percent, the student population has grown by 2.65 percent. So how anybody in the opposition could state that this government is not spending enough on education, I don't know. Those are astounding numbers. There isn't a province in this country that has put the emphasis on education....

[Mr. De Jong in the chair.)

When the member raised the question about the difference between Ontario and British Columbia with regard to emphasis....

AN HON. MEMBER: NDP Ontario?

HON. S. HAGEN: Yes, last fall there was an NDP government elected in Ontario.

I want to refer to a couple of comments made by the second member for Vancouver East, who isn't here today but will, I'm sure, appreciate me refreshing his memory. In February of this year, when asked about the campaign themes in Ontario, the second member for Vancouver East said, and I quote from BCTV news: "A lot of the campaign themes that were run in Ontario are very appropriate for British Columbia, so we're looking for the same kind of message." What's he really saying there? I don't know whether the second member for Vancouver East was a member of the transition team that went to Ontario or not, but if you recall, the Leader of the Opposition said: "Oh, yes, we sent...."

I'm moving right into education. The next comment is on education.

MS. A. HAGEN: Point of order. We have on occasion asked the minister to be relevant to his estimates, and I think we would all appreciate it if he were.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm sure the minister will recognize the point of order.

HON. S. HAGEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have to smile when the members opposite talk about relevancy to the debate, because if there has been non-relevancy in this debate, it has come from the other side of the House.

However, with all due respect, I was asked a very good question by the member for Cowichan-Malahat. He asked about the philosophical difference between the NDP government in Ontario and the Social Credit government in British Columbia. We're talking about funding. The NDP government in Ontario has committed a larger portion of its budget in dollars and percentage to social welfare programs than it has to education programs. This is the first time in history in this country that any province has done that. The education budget in Ontario is something like $9.7 billion; social welfare is $10.4 billion.

This province commits 27.4 percent of our total budget to education. In answer to the question that came from the member for Cowichan-Malahat, when you compare it to the amount committed by the Ontario government, which is 18.4 percent, that certainly must indicate to the people of this province the emphasis that we place on education.

Let's talk about philosophy. The province of Ontario is the only province in Canada not participating in the school achievement indicators program. They were participating. A year ago, when we made the announcement in Canada that all of the provinces and the two territories were going to participate in the first national school achievement indicators program in numeracy and literacy, all of the provinces said that it was about time. The public out there were asking what was taking so long. Obviously it was about time. Parents were saying they wanted to know how their children stacked up, and students were saying they wanted to know how they stacked up.

After the election in Ontario, the NDP education minister came to the meeting that I chaired in February and said: "I'm sorry, we're going to pull out." Why would they pull out? I'm not sure why. I'm not sure whether it has something to do with commitments made in the campaign to special interest groups like the Ontario Teachers' Federation or the Ontario Federation of Labour. I can't believe that they would care so little about education to take this stand. But the other provinces are going to carry on. British Columbia is carrying on with the assessment program. We're going

[ Page 12701 ]

to make sure that our children and students in this province get the best possible education they can get anywhere.

MS. CULL: I just wondered whether the minister has now had some time to consult with his staff and can give me an answer on St. Christopher's Montessori School.

HON. S. HAGEN: We're unable to make any commitments on specific schools. The independent school programs operate on a program basis. I would hope that school can function within that program, just like all the other independent schools do.

MS. CULL: Mr. Minister, will you be looking into the funding problems of the independent schools that find themselves in difficulty because they had their child care programs designed to meet the dual-entry program as it existed only a few weeks ago, and that has now been cancelled? Will your ministry investigate this problem to see what, if anything, can be done to assist them to adjust through this transition year?

A year ago I brought to the minister's attention a problem being experienced by another small independent school in my riding that was trying to adjust when dual entry was going the other way. Is the minister willing to look into this matter and provide me with some answers on it when his ministry staff has had a chance to investigate further?

HON. S. HAGEN: I would remind the member that independent schools are, in fact, independent schools. We don't interfere with what they do. Boards take the decisions they take for whatever reasons they do. I'm not about to interfere with the decisions boards have taken. As I said, that independent school will have to live within the bounds of the policies and programs that all independent schools in the province live by.

MS. CULL: I'm not asking you to interfere with the decisions of the board, Mr. Minister. It was the decision of your ministry to enrol children in January that made the board accept children for registration this September. The decision of you and your ministry to cancel dual entry places them in this situation. I'm not asking that you interfere with their decisions; I'm simply asking that you have your ministry look at the financial implications and see if there is something that can be done to assist these schools in the transition, exactly as you have done for public schools.

HON. S. HAGEN: May I point out to the member again that it was not compulsory for independent schools to accept the dual-entry program. I am not prepared to make an exception to the policy which all independent schools in the province are living with.

MS. CULL: One final comment. It was not compulsory, but the grants those schools received for their kindergarten children were based on your policy, and they make their decisions on that. They could not decide not to go into the dual-entry program and still receive kindergarten grants. I take it, though, that your answer is no, and I will convey that to the Montessori school.

MS. A. HAGEN: I'm troubled by the last question, because I think it indicates some of the uncertainty and confusion that has existed around policies that change like a pendulum back and forth. That appears to be the climate in which Education is attempting to operate at this time.

Mr. Chairman, we're about to conclude our examination of the minister's estimates. There are many other issues that we have not examined, partly because it has been difficult at times to persuade the minister to be as straightforward and swift with his answers as he might have been. That's unfortunate. I would like to have had more opportunity to discuss issues that I have on my list and that colleagues have on their lists that we really haven't been able to examine as much as we might like: multiculturalism and racism; the issue of at-risk kids; health, sex and family education; AIDS education; literacy issues assessment and accreditation policies; contracting out; teacher supply; teacher training — to name but a few.

We began with a discussion of dual entry, and we've ended this day with a discussion about dual entry too. I am disappointed that the minister, in terms of the information that he has been giving, has made it difficult for us to get information. It doesn't behoove this ministry, which is about people knowing, people understanding, people examining and making decisions.... Fundamental principles of education should be modelled in the ministry. I hope that in the days and weeks ahead the ministry will be able to provide some additional information to us on matters that they've agreed to come back to us on or that we may want to explore further.

[3:45]

This is the people's business, and I've chosen to conclude these estimates with two brief quotations. One is a wonderful letter from a woman in Vancouver who writes because she's concerned about the conflict and the confusion and the chaos in education. She describes some experiences her children have had: three days with teachers in a wilderness camp, a parent meeting and a musical presentation. I want to just read a bit from that part of her letter.

"The script was written over his December break and directed by our music teacher. Nine other staff willingly volunteered hours of extra time....

"Nearly every one of our intermediate students were involved on stage. The children were brilliant — all of them shone. There were big grade 7s and shy grade 4s, students from the ESL class and other special-needs kids. There was a spot made for everyone, and it was a top-notch performance — another building-block of self-esteem put in place."

But the purpose of the letter was not to extol what was happening in her school. It was to express her concern about what was happening in education. Her second-last paragraph says:

"My concern is that the...policies of the ministry undermine morale and create a climate of distrust. This is not useful to teachers, to administrators, to schools,

[ Page 12702 ]

to students. We need a climate that supports teachers as they innovatively reach out to our children in the ways I have described here."

I believe at the end of these important estimates it's very useful for us to remember the vision that's represented in that letter.

The other brief comment I want to make comes from the column of a person who's well known to most of us, Crawford Kilian, who writes weekly in the Vancouver Province on education matters. This is an article from a year ago — March 27, 1990 — and the headline is "Schools Face Hollow Reforms." At this time when we're undergoing a review of the royal commission and the work of that very important body, I found a saliency in what Mr. Kilian wrote at that time. He was interviewing a person whom many educators in the province and the ministry have known, worked with and respected. He begins his article: "One of B.C.'s most respected educators doesn't like what he sees happening in our schools."

I'm not going to read it all, but he makes a few comments that I think are very significant and that we should take to heart as we look ahead to what is coming for education. He says:

"The government's policies are self-contradictory and self-destructive.

"That change is embodied in the Year 2000 document, based on the Sullivan commission report on the schools...many studies confirm the value of Sullivan's suggestions."

But he goes on to express concern about those reforms and concludes by saying:

"Real improvement means a radically new kind of schooling. 'As an environmental educator,' McClaren says. 'I am constantly reminded that my generation and the one before it are now in power. As the best products of industrial-era education, we have managed to systematically wreck the biosphere. We continue to do so even when it is evident that we are straining the fabric of life on this planet. Doing more of the same kind of education harder or faster may well be disastrous.'

"To achieve real improvement rather than meaningless change...'B.C. has to create a truly appropriate post-industrial version of education for as many of our young folk as possible. I don't see it happening, but I sure hope it will'."

Mr. Chairman, this minister has announced that within a couple of weeks he will be making some pronouncements about Year 2000 and the royal commission implementation. It is important for all of us to work toward the education of our children in a way that brings stability, predictability, fairness and openness to that process, and I would hope that some of our discussions over the last several days have enabled people to learn a bit more about how a complex system works, to see and understand some of its problems and to make some assessments about government and its endeavours and us and our endeavours on behalf of education.

I'd like to thank the minister's staff for their very stalwart and excellent support of their minister. He has been well briefed on many issues, and I'm sure he has appreciated that endeavour. We'd like to extend our thanks to the minister for the time we've had in discussing these estimates.

MR. ROSE: I hesitate to tack a coda onto the symphony we've just heard, but I wanted to take this opportunity — even though I haven't been part of the debate, for a number of reasons — to thank the minister and the members of the staff for providing me with the statistical information on the fine arts and practical arts programs. I'm very interested in them, and I know a great number of people are extremely interested in the health and welfare of these arts programs. Even the Minister of Forests over there is an ex–fine arts student, although sometimes the effect of that education doesn't shine through particularly brilliantly. Nevertheless, he was exposed to it.

I am reassured by the fact that the music, art and theatre programs, if not flourishing — and I think they are — are certainly holding a steady course and pace. They involve some 41,000 students studying art at the secondary level, 27,000-odd in music and 26,000 in theatre, which surprised me. I didn't realize the strength of the theatre program there. There is no separate statistic for stage band, but I think that you would find the growth in that has been extremely vigorous.

Anyway, some 100,000 of our young British Columbians are enrolled in these programs, and I think a lot of people are very happy about that. I don't think there's anything better for the relationship between the school and the general public, unless it may be the athletic program, than these very fine programs in music, art and theatre.

Vote 21 approved.

Vote 22: ministry operations, $85,173,133 — approved.

Vote 23: public schools education, $3,108,736,034 — approved.

Vote 24: independent schools, $91,925,166 — approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Pelton in the chair.

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

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I call Committee of Supply.

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. De Jong in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HEALTH

On vote 38: minister's office, $360,045 (continued).

HON. MR. STRACHAN: While we're waiting for staff to arrive — and I'm sure my critic is assembling a series of questions for the duration of this afternoon's

[ Page 12703 ]

debate — I'd like to touch briefly on a few issues dealing with Health.

Earlier today I had the good fortune to be on one of the open-line radio shows — the "Bill Good Show" — where the topic of conversation was the downsizing of the Riverview institution. As you know, Mr. Chairman, it has been a characteristic and a feature of this government to downsize the large and in many cases nineteenth-century-type institutions that we had in British Columbia — Tranquille, dealing with mentally retarded people some years ago and lately Riverview, dealing with mental illness. We have downsized the facility to 1,026 beds, and we have provided some community services for those patients.

Concern was expressed today by a Dr. Donnelly, who specializes in geriatric psychiatry, about government's commitment to providing better and community-based services to those people who are coming out from big institutions like Riverview and indeed going into a community living situation. I assured the good doctor — and assure other people listening today — that we had a solid commitment to these programs, that we were expending some $20 million in terms of enhancement for community services and would continue to meet the need as best we can.

I don't think there's any question that if we look at institutions like Riverview and at some of the better community health protocols, procedures and training programs that have been developed, we clearly have to recognize, as we enter the twenty-first century, that there's always a far better way of looking after those who suffer from dementia and from mental illness.

Of course, we're all aware of the horror stories and horror situations that existed in times past, where people were literally incarcerated under deplorable conditions with absolutely no treatment, no ability of those providing care — if you could characterize it as care — to in any way enable them to improve their mental health. That indeed was a despicable time and a very troubled time of our history. However, society has seen that as unacceptable, and I guess we all welcome the knowledge and the necessity for governments, for institutions, for those who are concerned about the care of those who are suffering from mental illness, to provide better therapies for them, to provide far better community living standards and in general make their life better and to provide therapeutic care to ensure that they are given the best possible services.

I want to leave with this committee — at least for this brief introduction — my comments regarding mental health and the government's position toward the provision of those services. I know there may be some debate and discussion on that later. I'll be more than happy to entertain those questions and provide answers to the committee. With that said, Mr. Speaker, I'll take my place and await further questions from members opposite.

[4:00]

MR. PERRY: Mr. Chair, the debate reached such intellectual profundity the last day that I've actually recruited my eyeglasses to study more carefully some of the materials — the first time in about six months I've had to use them. I don't know if it's the excitement of the impending election or really the excitement of the debate that's brought them out of their case, but I see that they're still here, at least, and still seem to work.

Interjection.

MR. PERRY: A sign of maturity, says the Minister of Health — very delicately put.

I don't intend to exhaust the subject today, but since the minister has broached it I'll respond very briefly to the situation of the chronically mentally ill in British Columbia.

There are no easy solutions to the problems we face, in part because we don't generally understand anything about what causes mental illnesses. Sometimes we think we do; we have theories on depression and wilder theories on schizophrenia, but we basically don't know anything. Even the drugs used to treat people with those conditions were discovered by accident, but fortunately they are somewhat helpful to at least assist the majority of people with depression and schizophrenia and other mental illness to function and sometimes lead a normal life in society. Until we learn what really causes those conditions and can cure them or manage them more effectively than we do now, we will have an ongoing and difficult struggle to provide a reasonable quality of life for people with severe mental illness.

I know we have made progress in British Columbia. We no longer have quite the same stigma attached to mental illness as we did in the past. It's not quite so fearsome to admit that one has mental illness in the family. It's no longer so stigmatic to be under the care of a psychiatrist. Hopefully recent events will not have put us back in that regard. As the medical professional cleans up its act with regard to the abuse of patients, particularly women patients, hopefully it will become even less of a stigma to be under the care of a psychiatrist in the future. Although we have made some improvements, there is a long way to go. I don't share the relative complacency of the Social Credit government with the actual present situation.

Since the minister referred to Dr. Martha Donnelly, I'd like to refer to something I intended to raise a little later in these debates. She was quoted in the Vancouver Province on June 7, commenting on the downsizing of Riverview Hospital, particularly the facilities for the geriatric population with mental illness or dementia:

"'If you don't have the resources, you do have to lock them up. And if you don't have the staff in the lock-up facilities, you have to overmedicate them in order to keep it safe."'

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

The article points out that Dr. Donnelly is a respected geriatric psychiatrist active at Vancouver General Hospital. She was supporting a resolution proposed at the recent B.C. Medical Association annual meeting warning the provincial government of the consequences of downsizing Riverview's geriatric division.

[ Page 12704 ]

The article goes on to say:

"Donnelly, vice-chairman of the BCMA’s geriatrics committee, said all the money in the world still won't divert" — I think it means "avert" — "a catastrophe.

"'My concern is the government is not really listening to something very basic — put the money into training, and when you get the people trained then build the services. When you are doing geriatrics you have to have both a medical and a psychiatric knowledge — you have to understand how those two things interact'."

That reflects a point that Dr. Donnelly, Dr. Janet Martini and a number of other distinguished geriatricians brought forward to the Royal Commission on Health Care during their hearings last fall — that is, the paucity of training positions and experienced geriatricians both at the family practitioner level.... That point was represented by, for example, Dr. John Sloan of Vancouver and Dr. Duncan McPherson — I believe is the name — a prominent gerontologist from Victoria, who participated in that submission. They brought to the attention of the royal commission the extreme difficulty in improving the quality of geriatric care because of the limited number of professionals with expert training not only in medicine but also in nursing, psychology and allied fields, such as the highly trained patient care aids or licensed practical nurses with specialized training in the geriatric area. Perhaps in geriatric psychiatry the situation is most difficult of all, because by nature it's probably the most difficult field, and it is the most frightening to both lay people and professionals not sufficiently trained.

So I think we have some major problems there, and I share Dr. Donnelly's concern, which was echoed in that article by Dr. Ray Ancil, the head of geriatric psychiatry at UBC and the director of the geriatric program at Riverview Hospital. He was quoted as saying that the lack of a flexible long-term geriatric game plan — not Riverview's downsizing per se — is the biggest threat.

"If we don't plan properly, geriatrics will be in every hospital bed, and you and I won't get in." Ancil said. "There doesn't yet seem to be a coordinated set of plans with the timetables and moneys set to it. We assume seniors are some alien life form, but in five, ten, 15 years, it's us." Perhaps the minister and I like to kid ourselves that we have a little bit longer before we reach that stage, but it will come eventually, we hope.

Mr. Chairman, we know that seniors aren't an alien life form. We have the greatest respect for our chairman in this Legislature and for many other seniors. But the point Dr. Ancil is making is that at the two ends of the spectrum of life, both in extreme old age — even in old age — and in extreme youth, citizens often have a lower priority in our society and perhaps fewer rights — or their rights are more difficult to assure.

I think the fact that Dr. Donnelly and Dr. Ancil speak out so clearly on an issue like this should cause all of us to feel some alarm at the ability of our society in British Columbia to provide adequately in the field of care for elderly people in general and particularly in psychiatric care.

I wanted to raise that briefly. I will return to it later on in these debates. Also because the minister referred to the downsizing of Riverview, I thought I would just remind him — perhaps as a warning — that we will not let him off the hook quite so easily in these estimates debates. Downsizing has proceeded in excess of the rate of provision of community services. I don't think there's very much question about that. Perhaps in the last year there has been some improvement, but there remains tremendous concern about the long-term commitment of government to make up in the community for services formerly delivered in institutions.

Here is an example sent to me by Mrs. Helen Hardern of Vancouver, who quotes from a letter she received, written by the Rev. Jim Elliot of the First United Church in Vancouver. This letter is dated May 21, so this would have referred to an event that happened this spring. I quote Rev. Jim Elliot:

"The other morning I responded to banging on our church door prior to regular opening. The young woman causing the disturbance was a disturbed person herself. She was upset as she told me that Mona (not her real name) was asleep in our loading bay. Mona has a drug problem and is one of the many shelterless people in our city. As she told me of Mona's situation, the other woman wept and said: 'No one cares.' We were able to give Mona a cup of soup, soap and towel for a shower, some clean clothes, but not provide a place to stay. This story is repeated in this community daily."

My correspondent Mrs. Hardern sent me a copy of a letter she sent to the Minister of Women's Programs, seeking some particular empathy, I suppose, with this woman's situation. Mrs. Hardern writes:

"As a woman I cannot imagine what it would be like to be in the position of having no roof over my head, no washing facilities, no clean clothes, no food, no bed. I wonder if you can relate to this in any way. I can't. My question becomes: what is your government doing, or planning to do, for women in such circumstances? I realize that drugs can be and probably are involved in many cases, and that many of these shelterless people are mentally disturbed, but what is to become of them? Does anyone care?"

My answer is that many people do care, and many people remain ignorant of that reality. It's very well hidden from us. It certainly doesn't often permeate the walls of this Legislature. I think in the two years and a bit that I've been here, we once had a visit from the Friends of Schizophrenics, who brought two or three young people suffering from schizophrenia and who perhaps sat in the gallery briefly. But we don't often face the incursion in this sanctum of the kind of people described in that letter.

I'm very worried about them. I'm worried also about the community's backlash to people who are perceived as frightening or perhaps dangerous. I've seen this recently in Vancouver in a newspaper article regarding citizens' reactions to a proposed new housing project or group home by the Mental Patients' Association, a group which runs some beautiful facilities.

The second member for Richmond and I were among others who were invited to and visited homes. I visited one run by the Mental Patients' Association; I think the second member for Richmond visited a different home last fall. The one I visited was very

[ Page 12705 ]

nicely administered; it blended very nicely into its neighbourhood. One would have never known it was anything other than a standard apartment, and it provided perhaps lifesaving shelter for people with severe mental illness.

There was one problem there that I could ascertain on a brief visit. I think members thinking about this issue would be concerned in the same way I was. I asked one of the young people there how he felt about living in this place. He had his own very modest, small apartment and a shared cooking area with six or eight other people, some kind of lounge facility and some support workers intermittently. There was usually one person, if I recall, available all the time in that apartment.

He said: "Well, it's been wonderful. It's really got me on my feet for the first time, but I have to leave soon." "What do you mean, you have to leave soon?" It doesn't make sense, does it, that somebody with chronic schizophrenia who's now out of Riverview, able to function on his own and comfortable in a modest apartment should leave if they're functioning well there? It's completely illogical, isn't it?

His answer was: "Well, the staff are forcing me to leave." The staff, when asked, said, "We have to, because those are our criteria. After two years we have to let in someone who is more severely ill." You can imagine that from the staff's point of view — and perhaps from a bureaucratic point of view — it makes sense. From a rational, logical human point of view, it makes no sense. Having just gone a long way to resolve that individual's fundamental problem and provide him a secure environment, to then say, "Now you've had your two years, your time is up and out you go," is crazy.

I wanted to raise that issue. I see perhaps I'm exceeding my time, and I will return to the issue later on.

MR. BARNES: I'd be pleased to intervene on behalf of the second member for Vancouver–Point Grey. His points are quite interesting, and I'd like to hear what he has to say.

[4:15]

MR. PERRY: Did you want to respond?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I thank the first member for Vancouver Centre — I guess we both do — for his intervention. But the second member for Vancouver–Point Grey wants me to respond.

First of all, the member mentioned having to wear his glasses; that's something that happens to all of us as we mature. I've always had to wear glasses, but lately I've had to have another type of correction so I can read — either that or get longer arms. I know what you're going through. It happens when you're about 45. It didn't happen to me until I was closer to 50, but these things do happen. It's a sign of maturity.

With respect to the mental health issue, I have quite a few things to say. I do take umbrage at the comment that we are being complacent, because that is not correct. The evidence I'm going to present to you, Mr Chairman, and to members of this committee, will demonstrate that. We are not complacent at all about this issue, and I will not accept the member's accusation that we are. We are reacting with sincere determination to the issues of geriatric dementia and other mental health concerns. Our record is clear and extremely good.

I'll give you an example of the Riverview downsizing. Riverview is currently at 1,032 beds. This downsizing has occurred in order to improve care at Riverview, as well as to enable further developments in the community. Although we have reduced by 188 beds at Riverview, these have been replaced by 300 beds and services in the community. Further improvements are in the planning stages. For example, through this restructuring process, Riverview has been able to upgrade 12 wards, increase nurse-to-patient ratios and improve its responsiveness to community needs by a ten-bed emergency response unit, leading to a significant reduction in waiting-time.

Another interesting new program is the Riverview education outreach program, which seeks to transfer the necessary knowledge and skills required to assist the seriously mentally ill to community care providers. In the radio interview I did early this morning, Dr. O'Shaughnessy mentioned that those concerned welcomed the $20 million we have put into expanding and enhancing services for the mentally ill. In terms of better training — particularly better medical school training — there is the Barer-Stoddart medical manpower committee now working to provide some answers to the medical manpower demands of the province and the country as we enter the twenty-first century. We have made our submissions to that committee with respect to any deficits we see in the particular skills that should be taught at medical school. This, of course, would be one. We know, for example, that the number of seniors and those experiencing mental illness is going to increase from 400,000 to well over 600,000 shortly — into the next century. Clearly, if there's a discipline at medical school that must be enhanced, it is the training of geriatric psychiatrists.

With respect to the capital infrastructure, there are a couple of things. First of all, the member should note that in the throne speech we did mention a legacy fund we set up from the sale of lands from Woodlands, which will go for any capital infrastructure needed. Also, if any lands are sold from Riverview, those proceeds will also go to a special fund for capital infrastructure for community services for the mentally ill.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about Tranquille?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'll get to Tranquille in a while.

Let me just break down our $10 million commitment to date for increased supported housing. Questions were asked about our plan of supported housing, and we do have the following to comment. In the Fraser Valley, annualized costs of $400,000 to improve the availability, quality and effectiveness of residential

[ Page 12706 ]

care support to service-providers and residents. In the Vancouver-Richmond area, for the same type of program, $340,000. In Abbotsford, Langley, Surrey, New Westminster, Port Coquitlam and North Vancouver, $100,000 to increase supported housing, which would increase the number of workers to assist psychiatrically disabled persons to live independently outside of hospitals and residential care facilities. In Campbell River, Port Alberni and the Capital Regional District, $105,000 for community residential beds. In Kamloops, Penticton, Kelowna and Vernon, respectively $80,000, $35,000, $10,000 and $50,000 in community living support services, providing life-skills training programs to equip people with mental illness to live in community settings. In Kamloops and Nelson, $150,000 and $20,000 respectively, to provide intensive residential care facilities. In Dawson Creek, $78,000 for community residential beds. In Prince George, $40,000 for community living support, to assist staff to assist people with mental illnesses to continue living in their own homes; also, that same program will provide $25,000 in Williams Lake and $25,000 in 100 Mile House. In the New Westminster–Fraser Valley–North Shore communities, $200,000 annualized, staffing and services to provide emergency after-hours response to local communities. The list goes on and on, until we reach the $10 million level that I spoke of earlier.

Clearly we cannot accept any criticism that says we are being complacent with respect to this issue of community services for the mentally ill. Mr. Chairman, the record, as I've indicated — and I'll carry on and read more numbers if you wish — is there, and our commitment is there. It is a priority of this government to ensure that community resources are available for those who are suffering from mental illnesses.

I'll take my place now, Mr. Chairman, and await further questions from the members opposite.

MR. PERRY: It's time that we get into this, Mr. Chair. Let me give an example. Perhaps for a change we can actually have some thoughtful and useful discussion in this committee. I see on this side two immediately concerned members in the issue I'm about to raise: the second member for Vancouver Centre and the member for Vancouver East, who may also wish to express some opinion or observation.

Let me give you an example of where I don't find the government's approach very effective. I emphasize, again, that what we are discussing is not so much how to spend more money in British Columbia, because the amount of money available in the Health budget is substantial. In a year in which there's a $1.2 billion deficit, an accumulated provincial deficit of $20 billion, there is a clear and present limit to how much money can be spent on services. We're really discussing much more how we assure that we meet the real basic needs of people, and in this case the most vulnerable people in our society, within the present funding by and large.

I'll give you an example where I have to admit I'm not impressed. I can't claim to know the answer, but I'm not impressed by the government approach. A couple of years ago, after meeting with the Friends of Schizophrenics, I asked them to spend a day showing me around the lower mainland, visiting schizophrenics on the street, in grotty rooms in downtown old hotels, in high-quality boarding-homes, in less opulent boarding-homes — wherever they wanted to take me. I actually visited the new Francis Court before it was officially opened by the former former Minister of Health. It's a wonderful facility in the riding of the member for Vancouver East. I've visited the Coast Foundation facilities and a boarding-home in my own riding. I also visited the Triage facility on Main Street, just south of the Georgia Viaduct, in what used to be a Bank of Montreal building.

Mr. Chair, it was a depressive — and in some ways a frightening — experience. In many ways it was a moving experience not only to see the people living in that facility but also to see the people who were working with them. I recall that one young man who worked on my own campaign, a university student, worked as a volunteer in that facility at one point. Clearly in any modern society it is a very unacceptable way to house people who are in the most severe stages of mental illness. Perhaps the residents of Triage are better off than they used to be in Riverview. Certainly they are better off there than sleeping under bridges or out in the open in Vancouver. They are perhaps better off than sleeping in a park in Comox or some other part of the province. But nobody could possibly argue that that is a good environment for any human being.

At the time I wrote to the ministry, raising concerns about what could be done to.... I guess I wrote later to the ministry, after Brother Kozinsky was in charge of the facility. He notified me in the spring of 1990 that the lease was up on the building and that there appeared to be no place for those people to go. I raised that concern with various people: I attempted to convene some prominent citizens, and even people from the business community in Vancouver. I wrote to the Lieutenant-Governor, hoping that through his patronage he might initiate a movement to help these people who are probably the most destitute in our society. I had no response from anybody.

Later on, the city, I presume in conjunction with the Ministry of Health, began to address the issue, and has clearly gone through an extensive process of attempting to find a solution to the plight of people now living in Triage and the plight of others on the street.

I see the minister shaking his head. Let him not misconstrue me as suggesting the ministry or the city was heartless about this. I have to tell you a bit more of the story to make the case and begin the discussion.

When plans were announced earlier this year for a new Triage facility on East Hastings in Vancouver, there was a community revolt. Not exactly the same community revolt I alluded to earlier in the case of the Mental Patients' Association or that which probably any member is familiar with in their own constituency of people exhibiting the NIMBY — not in my back yard — phenomenon. This revolt was somewhat different.

[4:30]

The first sign of it that I was aware of, as an elected representative and Health critic, was from John Turvey, an experienced streetworker who works in the downtown east side with a similarly disadvantaged popula-

[ Page 12707 ]

tion, including some of the same people but particularly those afflicted with intravenous drug-use problems, alcoholism, AIDS, etc. The next signs began to emerge from the Chinese-Canadian community in Strathcona, from people who had fought the construction of the freeway through that neighbourhood 20 years ago. Other signs of concern began to emerge from people who have spent most of their lives advocating for the dispossessed — people, for example, who have worked in OXFAM in attempting to improve conditions for very poor people in other countries. Clearly, in my interpretation at least, the phenomenon is not simply the same typical, vicious NIMBYism — that it's fine for somebody else but it won't be in my back yard. The difference was that in this case the arguments were consistent from across that social spectrum, with very few exceptions: that the Strathcona neighbourhood was already severely overstressed with the population of British Columbians whom no one wants to live elsewhere and who drift — partly because of that force, partly by chance, partly because of their own alcoholism or schizophrenia or whatever the underlying pressure in their life is — towards the downtown east side of Vancouver, as they do in other big cities. But the Strathcona area is so overstressed already that the imposition of one more facility catering to people with the most severe psychiatric problems in our society might be unbearable for that community.

I confess that my initial reaction was some suspicion: why are people complaining about this? Is it the usual NIMBY phenomenon? But when I looked at the breadth of the community concerns I became considerably more worried, and I have attempted, for example, by writing two months ago to the mayor of Vancouver and proposing a meeting of a Vancouver caucus of city councillors, members of the provincial Legislature and expanded to include professionals in that field, patient advocates for the mentally ill and also members of the affected community.... I've done everything I could to encourage a process to attempt to resolve the issue in a constructive way.

It might be, for example, that a facility ought to be built on the new Expo lands site and that not only the ultraprivileged should be allowed to live on that site which once belonged to the people of B.C. Maybe there's room to incorporate an ultramodern optimum facility for people with serious mental illness close to the existing Triage facility, close to where such people now live on the edge of the old Expo site.

I would like to know in some detail the minister's account of what has been the Ministry of Health's role in this issue and what solutions he sees to this problem which right now is languishing between several levels of government, community activists and the people with the least power of all, the ones that the new Triage project is meant to serve.

I'd also like to invite my colleagues the second member for Vancouver Centre and the member for Vancouver East, who may have been dealing with this issue, to comment on it. Perhaps we can shed some light on the issue in this assembly, since to the best of my knowledge it has not been very thoroughly debated elsewhere in public.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just before we proceed, hon. members, the member for North Vancouver–Capilano seeks leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. REE: It's a great pleasure to stand here today and introduce my son, Cameron Ree, his wife Geraldine and seven-ninths of an additional grandchild, who are in the gallery today. I'd ask this House to give them a very warm welcome.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: May I offer to Mr. and Mrs. Ree my best wishes for good health. It's nice to see you here.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

First of all, the member opposite said at one point that I was shaking my head. I wasn't shaking my head, but maybe it indicates a need for a visit to the ophthalmologist.

I do have to take umbrage again at the comment that we're not being effective. As a matter of fact, as the member points out, what he would like to see happen is happening. I think the list of community care facilities we're putting in place and the work we're doing indicates that we are effectively dealing with this growing concern in an efficient, expeditious and responsible manner.

With respect to the Triage society, I can give the committee a bit of an update. This note may be a bit dated, and there may be some more information coming, but it says this: the Triage society is a residential resource for persons with mental illness. There's no question, as the member has described people in that area of Vancouver, that some of the cases and some of the circumstances are pretty grim, as one could imagine in a big city like that. It doesn't mean they're acceptable; nevertheless, they are grim. There are some very sad circumstances and some very sad stories there.

The details of the site are these. The city of Vancouver owns a parcel of land at the stated location. That will be the site at which the Triage society plans to build a new residential facility with 28 emergency beds to replace the 28-bed Triage facility currently at Main and Prior. In addition, this new site will have 30 bachelor suites for the more stabilized clients who are not ready for independent living. The tenants in these 30 bachelor suites would be provided with a variety of in-house support services. Because the parcel of land in question is quite large, the city of Vancouver may choose to sell part of it to Triage and the rest to another agency which may also build some residential accommodation for another client group such as seniors.

I can advise the committee and the members that the Triage society and the Greater Vancouver Mental Health Service Society are working closely with the city of Vancouver to develop this residential resource

[ Page 12708 ]

for persons with mental illness. In-house support services will be available. I can assure the committee, as Minister of Health, that we will do all that is within our jurisdiction — we're not in the housing business; that's another ministry — to ensure that the clients of the Triage facility are looked after to the best of our ability. We assure the committee that we are genuinely concerned with the provision of care to all British Columbians, even those who are in a situation like this — which, as I said earlier, in most cases is a very sad personal situation.

MR. CLARK: I hadn't planned to enter the debate. I don't profess to have much knowledge in the area except for anecdotal evidence, but it is a concern as MLA for Vancouver East. I know that the member for Vancouver Centre probably has the same problem, and it is evident that there is an increasing number of homeless people in Vancouver. It is evident that in certain parts of Vancouver there are people who clearly are mentally disabled.

I'm conscious of two things when I raise this question: first, I'm conscious of and concerned about the NIMBY approach, which is of great concern to all of us in terms of how you cope with people and provide services for people in communities; and secondly, I'm conscious of discrimination against people in that position. Nevertheless, it's absolutely clear that if you walk in my riding at Broadway and Commercial Drive, for example, there are several people who clearly are not able to take care of themselves, who clearly have serious mental handicaps — problems — and who clearly are panhandling, with all kinds of problems associated with that in terms of safety and the concern that people have.

As the MLA for the constituency, I get phone calls on this question. It appears obvious — this is a causal link which the minister can refute if he'd like; I don't have any problem if he does — to residents in parts of my community and to me as the MLA that there's a causal relationship between shutting down institutions and the increased problems associated in parts of my community, my neighbourhood and my riding with people who have these kinds of problems.

It's a concern, I must tell you, to constituents. It's a concern that I get as an MLA, and it's one with which I have a great deal of difficulty dealing as the MLA. I don't want to make political points on a question like this. I don't want to just say it's the government's fault, or deinstitutionalization is the fault, or whatever. But nevertheless, as a layperson, the anecdotal evidence is very clear: there are more people on the streets today who have problems, are unstable and who are causing problems and concerns for people in the constituency.

So it appears to me, again as a layperson, that the government is not doing enough to deal with these problems, and I think they're problems largely caused by deinstitutionalization. I completely support the move to deinstitutionalization, but the services.... There's clearly a gap there, or at least it appears to me to be a gap. I wonder if the minister could address that and give some comfort to my constituents who phone me with these concerns about people and problems

There is the threat that people feel in terms of safety when there is this increased number of homeless and panhandlers and the like who clearly do not have total control of their mental faculties.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'll just briefly respond, Mr. Chairman. I see my good friend from Vancouver Centre wants to enter into the debate. I'll be more than happy to hear his comments as well.

It is upsetting when one hears of the NIMBY syndrome, and we hear it whenever any societal group wants to put someone who doesn't really fit the neighbourhood norm into housing in that neighbourhood. I've seen examples of it in Prince George, and I'm sure every MLA in this chamber could recount examples of trying to provide housing for those people who are maybe just a bit different than what the neighbourhood has traditionally housed. But I think there is a good awareness in society that we have a responsibility to provide housing. We have a responsibility to be better neighbours and to be more aware of those people who are less fortunate than ourselves, and we should welcome them into our community.

The downsizing of Riverview has not gone on without an awful lot of care and attention being put into backup and support of community resources. As I said earlier, there is a $20 million commitment to that. The medical opinion that I heard today while I was discussing this issue on an open-line show indicated solid support for government initiatives in terms of providing this community support. As I said, it's an enhancement of $20 million to our program, and we are increasing that.

I don't think there's any question, though, as the member for Vancouver East points out, that as people come out of institutions.... And there's nothing wrong with that, because I think as a society we would all be prepared to take a bit more risk on the street and in our communities to ensure that someone is not incarcerated and kept in some of those really deplorable, almost nineteenth-century conditions. I think society is ready to take a slight risk in terms of having those people back in the community.

But I do maintain that we have, through many support groups.... The Ministry of Health doesn't run these. We pay for them, vet them and encourage them, and do everything we can to help them. But through the expertise and work of many groups in our communities — societies and agencies that provide this type of care — we are providing the backup support for those people who are becoming deinstitutionalized.

I recognize the member for Vancouver East.... I recognize the concern they have in their neighbourhood, and I can assure him that all concerns that he brings to this ministry, and to me in particular, will be addressed in any way we can. I'm aware of his concerns and the concerns of his neighbourhood and his community, but it's our commitment to downsize the institutions whenever possible and to deinstitutionalize. It's also our commitment to all communities that whenever we are putting more people into the commu-

[ Page 12709 ]

nity, we will provide adequate community backup services in every way we can.

[4:45]

MR. PERRY: I don't want to derail the minister's and our train of thought. I'll come back to this issue in one moment. I had planned that we would probably get into it in the third or fourth week of the Health estimates debate. But since we're into it, I will come back. I had promised to attempt to allay some anxieties of people in Vancouver on another issue. I realize we're already getting close to our deadline, given the amount of discussion we can continue on the Triage.

I'd like to change the subject briefly for a moment. News reports yesterday alarmed a lot of people about the future treatment of babies born to mothers with addictions to alcohol or drugs at St. Paul's Hospital. The implication was left in a news report that the hospital was about to close a special-care ward for newborns, which looks after a substantial number of newborns born to mothers who are addicted to alcohol, drugs or both. Those children, as members will know are extremely vulnerable and susceptible; they require a very specialized type of care, often for months if not years, after their birth. Some of them are infected with the AIDS virus and, in fact, develop AIDS rather rapidly after their birth.

My understanding at present is that the need for St. Paul's Hospital to reconsider the position of its special care nursery arises out of its funding shortfall and the fact that perhaps a million dollars of important programs are not funded under the present ministry budget. Therefore the hospital, in attempting to meet its balanced budget commitment, is simply unable to continue paying for them. My understanding is also not only that is there substantial concern by the medical and the nursing staff about the proposed downsizing of that ward, but that the other hospitals dealing with neonates are concerned that they may not be able to take up the slack.

I would not want to think that even this government is insensitive to the needs of babies born addicted to alcohol or to drugs like cocaine or narcotics. I hope the minister can reassure us about the status of either that nursery or equivalent programs that can look after those babies as well or better.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: This issue did arise yesterday in the media. St. Paul's has spent some time thinking about possible areas for cost savings. In an average year St. Paul's has about 45 to 60 level 2 nursery care babies, and they aren't considered a level 2 nursery. So they are considering asking Children's to pick up that load so that they can concentrate on their regular nursery. But as I indicated yesterday to the media — and I will indicate to the committee now, Mr. Chairman — those decisions have not been finalized. Discussions have not been concluded. We are looking, in all cases, at many options, and so are St. Paul's and Children's.

I can assure the committee that in no way will we put any babies at risk, and that we are committed to providing appropriate level 2 nursing care and hospital care to that category of very fragile baby.

MR. BARNES: Back to the question of adequate housing and resources for persons who have been discharged from institutions for the mentally ill. Like other members of the House, I certainly want to commend the actions by the government in recognizing the need to deinstitutionalize Woodlands and Riverview, and earlier Tranquille, and any place where people are away from their communities. But the question that I would like for the minister — if he hasn't done this already.... I may have missed it from some of the earlier debate. What is the monitoring system in place that tracks what happens to discharged patients, people who have been institutionalized and are now back in the community?

The first member for Vancouver East was pointing out that it's quite evident that a number of people, previous residents of the institutions, are on the streets and do not have adequate living facilities. Can the minister describe the strategy that's in place to ensure that the plan is working as well as it should?

I've received information as well, from the B.C. division of the Canadian Mental Health Association, that the B.C. Housing Management Commission do not have adequate numbers within their system to address some of the concerns that we're talking about today in terms of housing for mental patients.

What is the system in place to ensure the numbers that are falling in the cracks, that are not housed right now? How many people are on the streets? For instance, if I get a call in my office as the MLA in my area, and someone tells me about a mental patient who doesn't have an adequate place to stay, how do we ensure that that person is going to be accommodated? Are you able to respond? Is there anything that you can do for such people?

As well, on a related subject, could you perhaps clarify the extent to which you are able to address the needs of teenagers who are also having difficulty finding adequate housing or places to stay when they are having these mental episodes — or perhaps they've been certified as having mental health conditions?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'll advise the committee that the member does raise a very valid and legitimate concern. As we move into this area of building the community resources, maybe there are going to be some gaps in the service. But as I indicated earlier, as I went through the expenditures that we have in this $10 million fund, many of the services that I mentioned are being provided in Vancouver. There's a variety of agencies available. I don't have a detailed list here, but I could certainly provide it for the member's benefit to better answer the concerns of his constituents.

Let me just wax philosophical again for a moment if I may. As we take someone out of a situation of incarceration, we develop programs for them, we assess them and we ensure that we have somewhere for them to go. We do take a risk — there's no question about that. But it's a risk that you want to take, because clearly, having them back in the community and

[ Page 12710 ]

accepting that slight risk of having them back in the community, to my mind, is far better for them and for society than just having them locked up. That's clear, which is why we have taken this initiative. We haven't taken this initiative to save money, because, as a matter of fact, if you could just keep everybody incarcerated, you'd save money. But that clearly is not the best way to provide treatment or any sort of rehabilitation to people who suffer from mental illness. You have to have a program and a continuum of services that gradually improve their lifestyle if you can; that has to be provided. So you do take a risk when you do that.

I will agree with the member that it's not a perfect world out there and that we don't have a perfect continuum of support. But I will advise the member — and this has been verified by people in the medical profession — that the enhancement of $20 million is there. It's clearly working, and we will do whatever we can to ensure that it works in a better fashion.

I'll also give my undertaking to the member for Vancouver Centre that if he has any specific concerns that he wishes to deal with, he can deal with me on a personal basis and I will react just as quickly as I can. Because it's a concern; I know it's a concern in your constituency and in the constituency of Vancouver East.

I think also that in many cases we see someone who's just not totally like us — maybe different in appearance and a bit different in behaviour. Because they're not totally like us we are paranoid and there is that discrimination, because one has a tendency to discriminate against people who don't look like you or maybe aren't behaving exactly like you. I think in many cases that although the behaviour is not entirely consistent with what we consider to be proper, in fact it's not dangerous; it's just a bit different. I think that maybe frightens some people. That's another awareness that has to be available within the community.

I'm not trying in any way to sort of downplay some of the serious conditions people have or some of the serious behaviours they exhibit. Nevertheless, I think we have to be a bit more aware of those people among us who do suffer from forms of mental illness, and we have to accept the fact that their behaviour, although not dangerous, may be just a bit different from ours.

MR. BARNES: I'm not in a position to prolong the debate too much, not being an expert on these matters; but just for the sake of getting some information, I want to pursue two points.

The minister suggested that deinstitutionalization was not taking place to save money, but for a more obvious humanitarian consideration. Is that in fact true, notwithstanding the humanitarian values? Are you suggesting, then, that institutionalization is cheaper? Because, in effect, you are saying that deinstitutionalization is not necessarily going to save money. I'd like to see some numbers on that, because I've been under the impression that institutions are expensive and don't yield that much of a return in terms of rehabilitation, etc. I'm not able to debate that, but I'd like to have you perhaps substantiate that statement in terms of whether that is the case.

Actually, I had another note I was going to ask you about — it sort of gets away from it. You didn't quite address the question I was asking about — the number of people that are not being accommodated. I was asking about the tracking system. You suggested I could call you if I happened to know of someone. But what is out there for the public in terms of being able to deal with a situation? Are you going to be personally receiving calls, or are these calls going to be...?

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: As he says, we're friends. I don't mean to cast any aspersions on you or to attack you in any way; it's just not in my nature. However, the problem remains nonetheless. This deinstitutionalizing has been a very ambitious undertaking. The opposition and I have been in support of this idea for years. I recall when the former Minister of Social Services — I think it was the Minister of Human Resources at the time — extolled the virtues of decentralizing and getting people into the communities. There were promises that resources would be in place. Everybody agreed that it was a step in the right direction. We always worried that in cutting down the expenditures to the government, these people would be cut loose and would be at risk.

I'd like to know in a fairly concrete way what method of monitoring is in place. In other words, how are you tracking the numbers of people who are being deinstitutionalized? At one time in the last ten or 20 years, there were 5,000 or 6,000 people in the institutions. Now you're down to 1,000 or so. Can you say where those people are? What has happened to them? How successful is this in terms of assessing where people are and how they've done? Without these kind of statistics, we don't know what's really happening. I'm hearing some pretty horrible things about people on the streets. It's not good enough to say we hope they're finding someplace to go; there should be a guarantee that these people have someplace to go. I guess this is my question: are there guarantees in place to ensure that no one who is being deinstitutionalized is going to be lost without a proper place to live?

[5:00]

HON. MR. STRACHAN: In terms of getting hold of me, the member knows how to do it — day or night, almost. I can be reached at any time, anywhere. Just think about it, and it'll come to you.

We have a provincial advisory council, which is assisting us in putting a monitoring program together. We are developing a client-tracking information system. I can give you hard numbers with respect to Riverview. We have discharged 188 and have provided, in my notes, apparently 300 places — either beds or community services. We do have a receiving infrastructure in place that has a greater capacity than the one for those people we have released.

You are absolutely right. There are going to be some people who fall between the cracks. Don't forget that we're dealing with people who, because of their illness, are not going to be totally reliable and are going to be

[ Page 12711 ]

more difficult to handle than the mentally retarded — for example, those from the Tranquille downsizing. In most cases, mentally retarded people do not have behaviour problems. Here we are dealing with people who will have behaviour problems, will have trouble putting thoughts together from time to time and will not be totally reliable. That's the nature of this type of person. We still, though, take the position that it's far better to deinstitutionalize whenever you can, to provide a better life for these people and hopefully, from the exposure they get to the community, some therapeutic happening that will improve their condition, if that is possible.

In terms of the cost, Mr. Member, it's a difficult thing to cost out. It's not a straight controlled experiment, where you have one set of measurements here and another set here, and you watch to see what the difference is. More and more people are suffering from mental illness, particularly geriatrics. As people live longer, they are physically healthier and more mental problems develop. That's a fact of life, and that's why we see the increase in geriatric dementia — Alzheimer's being the most notable, of course.

Previous to that, other conditions would take people: heart, cancer, you name it. Now the physical disease is not there, but the mental disease is, as the physical body stays reasonably healthier for a longer period of time. As I've indicated, we'll be at 600,000 people by the year 2006. So we have an increase in the amount of mental health costs, and we have an increase in the amount of people with mental illnesses.

I am advised — and I know just from thinking through both systems — that it would be less expensive to keep people completely in an institution where you don't have to worry about the community resources, for example, and you don't have to worry about the monitoring. They are incarcerated to various levels of degrees, and then you've got them locked away. And if you don't want to do that, because there are so many in one place, you have the ability to use medication to control their behaviour.

That doesn't happen when you put them out in the community. You have to develop more resources. So this initiative of ours — and it has been a feature of our government since Tranquille, which was in the early eighties — is in fact not to save money, but to provide better care for those people who need it. That has clearly been our position since we began deinstitutionalization — which, by the way, has been copied by many other jurisdictions throughout North America. I think in many cases we lead. It's not a question of saving money, Mr. Member, but rather of providing better care for people who suffer from mental illness.

MR. BARNES: Actually, every time the minister responds, it raises another question. I was finished, but you said something that I just wanted to check. I agree with you that people fall through the cracks when they're coming out of institutions. Could you comment on the effectiveness of your classification — in other words, of those who are the best candidates for deinstitutionalization? Maybe you could comment on those who are not good candidates.

I think this is of concern to the public as well, because we're not advocating the discharge of persons who clearly will have to be institutionalized. Not everyone is a candidate for this program, and that's what I wanted you to clarify. I think sometimes the impression may be that we're letting people free in the streets who have clearly demonstrated that they're not capable and can't be counted upon to respond positively to the program.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: At the outset, I'm glad the member finds me provocative; not too many people find me provocative anymore. Normally when I speak they fall asleep, but I have.... Oh, I see. I didn't know that was happening. You are aware of this earlier adjournment, are you, Mr. House Leader?

MR. ROSE: Are you talking about an earlier adjournment?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I will take my place, Mr. Chairman.

MR. ROSE: I don't think we've had an opportunity to discuss it over here. Give me five minutes to confer with my colleagues, and I'll get up and make an announcement. I haven't been approached on that score.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Chairman, I will return to the estimates. As the committee is aware, there's another important social function happening in the buildings even as we speak. But I'm easy, and I'm sure the critic is easy. I can't go to the reception anyway, because I've got a squash game tonight. If it keeps going later, I'll come back.

I do want to answer the question of the member for Vancouver Centre. We do have committal planning. Let's not lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with an illness. This is not a broken arm where you can track the progress, you can track the cure and you know that in six weeks or two months it's going to be better. We are dealing with a condition, the sign-waves through the history of the patient. Someone may be doing very well in an institution and responding to therapy or medication. They may be released into the community and have a program that is supportive and appropriate in terms of the level of the condition they had when they were released, and then have a sudden problem, a sudden swing in their condition. That's when you have some problems. Again, that's the risk you have to take. Mental illness is not typically the type of illness that we can track and that we can guarantee is going to always be stable in terms of how it presents itself. So there are risks.

Also — and I didn't think of this until advised by the staff — many people in mental institutions are there on a voluntary basis and will release themselves on a voluntary basis as well. So we always have those concerns.

I can provide more information for you with respect to tracking, because I'd like to learn more about it

[ Page 12712 ]

myself. I will do that in subsequent days in these estimates.

Is it agreed that we adjourn now, or did you want to keep on?

Interjection.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: The critic wishes to continue, so I'll take my place and then we will consider other events.

MR. PERRY: If we can just finish one Triage point, then we'll be glad to adjourn. I think, rather than pose it as a question, to make proceedings briefer I will raise a few other concerns. Maybe the minister can bring them back when we resume the debate.

Unfortunately I don't have the correspondence before me, but some of the concerns raised by Strathcona residents about the Triage facility, concentrating on the current one and their concerns about the future one, are the level of qualifications of staffing; the inspection of qualifications of staff; the issue of whether violent acts such as rape of residents or patients of the facility have occurred without appropriate protection for the clients or residents; whether there have been other violent incidents; and, specifically, whether there may be people who would be dangerous to children in the new facility.

Residents in Strathcona have had conflicting information, which is alarming to them. On the one hand their own sources from within the Triage facility suggest to them that the present facility houses people with records of violence against children or abuse of children, who would now be residing in very close proximity to one or two elementary schools. The city has reassured them that this is not the case. Personally,

I have no ability to know where the truth lies, but I think it's very important that these questions be answered objectively.

Maybe I could simply leave the issue of having raised those concerns with the minister, and he can reply to it later, as appropriate. With that, I'd be pleased, if I'm allowed, to move adjournment.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I thank the member for his questions. We will have responses tomorrow when we reconvene these estimates.

The House resumed; Mr. Pelton in the chair.

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

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, this is the earliest opportunity, but I'd like to reserve my right to raise a question of privilege due to some information given in a reply to a question taken on notice by the Minister of Women's Programs and Government Services. That's all; I don't think I need say any more.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I would remind all the members of the reception in the Ned DeBeck Lounge, and that we sit only tomorrow morning because of the Order of B.C.

Hon. Mr. Richmond moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:14 p.m.