1993 Legislative Session: 2nd Session, 35th Parliament
HANSARD
The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.
(Hansard)
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 1993
Morning Sitting
Volume 9, Number 1
[ Page 5269 ]
The House met at 10:03 a.m.
Prayers.
Hon. M. Sihota: I call Committee of Supply.
The House in Committee of Supply; D. Streifel in the chair.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND
MINISTRY RESPONSIBLE FOR MULTICULTURALISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS
(continued)
On vote 25: minister's office, $410,000 (continued).
J. Dalton: I have two or three comments to make and questions for the minister about the item we left off with last Friday when we started the estimates process with Education. The question I raised dealt with the Faris report, and the minister responded to it in part. I'll just bring the minister into line with the line of questioning I'm going to develop.
The minister pointed out to the House that the Faris report was commissioned by her ministry, and that, of course, is a fact. As the minister commented in her response, the intention of that report was to provide us with a good basic review that would enable us to talk about our adult learners. The point I raised, and the response that I got from the minister, dealt specifically with a recommendation that came out of the Faris report. I think it's of note that this particular recommendation deals with the placement of adult education and continuing education in terms of ministries. I think it's of interest to this committee that the specific recommendation, which I'll refer to in a moment, is that the Ministry of Advanced Education house adult and continuing education, even though the Faris report was commissioned by the Ministry of Education.
The recommendation is 2.3 in the summary of recommendations from the Faris report: "that...the Ministry of Advanced Education, Training and Technology be designated the locus of responsibility for adult/continuing education." I would like the minister to comment on some reactions from many of the partners in the education process. For example, the B.C. School Trustees' Association has commented that it "would like to reaffirm to the minister the importance of retaining responsibility for adult continuing education within the Ministry of Education." So that's at least one body that has concern about the possible displacement of this very important area of education from the Ministry of Education and its placement under the umbrella of the Advanced Education ministry. I have comparable comments from some of the school districts. But perhaps before I provide other detail, the minister would like to comment as to her feeling on this recommendation and whether it's of concern to her ministry.
Hon. A. Hagen: I want to thank the member for his continuity and also for indicating some of the areas that he intends to canvass. That's not something that normally happens, hon. member, and I appreciated the information that you forwarded to me yesterday.
With respect to adult learners, of which the number associated with our public school system is legion, there has been a lot of discussion generated by the overview that Dr. Faris provided. As I noted on Friday, we have received a large number of briefs and comments, which have gone to an interministerial committee involving my ministry, the Advanced Education ministry and other ministries that are concerned about adult learning, and to an external committee.
The first thing that needs to be said is that no decisions have been taken. The report has served its purpose; it has indicated to us how important adult learning is in the many communities of the province. The second thing I want to say unequivocally is that school boards and schools in our province will continue to offer adult learning opportunities, and they will be supported by government. Currently, there's a joint administration by both the Advanced Education ministry and my ministry. We will continue to have adult learning in the colleges, secondary schools and, in some cases, special learning centres within the province.
The issue of who is responsible is something that we will want to consider in terms of the most efficient and effective way of providing those services. But the important thing that needs to be stated is that whether we are in Quesnel, New Westminster, Kelowna or Vancouver, we're going to see adult learning as a part of the facilities and programs that are offered by our school boards.
I'm still trying to get some good figures, hon. member, about the actual number of people who are in Ministry of Education-supported programs in the 75 school districts in the province. There's only one district that doesn't have adult learners in the secondary schools, and many of the districts also have community education programs. The official number, in full-time-equivalency, is something in the order of 20,000; but the actual number is larger than that. I've asked my officials if we can track that number down, because I think it would astound the public to know that in addition to offering programs for the five-to-18-and-19-year-old students who are in our formal public K-to-12 system, we have this incredible use of our public resources which provide upgrading to grade 12, skills training into first jobs for youth, bridging programs for women and upgrading programs for workers who are training themselves for some of the new job requirements. My guesstimate is that we have 4,000 FTEs and about 20,000 adult learners. Those are the figures that the ministry has sorted through. Those programs are expanding all the time.
The consultation period is over, hon. member. It ended in the middle of the month. There will be reports to government out of the two committees that are analyzing and working on those reports. The external committee has representation from the university and adult learning communities, and they have a very good feel for the issue of school-district-based adult learning.
[ Page 5270 ]
I'm looking forward to an opportunity to discuss those issues from a policy perspective. I hope to keep you well informed, as we are trying to do, about the development of our policies for a lifelong-learning initiative.
I might note, to give another perspective on this, that just before we were elected government, English-as-a-second-language programs became the responsibility of the Advanced Education ministry. But many school districts continue to offer programs in English as an additional language as part of the range of programs they offer. So we're both involved in school district programs right now, in terms of where the funding comes from. We're talking about funding as one thing and delivery as another. The important thing to emphasize is that delivery is going to stay with the school districts. I appreciate the vote of confidence in our ministry and our administration that has come from many people who are involved with our expanded programs. It has been rewarding for our people to get that solid affirmation of how well the people in the field feel they have been served by our ministry in enhancing and developing those programs and resourcing them.
[10:15]
J. Dalton: I thank the minister for her extensive response. I just want to briefly refer to other concerns that have been raised on this issue. I've already referred to the comment by the B.C. School Trustees' Association on this recommendation. Many school districts, as well, have raised similar concerns.
It's of interest that the minister responded that the school districts will maintain the operation of adult and continuing education. But I have to share a concern with this committee. Is there not a possibility that the importance of lifelong learning, certainly for the adults -- if we can use that term -- who have dropped out of the public school system and want back in, and for anyone who wishes to undertake continuing education, which, of course, is a very wide expression and can include almost anything in this day and age...? If I interpret it correctly, I believe that the concern raised in school districts, with the recommendation that adult and continuing education go to the Advanced Education ministry, is that some of the initiative and momentum being gained from the Faris and similar reports might be lost because of the unsettling effect of taking something away from the Ministry of Education and placing it in a separate ministry.
For example, the North Vancouver School District has raised a concern and wishes the ABE and the high school completion programs, as they refer to them, to be offered by the school districts through the Ministry of Education. That's just one example. Another report has been submitted by the continuing education department of the Quesnel School District on a similar concern. They want assurance that the Ministry of Education will retain responsibility for the certification of learning to the end of high school, regardless of age. I think that's important -- regardless of age -- because when we are referring to adult and continuing education some people may be of the opinion that once somebody goes beyond the K-to-12 age, they should be treated differently if they want to upgrade or complete grade 12. I'm hoping that is not the case. Again, I think the concerns raised by these school districts are quite legitimate.
I have others here but I'm not going to go into the rest of them, because they all state the same concern. I believe there is the possibility that the adult learner who wants back into the public school system may not be well served by the Advanced Education ministry taking on that function, if indeed this recommendation goes forward. I do appreciate the comment from the minister that many people and groups have reacted. In fact, I sent in a recommendation myself about some of the concerns I had about this and other recommendations coming out of Faris. I hope the minister will be able to give this committee some assurance, even though a recommendation of that nature appears in the summary of the Faris report, that that recommendation will, hopefully, not sidetrack away from this very important issue of lifelong learning.
Hon. A. Hagen: I'm a little puzzled by what I might call a lack of vision on the part of my hon. critic. What we're really looking at here is a lifelong-learning policy for government. We're not putting people in boxes that say that from grades 1 to 12 they are in the public school and then from grade 12 on they are somewhere else. We're talking about an integrated policy and service delivery to which people have access.
He mentions Quesnel. Quesnel has an excellent program, and the director of community learning for that district is on the external advisory committee. That program not only has the school district extensively involved in planning for adult learning in a community that is seeing changes as a result of the changes in our economy, but they also have a kind of community learning council. It's one of the things that Dr. Faris indicated would be a good initiative. That council involves the business community, and the district works together with the formal and informal learning communities. Nothing that we would be doing with respect to this study changes the fact that that learning community is going to be in Quesnel, and it's going to be supported in the very best way possible by those who are delivering services.
We're looking at a coordinated strategy. My colleague the hon. Minister of Advanced Education and I talk to one another. We work together around the delivery of services. We have other agencies -- for example, the Open Learning Agency and our regional correspondence schools. In the education system we blend resources from Health, Social Services and the Attorney General in support of our children in schools. So I'd encourage the member to think, in a visionary way, of how the government as a body supports learning. We need to do it where the learners are. If the learners aren't close to a facility, we need to provide opportunities for them to learn through correspondence and the Open Learning Agency, with support in more direct terms at some of our local schools and communities. That's what all of this is about. The member talked about quality. The most fundamental thing we need to deal with is quality of the learning,
[ Page 5271 ]
which Dr. Faris also addressed, so that all learners get the kind of excellence that we are aiming for with students in the public school system.
Because we have been doing some briefings with you, hon. member, perhaps it might be useful for you to learn a little more directly about some of the programs that we are delivering in the regions in cooperation with other ministries. We intend to do a lot more of that. As you note, lifelong learning is what learning is about these days. People much older than we've ever thought of having in our school systems will be in our secondary schools, in some places in collaborative enterprises between the Advanced Education ministry and the public schools. I think I commented the other day that in Fort St. John we have a learning centre in which students might be registered in the school system or in the college system, depending on their needs. The focus is on the learner and how we can best serve that person, which liberates us from a lot of bureaucratic perspectives. It liberates us from looking at the source of the resource and looks at quality and access for the learner, which is what we really need to be thinking about as we plan for our adult as well as our youth and child learners in our lifelong-learning initiatives.
J. Dalton: I think all of us appreciate the minister's and the government's stated commitment to lifelong learning, but I must again express some concern with whether there may not be a lapse of responsibility, although not intentionally, when two or even more ministries are involved in the delivery of such an important service. Even though I know that government ministers talk to each other, for something as important as lifelong learning, I have to have more assurance of coordinated efforts, particularly with regard to the adult learner who has left the normal public school system and now wants back in. As the minister recognizes, many people are in that category. If we're shifting responsibility away from the Ministry of Education, where I believe it should be, into the Ministry of Advanced Education, I have some fear that the initiative and particular direction the lifelonglearning concept should take may be lost.
Perhaps I'll just conclude on this particular point with an observation I made. This was more of a personal observation than one coming from the official opposition in any particular respect. I'm wondering whether it is not time to think about combining the two education ministries under one portfolio. Personally, I think that may be the direction to go, given the nature of our discussion this morning. When we're dealing with something as important as lifelong learning and you start to divide the responsibility for the delivery of that between two ministries, is it not conceivable that people who are not in the traditional K-to-12 model -- those who have gone beyond that and left the system because of age -- are going to slip through the cracks? Has the minister given any thought to such a proposal? Has there been any discussion between the ministries to the effect that an amalgamation of the two ministries might be a feasible thing to consider, given the importance of this and related topics?
Hon. A. Hagen: I thank the member for his observations. I might note that if we look across Canada, we'd find a checkerboard of ministries: some with one ministry and some with two. In response to the member's observations, we're looking at a coordinated approach and at the human resources of our province. I guess I could expand. If we look at education as being the fundamental right and need of all our citizens, we could involve many more ministries than the two. I want to assure the member that we are involving many more ministries than the two. We are looking at a coordinated approach; that's the reason the study was undertaken. Advanced education does involve itself with a lot of ABE and community education initiatives, just as the public school system does. But my colleague the Minister of Social Services is very keenly interested in education and training opportunities; my colleague the Minister of Women's Equality is very much interested in educational opportunities for women so they can participate in the economy and have jobs where they earn better incomes for themselves and their families. The Attorney-General, who deals with youth at risk, is very much interested in the initiatives that we take, because he knows that education is a tool that takes people out of aberrant behaviour and into full participation. So we are fundamentally looking at an integrated approach that ensures that no one falls through the cracks. We've got a long way to go, because no one has done that before. I'd like to remind people that we've been government for a year and a half, and when I look at the initiatives we've taken, I'm proud that we are moving in that direction. I'm sure, from what I'm hearing, that we have the support of the whole House. As many people know, I believe that we need to have that kind of approach to education -- not one where we have differences of view, but rather, views where we try to build the best services to learners that we possibly can, be they adults or young people.
J. Dalton: This is not to make a critical observation, but I didn't think I'd get a direct response to that, because it's obviously a difficult thing for a minister to comment on any discussions or possibility of amalgamation of ministries. I suppose the only point that I would like to leave with this committee is that clearly government is crying out for restructuring in a very global sense. Obviously the public is unsettled by the escalating cost of government, and perhaps it is time -- even putting aside the very important educational component of my suggestion that there be only one ministry -- for a serious downsizing of government. But that's beyond the purview of this committee, so we won't bother going into that aspect.
[10:30]
I will move now to a topic that is certainly more controversial than the Faris report. As the minister said, lifelong learning is truly a concept that everyone can support. But it is appropriate that this committee address the very difficult and at times unpleasant situation that has developed this year in many school districts. I am referring to various disruptions through lockouts, strikes, strike notices and slowdowns -- some teachers' associations working to rule, for want of a
[ Page 5272 ]
better term. For example, teachers in some districts now are not filling out report cards, which has to be of concern to the parents and the students. Teachers are refusing to serve on district-wide committees, which has to be disruptive to the planning process in those districts.
Perhaps I can put this question directly to the minister. I understand there are now probably 41, maybe 42, districts which have settled out of the 75. Can the minister advise this committee as to how many settlements of the 75 are now in place? Then we can lead into where we're headed from there.
Hon. A. Hagen: I do want to comment on the restructuring, if I may, for a moment and note that my ministry has restructured. We have reduced our executive management group from 16 to seven. It was a very top-heavy organization when I became minister. We have delayered. We have reallocated money in our ministry budget to direct services in education, multiculturalism and immigrant settlement services, and we'll be dealing with those.
I am very pleased with our ministry's work in recognizing the message I have conveyed from the very first time I sat down and talked to senior officials. Our job is to provide services to people: to kids in our classrooms and to adult learners in our schools and multicultural and immigration services. We can engage in partnerships with organizations and, in many instances, with the federal government to ensure that the diversity of our system is well resourced. I'm very proud of those changes. They are consistent with the direction of government in reducing the inherited deficit of $2.4 billion to $1.5 billion, lowering our expenditures this year from 12 percent to 5.7 percent and keeping our ministry budgets either flat or reduced as we ensure that the services are out there in the field.
Let me turn to the issue of collective agreements. The member is close to being accurate in terms of the number of settlements. The figures I have as of this morning are that there are 43 settlements and that two strikes are ongoing in the province -- in the Powell River and Vancouver Island North districts. I'm not able to provide you with information that I have on the progress of bargaining, but I know that a number of districts believe they are getting close to working out a collective agreement. I'm looking forward to there being some additional announcements of settlements soon. All the other bodies are in some way or other at the table. Most of the boards and their teachers' associations are working on those collective agreements.
To date we have had some job action, limited in terms of the 75 school districts. It's regrettable wherever it happens. Like everyone, I am concerned about strikes and lockouts that mean the children are not in school for any length of time. But only in two or three of those districts has the actual job action involved more than a very small number of days. Any number of days is a concern, but overall, people are diligently working at arriving at agreements. I believe that our new Labour Relations Code, which provides resources for mediation, is helping. I anticipate that it will be even more effective as time goes on.
As the member well knows, a year ago the government commissioned a full review of bargaining in the broad public sector. It was to take a year. It is a review that involves all of the parties who are party to agreements. I understand that the report will be tabled with the government in the very near future. We have made a commitment to act expediently once that review is completed and Ms. Korbin presents her report to the government.
J. Dalton: I'm sure that everyone in this House is looking forward with anticipation to the Korbin report. We will probably be bringing up some particular points dealing with the collective bargaining process later in these estimates, so I'm not going to venture into that particular category right now.
I appreciate the minister's updating on the settlements to date -- 43, I am told. I believe that Chilliwack and Vancouver Island West are the last two in that settlement category. It has to be a concern, and I must confess that I don't share the same optimism that the minister sometimes indicates, that we've had relatively few unsettling effects in school districts. Quite frankly, that is not the case. It's very easy to cast blame, with everyone suggesting that someone else is at fault. I'm not here at this moment to suggest that there's any blame or any particular reason why this is a banner year for work disruptions in school districts, but the fact is that that is the case. I suppose we can all speculate as to what precipitated this.
Later on when we get into some discussion on the funding review process and can talk about possible revisions to the block funding and sources of revenue, that may be able to in part hit upon the underlying reasons why school districts are going through such a protracted negotiation process and why not a few of them have been hit by strikes and lockouts. I referred to protracted negotiations. It is not unusual for school districts to be in the fortieth or fiftieth bargaining meeting or session, and they're still not making any progress -- at least, perceived progress. If we cast our minds back to some of the very serious work disruptions this year -- again, I don't share the stated optimism of the minister that these have not been overly disruptive -- the Fernie School District, which was the first one hit this year, was shut down for four weeks by a lockout. Well, that has to be of concern to people in the Fernie area, if not elsewhere. I think that particular lockout set the very negative tone that has been recurring during the rest of the year to date.
The minister referred to Powell River, and that has to be of concern. Powell River has been locked out now for several weeks. The Minister of Labour indicated recently that if there wasn't some perceived progress in settling that dispute, the Ministry of Labour would be prepared to step in and, presumably, bring it to a conclusion. There has been no evidence to date of any progress in the Powell River lockout situation. Has there, in fact, been any useful intervention by the Ministry of Labour or even by the Ministry of Education in that regard? I know as a fact that the people of
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Powell River -- the parents and students in particular -- are very concerned about that ongoing dispute with no prospect of being resolved in the short run.
The Chair: Just before the minister answers the question: in Committee of Supply to examine the minister's estimates, the questioning should be restricted to areas directly under the minister's influence. The minister has no influence over the Ministry of Labour during these labour disputes, as you described them. So would the minister address the portion of the question that is under her ministry, please.
Hon. A. Hagen: Thank you for your advice, hon. Chair.
I want to correct an error in fact in the member's comments. The lockout in Powell River was lifted over a week ago, at which point the teachers went on strike. So we have a change in the status. It doesn't change the situation. The hon. Chair is correct; there has been a mediator involved with that dispute. The issue is of ongoing concern to me, and I know it's of ongoing concern to the Minister of Labour. But it is, indeed, his responsibility in terms of the resources that are available and the action that might be taken.
G. Wilson: While the resolution of the dispute may properly and correctly lie between the two parties, I -- and, I would imagine, the government -- am anxious for collective bargaining to take its proper and due course. The root cause of the problem in the dispute that is now overdue for settlement in Powell River is the proposition of funding that is available to that school district and how that school district is going to manage with the resources at hand. Will the minister comment on the actual dollars that are being allocated to that district, particularly in light of the increasing need for dollars dedicated to students who are being integrated into mainstream classes, the need for teacher aides in that district and some of the difficulties that teachers are finding with increasing class sizes, in light of the special-needs children who are now being integrated into the community? Can the minister tell us whether or not additional dollars will made available, or are available, for that?
Hon. A. Hagen: In looking at specific districts and funding, I always encourage the members to be in touch with us in the ministry. It's difficult to provide you with the depth of response you might want regarding your own district, but we are happy to provide more detailed information if it would be helpful to you, hon. member.
I can advise you that the school population in Powell River has been declining over the past couple of years and, of course, that school districts are funded on the basis of population. There is a slight increase in the number of special-needs children in your district, and that will be reflected in additional funding this year -- something in the order of 1 percent. We call those children high-incidence/low-cost; there tends to be more of them. Their needs are not as profound with respect to resources that must be targeted directly. For instance, they are not medically challenged or physically incapacitated, but they do have needs. With regard to the children who have very special needs, the incidence in your district -- according to the information I have -- has gone down a little bit. Therefore funding would not be available if the children are not actually within the system. If you'd like more details about those factors, I'd be happy to ensure that they are made available to you.
[10:45]
With respect to the overall funding for special-needs children, it has continued to increase as numbers of children in our school system increase. We can provide information about the pattern of that increase over the years. There's a very significant contribution in our budget for special-needs children. If we look at the inclusive school, something in the order of $310 million is allocated across districts. That doesn't include support for English-as-a-second-language students or for other learning assistance that's available for the typical students who may need some support, nor does it include the external support for speech and audiology and so on. So if we look at the total funding, including all of those, it gets close to half a billion dollars that is distributed out of the $3 billion, give or take some that goes out into the districts of the province, and that amount has continued to increase.
This year, as part of redistributing the funding, we've reduced the funding for district administration by 15 percent. The money that would have gone to district administration in our funding formula has gone to two specific needs that were identified in the funding review: additional support for special-needs students, especially in the high-incidence grouping; and secondly, to assist rapidly growing school districts where there are overcrowded schools that are having to manage with less of what we would know to be good resources. We're building new schools -- our $561 million capital program will help us deal with that -- and we're adding 24,000 spaces in our schools in the coming year.
G. Wilson: As the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, I want to try to nail down some course of action with respect to what is apparently a budgetary impasse in the resolution of this negotiation process. I recognize that there's a limited amount of opportunity within the estimates to get to the specifics of each particular school district. Nevertheless, it would seem that one of the stumbling blocks is the formula by which this funding is going to be allocated, based on the demands of the teachers on the one hand and the school district's inability to pay on the other.
We have a situation where that impasse, if we are to understand the school district, is such that they cannot settle an agreement on the basis of the provincial average without teacher layoff. They refuse teacher layoff because they claim that if they were to involve themselves in a settlement with respect to the teachers' demands, they would then be into substantial program reduction. So there is the trade-off: do we lay off teachers, or do we reduce or remove programs?
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In either event, it would seem that there is a problem in Powell River and, I suggest, in many other districts where the funding that has been made available on the basis of the formula is simply not adequate, either because of the priorities given to the allocation of money, which I suspect is the case.... The question of priorities.... Where do you prioritize the application of the existing dollars, because we recognize there is a limit to what the public can pay -- or the flexibility within a school district to allocate resources which are very tight, if I understand correctly, and already committed to the program.
I think the minister would agree that it's unacceptable that schoolchildren in Powell River can expect to not go back to school indefinitely because of the impasse there. Any mediation process is going to look not only at special-needs allocation as one of the component parts but also at other aspects of funding within the formula that are going to make the resolution of this question impossible without a significant layoff of teachers or a reduction of programs. I wonder if the minister would like to comment on that, because it would seem that at some point, hopefully, the Minister of Labour is going to recognize that you can't just have these young people locked out of the school or out because of a teachers' picket line that's up indefinitely. There has to be a mechanism whereby, through mediation or arbitration, the dollars necessary to make a just settlement in that area are available.
Hon. A. Hagen: Let me put Powell River into the context of our funding, because like all districts, it has been treated fairly in respect to its school population. We're dealing with two budget years. We're dealing with last year, when the funding for public schools in British Columbia increased in operational grants by 6.5 percent; we're dealing with increases this year that are just under $100 million for the K-to-12 system. So this government has provided increased funding, and it has targeted funding, as I noted in my earlier comment, to the needs of districts.
It would be inappropriate for me to comment about the substance of the discussions at your table in Powell River. Boards have a responsibility to manage. They have been informed about the budgets they will have to deal with in a timely way for each of their budget years. Teachers have a responsibility to hear the difficult financial circumstances in which we are labouring, and to recognize that we have indeed made education the highest priority, along with health, as far as our district funding is concerned.
I share your concern, hon. member, about the impasse in the dispute in Powell River. I want to encourage you -- because we've had some discussions before -- to work with the Minister of Labour around that issue, and I will assist in any way that I can. I know that members can indeed play a role by being informed on the issues and assisting their community. I want to take this opportunity to commend, for example, the member for Cariboo North and the member for Kootenay, who were of assistance in keeping government well apprised and in working with the parties around disputes in Quesnel and Cranbrook. But Powell River has had increases in its funding last year and this year. It has been fairly funded with respect to its student population, as have all districts.
It's a tough year for school districts -- there's no question about that. But people have to deal realistically with their priorities within the district as they come to a collective agreement. That is a task I have encouraged boards and teachers to undertake in light of the financial realities we are all dealing with as we try to manage our resources and make sure they're targeted to children in classrooms.
G. Wilson: I recognize that the minister cannot and should not talk about the substantive details of the negotiations.
But to clarify a comment from a member opposite -- "Oh, do you just want to spend more money?" -- we're talking about a reallocation of funds. If, for example, we look at your administrative and support services cost estimates from '92 to '93, we see that operating costs of administration and support are going up by just under $100 million. Your asset acquisition for administration and support services is going up by roughly $300 million. In the policy and information aspect of your budget, salaries and benefits are going up by $700 million. If you add that up alone, there's a billion dollars going into administrative costs that in our judgment ought to be reallocated. It's not a question of spending more money; it's a question of reallocating money we already have into the delivery of services.
I would suggest to the minister that the school board, which is obliged to be responsible to the taxpayers of Powell River, doesn't want to go to binding arbitration because they're terrified that a fair settlement will shackle them with having to pay out money they simply don't have. I wonder if the minister can talk about priorities in the allocation of dollars -- whether some of those hundreds of millions of dollars might not be better spent in the classroom as opposed to ancillary services.
Hon. A. Hagen: The member has asked about the budget of the ministry. Once again, that budget clearly looks at our priorities. There has been a reduction from last year in our budget for administration and support services. There has been a slight increase in our policy and information budget. That reflects our added responsibilities with respect to multiculturalism and immigration policy. We have combined two parts of our ministry with respect to educational programs. Those savings reflect streamlined administration: the one department has a slightly lower budget than the two departments had last year. Our student support programs are up this year, consonant with our commitment to special education. Compared to last year, our overall budget is down from $371 million to $369 million. In terms of managing our capital program, our debt services have gone down.
So I'm not sure what point you are making, hon. member. If you are saying there have been increases within the ministry, there have been reallocations, but our overall budget is not up. You'll see, as we go through the estimates, that we've targeted funding
[ Page 5275 ]
from within our ministry to services that will support schools, multiculturalism and immigrant settlements. In other words, what's there for the bureaucracy, if you like, is less than what's going out the door. The money to support the things that I hold most important is either stable in a very tight budget or increased because we have done those reallocations.
I come back to the fact that your board, like other boards that are looking at negotiated settlements, is dealing with an overall increase in the '92-93 year, one of the years subject to bargaining, of 6.5 percent, and an increase this year of 3 percent -- $100 million. This government has, in these very difficult financial times, put additional resources into our school system to meet the needs of children in the 75 districts of the province.
G. Wilson: I don't take issue with 3 percent. I also don't take issue with the minister when she says there has been some prioritization within the ministry as to how they're going to allocate the dollars. In the general category of policy and information within the ministry's operations we see an increase in salaries and benefits of some $700 million in round numbers; I haven't done the calculation. Could the minister explain to us how policy and information is going to provide better direct services in the classroom? Would it not be better to drop the PR and policy side of things and decentralize that money into the school districts so that the dollars already being spent might be better directed? If there is a reason to increase the expenditure to that extent, perhaps the minister can tell us why, in light of the fact that we've got students outside the school because we have school districts that say they can't settle because of lack of money.
[11:00]
Hon. A. Hagen: First of all, the hon. member should get his figures right. He keeps talking about an additional $700 million. If I had $700 million more, we would all be wondering what we could possibly do with it. We should get it straight that the figure is $700,000.
It's important for the member to recognize that this ministry has an expanded mandate -- a very important expanded mandate -- to deal with immigration, multiculturalism and human rights. We have made additions to our policy branch to deal with legislative changes and changes in policy in respect to that initiative. That's the first point I want to make. The second is that these initiatives are related to something very important in the public's mind: standards and accountability. For example, we hear a lot about the dropout rate; what we don't hear is that 80 percent of our students get to grade 12 but for some reason don't graduate in that year. We are beginning to find out what happens to those students. This important initiative is being watched all across Canada because we're one of the first jurisdictions to undertake it.
To go back to my hon. critic, if we're going to plan for the adult learner we need to know what happens to the students who drop out. How many of them drop back in? A lot of them do, in the next semester, but we have no record of that. We have no way of tracking, in a longitudinal way, what happens to our students so that we can plan for, let's say, the 18-to-24-year-old group, where training, education, bridging and upgrading is so important. So the additional dollars are going to be used for those very practical purposes. The member suggests that they are not purposes that relate to schools. Of course they relate to schools, because when you're doing policy you're looking at policies as they affect what else for this ministry but the operation of our schools and the development of our multicultural and immigration programs.
An expanded ministry and some new initiatives will help us, in fact, to do the kind of planning that we have never ever been able to do before, because no one has looked at what happens when kids get to 16, 17 and 18 and leave us. We don't know. We need to know. If you would like some further information on this quite exemplary study, I'd be happy to make it available to you. It is being watched as a model that will assist us, the Advanced Education ministry, the Labour ministry and the Social Services ministry in planning for lifelong learning for our best resource -- our human resource.
G. Wilson: I appreciate the minister's correction. I should be talking hundreds of thousands instead of millions and billions, so if we can go back just one or two decimal points it makes a substantial difference, and I appreciate that.
But I think the point is still valid that in good times I would be the first to suggest that the kinds of studies and information being talked about are valuable. I think the minister would recognize that it's very difficult for me, for example, or for the minister -- and I would invite the minister to go tomorrow, if she would like; I'll be in my community of Powell River -- to explain to the parents of Powell River, whose children are currently not in school, that $700,000 into policy and information studies to provide information as to what happens to postgraduate students is a priority when we can't have resolution on questions that is necessary to have the schools open and the students in there so that they might graduate in the first place. I hope the minister would agree that if we look at the overall increases in funding to schools, notwithstanding the fact that there is an increase -- and I don't think there is a dispute on that matter -- we find ourselves in an unenviable situation in British Columbia, where educational funding generally has been prioritized in such a way that the dollars needed to go directly to classrooms are not available to resolve these disputes.
[E. Barnes in the chair.]
I suggest that in good times, yes, it's nice to have these studies, and yes, it's nice to be able to put away this money so that we can start to look in a rather larger and more academic way at what is happening to the students in British Columbia. But given that we are now in very tough times provincially, and given that we are in a very difficult situation with respect to the amount of available dollars, surely to goodness, rather than spending $1 million-plus on operational cost increases
[ Page 5276 ]
in administration and support services, $300,000 on asset acquisition in administration and support services, and the $700,000 that we see going into the salaries and benefits of this policy information, it's better if you've got that kind of money -- the $1 million-plus -- to spend directly on the delivery of service in the tough times rather than on what would be nice in the good times. That's why I'm saying that, in prioritizing the dollars we expend within the ministry, we have to become extremely frugal, to make sure we are not in fact tucking money into what we'd like to have if we were in good times and thereby denying students the opportunity to get into school. That's my biggest concern.
The Powell River situation has to be resolved. The message I'm getting from the Minister of Labour opposite -- certainly indirectly, if not directly -- is that maybe sometime in May the two sides can come together, because they'll both be so worn out that they'll realize that collective bargaining has to take place. Surely, as the minister, you can't permit that to happen. The students can't be locked out until the middle of May. I recognize the jurisdictional problems. I recognize the limits within our capacity to debate in the estimates, but we have a crisis situation there, and when we have a crisis situation where students are out of the class either by strike or lockout -- it's irrelevant as to why -- the fact is that spending over $1 million on studies about what happens to students is tough to sell in Powell River. When we've got a school board that says they're afraid an arbitrator will come in and give them a binding settlement that they can't afford and we've got teachers saying there has to be some mechanism for a forced resolution to this collective bargaining dispute because the two sides can't come together, the solution, when students can't get into the classrooms, surely isn't: "Let's go spend money on studies and wait until both sides are so beat up by the public" -- because by May the students will have lost a school year -- "that they will come together and come up with an unsatisfactory resolution."
I'd like the minister to comment on that. In fact, I would invite this minister and the Minister of Labour, if possible, to travel with me tomorrow to Powell River to tell the parents firsthand that $1 million-plus on studies and what have you, in an expanded ministry, is a priority when students aren't even in the classrooms.
Hon. A. Hagen: Hon. member, I share your concern for your district. Seeing children out of school because of a dispute that affects them is probably the most heartrending thing. The board and the teachers of that district have a responsibility to those children, just as boards and teachers of every district have a responsibility to children. They have a table where they can sit down and come to a resolution, as we have learned that 44 districts have done -- and others are at the table. Resources are available, and they have been offered. We need to make it very clear that that's where that right and responsibility lies.
Let me address the issues of allocation. I won't go back over the fact that as a government we have put our resources into the districts and schools of the province. With respect to my ministry, you're suggesting that in some respects we are not being frugal. You mentioned assets, which simply means furniture. That asset is to provide furniture for the kids at Jericho when they move into a new facility planned for them, to take advantage of the fact that they are now going to be part of the school system in a secondary and elementary school. Those kids live away from home. That's what the difference is there. Just so you know, that's targeted for children.
In our ministry budget we have reduced funding for administration and support, and we have increased funding for student support programs and for multicultural and immigrant agencies that help our schools to be places where they can deal with diversity and where people can get assistance as they are settling in our province. Let me emphasize again that as we built our ministry budget, we were very mindful that we must model what we have been saying the government must do, in terms of reducing our administration and using our dollars in support of education.
Virtually all of my ministry's budget -- $3.3 billion, in round figures, of $3.58 billion -- goes into the schools. Even the debt-servicing part of our budget is there to support the building of decent accommodation for schools and to support the refurbishing of schools. Our dollars in the Education ministry go to learners, and they go to support multiculturalism, immigration services and human rights, directly to service delivery. I make no apologies whatsoever for the fact that we have managed that budget in the interests of our immediate needs. In my memory, as someone who has been involved in Education, at no time have we really done long-term planning. We have to plan for the restructuring of our economy, for lifelong learning and for the adult learners that your colleague so eloquently spoke for today. And that is responsible use of a very modest amount of money to assist us with those initiatives.
G. Wilson: I have only a couple of other questions, and I would then defer to my colleague.
There are two issues at work here. I appreciate the minister saying she shares my concern, and I hope that she takes her colleague the Minister of Labour aside and lets him know that this is not just an average dispute we're dealing with here, because the two sides are entrenched. Both have given bottom-line positions; both are in a position -- at this table you talk about -- where they now find that their ability to resolve quickly is not there. Notwithstanding the fact that there has been private mediation, that mediator has booked out, saying that the two sides are far too far apart.
In the meantime we've got students who are going to lose their year. We have students in grade 12 who find themselves having to leave the district, with money being made available for them to go there if necessary. We're finding students who are now having to go onto correspondence. There are a lot of them on correspondence in Powell River right now, trying desperately not to lose their place in BCIT, UBC or one of the colleges, or, for those who want to go abroad to study, not to lose their place because they can't get their graduation.
[ Page 5277 ]
There is a human crisis happening in Powell River. This is not just a budget problem. This isn't just a labour negotiation problem that can be picked up in next year's budget. It's not as though we're dealing with sawing of lumber or the export of fish. We're talking about the education of our children. These parents in Powell River are desperate to know what we have to do to get those schools back open.
I would hope that the minister will use her good offices to put pressure upon the Minister of Labour to recognize that when there is an impasse in collective bargaining.... As somebody who has been president of my own association and my own union, I have been involved in many labour negotiations. I know there comes a time -- not only in Powell River but provincewide -- when the budgetary concerns reflected in a particular set of estimates are the driving force in a labour negotiation stalemate. It's called the inability to pay. Neither side is prepared to reconcile on the consequences of what that settlement is going to mean -- either a reduction in the number of teachers or a reduction in the number of programs. -- and a third party has to provide the necessary mediation to get those two sides together, to recognize that in the final analysis the students have to be looked after.
[11:15]
I hope this is not going to linger beyond this week. Last week the Minister of Labour said he thought we could have the schools open by Monday; I'm now hearing some time in May. That's just unacceptable, and I hope the minister can sense the frustration that I have, because it is only a small amount in comparison to that of my constituents. They are phoning me, writing me letters, sending me faxes, and will likely arrive in Victoria in large numbers if we don't get this resolved within the next few days.
Coming back to the point -- and I think it is a salient point -- with respect to long-term planning I have two questions to the minister. There was lengthy discussion in the estimates last year when we talked about formula funding as a proposition for long-range financial planning for education. It would seem to me there was some general agreement that there needs to be some modification on the process of formula funding. The formula funding is not the best way to proceed, because it makes it extremely difficult for school districts to plan in the long term. In other words, unless they know they have a base of dollars that will be available -- secured for a four-year block period -- they can't start planning. It makes it very difficult for districts, whether they're shrinking or growing, to do any long-range planning.
I wonder if the minister can tell us -- within this set of estimates, given that there is no projection for 1994-95 which is the sort of thing that often accompanies a budget -- where we are going with this educational budget now. If in fact the resource is on a 3 percent allocation increase, which I think is what the minister is telling us we've seen.... If that appears to be inadequate in this year, given that we don't have any more room to move on taxation -- in fact, I would argue that the government has taxed the people to death in their budget this year -- where are we headed in terms of educational funding? Where are we going to go if the prioritization in this year's budget, which the minister says is adequate, is clearly not adequate in the school districts that have to lay off teachers or cut programs?
Hon. A. Hagen: It's not my right to ask questions of the questioner, but I really have to ask what the member is suggesting. We have had an increase of 9.5 percent in operational funding to the schools of British Columbia since we were elected, in addition to two significant capital budgets. We have actually managed the debt servicing of those budgets so that we're paying less through good management while building more schools. We are continuing to fund in excess of the CPI, and we're recognizing enrolment fully. The member keeps asking for more money for the system. What we are talking about is fair allocations, and we will continue to work on those allocations and the needs of districts, as we have with special education.
I agree with his perspective on multi-year funding. When we have such a large enterprise as this, it is very useful to have a projection for the next year, at least in respect to the global funding. The budget for each school district is tailored because enrolments change and the makeup of enrolments changes. To be fair to districts, we have to acknowledge that in the funding to those districts. I'm a strong advocate of that approach. As we look to a longer-term planning window and greater financial stability, I'd like to see that happen. It is a challenging task because if one makes that commitment, then people plan on that basis. One wants to be sure that one can deliver.
On the one hand, we're hearing from the opposition: "Cut your spending and don't tax." At the same time you're saying to us: "Increase your spending, but don't tax."
It's a complicated task, and we in our ministry have looked to ensure that we are supporting the school districts of the province. We made very clear to them last October the kind of management we would be putting in place, and that they would be receiving modest increases this year. I go back to my comment: it's the responsibility of the parties to get close enough together so that a mediator can assist them in their dispute; it's the responsibility of the parties to manage their system for the good of the children. We are a co-governed system. The board and its employees have a responsibility that they share with me. I support the fact that you are representing your community and its concerns, and I recognize the difficulty there. I share that concern, but it is not just at one level that a resolution comes. People at a table have to make decisions that are part of a collective bargaining process. You say you've been there; I've been there too. There are difficult decisions to be made in the interests of the children.
What we should be saying collectively here is: "You at the table have that fundamental responsibility. We will assist you in any way we can. The Minister of Labour will assist you. But the fundamental responsibility for collective agreements lies with the parties, and I hope you will reflect that back to your community, because they are very much a part of the resolution of
[ Page 5278 ]
this issue." I believe we all support the right and the responsibility of people to come to those agreements in the interests of those they serve: the children.
G. Wilson: I don't know if the minister and I are going to resolve that dispute by hammering away on this issue in these estimates, but when you have two parties that are so entrenched and are not able to come together, and you have children out of school, it is the responsibility of both the Minister of Education and the Minister of Labour to take some action to make sure that those schools are open, even if it's an invoked cooling-off period to get the students back in class. I have proposed to the minister that a cooling-off period, without any retroactive or advance monetary punishment by the school district, would open the schools. Perhaps if we could collectively take that message, it might be a useful thing -- if we could hear that from the Minister of Education and Minister of Labour.
But on two points to end this session of the estimates, let me ask if the minister can please tell us how many schools she anticipates will be constructed in the year 1993-94. In particular, again on the Powell River question, I'm interested in the Brooks school and how much of the money that's coming down -- and we're told it will be allocated in part through this budget -- is expected to be financed through Build B.C.
Hon. A. Hagen: On Friday, I announced that the global amount of money that will be available for all capital work under our ministry is $561 million, and that there will be 24,000 new spaces added to our school system as a result of that funding. Very shortly, you and other hon. members of this House will learn of the proposals for your individual districts. The funding for the capital program will be administered by my ministry. We are aware that such a capital program, added to last year's $582 million, plays a very important role in the economy of regions, in jobs for people in the regions and in opportunities for apprenticeships and training. As we have worked with the school districts around the five-year plan and the priorities, we have been very aware, too, of the needs of districts for jobs. As the priorities and those allocations are worked out, we know that we will be contributing to the economy of the regions with this part of the government's broad capital spending. You will know, as soon as the announcements are finalized, of the details for your district, and I know that you'll be looking forward to that information, hon. member.
G. Wilson: Just a point of clarification. The $561 million is administered through the Ministry of Education, not through the new Build BC Act. Can the minister enlighten us in terms of the moneys...? Is any money, in addition to the $561 million, going to be part of capital financing through Build B.C.? Does she know of that?
Hon. A. Hagen: Hon. member, I was very pleased to make the initial announcement yesterday on the major initiatives around building schools, refurbishing schools and buying school buses: all the things that are part of the capital program. You will be apprised as the government makes announcements. We are coordinating our work with Build B.C., but the capital budget that I announced on Friday is, as you noted, administered by our ministry.
G. Wilson: I have a last question, and then I will defer to my colleague. In some school districts large numbers of students are opting out of the public school system and are opting for education at home in some alternative system such as correspondence and so on. Can the minister tell us how that's built into her formula for funding a district, and what happens to the moneys that would normally be allocated on a per capita basis for students who are not attending school but are involved in some alternative program? I'm thinking specifically of the Chetwynd area, where there seems to be a disproportionately high number of students opting out of the public school system for alternative systems. Is there some mechanism for dealing with that in funding, and if so, what is it?
Hon. A. Hagen: The member has raised questions about a number of students who may not be in attendance at the public schools. Let me just deal briefly with each of them.
The home schoolers must be registered at either a public school or an independent school. If they are registered, that school receives some funding in recognition of the resources they may make available for home schooling.
There are students involved in correspondence courses, which may be related to the aspirations of those students or to where they live.
In terms of independent schools, the number of students attending independent schools is increasing at roughly the same percentage as the number of students in the public schools. If you look at the number in the public schools and the number in the independent schools, the ratio has remained relatively constant over the past number of years. There is a slight increase in the number of children attending independent schools. As you may know, the funding that goes to independent schools is related to their fee policies and the funding in the district in which they have their school facility.
[11:30]
G. Wilson: A final clarification. The minister suggests that there is some money made available to the schools for those people registered in home schooling. Are those students weighted equally, as though they were school attenders, and if not, how much does the funding diminish by having home schoolers in that district?
Hon. A. Hagen: The money that goes to the school district that registers a home schooler is a proportion of the per-pupil grant in that district. It's one-sixteenth in the public schools.
[ Page 5279 ]
J. Dalton: I don't need a response from the minister right now on this, but I was pleased to hear her comments about multi-year funding. We'll be getting into that particular topic when we look at the education funding review recommendations, but I certainly think the points made by the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast are well taken. We have to seriously sit down and address long-range planning so that school districts will not be getting into this rather twisted and convoluted labour relations problem that the member was commenting on. The problem is not going to go away unless we all plan properly. So I certainly endorse the multi-year comment that the minister made, and I'm hoping we'll get into some protracted discussion on that later.
K. Jones: I'd like to explore with the minister the area of Surrey School District's underfunding and her general reaction to some of the problems that have occurred there.
Interjections.
K. Jones: It looks like we've woken up some of the backbenchers. They recognize that we have a very serious problem, being the seventy-fifth of the 75 school districts -- the very lowest on a per capita basis. The minister was made aware of that by a letter from the school board on February 8 of this year which requested support in resolving their great difficulties in both the growth and labour relations situations in Surrey. There have been many submissions on this to the ministry over the last few years. The minister is also aware that the school district has had increased special education needs and more ESL pupils than were anticipated. It was necessary to approve additional staffing. They have taken steps to drop the supply and services budget by 10 percent and have temporarily reduced some of the staff complements.
They made a simple request of the minister: they asked that the moneys saved when no teachers were working -- the teachers conducted rotating strikes to try to get a settlement of their contract -- stay within the school district to meet its additional needs, because it was money that was allocated there to start with. Hon. minister, you replied in your letter of February 24 that because of various bureaucratic standards, you were unable to do that. You wanted to keep the standard of not allowing school districts to keep the funds allocated to them, and to claw that money back to the ministry for reallocation. Unfortunately, that reallocation hasn't gone to the area with the greatest need, namely Surrey. It is evident that Surrey has the highest need in the province, and it has been evident for the last ten years. Unfortunately, with both administrations, we still don't have adequate funding to provide Surrey children with the type of education they deserve. Could the minister comment on how she's going to rectify this serious problem in Surrey with this budget?
Hon. A. Hagen: Let me start with the issue of strikes and who benefits from strikes. A clear policy of this government, which fully funds school districts, is that if there is a strike, the district doesn't benefit from that strike. That's a clear and unequivocal policy. In the case of a strike, we withdraw the salaries of those who are on strike -- not the CUPE salaries or administrative support. The salaries of those who are on strike are no longer directly available to the school district. That's a standard policy that applies right across the education sector, and I don't intend to make any exceptions to that policy for any school district. I emphasize that the money that is withdrawn is related to those workers who have withdrawn their services from the district. That also applies in any lockout or dispute that involves parties.
I note that this member has called on us to reduce spending and is now making a plea for his own district. As he is the member for his district, I appreciate that he should advocate for his district. So let me provide him with some information that may help him to know that we are funding the schoolchildren of Surrey in a fair and equitable way.
Over the past four years the population of schoolchildren in Surrey has increased by 23 percent, and the increase in funding has been 43 percent. I think that's a pretty good indication that we are looking after the special needs of Surrey. In the past year, on the basis of new funding that we made available in the 1992-93 school year, Surrey has benefited directly. It continues to have enrolment increases that it may not have anticipated at the start of the school year recognized, so for the finalized enrolments on September 30, Surrey has received an additional $611,724 this year. Based on a review of the number of students there, we have provided $601,800 in increased funding. For English-as-an-additional-language support funding, we have provided $473,700. Those amounts are on top of the original block allocation of $231.5 million. This year Surrey got the largest increase of any school district in the province. That reflects the fact that as we reviewed our funding, we again acknowledged that schools are crowded. In '92-93 additional funding went to Surrey, as well as to other rapidly growing school districts, to assist with the development of capital programs.
Surrey is a very interesting district which has enormous challenges. We fund it the same way as the rest of the districts -- with basic funding in support of its population. But we recognize that it has a rapidly growing English-as-an-additional-language population, so we have provided additional funding. Although it's not in their current allocation, I would anticipate that next year, if the same influx of students occurs, there will be additional funding in support of that; there will be additional funding in support of enrolment. As I've noted, with Surrey getting the largest increase in funding of any school district this year, we have recognized some of the implications of crowded schools.
So let me go back: there has been a 23 percent increase in enrolment and a 43 percent increase in funding for Surrey. That is a significant recognition of some of the very issues you are presenting on behalf of your community today.
[ Page 5280 ]
K. Jones: I appreciate the fact that the minister has defined that there is additional funding going to Surrey. But Surrey's funding doesn't reflect the growth of the community at all. It doesn't reflect the fact that we've been underfunded for the last ten years. What is the minister doing to try to bring the per-pupil contribution from the provincial government to the school district up to the average in the province?
Hon. A. Hagen: We arrive at the per-pupil amount by taking the number of students we expect to be in school next year and dividing it into the block funds that are available. I don't think the member is suggesting that Surrey students should get the same amount of funding as students in Williams Lake. Students in Williams Lake might have to spend an hour on a bus every day, and we have to pay for that bus. Surrey children go to a neighbourhood school, and they walk to school. I'm sure the member is not suggesting that we should pay the same amount for Surrey students as we pay in Fort St. John, where the temperature might go down to minus 30 degrees and the cost of running the schools is higher. In a province that's a thousand miles from top to bottom -- 1,800 kilometres -- and something in the order of 800 miles across, every school district is not the same. Every school district has a budget tailored to its population.
I just told you, hon. member, that Surrey has had additional funding because of the number of English-as-an-additional-language students coming in to that school district. That's not necessarily true for Prince George. They don't get that funding. Surrey receives $241,358,534 from this government. If more students come into your district, those students will be funded. If those students have special needs, they will be funded. I can't imagine a system that is both more flexible and better designed to be fair than one that recognizes enrolment. Other provinces aren't acknowledging enrolment; other provinces are cutting funding. Your district received an increase in funding of almost 4 percent this year. As I say, there will be additional funding available to it if there is continued demographic growth, and we have set aside additional funding for a district like Surrey. But you can't have it both ways. You can't, at the same time, advocate for your district, which is being treated fairly, and say to us as a government: "Cut funding, cut spending and cut taxes" -- which is the cry I've heard from your benches ever since this session started.
K. Jones: It's very easy to respond to the minister's accusations of asking for two contradictory things. We're not asking for an increase in your total budget; we're asking you to reallocate your budget. Reallocate it on a fair and equitable basis. Set a core figure that would be split evenly among all students in the province. That allocation would be a commitment to equal treatment for every pupil in B.C.
[11:45]
You can put extra in your budget for additional heating conditions or additional busing, but those are minor cost items. Let's be realistic about it. Those aren't the differentials between parts of this province; those aren't the big factors. The real factor is that you have not taken a realistic look at funding the individual pupils in this province on an equitable basis. North Vancouver has no different costs than Surrey -- in fact, its costs are somewhat less than Surrey's -- yet it is getting the provincial average or better, and Surrey is down at the very bottom. Surrey pupils have been treated unfairly for quite some time by this government and the previous government. We're asking the minister: why don't you set a core cost for pupils and contribute that to each school district on the basis of the pupils they have, and then make sure that Surrey gets its fair amount?
Hon. D. Miller: I have a very pressing question that I think dovetails with the questions being pursued by the member opposite, and I would like the minister to give me some assurance.
I represent a very far-flung riding with extreme travel difficulties and remote locations. In my view, we in the north don't always get the quality that I would like. It's certainly no reflection on the people in administration or on the teachers in my district; it's just that some of the communities are very small, and it's remote. Students have, for example, very limited opportunities to travel for recreation and sport. We're confined in many ways.
I would like the minister to give me an assurance that, notwithstanding the inability of the Liberal opposition to come to grips with the issue of funding.... And I should say that I predicted that this would happen. I predicted that despite the storm and fury of the Liberal opposition when it came to criticizing the budget, when we got into estimates this very thing would happen, and individual Liberals would stand up and say: "Spend more money in my district." It's clear that they are unable to deal with the difficulties of the budget.
I'm looking for some assurance from the Minister of Education that she will not take money away from students in the schools in my district, who really desperately need some more, in order to satisfy the member for Surrey-Cloverdale. I'm looking for that reassurance from the minister, because the students, the schools and the administration in my constituency desperately need every nickel they can get.
Hon. A. Hagen: I want to assure my hon. colleague from Prince Rupert that his district as well has been funded fairly, but with a recognition of the factors that are common and special to this district.
I think the member does ask a good question about the core funding, if you like -- something that's available for every student -- and then what produces the differentials. Perhaps I could just provide you with a bit of information, hon. member. If it would be useful for you to have a briefing -- as the critic on your side of the House has had -- about how the funding is made available, we certainly have information that may be helpful to you. For example, you may not have seen the package that went out with our funding announce-
[ Page 5281 ]
ments for Surrey and all the districts, which deals with some of those differences.
Every school district in the province receives funding that provides for the various years -- primary, intermediate and secondary -- for career preparation and for French immersion, if that's a part of the school district. I believe you have programs in your district. Programme Cadre is another part of our language program. There are various categories of children with special needs that I don't think I need to read, but we know that they have very demonstrable needs or more moderate needs but need support in terms of their learning. We also support English-as-an-additional-language as part of the core program.
Your district has benefited from that by additional funding this year, as well as what's part of the core, because you're in a growth time. Again, there's special assistance there. In native education, I would imagine -- I don't know specifically -- that there are programs.
We fund for the growth in enrolment. Let me go back to the figures I quoted a few minutes ago. Your district has grown in enrolment over the last four years by 23 percent -- a high rate of growth. The increase in funding to your district has been 43 percent over the same period. That recognizes some of the characteristics that I'm talking about. In addition to the core, your district is getting special recognition for the demographics and growth of the population.
Another factor is teachers' salaries. Rapidly growing districts tend to have more new teachers in the system than teachers at a high level of certification and experience. We know -- every district tells us -- that somewhere in the order of 90 percent of their total budget goes to salaries, and a significant part of that is teachers' salaries. When you have a difference in the amount that teachers are paid -- from $28,000 or $30,000 for a beginning teacher up to $60,000 for a teacher at the top of the certification and experience level -- then you obviously have a difference in the cost of a teacher teaching children in a classroom. Administration is covered, as well as the number of trustees. You have a standard number of trustees, and the base salaries that we recognize, and the capital program that is a part of the district's program, in addition to our major capital program. There is funding for operations and maintenance, and there are differentials there. Surrey has lots of new schools. I've been in districts of the province where the schools are 40 or 50 years old. It costs more to maintain those old schools than it does to maintain new schools.
You don't have to bus many students in Surrey, but there are lots of districts where they do. Most of your students walk to school or they have access to transportation. In Prince Rupert, Prince George, Williams Lake or Fernie, children very often need to be bused.
Other factors that relate to some of the things our northern members know about are heating and maintenance of buildings, and getting in supplies.
We fund a core program for every child in the province, but we acknowledge that your district has special needs, Prince George has special needs, and our funding is tailored to those. Growth in your district was 23 percent. The increase in funding over the last four years was 43 percent.
K. Jones: The minister makes a point about growth, but she just recites the same statement over and over again without actually responding to the problem that needs to be addressed, and that is that we have had an extended period of underfunding. When you look at percentages, it's an increase, but when you look at the actual dollars, you're not bringing the per-pupil educational value up at all. In fact, you're still leaving Surrey, even with those increases, in seventy-fifth position of all the school districts in the province. Is that not true, minister? Could you also relate that to what level the Minister of Forests' school district is of per-pupil funding?
Hon. A. Hagen: Perhaps dollars will help more than percentages. This is information I think the member might very well have had simply by asking the ministry. I always encourage members to use the time of our Legislature wisely. The funding has gone from $168 million to an estimated $241 million. I would not be surprised if it were higher by the end of the year, for reasons that I have spoken about. I'd be happy to provide the hon. member with any additional information that he might like.
The hon. member has asked me about the Prince Rupert amount. The hon. member for Prince Rupert will probably know that Prince Rupert's funding has gone down this year, obviously reflecting some changes in his district. It is about $900 more than the funding....
Interjection.
Hon. A. Hagen: In terms of its ranking, it's about in the middle.
K. Jones: That really reflects one of the difficulties we have. I don't wish to take funding away from any of the other communities, but we have to face facts. There are only so many dollars to go around, and there are going to have to be cutbacks in funding allocations to some areas in order for other areas to gain some equity. We should be treating our students in this province with equity. This government proclaims its strong advocacy of equity for all people -- certainly very strong equity for women, and I think that also holds for children, doesn't it, Madam Minister? The pupils in our schools should get the same type of treatment. We are finding that there are two levels of education in this province: one for those who are at the high end of funding on a per-student basis and one for those who are at the low end. One of the largest school districts -- the second-largest in the province today, if not the largest -- is the lowest-funded. Is it because it's just large? Maybe we should divide Surrey into about ten school districts; maybe we could get proper and fair funding. Maybe that's the answer. Maybe we're not getting the proper representation because we've got too big an area.
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I have more to continue with. Looking at the hour, I move that the committee rise and report progress.
Motion approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Hon. A. Hagen moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 11:59 a.m.
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