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)
MONDAY, JULY 26, 1993
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 12, Number 17
[ Page 9149 ]
The House met at 2:05 p.m.
Prayers.
Hon. M. Harcourt: I would like to introduce a new British Columbian who was born on Saturday in Royal Jubilee Hospital at a healthy 9 pounds 2 ounces. Madeline Patricia Baldrey is the second daughter of Mr. Keith Baldrey and his wife, Anne Mullens. Mr. Baldrey certainly doesn't make our life around here more pleasant, but probably more interesting. I understand that the first words that Madeline, who is quite an impressive newborn, was heard to utter were: "Would you please finish up the business around this House, so my dad can get home and carry out his parenting duties as quickly as possible?"
V. Anderson: I would like to welcome to the House Mr. and Mrs. Norm Ellis and two friends of theirs who are visiting from Australia, Mr. and Mrs. Hale. Would the House make them welcome.
Would the House also make welcome Ed Eduljee, director of Multiculturalism B.C., whom I have had the opportunity of working with for some 20 years.
A. Cowie: I would like everyone in the House to welcome Edwin Pearson and his wife Suzanne, long-time Liberals who live in my riding. Could everybody make them welcome.
D. Streifel: It's a pleasure for me today to introduce two folks who have been involved in my life for quite some time: my parents, Edith Streifel and George Streifel, are in the galleries. Would the House please make them welcome.
P. Dueck: It is a delight and a privilege for me to introduce members of my family. With us today are my son Gerald, his wife Anne, their daughter Brittany and their son Cameron. With them is their cousin from Vancouver, Stephanie Dueck. My wife and I are very privileged to have such wonderful children and grandchildren, and I don't hesitate at all to say that they have inherited all their attributes and qualities from their mother. Would the House please welcome them.
Hon. D. Miller: In the gallery today, visiting from Haida Gwaii -- the Queen Charlotte Islands -- is Greg Martin, a hard-working member of the school board. I apologize: I've forgotten the name of one of his sons. One is Blake, and they're two fine young boys visiting Victoria. I would ask the House to make them welcome.
F. Randall: In the gallery today is Mr. Ed Eduljee, who is a longtime activist in AMSSA and currently the director of multiculturalism within the Ministry of Education. He is with his parents, Eric and Kitty Eduljee, who are visiting from Poona, India..
I was just advised that the Streifels, who were just introduced, reside in Burnaby-Edmonds. I would certainly like to welcome them here.
NDP LEADERSHIP
C. Tanner: I have a question today for the Premier. The national leader of the NDP has offered to resign as leader because she is at only 5 percent in the polls -- the lowest ever. The Premier is also at the lowest ever in British Columbia polling history. Has the Premier offered his resignation to his caucus?
Hon. M. Harcourt: To the member who is part of a party that's going to have its third leader in 18 months, I don't know who's talking over there. I think the member has had far more trouble with his caucus than I have with mine. I've got a great relationship with my caucus, which is something a lot of the Liberals can't say about each other.
The Speaker: I would remind all hon. members about the guidelines for question period. Supplemental, hon. member.
C. Tanner: I'm pleased to say that I'm very happy to be part of a party that shows a lot more versatility than appears over on that side of the House.
The question to the premier: is how much lower in the polls does he have to go before he offers his resignation?
PRIVATE ADOPTIONS
R. Neufeld: My question is to the Minister of Social Services. The toll-free line on information regarding the government's proposal to end private adoptions has been heavily utilized. Since the minister collects statistics on the calls, can she confirm that 95 percent have been opposed to her planned changes?
Hon. J. Smallwood: I'd be more than happy to provide accurate information. I'll bring that back to the House.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member?
R. Neufeld: I have a new question to the same minister, hon. Speaker.
The Speaker: Unless the minister has taken the question on notice, the Chair will recognize a supplemental.
R. Neufeld: Because the minister indicated that she will reverse her earlier decision to ban private adoptions, can she now verify that position for the House? Will she agree to allow public feedback on her revised position by stating it clearly in a public discussion paper?
Hon. J. Smallwood: Let me be very clear with you. First of all, two different consultations were underway. One consultation was an extension of your government's Bill 73. That consultation flowed from your government's bill, which decided to eliminate the business of adoption in this province. A second consultation flowed from the work of the community panel. That community panel report specifically said
[ Page 9150 ]
that all adoption legislation should be reviewed, including opportunities for full choice, for all parties to be involved in the adoption process and for openness of the adoption registry, as well as the issue of kinship. The commitment....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please. Would the minister please very quickly conclude her reply.
Hon. J. Smallwood: I recently announced a commitment to withdraw the amendments that flowed from your government's bill and to roll that discussion about the need for regulation into full consultation around the adoption legislation.
CLAYOQUOT SOUND DECISION
V. Anderson: The government has defended the Clayoquot decision as a balanced choice. This would seem to mean that all parties get something. What are they getting? While the environmentalists are getting jail time, the loggers are getting lost paydays and the tourists are getting a combat zone. Will the Premier indicate today that this is not working as planned? Will he admit the mistake and revisit this decision?
[2:15]
Hon. M. Harcourt: I think that most British Columbians understand that the balance that we have strived for in the Clayoquot decision is a very difficult balance to reach. We believe that we have gotten close to that balance of a sustainable forest industry and forest communities that can have a stable future. We have increased the size of Strathcona Park dramatically with three of the most beautiful watersheds on Vancouver Island, and we have done that without prejudice to the aboriginal people. So I think that the decision on the Clayoquot, which was a difficult and tough decision, is as close as we can get to the balance that we have sought for British Columbians.
V. Anderson: As a result of the decision, the police are getting overtime, the communities are getting nowhere and children are being arrested. Will the Premier admit that he made a mistake by not using CORE? Will he undertake to have open and frank discussions and mediation so that there will be a solution at this point to the present problem with the Clayoquot?
Hon. M. Harcourt: We have responded to the Commissioner on Resources and Environment's concerns and some suggestions that he made to improve the communications and the monitoring of the toughest logging practices in North America, and to make sure that people feel they have ways of keeping the companies and the loggers to those tough standards. I think our government has been clear and fair with the people of British Columbia. I wish the Liberals would finally state their position on the Clayoquot. All I have heard is: "Delay; don't show leadership."
Interjection.
Hon. M. Harcourt: I heard the Environment critic for the Liberal Party invite the protesters to come to the Legislature again. We just got the stained-glass windows back. Why does she want to invite people to demonstrate again in the Legislature?
V. Anderson: While the children were out of school, this government did nothing. While the children are on the picket lines the government is doing nothing to solve the problem of people who are trying to find a way to do so. The government is advertising, MacMillan Bloedel is advertising and the international community is losing faith in B.C. When is the Premier going to stand up for the people who have a voice and want a decision, not more confrontation?
Hon. M. Harcourt: We have made a decision. I have established the Commission on Resources and Environment. There is an opportunity for the people of Vancouver Island to reach the balance we sought to reach in the Clayoquot. I can say to the people who are standing in front of logging trucks, who are defying the courts and the laws of this province, that I respect the law. The vast majority of our citizens, even though they may not agree with the decision, are prepared to be law-abiding citizens. Those are the British Columbians for whom we are striving to reach a balance with this decision.
B.C. RAIL LABOUR DISPUTE
D. Symons: My question is to the Minister of Transportation and Highways. The rail strike is now rolling into its second week. Last week the minister said that the outstanding issue was over the cabooses; the union said that it was money. Either way, B.C. Rail is losing $800,000 per day. What steps has your government taken to resolve this labour dispute? Or are we facing the same situation as the teachers' strike in Vancouver?
Hon. A. Charbonneau: I am pleased to inform members opposite that the union has requested, through the mediator, that negotiations resume. The corporation has indicated the same willingness. I anticipate that the talks will be back on, either tomorrow or Wednesday.
D. Symons: I am very glad to hear that.
The economic impact of this rail strike is beginning to hurt businesses and jobs throughout the province, particularly in the central region. I ask the Minister of Economic Development: with declining business in B.C., what is your ministry doing to help those affected survive?
BUY B.C. PROGRAM
R. Chisholm: Through you, hon. Speaker, to the Ministry of Agriculture. A few months ago the Agriculture minister attempted to award the advertising contract for the Buy B.C. promotion to an American firm. At first the minister denied any knowledge of this event. Then he assured us that no contract had actually
[ Page 9151 ]
been concluded, and he reopened the bidding. Today, however, we learn that the minister apparently did have a verbal contract with J. Walter Thompson and that he is awarding them substantial compensation. My question to the minister is: will you now confirm that you did in fact have a firm agreement with J. Walter Thompson? Further, what is the value of the compensation being paid to them?
Hon. B. Barlee: No, I did not have an agreement with J. Walter Thompson at any time whatsoever.
R. Chisholm: Unfortunately, Business in Vancouver disagrees with you. Will the minister provide the House with the precise compensation amount payable to J. Walter Thompson as a direct result of his botched awarding of the Buy B.C. advertising contract? I quote from Business in Vancouver magazine.
Hon. B. Barlee: Business in Vancouver is not in this House yet, although it may be soon, and they are not a speaker for this House. Indeed, there was a verbal agreement from one of my staff with J. Walter Thompson. That is not an agreement from the minister. We definitely did not have an agreement.
R. Chisholm: The awarding of the Buy B.C. contract went to Windrim Kleyn and Lim, a firm with extensive ties to the New Democratic Party. Mr. Robert Mitchell, a former NDP provincial secretary and campaign manager, claims: "We won fair and square." Will the minister commit to release the names of the other firms which lost, under his ministry's B.C.-ownership rules, to Windrim Kleyn and Lim?
Hon. B. Barlee: We've had 12 advertising firms doing business with the government of British Columbia. Every one of those advertising firms is a British Columbia company. We like to keep it that way. This is a Victoria firm. Indeed, Mr. Mitchell did business with both governments of the day in the last few years -- and in the last five or six years before I was in the House. I imagine that virtually every advertising company in British Columbia has had business with various political parties in all parts of the province.
B.C. RAIL LABOUR DISPUTE
J. Weisgerber: My question is to the Premier. Surely if we learned anything from the last B.C. Rail strike, it is that B.C. Rail is essential to the economy of the northern and central regions of this province. Does the Premier understand that B.C. Rail is essential to the livelihood of many British Columbians in those regions?
Hon. M. Harcourt: Yes, our government understands the importance of B.C. Rail to the economy of British Columbia very well, particularly to the central and northern parts. That's why we're taking a very balanced and careful approach to this labour-management dispute.
J. Weisgerber: B.C. Rail is just as important to the northern parts of British Columbia as B.C. Ferries is to Vancouver Island. Why won't the Premier decide to designate B.C. Rail as an essential service and protect the interests of northerners in the same way that he would protect the people living on Vancouver Island?
Hon. M. Harcourt: B.C. Rail is capable of making an application to the Labour Relations Board for that designation. I can say that our government realizes that this is a collective bargaining situation. We realize that the previous government understood that sometimes with collective bargaining, there are strikes and lockouts. That's why the previous Social Credit government didn't intervene in any way whatsoever when there was a 25-day B.C. Rail strike during their administration.
Hon. M. Sihota: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 66.
PUBLIC SERVICE ACT
(continued)
J. Weisgerber: It's a pleasure to rise and continue debate on Bill 66.
The Public Service Act contains some fundamental changes that British Columbians should view with a great deal of concern. For the first time in the history of British Columbia we are prepared to abandon the notion of merit as the underlying principle for employment.
The Speaker: Order. I regret that I am interrupting you, hon. member. I would like the House to come to order so that we can proceed with debate on second reading of Bill 66. Please proceed, hon. member.
J. Weisgerber: For the first time in the history of British Columbia, employment in the public service will not be decided primarily on merit but by a series of agenda developed by the government -- by restrictions to access to employment, by employment quotas and by employment equity by legislation -- rather than by a proactive attempt by government to deal with these very real issues in a way that serves those people who should be assisted if they want to work in the public service.
Our difficulty with this bill is that it doesn't embrace the notion that the best way to have an effective, efficient civil service is to hire the most qualified people. This government puts the desire to legislate gender equity into the civil service ahead of merit and qualifications. It tends and seeks to increase the representation of minority groups. As I said last week when I started my comments on this bill, I believe there are better ways to achieve what the government tries to achieve with this legislation. If the government would focus its attention on making the application process more attractive to minorities, if it would encourage minority groups to seek employment in the civil service, and if it would structure interviews in a way that was supportive to minority groups.... Instead, the government decides to again use the heavy hand of legislation, providing a process that starts to eliminate even the opportunity to contest a position on the basis
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of gender or some other form of discrimination. This kind of legislation backfires. It has been tried around the world; it has been tried across North America, particularly in the United States, and it does not work. At the end of the day, it is of least service to those it sets out to help.
I believe that the way to help disadvantaged groups is to create an atmosphere that encourages them to come forward and seek employment in the civil service. It's a slow process; it's a much slower process than the legislated route. In the very short term, there is no question that the government will achieve at least some of the goals that it wants to achieve with this legislation, but it won't be a permanent solution. It won't be a good solution, and it won't serve those who might gain some added opportunity to compete for civil service positions.
[2:30]
Our greatest difficulty with this legislation is the incredible amount of authority that it puts in the hands of the commissioner. We're concerned that someone who has been appointed as a commissioner has powers not only to set the rules but to break and change the rules. In fact, this legislation gives the commissioner a free hand to do almost anything he or she wants. We're concerned that perhaps we're going to see Commissioner Pollard reappear in this position. For the last 18 months, he has been the instrument of patronage appointments; he could very well have written himself a job as commissioner under the Public Service Act. Then we would see a person who could use the legislation and the system to continue the role that he has played so far in government. We don't want to see patronage and government interference go more and more into government service. We have already seen board and commission appointments and appointments to senior positions in the civil service significantly affected by Mr. Pollard. We've seen appointments at the highest level that are ideologically driven.
Interjection.
J. Weisgerber: The Minister of Finance says: "You guys never did that." I want to tell you that if the government can come up with an appointment that comes within light years of the appointment of Maureen Maloney as Deputy Attorney General, who is the highest lawmaker in the land.... She is someone with an ideological bent, hired on contract to advise the government on budgets and, I believe, the author of the attack on home ownership in British Columbia. Such an appointment to Deputy Attorney General is an issue of real concern, and it's an issue of concern to a lot more people than those who are partisan. British Columbians look at those appointments, and they understand what's happening in the civil service.
They look at this legislation, and they recognize the potential to move appointments from the OIC level to appointments throughout the civil service. The commissioner has far more power than anyone should have, controlling employment opportunities for individuals in the province. British Columbia, first of all, deserves to have a civil service staffed with the best qualified people available. The first consideration always has to be the qualifications and the ability of the people applying for the job. Promotions should be made on the basis of merit. There can't be any other system that serves both the staff and the people who are served -- the taxpayers of British Columbia. As we look back on this session and at the legislation that was brought in this year that affects British Columbians in a fundamental way, one of the bills that will go down as a significant change of public policy has to be this legislation, which moves employment in the civil service away from the basic notion of merit to some predetermined agenda of the government and the commissioner that really undermines the whole premise of an effective, focused civil service.
I don't think you can feel comfortable working in an atmosphere, knowing that some people are hired and promoted on merit and that others are there because of their gender, the colour of their skin or some other visible identification. People don't want to be hired because of the colour of their skin or because of their gender. Indeed, one of the difficulties in determining the number of aboriginal people in the civil service over the years has been the unwillingness of people in the civil service to identify themselves on the basis of ethnic background, race or colour. People want to be hired for who they are and for the abilities they have.
It has been demonstrated a number of times in government that with focus, enthusiasm and determination, you can significantly increase the participation of various groups in the makeup of this service. It should be done in a way that encourages that participation and brings down the obstacles that people find in the application and interview process. Those should never become paramount to merit. People should be hired and promoted on the basis of their abilities. Taxpayers should know that the people they are hiring are the best-qualified for the job.
I am very much opposed to this piece of legislation. I think it goes to the heart of the difference between the Social Credit caucus and the NDP caucus. There are some very fundamental differences, and I'm quite prepared to stand and defend the position that I take, that I have taken and that I will continue to take. That position is clearly opposed to this kind of legislated solution to social problems. I think it's a bad approach that shows the inability of ministers like the Minister of Women's Equality, who has had 18 months to deal with these issues within government. Instead, she has embraced this kind of legislated solution rather than find ways to deal with the core problems and the underlining issues. That's what is important for society. We either have to resolve these kinds of issues in government by example or we have to be prepared to extend this legislation beyond the civil service to the private sector.
I'm not sure that there are many, if any, people working in the private sector or employers in the private sector who would like to have this legislation extended to them. It's a test of this legislation for people outside the civil service and outside government to decide whether or not they like this kind of legislation. My challenge to workers and employers is to look at
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this legislation and see whether or not those people in the private sector would be comfortable with these regulations and constraints in their workplace. What's good for the government should be good for all British Columbians. If it won't work in the private sector, it shouldn't work in the public sector.
I am solidly, fundamentally opposed to the principles of this legislation. I will be voting against it, and I will try, section by section, to amend the most onerous parts of this legislation.
F. Gingell: I think we have to start at the beginning. Bill 66 is the child of the Korbin commission, and the Korbin commission started off on the wrong foot. Surely this government clearly recognized the problem that British Columbians have: we simply cannot continue, year after year, to increase the portion of our gross provincial product that is spent by the provincial government to deliver the services that British Columbians need. We have to find more effective and efficient ways of delivering government services. But that was not the job or part of the mandate of the Korbin commission, so it started off on the wrong foot.
The other foot was wrong, too. The commissioner was employed at a rate of $1,200 a day plus expenses. A fairly normal work year is about 225 days. At $1,200 a day, that comes to $270,000 -- more than a quarter of a million dollars, more than double the rate of pay of the most senior deputy minister of this government. This government fails to understand what ordinary British....
The Speaker: The hon. member for Prince George-Omineca on a point of order.
L. Fox: I hesitate to interrupt the speaker, but I have noticed that there is not a quorum in the House.
The Speaker: The member is quite correct.
There is now a quorum, hon. member, if you would like to continue with debate.
F. Gingell: If one can remember that far back, I was on the issue of where the problems are, what this government should have done and what they haven't done. Just to briefly cover what they haven't done, they didn't allow the Korbin commission to deal with the issue of the size of the bureaucracy. They didn't allow the Korbin commission to deal with how we find means of delivering government services without, as always, continuing to increase the size of the bureaucracy. The $1,200 a day -- equivalent to $270,000 a year -- plus expenses turns British Columbians off. This government continually spoke about the need for common sense, restraint and not spending a penny they don't have. They gave a mandate to the commission that was wrong, and they entered into a compensation package that we all believe is not far short of obscene.
What has the Korbin commission done? It made recommendations in the field of employment equity and said that this province had to change the way things were done in the past. There was a time when the way you became part of the civil service was to work for a political party, hope that that political party would be elected to office and you would then get your rewards as part of that system. That is a well-known system in places like Chicago, where that kind of arrangement has been well known and part of the system for many years.
[2:45]
Early in the development of British Columbia, the government made a decision that hiring within the provincial civil service should be done on the basis of merit, and everybody supports that merit is the only way that these positions should be filled. We all believe in employment equity. I don't think that anybody who thinks about the subject doesn't realize that there has to be equity for all British Columbians to have the opportunity, if they so wish, to be employed in the provincial bureaucracy. But you cannot accomplish that by passing legislation. It is something that you can accomplish only by reducing barriers.
I know that we are all concerned and fed up with the systematic discrimination against certain members of our society who don't have the opportunity to participate in these roles and in this fashion, not because of lack of merit, but simply because of discrimination. Without question, it is time to get rid of the old boys' club. Without question, it is time to take a sledge hammer to the glass ceiling. But you can't create equity by legislation; you have to do it by encouragement. You can't eliminate prejudice by legislation; it has to start in our homes with the children.
One problem that we could very easily create for ourselves is a backlash. I know that that is not what this government or the opposition want. There are actions that can be taken to address the imbalance, and I'm sure they have been taken by this government and their predecessors. There are many jobs in government that can be carried out more effectively, more efficiently and more properly by individuals who have certain distinctive traits or are part of some clearly defined group. When government needs people to talk to British Columbians, who are not adept in the English language, I'm sure that the definition of the skills required for a particular job may very well give individuals of one particular racial or ethnic group an advantage -- and there's nothing wrong with that.
This bill speaks about creating a civil service in British Columbia that represents its diversity. How do we describe that diversity? This bill has in no way stated the particular styles or types of diversity that are going to be recognized. We all recognize that there are some that obviously get included: racial, gender and the handicapped. But will it include demographics? Will we need to employ a certain number of people who live in a certain part of the province? What happens when those people move from that area to areas that are overrepresented in the bureaucracy? Surely those kinds of changes take place as the government, in their wisdom and in a manner that we support, ensures that provincial government services are delivered -- as we're fond of saying -- closer to home. Those kinds of changes in government practices, in the means of delivering government services, will have their own positive results in dealing with that issue.
We talk about gender. Will this also include sexual preference? I'm sure we talk about colour of skin. Are
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we going to also talk about colour of hair and colour of eyes? There is a whole series of issues that really do need to be dealt with. Before they bring in legislation of this type, the government should clearly enunciate and elucidate the way they intend to interpret the legislation and administer it.
There are some other issues here, and they deal with such things as tenure. I appreciate that union negotiations between the province and their unions have brought in tenure. I don't think anybody on either side of the House is in any way concerned or believes that there should be changes which could cause a change in government to alter the makeup of the bureaucracy, other than those senior positions that have clearly been filled -- and understandably so, on many occasions -- on the basis of political qualifications as well as others.
For people presently employed by the government, this bill provides a somewhat different position from that of any other British Columbian applying for a different job within government. In this bill, methods are brought into play by which individuals can appeal the decisions that are made by government in the hiring process. Can all British Columbians appeal? Oh, no. Only people who are presently members of the public service can appeal. They are going to be treated in a different fashion for a brand-new position -- something to which I don't believe they necessarily have any predisposed rights -- by a means and a method that another British Columbian is barred from. The civil servant has the right to a hearing; the British Columbian who is not presently employed by the provincial government has only the right to ask questions, not to appeal. I think that is taking tenure too far. All British Columbians should be treated equally and should have equal rights.
Interjection.
F. Gingell: If the member wishes to say that I should be sitting in his seat, it is a matter of.... I thought it was the member for Mission-Kent.
Interjection.
F. Gingell: It is offered.
We also have to deal with the powers and the mandate of the commissioner, who is given a major role in the process of employment equity. The commissioner is not only given the responsibility of developing the plan of action but also the responsibility for implementing it. The commissioner is also given the power and responsibility for all negotiations between the provincial government and its direct employees. It is important that these particular functions be handled in a manner that is seen to be open and fair, subject to reasonable assurance that they are being handled in a open and forthright manner. I'm not certain that that is going to be the result of this particular bill.
In the end, what is the issue? There are some subsidiary issues to do with the costs and mandate of the Korbin commission and with auxiliary employees and tenure. The main issue in this bill is whether the prime philosophy or tenet of hiring civil servants in this province -- which for many years has been merit alone and has been supported by all sides of this House -- be changed to bring in a social engineering exercise in which there is a determined effort to ensure that the best person does not necessarily get the job; instead it will be someone who fits a particular pattern. I don't care who issues my driver's licence; I don't care who I deal with in any division of government, as long as I have the certainty that a proper, fair and open process has determined that the person hired for the job deserved it. That is the most important issue in this bill.
I certainly hope that the debate that takes place from this point on will encourage the minister to think about this sufficiently to decide to withdraw the bill from active consideration at this time and allow some input from the rest of the province -- all of the diverse groups that make up our population -- and see the wisdom in allowing some time to pass so that further consultation can take place.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I ask like leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I noticed in the gallery Harvey Arcand, vice-president of the IWA-Canada. He is here for meetings concerning his workers. I would like the House to make him welcome.
[3:00]
V. Anderson: Bill 66 brings before us a conundrum, because we need to revise the manner in which hiring takes place within the public service. I think there is general agreement that we need revision. It needs to be updated, and it needs to be fair and equal for all people. The purpose of the act, as stated within its clause, is to make sure that people are hired on their merit. But as you go through the act, you are not sure that that purpose is being fulfilled. One of the realities is that all of the people of the province who have equal merit have not sensed that they have equal opportunity to be hired in our public service. So we need to overcome the bias which has been present so that everyone of equal merit can have equal opportunity within the service.
I don't hear anyone saying that we should be hiring people for a job who have less merit than someone else who is available. But I do hear them saying that there should be equal opportunity for everyone. One of the indications is that there is a strong feeling that those doing the hiring are hiring unequally; that those doing the hiring are not giving everybody an equal opportunity. We need to correct those persons so that they give everyone an equal opportunity and nobody is prevented, because of a bias of the hiring person, from having an equal chance to be heard and to present themselves.
[U. Dosanjh in the chair.]
Instead of putting the onus where it should be and ensuring that people who are doing the hiring do it equally, we seem to be putting the onus on the person
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who is coming to be hired to somehow demonstrate that they have an equal, if not better, contribution to make than others. The process itself needs to be changed, but I'm not sure that it should be changed in the way that this bill indicates.
As you go through the bill, you see contradictions. On one hand, it says that there should be hiring on the basis of merit. On the other, it says that there should be hiring not on the basis of merit but on the basis of equity throughout the population. It goes on to say that if a person comes forward and has the merit and is not hired, they can appeal. If they had been hired on the basis of equity rather than merit, in the final analysis there is no opportunity within this bill as it is written to question the validity of that equity hiring, because the appeal can only be based on merit. We have an undercurrent flowing here which gives an uncertainty to the whole process.
It is my experience that those who might be hired because of their equity position, or lack of it, do not want to be hired primarily because of characteristics other than their ability to do the job, because this does not respect them for the kind of person they are. Rather, this is token representation and a system of token hiring. It demeans the position of those who are hired. We do not want to correct one inadequacy by creating a second one. Acknowledging that the present system does not work as it might, we should not correct it by putting in a system which is equally wrong.
One of the historic realities of the political system, and unfortunately a part of the history of all of the parties within this country, is that when governments changed, people were changed -- not because of their merit but simply because they didn't have the correct political point of view. Nowhere in this act is that kind of change prevented. I remember that whenever there was an election in the prairies, if the people in the local communities happened to belong to the wrong political party, they were fired -- even the managers and employees of the local liquor store. I must acknowledge that it was a shock to people when the CCF was elected for the first time in Saskatchewan, and these people were not fired. They were maintained in their jobs; they were not removed because of their political persuasion. Unfortunately, over the years that tradition has not maintained itself within the CCF or the NDP any more than in other parties.
We're trying to get back to a position where people feel that the hiring practices of the government are fair and equal for everyone. That is not necessarily the kind of fairness we see reflected in this bill. It's not only important that the bill is fair but that it seems to be fair to all people in society. If we remove one type of discrimination, which we all acknowledge is there, and replace it with legislated discrimination, we have only changed one discrimination for another. We have not improved the situation. It also means that it is up to the persons who are hiring to judge, according to their own whims and biases, what form of discrimination should be undertaken at any particular point in time. That form of discrimination can change radically if it's left in that fluid state.
We need to review the concerns about the bill and the manner in which they are presented. While we heartily agree that everyone should be hired on merit, and it should be open equally to people of both genders and every background, race, colour and nationality, we must look not only into this bill itself but into the functioning of government. We must ask ourselves: is there equal opportunity and education in all of these different facets of government? Is there equal opportunity for skills training? Is there equal opportunity in testing? Is there equal opportunity for these people to speak in their own language and show the real merit of the skills that they have?
A whole host of concerns are not addressed but are simply implied in this bill. It is left up to the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council to make the regulations. Even where the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may make appointments of a special nature, the requirements of either merit or equity are not necessarily in place. This bill lacks clarity as to its intended direction. Therefore we will review it carefully in committee stage. We agree on the merit principle. We agree that everyone should have equal opportunity, but the process by which it is assured is not necessarily a legalized process. It has to be one where everybody has equal access, equal opportunity, equal education and equal privilege.
H. De Jong: It gives me pleasure to rise and speak on Bill 66. The opposition obviously cannot go along with the position government is taking with this bill and the road it wants to follow.
This is not a forward-looking bill. It may be a bill to justify some of the current actions of this government. We've gone through a number of bills that have dealt with employment standards and changes to the Labour Code. When we look at all of these bills, it would appear that some had a few good suggestions and others did not.
This particular bill may well fly right in the face of some of the ideals that have been brought forth -- for instance, in the Employment Standards Act. Normally, when we look at the process of hiring people, what's usually asked for is the type of education, qualifications and experience the person has. Those are the three basic ingredients we look for. If they have those three ingredients then past experience comes very much into play.
Not everyone has work experience. This bill is silent on that aspect, and that surprises me. People perhaps have the education and through that education may have certain qualifications, but they have not been able to have that work experience that's so often looked for and so important. Yet this bill says nothing about that particular situation.
This bill talks about gender equality, having people in certain jobs equal in numbers and so on. This bill doesn't specifically talk about it, but this is a follow-up to bills we've had on this floor during the session before. It's a continuation of what I see as an unnecessary buildup of bureaucracy dealing with a number of issues that can hardly be justified. When we talk about hiring people who are less than qualified,
[ Page 9156 ]
simply because of race or gender or whatever it may be, how is the employer going to deal with those situations when the person does not meet the requirements of the job? I'm sure that any employer, whether public or private, will have great difficulty if he uses one set of rules on one end of the spectrum, and then at the end he has to use rules from a different book to deal with the firing of such a person. I think there has be some commonality between the areas under which a person is hired and how he or she can be fired. That is not in this bill.
[3:15]
It's really a very fair and simple process, to begin with, to go through the hiring process. I think it would be best, rather than playing games with a maze of regulations -- what we have in this bill -- if the government were to at this time admit that they had made some mistakes. Before it passes through the House, British Columbians already know that this bill is a mistake. It simply won't work. The fairest way to hire people is to ensure that the most qualified applicant gets the job. The best way to build an efficient public service is to ensure that it employs the best people possible.
The best way to assist the disadvantaged groups is to help them with training and education. As I said earlier, perhaps there could be something given to those who have had their training and thereby have some qualifications but no experience yet. There could be something there. A younger person coming out of college, university or whatever level of education the job required would have a helping hand to get into the job in order to acquire some experience. But the bill is absolutely silent on that. It talks about race and gender as the most important criteria, and that is not so.
We already have some indication of where the government has spent a lot of money -- various commissions, corporations and so on -- yet without much result. In fact, a couple of weeks ago I asked the Minister of Environment whether any work could be done on the Chilliwack River. The answer was a simple no because of lack of funding. Then you wonder, with a budget higher than in any other year, why some of those important things cannot be done. Yet we can set up another bureaucracy under this bill to deal with what I call an unfair set of rules for hiring practices.
We've seen the creation of a highways Crown corporation to build highways. All the money that is collected from the taxpayers of British Columbia is being used to further more commissions, more Crown corporations and more bureaucracy, yet in the end it's unfair bureaucracy, because it does not deal fairly with the individual who is being hired. If the people who do the hiring do so on the basis of this bill, they will have great difficulty in living within the confines of the Employment Standards Act, should they ever have to fire the same person they hired under the regulations set forth in this bill.
K. Jones: Hon. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to rise and speak on second reading of Bill 66, the Public Service Act. This is a very important act that will really change the scope -- at least that's what the government says -- of the civil service. We've spent almost $1.5 million on the study that has gone into this. A year of effort has gone into it with input from people throughout the civil service and the public and private sectors. A lot of effort was involved, and this bill is the culmination of that in attempting to bring it to legislation.
There is an area that doesn't seem to be well covered, which is what I want to speak to. I want to speak to the case of the real working people in the public service: the individuals who provide all of the day-to-day services of government -- the contribution and the research -- and who bring their special talents to the whole operation of government in its broadest sense. It affects us in every part of our lives in this province. These are the people who determine whether you get a driver's licence. They ensure that your taxes are properly handled, your complaints are dealt with through the ombudsman or the ombudsman's staff, and that legislation is properly done -- with thoroughness and with a fairness that makes the government look good. I'm sure that the government would be very concerned if that were not the case.
I want to talk about the people who used to be called public servants, because that's what the public service is really about: being a servant to one another and to the people of British Columbia. Here in this House we are also servants to the people of British Columbia and to those people in the public service. We are working for them and they are working for us. It is important that we build a structure that will allow that to occur.
In this bill we note various things, such as the establishment of a Public Service Employee Relations Commission, an appeals process and a process for hiring. They are all very important, and most of those have been spoken to by my colleagues. We have some areas of concern in regard to some of them. One that I'm deeply concerned about -- and it seems to be somewhat lacking in this -- is what there is in this bill to build that concept of public service. What is in this bill to encourage the person who has been with the government at some level of operation for ten years, and who is wondering about where they're going in the future? Where is their future? What chances do they have? What is in this bill to create an incentive to provide service? What is in this bill to build morale in the public service?
Interjection.
K. Jones: I hear from my colleague that the answer is "nothing." I think we have to admit that. That is a very big, gaping hole in this bill. There is nothing here to address the fundamental things that make a public service. It talks about the peripheral, but it doesn't talk about the substance of what makes a good, solid public service. What is in this bill to encourage leadership? What is in this bill to provide effectiveness? What is in this bill to help members of the public service give value for money or be accountable? What is in the bill to identify a process for them to carry on their functions, and to grow in those functions, with the desire to be more and more effective and accountable in utilizing the taxpayers' money?
[ Page 9157 ]
[The Speaker in the chair.]
We have a bill that relates to many features of the structure, but it has really nothing in the way of substance that is going to change the public service. We spent the past year with this whole process of the Korbin commission in an attempt to create a new public service and a new effectiveness in government, one that is going to be serving and exciting the people of this province, and one that is excited itself. Unless they are excited about their jobs, they will never excite the rest of the province. They will not provide the drive and initiative that will bring this province into an economic renaissance, a changing period that we right now are desperately needing when we are going down and down, following the Ontario model of socialism. We have to do something about that, and we have to do it today to get this turned around. We have to build an economy and a workforce, and we have to provide the education for our children and adults that will make it possible for this growth to occur.
Bill 66 could have all that potential in it. I would hope that it could be made such that it would have that potential in it. Otherwise, it is a very hollow bill, a shell that was not easy to put together, yet one that with a little more effort could be much more effective. We have concerns, as we have mentioned before, about the fact that in the appeals process of this bill, people who are employees of the government but are only on an acting or part-time basis are not able to appeal when they feel that the processes of promotion, hiring or treatment are unfair. These people are treated as if they don't have proper representation. The same goes for people who are newly applying to be part of the government. Those people should also be treated fairly and have the opportunity of an appeals process that is open to all who apply for the job. Why should only those people who have permanent jobs with the public service be eligible to appeal? It just doesn't seem fair. It is very discriminatory, in my thinking.
[3:30]
This bill needs some serious changing, and I would certainly urge the minister to take it back to give it the consideration it needs if it is to be more effective. It needs to have more substance in it and a focus on the real purpose and problems facing those in the public service today. There are problems under the equity program that will leave them stagnant in their jobs. They are concerned that they will have no hope for future advancement if they don't fit into the categories of the special considerations for equity hiring or promotions. The same problems that exist today will be there -- the training programs, the personal development and professional development programs that are always promised but are never brought forward. They never succeed. They never give the people the ability to advance themselves, because the programs are there in words but not in deed. We have a great need -- and a great opportunity in this bill -- to do something to restructure and give new impetus to our public service, but this bill does not do that.
Hon. P. Priddy: I am very pleased today to rise in support of Bill 66. This bill is about our government's commitment to doing something about the public service and the many and varied issues that we face. One of the key issues in the B.C. public service is that after 20 years of Social Credit government, we had an abysmal record in the hiring and promotion of women, visible minorities, aboriginal people and people with disabilities. Not only that, the record of the previous government's response to including women and other equality-seeking groups in areas where they were in complete control of the opportunities was horrendous. Our government is making a real difference. We're making certain that the many skills of women and men, aboriginal people, people from visible minorities and people with disabilities, are part of the agencies, boards and commissions that guide this government -- something that the Social Credit government was able to do and absolutely did not do. It took no opportunity to make that difference.
In addition, I heard the Leader of the Third Party say that there has been no change in the last 18 months for women working in this government. The percentage increase of women working for this government has increased in every single management-level position. That's action at every management level.
I'd like to remind hon. members that this legislation does not in any way change what options government has as an employer. The Human Rights Act already says that employers can take action to ensure that employment equity, fairness and equality are part of the hiring and promotion process. When that amendment to ensure fairness and equity in employment was before this House last year, not one member of the opposition stood up and spoke against it, so I am somewhat puzzled by the change in position. This act simply gives employment equity a new home in the Public Service Commission -- renewal of the public service in British Columbia.
I am really deeply troubled when I hear members of the opposition describe the provisions of this bill, which tell us that employment equity should be part of our consideration in hiring and promotion in the public service, as patronizing. What is patronizing is not listening to the concerns of all of those people who have been excluded from opportunities within government for too long. What is patronizing is the previous administration's sit-back-and-wait attitude, with no commitment to reach out to all of the people of this province. What is patronizing is an opposition that continues to speak out about a process that they said they agreed with when they were the government. I refer you to the position taken by the Social Credit government in 1991, when they said that the province of British Columbia would hire on the basis of employment equity. That's what we're doing. What is patronizing is an opposition that can't bring itself to support a statement of principle accepted across Canada by governments, corporations like the Royal Bank, communities and individuals as an essential principle to making our workplaces fair and just for all Canadians.
[ Page 9158 ]
The Royal Bank, an esteemed institution in our country, states in response to an article in the Financial Post, "There's Nothing 'Fair' About Hiring Quotas":
"As a society, we have an obligation, for social as well as business reasons, to achieve greater employment equity. We have reasons in business to move forward with employment equity. The fabric of our society depends on it. The calibre of our workforce is bound to improve as we open our doors to all the talented applicants from all cultures and all walks of life."
If the opposition supports the principle of fairness in hiring, they should support the bill. If they don't support fairness and equality in hiring, then they should come out and say so, not sit up and say: "We just don't like fairness when it's in a bill." What is deeply troubling is the opposition's repeated suggestion that no women, aboriginal people, visible minorities or people with disabilities are qualified to work for the government of this province.
The Speaker: On a point of order, the hon. member for Okanagan West.
C. Serwa: The minister is clearly reading from a prepared speech. Under the standing orders of this Legislature, that is not allowed. It's a latitude certainly licensed for an initial speech in the Legislature, but reading from a prepared text is not allowed under standing orders.
The Speaker: Thank you for your point of order, hon. member. However, it is the practice of this House to allow copious notes during debate.
C. Serwa: Carry on reading, people.
Hon. P. Priddy: It is offensive, when people speak of more women, aboriginal people and people with disabilities who may work for this government, if the first response is: but what about merit? It's offensive to me and, quite frankly, to the people I stand beside in this province who have ever applied for a job with this government and were denied opportunities for reasons unrelated to their ability to do the job. Let me tell you, there have been more than a few people in that position.
The opposition would like all of us to think that somehow it's just enough; there aren't enough women or people with disabilities with the right kinds of skills, and that's why we seem to have this little problem with hiring and promoting people from equality-seeking groups. I'm here to tell the Legislature that that is just not the case.
Unlike the opposition, I am willing to admit that we have not done very well in the past, and that some extraordinary barriers have excluded some very valuable people from serving the people of this province. They've been excluded by a variety of practices held for a very long time to be acceptable -- practices which have meant, more than anything, that for the most part government continues to hire and promote people just like the ones already there.
We do -- and can do -- many things as an employer to help eliminate these barriers and to help all individuals in this province have an opportunity to work with this government. We can and will spend time with organizations talking about what kinds of opportunities might be available, what kinds of skills might be required for those jobs, how to apply, how the selection process works, where people can get information about how the ministries work and how they can access government postings. We can advertise differently. We can ask ourselves to focus on the skills we're looking for, not just the credentials. With all due respect to the provincewide newspapers, we can make sure that we advertise more widely than in just the Province and the Sun. We may want to target aboriginal newspapers, community newspapers, newspapers for multicultural groups and newspapers representing people with disabilities.
Let me offer you a comparison. One way of describing a position is: "Policy analyst -- university degree with five years' experience in developing policy. Driver's licence required." A second way of phrasing it is: "Policy analyst -- ability to research, synthesize, analyze and write policy and procedure documents. Related education, training or experience required, and an ability to visit branch office in the downtown core." These two advertisements describe the same job, but only the second one tells everyone clearly what skills the successful applicant will bring to the job on day one. It's about competency, not about degrees; it's about scope of experience, not just the number of years. Of course people need qualifications and skills. This government hires people based on merit. As a government we want people to do the very best job for this province, and this involves looking at a range of ways in which we describe a job.
We talk about having interview panels that include people from the community: people from visible-minority communities, aboriginal people and people with disabilities. For many of us, there's nothing more intimidating than a panel interview. Are you really seeing someone at their best when they don't see themselves as part of the panel? We can improve communications a hundredfold by simply having someone on the panel who has experienced the government from the perspective of the person from an equality-seeking group who is being interviewed. Sometimes the biggest barrier to including women and other equality-seeking groups is the simple fact that they're not there. When you have taken all sorts of measures to invite applications, to recruit applicants from equality-seeking groups, to advertise differently and to panel more fairly, you may be well on your wa18to seeing more women, more aboriginal people and more people with disabilities in the workplace and in higher-paying positions with different levels of responsibility. But you may also find that there is still no difference, that there is something else that is keeping people out.
Take, for example, the case of a program manager with the Ministry of Social Services. The government wanted to make sure that services for aboriginal people were closer to aboriginal people in their communities, and that the process worked in a way that was sensitive to aboriginal cultures. We recognized that this issue meant making sure that an aboriginal person was the
[ Page 9159 ]
person to do that job, because of what they brought. It's not quotas; it's not reverse discrimination; it's a fair and equitable way to help create opportunities for people who have been excluded for too long and to ensure that our services are effective. Quite frankly, it helps to put merit back into the merit principle, because it defines merit as truly what you know, and it gives people the opportunity to show it in an environment that is inclusive, safe and fair for everyone.
While I'm certainly troubled by the third party speaking against this, I'm also somewhat puzzled, because I have heard the Leader of the Third Party speak with some pride -- as he and his party should -- about the number of aboriginal people who had been hired by the previous government. Let me refer to some of those positions that the Social Credit opposition is so proud of. One of them was a restricted competition for an entry-level management-bridging position for an aboriginal person in the finance and administration branch. There were others: Ministry of Education, one management level 1 position, restricted to women; Environment, three training positions, restricted to aboriginal people; Native Affairs, four management level 2 positions, restricted to aboriginal people; Parks, 12 officers and first-line supervisor-level positions, restricted to all four equity groups; Solicitor General, 11 management and senior support-level positions, restricted to women; Social Services and Housing, one supervisor and six social worker positions, with preference given to aboriginal people, in the native family and child services unit. Just to be sure that we don't leave anybody out, the last one is the Ministry of Transportation and Highways: six bridging positions, for women only. I am delighted that the Social Credit opposition was able to take those actions. But let us be very sure that those were done for the reason we speak of here today: to ensure opportunities for people who have traditionally been excluded from government.
[3:45]
We all know that there are stairs which we climb when we go through a hiring process, and it's a difficult climb for everyone. We search the advertisements in the newspaper or somewhere else. We work out our r�sum� to meet the qualifications. We go in for the interview. We write a test. We sit across from a panel of people who ask us some pretty tough questions about our knowledge of the government and the job. If we are chosen as a successful candidate, our references are checked.
If you have cerebral palsy, and perhaps live your life in an electric wheelchair, or have some motor difficulty, it may take you longer than 24 hours to write or type the test that you've been given -- albeit that typing out the information is potentially not any kind of qualification or requirement for the job for which you're applying. If you studied criminology in another country like India or Australia, your experience -- not your degree -- may not be credited here. Women with children may find it difficult to arrange overnight child care to come to Victoria for an interview. All of these are barriers that we as a government have an obligation to remove.
I don't see, as the opposition seems to, anything patronizing about that at all. British Columbians have a right to know that their government is making every effort to ensure that they and their families have access to services and opportunities without being discriminated against because of their aboriginal heritage, disability, race or gender. This government is indeed acting on that commitment in its day-to-day practices, as and in the manner that the Leader of the Third Party suggested we should. I can only assume that the Leader of Third Party resents that this commitment is being given a home and an authority by legislation. He is perhaps worried that in the unlikely event his party ever returns to this side of the House, he wouldn't so easily be able to back away from that particular promise, which includes all British Columbians as part of this government.
Many individuals have spoken strongly against being excluded, and they have indicated that they look forward to measures that will include them. Employment equity is simply one of those measures. The opposition may be willing to ignore them. I am not, and this government is not.
J. Tyabji: I'm happy to follow the Minister of Women's Equality. There has been a lot of talk in this debate about patronizing attitudes and the kinds of approaches that have been taken on one side of the bill or the other. If we can put that aside for a minute.... Rather than name-calling, let's look at the philosophical differences between the Liberal opposition and the government. The Minister of Women's Equality said that Bill 66 is a statement of principle. I disagree with that. This is not a statement of principle so much as affirmative action legislation. If one subscribes to the philosophy of affirmative action, then I can imagine that the government would be very proud of this bill. On this side, we subscribe to ending discrimination. So when the Minister of Women's Equality stands up and says, "Those groups that have been excluded must be included," we agree. But how do we do that? It's a matter of process, approach and the basic philosophies involved.
You can't look at Bill 66, the Public Service Act, without looking at Bill 39, the Multiculturalism Act. In Bill 66, we see a key word when talking about how hiring practices must be representative of the diversity of British Columbia. "Diversity" is not defined in the bill. Where do we see "diversity" -- not defined, but at least made reference to -- in another bill? In the Multiculturalism Act. We see there that "diversity" of British Columbians is regarding race, cultural heritage, religion, ethnicity, ancestry and place of origin. We know that gender is addressed in one of the other bills. When we talk about diversity, one of the purposes of this act is to be a hiring code that recruits and develops a well-qualified and efficient public service representative of diversity; and we go further in the bill and see that it talks about the principle of merit -- and merit seems to be the word that the government is focusing on -- as being tied to eligibility. The eligibility of the applicants is the first classification, the first hoop, that they go through, before they go through the hoop of merit.
[ Page 9160 ]
Who is an eligible applicant? Someone who fits the definition of diversity in the Multiculturalism Act. If one subscribes, as the government does, to affirmative action, a quota system in the short-term to address past inequities, then one would be very happy with this.
Let me lay out for the Minister of Women's Equality why the Liberal opposition is opposed to this approach -- not the objective, because we share the objective; we very much want to see a hiring practice that will be representative of the people. If the Minister of Women's Equality is aware of some of the affirmative action legislation that has occurred in other jurisdictions, most notably the affirmative action programs in the United States, and the backlash that has occurred....
Interjection.
J. Tyabji: The minister is saying those are quotas. That's true; there are quotas there. To a large extent, what anyone deals with.... I happen to be someone who fits the definition of diversity on two counts -- maybe three, if we take being a single mother into account.
Interjection.
J. Tyabji: I see that one of the hon. members down there wants to get in on the debate; I hope that he does.
In principle, the reason my colleagues and I cannot support this bill is that when you bring in affirmative action, whether it be quotas, as was done in the United States, or whether it be the perception of quotas, as is done in this bill -- because of the Multiculturalism Act and the rhetoric of the government talking about the need to have representations that address past inequities -- as soon as you get those statements about past inequities, which we all know, going forward into the hiring practice, you're going to get the perception of a grudge match and a great movement forward to make up for what happened in the past by going too far the other way. When eligibility is the prerequisite before merit....
Interjection.
J. Tyabji: The member for Yale-Lillooet is asking what my position is. Let me be on the record: I am opposed to affirmative action legislation like this. I have been since the day of the election. This has been something the government has a hard time understanding from the Liberal caucus. I encourage these members to please get up and debate when I'm finished.
Interjection.
The Speaker: Order, please, hon. members. I'm sure all members who wish to can enter into the debate, but at this time the Chair has recognized the member for Okanagan East.
J. Tyabji: I think I must be hitting a nerve if they are getting so upset. I hear them asking repeatedly what I would do. I'm assuming they are asking what the Liberal opposition would do if we were in government, what principles guide us and how they would be brought forward in legislation. We had very much the same debate when we debated the human rights amendments that came forward. We share many of the same objectives. In fact, I have a friend who says that the NDP are the Liberals in a hurry. What we end up getting is very bad legislation -- from this philosophical perspective, at any rate. The legislation speeds the process up to such an extent that there are basically side effects. For example, we have restrictions on individual rights and on the equality principles that should govern all of us. You end up creating de facto barriers to other people.
To give a very concrete example, the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, our own leader in his own riding, was dealing with a situation -- in a hiring practice for this government -- where an aboriginal woman was asked for. There wasn't anyone who was able to fit the bill. So they had to go further afield, until they are now canvassing bands somewhere else. Meanwhile, there are about 60 unemployed people in that riding who could do the job, but can't get the job, because they don't fulfil the parameters of the quota system. Although the minister says it's not a quota system, that seems to me to be a quota, because we are talking about eligibility before merit -- when there isn't anyone who is eligible, we go far afield to find someone who is, provided they have the merit requirements. Everyone in the community knows that is going on, because they talk about it. They or someone they know, or their brother or sister, really needed that job and couldn't get it on the basis of their race or gender, and that's discrimination. No matter how you slice it, that's discrimination, and that's where you get a backlash; that's where you get people saying that that's not fair.
Many of us have lived through discrimination, through unfair hiring practices or people who treat us differently because of our gender, age or ethnicity. When we get into a position of power, we can't legislate things so that those very people who acted this way toward us are now in a position where they have these discriminations visited upon them. It doesn't make any sense. You just end up breeding hostility and ending up with people wanting a backlash.
I just want to end this look at Bill 66 with a couple of points about the merit section of the bill where we talk about the eligibility of the applicants. When we say "the nature of the duties," what else will merit be determined on? And the eligibility isn't outlined. When we talk about the education, skills, knowledge, experience.... With respect to eligibility, we have to look at the diversity, which means the Multiculturalism Act and the gender quotas.
In addition to that, under the merit section, we see that in section 8(4) it says: "Subject to the regulations, the commissioner may direct in respect of a vacancy or class of vacancies...that applicants be (a) limited or given preference in a manner intended to achieve employment equity objectives...." Philosophically, we on this side cannot support that. Although we support the objective, we can't support legislation that brings in affirmative action.
The second thing is: "...(b) limited to employees to encourage career development and advancement...."
[ Page 9161 ]
They are saying that the commissioner may limit the pool of applicants. Once you limit the pool of applicants, all the people who have been excluded will say: "I have been excluded." We end up exactly where we are right now with a group of people saying: "Because of the system we are being excluded; this is not fair." When we get to the point where we see the regulations in print, I don't even know whether that is consistent with the Charter of Rights. When Bill 66 becomes legislation, will we end up...?
Interjection.
J. Tyabji: No. The member for Yale-Lillooet is asking me.... I am saying that this legislation -- if we are discriminating or giving preference on the basis of race or gender -- is probably going to end up being challenged under the Charter of Rights, and the province of British Columbia will have to enact our own notwithstanding clause in order to champion this. I would predict that this government will be quite happy to enact a notwithstanding clause in order to bring about their affirmative action programs.
With the prediction that we will end up with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge at some point, which I think would be contrary to the objectives of the bill, which we support -- the objectives but not the mechanism -- I would only say to the government that although I think their goals are laudable, this is the wrong way to do it. With that, I cannot support this bill.
R. Neufeld: I stand to speak to the philosophy and principles of Bill 66. Much of what is in the bill has already been spoken about, so I don't intend to take a long time. Rather than read from my notes, I'll use the bill itself and go section by section, some of which I find very interesting. I'm going to start out with section 4 of Bill 66 and what it speaks about: the philosophy and principles of this bill. I don't know how else I can do it other than with the legislation in hand. It talks about a commission and what the commission does and doesn't have to do. It says that "the commission must consult with representatives of the employees' bargaining agents certified under the Public Service Labour Relations Act with respect to..." -- and then it talks about things it has to consult on. But what the bill fails to do -- and that's to satisfy the BCGEU and those unions....
[4:00]
Interjection.
R. Neufeld: Yes, and I'm going to go there a little further along. The minister says that's there now.
What it says a little further down, which I'm using to offset it, is: "In addition, the commission may" -- there are two totally different words there: "must" consult and "may" consult -- "consult with employees who are not represented by the bargaining agents...." I find it interesting that in one place it says that the commission must consult with the bargaining agent and in another other place it says that the commission "may" consult with those who are not in the union. "Consult" is even described in this legislation: "In this section 'consult' means seeking advice or an exchange of views or concerns prior to the making of a decision...." So we know what "consult" means, according to this legislation. In other words, in the philosophies and principles of Bill 66, they have to consult with the unions first before they make a decision, but they don't have to consult anyone else involved if they're not in the union. That's basically what that section says in very clear language.
As we go a little further along in the philosophies and principles of Bill 66, I'm going to read verbatim from section 5: "The Lieutenant Governor in Council must appoint a commissioner as the deputy minister responsible for the commission. The commissioner is responsible for personnel management in the public service including but not limited to the following..." -- and it goes on to list quite a number of things. For the Finance minister's information, some of this is new wording. It gives the commissioner much more power; it gives the commissioner powers of a deputy minister. Before, the commissioner was just a commissioner.
Then, on the philosophies and principles of the bill, it goes on in section 6 to talk about the delegation of those powers: "The commissioner may...."
The Speaker: Order, please. I regret that I'm interrupting the hon. member. The Chair has tried to be flexible, because I appreciate that the hon. member is trying to discuss the principles and philosophies. But as the hon. member knows, passing reference to sections of the bill is obviously in order at second reading.... But the Chair feels that the detail with which the hon. member is quoting these sections would be better left for committee stage. I ask the hon. member to keep his comments broad and on the principles of the bill itself.
R. Neufeld: I will adhere to your ruling, hon. Speaker, but I would beg your permission to be allowed to use the bill as reference because I didn't write it out on my yellow paper. I thought I would just keep it in the bill form, and I will not read the sections anymore. But if possible, as I have in other speeches, I will give some verbatim quotes from the bill or from newspaper articles.
It says that the commissioner may delegate any of her or his powers under the regulations to an employee of the commission.
Hon. Speaker, what you have done is worse than heckling -- you have broken my train of thought on where I was at. Thank you very much for doing that, but I'll try to recoup here and carry on as quickly as I can.
I will now get to the section that most members have talked about: the section that deals with employment equity and the reverse discrimination that we feel is in this bill when it talks about merit but really sets out quotas in its place. I gather from the speeches that that's mostly what everyone talked about. I want to talk a little about employment equity in this section of the bill. The minister who spoke previously on women's equality talked at length about the past Social Credit administration and what they had achieved. When you read between the lines of what the minister was talking about, there was quite an achievement.
[ Page 9162 ]
She referred quite a bit to our leader, the member for Peace River South, who had talked about a ministry he was in that is now called Aboriginal Affairs. Employment equity in that ministry was about fifty-fifty; 50 percent were native people there. I can certainly understand that. I don't have any problem with that kind of thinking, because you are obviously dealing with the native population an awful lot, so you would want to have a lot of advice and that type of thing from people of native background. I can understand that.
But that was done without legislation, without quotas set in place and without a fairly lengthy bill that has some 29 or 30 sections setting out how you can hire people in employment equity and that type of thing. If you go back and look at that, you can see that the government of the day was progressing that way without legislation, even in pay equity. When I was sitting in on the Minister of Finance's estimates, he made a complaint to the Leader of the Official Opposition that the millions of dollars that had been put in place that had to be spent by government for pay equity were quite excessive, and that was done by the previous government. You can't tell me there weren't some hiring and pay equity practices going on that recognized some of the problems we are dealing with in the nineties, in trying to bring things up to date for this time.
The Minister of Women's Equality talked about all the women who are hired now in management, compared to before. I haven't had time to look up the statistics, but I understand that in the deputy minister position, one or maybe two deputy ministers are female. That's a party that has been in government now for 20 months, and they wanted to exercise this authority and hire women for authoritative positions. I have no problem with that. If they are qualified for the job, I don't have any problem with it at all. It should happen -- but they haven't lived up to what they say their philosophy is, and they are going to do it with a large bill which enacts and puts in legislation what must be done and what can't be done. The process can be put into place without legislation.
The other thing that this bill enacts is that Crown corporations have to put a policy in place and report to the Crown corporations secretariat and then to government as to their hiring policies and practices: how many women and aboriginals they're hiring in the Crown corporations. It's not just in the public service. That leads to a fair amount of extra work in those Crown corporations. As I have said before, there is no reason why you cannot have a policy in place, without legislation dictating that you look for more people who are not white-haired and middle-aged, such as myself. We must look around a little more, and I have no problem with that. As I said, if they fit the bill, have the abilities and can do it, then they should be hired, but not through the reverse discrimination in Bill 66 -- and that's exactly what it is.
That brings to mind an advertisement for nurses that was in the news across Canada just recently, which said that women, aboriginals and minority groups would be given preference in hiring. That caused some problems here in British Columbia, and I'm sure that the government recognizes it today. We have now imported some 400 people, or 25 percent of the number we needed, into British Columbia, and we have people in British Columbia who are out of work who could be filling those positions. That's what happens with bills that talk about merit but don't have anything to do with merit; they have a lot to do with putting quotas into place.
It brings to mind another issue that happened not that long ago. I was honoured to be part of the constitutional committee that went around the province shortly after this government was elected. One of the questions in the questionnaire that was given to people who came to talk to the committee was about gender equality in the Senate and the public service. I can remember some fairly heated arguments from members of the committee who were trying to convince people in some communities that that's what should happen. I watched and listened to people, and it wasn't men who responded to these questions. It was mostly women who responded to this question about equality in the Senate; I would bet that it was all women who answered. When we got closer to the end of the committee hearings, I found that question being asked less and less, simply because the women were saying: "No quotas. That's ridiculous." The women were saying: "I am at this position in my life and in my career because of my abilities." It wasn't middle-aged, white-haired men.
Interjection.
R. Neufeld: It wasn't middle-aged women either, as the Minister of Finance just suggested. I'm sorry, it wasn't. It was women from all walks of life. I remember schoolteachers, nurses and homemakers. I remember people who worked in private companies who came to us and said: "No quotas; we don't need quotas at all. I want to get there because I deserve to be there." So I can't quite understand why this government would like to elevate sex and race over competence as primary criteria for selecting our public servants.
Interjection.
R. Neufeld: The member for Cariboo North sits back here and laughs. He has the exactly same right as I to get up and speak to this bill -- unless maybe the House Leader told him that he better not speak to it. I'm not sure. But he has every right to speak to this bill. If he feels that strongly about it, then he should get up and talk about the philosophy and principle of Bill 66, as the rest of the members have done today.
The quota system treats women and minorities as institutionalized gender and racial objects and ignores their value as individuals. That's exactly what it does.
Interjection.
R. Neufeld: I haven't lost my place, hon. Speaker, I'm just letting them finish their conversation.
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The Speaker: Thank you, hon. member. I think they have completed their conversation. Please continue.
[4:15]
R. Neufeld: I'm going to refer to the bill and speak about some of the sections at the very end of it. It's interesting to note that the Minister of Finance talked about deputy ministers' pensions in this act, I believe, along with employment equity and those types of things. The interesting remark was made that it's retroactive legislation to November 1991. The minister stated that deputies hired after that time knew what was going to take place. How would they know that these changes -- reductions in their pensions -- were going to take place? How would they know before this even hit the Legislature? How would they know before the Korbin commission finished its $1.4 million survey? How would they know that, unless part of the Korbin commission was written long before the commission went to find out what people in British Columbia want?
I'll end with some quotes, which are not from the bill. "The fairest way to hire people is to ensure that the most qualified applicant gets the job." I think that's a very valid point. "The best way to build an efficient public service is to ensure that it employs the best people possible." The government should be striving to do that. "The best way to assist what the government calls disadvantaged groups is to help them with training and education." That's one place where this government has fallen behind. If what we're intending to do is help disadvantaged groups, then training and education is exactly what we should be doing -- but not by quotas or by reverse discrimination.
I read an article a while ago about a prominent NDP person. I wish I could remember his name, but they don't stick in my mind very often for some reason. This was a prominent NDP person from Ontario -- and I think it's interesting that this person is from Ontario -- who said that reverse discrimination and hiring quotas, although they sound nice, don't work. We have this NDP government trying to initiate this kind of legislation. I say that the fairest way to hire people is to ensure that the most qualified applicant gets the job. That's what we should be doing; we should strive to have a policy for doing that, so we can get a broad base of people from our province into the public sector.
C. Tanner: The Public Service Act undermines the merit system of employment within the government. It subverts the traditional relationship between voters and their elected MLAs by elevating the public service to a representative role. In the past, federal, provincial and municipal governments staffed the public service with their friends and relatives, to the detriment of the quality of service offered to the public. Countries like Italy and India are to this day notorious for this practice.
For the past 50 or so years, this country, and this province, has used the merit system, which was fair, straightforward and honest, generally speaking. Bill 66 will change that. While the intention may be well motivated, we all know which road is paved with good intentions. Occasionally in our history, under extraordinary circumstances, exceptions are necessary. For example, a preferential hiring system was put in place to assist disadvantaged veterans returning from the two world wars, and affirmative action has offset instances where the merit of women candidates was not judged objectively by members of the old-boy network. Bill 66 goes far past these two examples. It introduces a diversion from merit hiring that is "representative of the diversity of the people of British Columbia." Now gender, race, sexual preference and hair and eye colour may be factors in determining one's suitability for a government job. How does one define diversity?
Democracy in our political system to date has assumed that the elected members of government represent the people and that the public service delivers efficient services. I see many problems arising between permanently entrenched bureaucracy and the temporarily elected government. One does not need to have too much experience to predict who will win that fight, and the rise in taxes that will ensue if non-elected people increase their power base. There have been suggestions within our current bureaucracy that better service may be available to clients -- read the public -- if one comes from the same background, and that the clients feel more comfortable when their own kind deals with them. If this is so, then it follows that in a short time it will be the client's right to be served by a representative of similar background.
Common sense dictates the rejection of Bill 66, which will lead us into uncharted waters and crosscurrents which will confuse and irritate an already delicate hiring system based solely on ability. As a broad rule, we should hire our public service based solely on merit; in exceptional circumstances, with other considerations in mind. But passing this type of legislation will open a Pandora's box of discontent and frustration for both employer and employee. It matters not to me who collects my taxes, who is my assistant, or who advises the Minister of Health, so long as they are courteous, helpful and cost-efficient. I ask all members to think twice before we put this legislation through.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
A. Cowie: Much has been said about this bill, so I too will speak very briefly to a couple of points. I believe in and can support the broad objectives of this bill, but I have a number of concerns, basically around the quota system. Essentially, this bill is going to change the way people are hired in the public service. I'm concerned about a number of limitations spelled out in section 8, which I can speak to at third reading. I'm concerned in particular about the limitations that are spelled out and about the equity objectives portion. I believe that, regardless of a person's race, religion or gender, one has to hire according to merit -- what qualifications and skills the person has. That's all laid out in section 8, and part of that really is done very well. The section on quotas bothers me.
A couple of other parts of section 8 also concern me, such as the limit on continuous work -- in other words, if someone's being hired they must prove that they're working in a continuous way with the public service. I
[ Page 9164 ]
can tell you, a number of people in the public service would be much better off if they were able to take a year or two off, either to get more education or to simply go away or travel. It would be a refreshing experience for them and they would be better for it; it would refurbish them as people. I think you can do that in private industry much more than you can in the public service -- and I've worked in both public and private service. That is a disappointment that that's in there, essentially as a limitation.
I also notice that a retirement section is in here -- a person over 65 basically can't work for the public service unless it's an unusual situation. In the next ten or 20 years, we're going to find more and more older people over 65 who will be able to benefit the public service by continuing -- but by merit alone; they should certainly have to go back and be judged to see whether they're capable of doing the job.
That's one of the problems with the public service: the ability of someone in the public service to refurbish themselves from time to time and keep up with things. The public service today is the largest employer, especially at the municipal and regional government levels. It's the big industry in this province. It's hiring more and more people, as we found out by the Korbin report. I think it's very important that we look at the best possible people, and that they're hired by merit.
I want to give you just one example of many I've been involved in. I remember that a number of years ago in Vancouver the parks board was hiring a public relations officer. The personnel department came down with their standard traditional male -- who had been working in the department for a long time -- and felt that the parks board would be very comfortable with this person. I can tell you, when we looked at the qualifications by merit alone the board decided that this wasn't the person for us. Instead -- and this was a long time ago -- we hired a woman from the United States. She wasn't even Canadian at the time; she is now. Over 20 years she has proven to be an excellent employee; she does a fine job and is still there. I'm very proud of her. I think that even many years ago -- when you look at merit alone -- a lot of our public service jobs were chosen by merit, and we should continue to do that.
As I mentioned, it's the fastest-growing industry. What bothers me is when we say: "Well, no, we'll have to have so many women here, and people with other particular qualifications and special interests." That disturbs me. I remember, a year or two ago, when a close friend of mine was going out for a job. This person is a women and very concerned that she be hired on the merit basis; she did not want to be hired simply because she was a woman. Most woman do not appreciate that. I will close saying those very few words.
D. Mitchell: I'm pleased to rise today to speak on Bill 66, the Public Service Act, a very important piece of legislation that will affect all public sector employees in the province. When you count all the employees of government, Crown corporations and the public sector, it's obvious that we're talking about the largest single group of employees in British Columbia.
Interjection.
D. Mitchell: "Public Service Act," says the Minister of Finance. I'm sure the minister would not disagree with the fact that this is a large group, perhaps one of the largest groups in B.C. One out of ten British Columbians are public servants in the province. So it's an important bill.
If you take a look at large organizations like government -- and those in the private sector, or unions -- it's interesting that, historically, in every generation the pendulum seems to swing between centralization and decentralization. Centralization means tighter control while decentralization means greater autonomy. The management style in any large organization inevitably seems to swing back and forth. When the pendulum swings toward decentralization and greater autonomy, organizations tend to flourish. It allows management to be closer to the ground where individuals are actually carrying on the activities of the organization. When a group comes to power that believes in higher centralization of authority and control -- the justification usually being that of cost -- the pendulum swings back towards one central intelligence and authority that guides the organization in all of its activities.
With this bill, we can see part of the trend of this government's legislative program back toward centralized authority. We have to ask whether or not this is the right thing. If, right now, costs are out of control and need to be contained, and if it's part of cost containment and cost-effectiveness, then perhaps this is the right way to go. Maybe we do need centralized control and authority at this point in time. Of course, with centralized authority and control there is always the risk of abuse of power. That is something we need to be concerned about when we address the Public Service Act. It is interesting to take a look at this historical change that goes back and forth. One has to ask whether or not it is very cost-efficient for organizations to be constantly redefining themselves, changing their management styles and going back and forth from centralization to decentralization.
[4:30]
One thing is for certain: there's no doubt that with this government we are going strongly toward centralization of control. With that comes the risk and the cost of a large bureaucracy. Perhaps when the Minister of Finance closes the debate on Bill 66, he might address that. He certainly hasn't addressed what guarantees there are to prevent the buildup of a costly, burdening bureaucracy. I would point out to the Minister of Finance some wise words from a historian named John Lukacs, who recently wrote an article called "The End of the Twentieth Century." He said: "The size of the state increases along with the decrease of its authority, because of the decreasing respect and the decreasing efficiency of its powers." What this very wise historian is saying is that as government grows and bureaucracy burgeons, the actual moral and political authority of the state decreases, because the citizens have less respect for that kind of state. Bill 66 is actually going to contribute to the increased centralization of authority and the creation of a
[ Page 9165 ]
centralized intelligence. It's going to increase the size and decrease the authority of the state here in British Columbia. I think the government should be aware of that risk as it pursues this piece of legislation as part of its legislative program.
Obviously, this bill comes out of the Korbin commission. The government has made much of the very costly Korbin commission that it brought in. The Minister of Finance has noted that Judi Korbin billed the government $1,200 a day for her services. She worked part-time, three days a week. During the course of a little more than a year, the commissioner earned close to a quarter of a million dollars for a report that she worked on on a part-time basis. One has to ask whether or not Bill 66, one of the products of the Korbin commission, is fashioned and shaped by the commissioner's report, and whether or not the commissioner is actually a model for public sector cost-effectiveness. She was paid $1,200 a day, and received almost a quarter of a million dollars personal earnings for a report that took a little more than a year. One has to wonder what kind of a model it is that the Minister of Finance can be so proud of when he talks about cost-effectiveness in the public sector. Is this the example that he would hold out?
The other issue relating to the Korbin commission report, which is the background for this legislation, is that its work wasn't new, even though it was good work. There are many precursors to that report that contributed to Bill 66. One can go back to the earlier days of this administration and the much celebrated and notorious Peat Marwick report, which the Minister of Finance also paid a pretty dollar for. The Peat Marwick report talked a lot about organization in the public sector and in the public service. In fact, some of the recommendations are surprisingly similar to those found in the Korbin commission report.
Not only that, there's one other infamous report that I might refer to and that is the Haggquist report, the final report of the compensation fairness commissioner, which the Minister of Finance never tabled in this House. I don't know why he has sat on this report, because it's been a year now since the Haggquist report came out. The Haggquist report, an excellent piece of work by the compensation fairness commissioner, pointed out the lack of meaningful standards of compensation classification in the province.
One has to ask why the Minister of Finance sat on this report, never tabled it in the House and never released it to the public, and why he waited a whole year until the Korbin commission report -- another expensive report -- came out before taking any action such as Bill 66 that we're debating here this afternoon. Could it be that the Minister of Finance wanted to wait until the government had hired all its friends -- all the NDP insiders -- into the senior, middle and junior levels of the public service? Could it be that they wanted to wait until they had hired every single friend and insider of this government into the public service before bringing in Bill 66?
I would hope that this wasn't the case, but the evidence is there that the Minister of Finance and his colleagues in the government knew very well about the disorganization, the reorganization that was required, the problems with classification and the need for meaningful reform in the public sector and the public service of this province. But they waited, and now they're finally bringing in some changes, presumably after they've hired everyone that they could think of on their membership lists.
That's one of the reasons why British Columbians are cynical about this government that claims to be an open government and to believe in the spirit of freedom of information. Yet they sit on important documents such as the Haggquist report, they fail to take advice from the Peat Marwick report and they pay friends and insiders exorbitant rates -- $1,200 a day -- before bringing in....
Deputy Speaker: I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but we are on the philosophies and principles of Bill 66. Could we address our remarks in second reading to them.
D. Mitchell: Bill 66 tries to deal with some fundamental reforms by establishing a new, central human resources agency for the government of British Columbia. It also brings in a Public Service Employee Relations Commission. These are the centralized features of control that we were talking about and that I've been trying to address.
There's been a lot of comment on the differences between the private sector and the public sector during the course of this debate. I, for one, actually believe that there are significant differences, and that one cannot manage the public sector and the public service like one manages a company operating in the private sector. I need to go no further than refer to the Haggquist report, which has an excellent quote that relates directly to Bill 66 and the principles of this bill. In the final report on the compensation fairness program, up to July 31, 1992, Commissioner Neil Haggquist stated -- and this is a very important quote dealing with the differences between the public and private sectors:
"The predilection of public sector employees to compare their compensation to their private sector 'counterparts' is inherently flawed. The majority of public sector employers have a monopoly on the services they provide -- there is no competition. It is not appropriate to allow public sector employees to compare their compensation to their 'so-called' equivalent positions in the private sector alone, and then seek upward adjustments in compensation. In addition, public sector employees have a degree of employment permanence not generally experienced in the private sector. As a consequence of both the relative permanence of employment and the de facto monopoly on the delivery of public services, the public expects and deserves open, fair and responsible public sector compensation practices -- something that has not been achieved to date in this province."
This was Neil Haggquist writing one year ago. He was an excellent appointee of the government, and one of the few I can say that I applaud, because he wrote an excellent report. The only problem is that the Minister of Finance sat on this report for a whole year, and never released this valuable insight. He failed to table this report in the House.
[ Page 9166 ]
The point that Commissioner Haggquist makes in this report -- and I believe there is an attempt to respond to it in Bill 66, which comes out of the Korbin commission.... If we take a look at compensation levels in the public service in the light that Commissioner Haggquist suggests, I think this could be a big benefit to British Columbia.
The only concern we need to raise -- and it is a legitimate concern that British Columbians have about this bill -- is the centralization of power, and its potential abuse. The other issue, which has been much commented on by members in this debate, is the issue of merit versus equity in terms of classification and compensation levels in the public service. That's not an easy one to deal with. It's not easy to balance those two principles, because we all believe in and subscribe to the notion that the person best qualified for a job should be the one who receives that job, regardless of where they work. Merit should be the overriding principle.
Yet most fair-minded British Columbians also believe in the notion that groups which are representative of the province as a whole should be given a chance wherever possible. That includes women and members of different races or ethnic groups who don't traditionally have the opportunity to participate in the public service or in management positions in the public or private sector. So we try to balance those. As British Columbians, we want to be fair, and balance merit with equity.
How do we do it? How does the Public Service Act do it? My fear is that Bill 66 is really an exercise in doublespeak -- like Bill 33, the Human Rights Amendment Act, which really tried to enshrine human wrongs. Bill 66 talks about enshrining merit in the public service. Merit is a principle that has always been adhered to in a professional, independent public service. We have always believed in merit as the overriding principle for deciding who should be given a chance to serve the taxpayers of this province, who should be given the right and the privilege to work on behalf of all the people of British Columbia. So to speak about enshrining merit for the first time, as if it's something new, is more than hypocrisy. But to try to balance that with the equity provisions of this act is not easy.
I will refer to one article that was written in the last while -- from among the flurry of them on this legislation -- by a columnist that the Minister of Finance might recognize: Crawford Kilian, from one of the minister's favourite newspapers, the Province in Vancouver. Writing about Bill 66 on July 15 of this year, Kilian talked about the "representative fallacy" of trying to ensure that every group in society is made up proportionately of every other group in society. So if you have a quota system of men versus women, or of all the different ethnic or racial groups in society, you would develop a quota system to try to ensure that the government is made up on similar lines. He also talked about the question of whether we could come up with such a formula. I don't think we could, but if so, would that necessarily be more representative?
Mr. Kilian stated two assumptions that go into the "representative fallacy": "One assumption is that everyone is exactly equal in abilities, interests and attitudes." Surely that's not true. Everyone is not equal in terms of abilities, interests or attitudes. So that's fallacy number one. The second assumption that goes into this fallacy is also interesting: "The second assumption directly contradicts the first. It says your race, sex and ethnicity make you utterly different from everyone else." Mr. Kilian concludes his article by saying that "the really dangerous aspect of the fallacy is that it entrenches the discrimination it pretends to attack."
Surely that is something that the Minister of Finance must be concerned about as he brings this legislation forward. I know that as a fair-minded individual he would want to ensure that merit continues to be the prime motivator and determinant as to whether or not someone would get a job in the public service of the province; but at the same time, in trying to encourage equity, he would want to avoid the fallacy of representativeness that's outlined by Mr. Kilian in his article in Vancouver's Province newspaper.
These are some concerns that I think need to be raised. I wanted to put them on the record in the debate on Bill 66. The main controversy is related to control and merit. My bias clearly is on the merit side, but I applaud the government for at least trying to address the other issue of equity. It's not an easy one to address. I have never pretended that it is. I don't think Bill 66 does it perfectly.
If it allows the centralization of authority, which is enshrined in the new commission established by this act, the government could run amok; and if it was drunk with power, it could abuse the process that it sets up in this bill. The equity provisions, if not balanced carefully with the merit provisions enshrined in the principle of an independent professional public service, could be abused. Do we trust this government not to abuse these powers? On the basis of its performance in the last year and a half that it has been in power, can we trust this government not to abuse the control that it is enshrining in Bill 66?
That's the issue that we must decide upon when we vote on Bill 66. I think the bill's contents are an honest and legitimate attempt to address these fundamental problems in British Columbia. We want to see them addressed in our public service. The message is clear; it's the messenger that is in doubt. When we vote on Bill 66, we are fundamentally voting on our confidence in this government's ability to bring these reforms forward in a way that cannot be abused -- abused in the sense that our democratic rights and freedoms have been in the last 20 months by this government.
[4:45]
L. Fox: I am pleased to stand and speak on the principle and philosophy of the Public Service Act.
On first reading this bill, I supported its principles probably more from a personal perspective than anything else. I think the principles are laudable. There's no question about that. The member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi pointed out that, although the message is in the bill, the problem is that the mechanism within it will do more to harm opportunities for minorities than help them.
[ Page 9167 ]
Some 20 to 25 years ago, there were huge discriminations not only against women but also against minorities -- specifically handicapped people and some racial minorities as well. I know from personal experience that if one is part of a minority, what one really wants is a fair opportunity to compete. You want the door to open, and you want to be able to prove that you are every bit as capable as the next individual, whether you are a man, a woman, a handicapped person or someone of different racial origin. What you really want is a fair opportunity to compete for those jobs and to prove yourself.
This legislation may take away that opportunity. It may take away the self-satisfaction that they get when they've competed openly and honestly and have achieved the job on the merits of what they can bring to the job in terms of either expertise or the ability to do the work. This bill will provide for hiring quotas and reverse discrimination -- no question about it.
The Minister of Women's Equality stated what has happened very well when she held up six or seven different hirings that occurred under the previous administration, where it made good common sense to go to groups of people whose interests a particular ministry or initiative was going to affect. Those hiring practices targeted those particular interest groups and minorities, with emphasis on hiring from within those, because it made sense that if you are going to deal with the issues affecting those people, then you should look within those groups for the expertise to help you address those concerns.
When I think back to my own personal examples, I can recall one point in my very early life when I was 20 years old and applying for a job. The individual looked at me as I walked up to him, and said: "No, we don't have a job for you." And I said: "Why? You've got some vacancies." He said that he was concerned that I wouldn't be able to do that kind of work. I convinced that individual to give me an opportunity to see whether or not I could do the work. He did, and I stand here today because of that.
That's what these people want -- an opportunity to prove themselves, to be trained, to learn and be able to win the position on the basis that they have earned it. They deserve it not on the basis that they are female or handicapped, or that they're a minority in terms of race. They need the opportunity to prove that they deserve that job because they are the best person for that job. That's what they want. I have spoken to many people about the intent of this bill, and without exception they have all concurred with me. I've spoken to some businesswomen who have said: "Look, I got where I am today, even though it was difficult, because of my own initiative. Nobody gave me anything. I earned everything that I have today, and that's what makes me feel proud." This bill takes away from that self-satisfaction. It will dilute the warm feeling that we all get because we have achieved something in life through hard work and dedication, and through the knowledge we have created over the years with that hard work and dedication.
This bill puts those decisions in the hands of a very highly paid commissioner, who will now make decisions for individuals rather than letting them have the opportunity of doing it themselves. From where I stand, that is wrong. I would have supported this government wholeheartedly if they had come forward with a policy that would have provided equal access for employment to all interest groups in British Columbia. If through that process it had identified any group of people who were having difficulty achieving in the public sector, if it had addressed that by way of education to bring these people up to an equal status so that they could fulfil their dreams and compete for those jobs on an even basis, I would have supported that as well.
While the government is well intentioned with this legislation, I'm extremely concerned that it is not going to do what it thinks it's going to do. It's going to take away some of that pride and desire, which many of these people in these groups want. Self-satisfaction is extremely important in our daily lives. If we take away from our ability to achieve that, and all of a sudden we feel that it's our right to have it and that we shouldn't have the opportunity to earn that and we don't need it, because the government's going to give it to us, I think that's a step backward. For those reasons I will be voting against this bill.
J. Dalton: I'm pleased to take my place and make some comments about Bill 66. It's fair to say as an opening statement that this bill, like many others that have been introduced in this session -- most of them quite late in the session; that goes without saying, given that it's July 26 -- has been put on the order paper in a rather rushed and belated fashion, without the proper consideration that any bill merits. This bill is an excellent example of what I would describe as the social engineering agenda of this government. Perhaps in some sense there is merit in a government trying to shape society into its own form or model. If the government of the day had run on a platform in the last election that gave some indication of the possible social engineering that may come forward.... Quite frankly, I don't think there was any evidence in the election of 1991 that the NDP government would be bringing in such vastly varied legislation that has many significant implications. I will suggest that, in a larger sense, they have a hidden agenda.
I refer to what I consider to be the essence of Bill 66, which, of course, comes from the Korbin report. Before I make any reference to the bill itself, I would like to read into the record a reference from the Korbin report, volume 1, which is the final report that the Korbin commission put forward. Also of interest is that it contains the draft Public Service Act, which has found its way almost verbatim onto the order paper and which we are now debating. On page 25 the Korbin report says: "The public service workforce is not representative of the public it serves."
While that may or may not be, I think this is where the hidden agenda is quite possibly found in the bill -- if indeed we have to search for one. That's a fair comment, because this government presents legislation that on the surface seems to have merit -- no pun intended, hon. Speaker. In a moment I'm going to talk
[ Page 9168 ]
about the principle of merit contained in this bill. The bill seems to have merit. Probably the government will argue in summation that the opposition should not be heard to be speaking contrary to this bill, because then, of course, we would be guilty, I suppose, of being politically incorrect. But I would suggest that this government is trying to go too far to be politically correct, and they've missed the target.
What do we find in Bill 66 itself that has been taken from the Korbin report and the quotation that I have just made reference to? In section 8 under the heading "Appointments to the Public Service," we find that this bill is to seek representation "of the diversity of the people of British Columbia...." I think that is a fair translation into the bill from the quote I made previously from the Korbin report. That seems to fly in the face of the first part of section 8, which talks about appointments to the public service being based on the principle of merit and, the provision goes on, "the knowledge, skills and abilities of eligible applicants."
Quite frankly, when you consider the number of other bills that have tried to mould our society in the shape of the government of the day.... Two or three come to mind. Certainly, I think, the Human Rights Amendment Act is a bill that exemplifies that. Bill 78, the Public Sector Employers Act, a bill we'll perhaps be dealing with later today, is also, I would suggest, trying in a way to mould our society to the form this government would like it to take.
Most importantly, what we have in front of us in Bill 66 is, I think, a contradiction. I think there's a built-in discrepancy in section 8. We would like this government to give some serious thought to whether indeed they believe in the principle of merit -- which we in the opposition advocate should be the guideline for all hiring....
I think it's also ironic, in a way, that the Korbin report was commissioned in large part to find ways to save tax dollars. I'm not so sure that the contradiction between the principle of merit and the probable hidden hiring agenda of this government is going to save money. In fact, I think it may be costly in the long run. The cost factor comes in if we get away from hiring on the principle of merit and go more on the basis of how we can best serve our society by a hiring quota. I think that's what we actually find in this bill, and that's where this bill is going to take British Columbia. If we are going to be considering a hiring quota and potentially cast aside the principle of merit -- which this bill starts with but then detracts from, I think -- then we are not going to achieve one of the objectives of the Korbin commission, which is ways to save public money.
[5:00]
We actually may be defeating that purpose; it may be costing more in the long run than is necessary, and could be avoided. I say that because -- even though we may agree in a general sense that there's a laudable objective in this bill, which is the hiring process based on merit -- I think that concept of hiring on merit is discredited by the references in the same section 8 of this bill, which is central to the whole hiring process this government will be undertaking if this bill is passed. We have here a contradiction: the principle of merit is described, but then the very same section goes on to take away and detract from that principle.
If indeed we are searching for a public service that is representative of the diversity of British Columbia -- which may be a laudable goal -- this bill is not going to achieve that. This government has a social engineering objective in mind that is not going to best serve the taxpayers of British Columbia. I'm hoping that the minister in whose name this bill has been introduced, the Finance minister, has the taxpayer as his number one objective, but this bill will not accomplish that purpose. In its ultimate sense, this bill is primarily -- and perhaps only -- going to achieve one purpose: what best serves the government of the day, whose agenda is not one that the people of this province would necessarily support or be well served by.
I have to speak against the principle of Bill 66, because there is a hidden agenda found within the bill. A contradiction is built into it. We should not give this government licence to go ahead with a hiring practice that is going to be ultimately or potentially wasteful from the taxpayers' point of view and that will not necessarily result in the most efficient public service. I would like to think that the government would have an efficient hiring process in mind. This bill fails to meet both the objective of efficiency and the financial constraints which the Korbin commission in large part was undertaken to find. With the contradictions that are built into Bill 66, I have to speak against the bill. I encourage all members to give very serious consideration to the discrepancy that we find when we look behind the flowery, complimentary language, because as I said earlier, we all support the principle of merit, but this bill does not support merit in the ultimate sense. It actually leaves the door open to a contradiction, where the hiring concepts of government will take second place to a social engineering concept that this government, in its true sense, has in mind.
L. Hanson: I rise to speak in second reading of Bill 66 in opposition to the bill. The main concern expressed by everyone who has stood up to speak on second reading, barring the minister who introduced it, has been around the theory, the philosophy and the honest belief that this bill is about one thing, and one thing only: hiring quotas and reverse discrimination. I know that it has been said a number of times, but the people of British Columbia, who will be the ultimate decision-makers as to what is in this bill, would certainly agree. It purports to make the issue of merit in public service hiring the main principle, but when you look at the different sections of the act there is absolutely no doubt that the act would put in place hiring quotas and reverse discrimination.
There is no doubt that the government will say that that is not their intention. If you read the bill carefully, you will see that they would have great difficulty in asserting that it would not allow them to make the issue of merit secondary to the issue of quotas and reverse discrimination. I don't think that the bill will tell the people of British Columbia exactly what it is and what it can do as clearly as it should. I think it's a dishonest
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attempt to legislate pay equity through the back door, if you will.
I have heard considerable criticism. When you look at the polls published today, the NDP in Ontario are less than popular, and the Premier of Ontario, Mr. Rae, is also suffering from the same difficulty as our Premier in British Columbia. That would tell me that the ability of the Ontario government to be accepted and endorsed by the people of Ontario is less than what they would like to see at this point. But I have to give the Ontario government and the Premier of that province credit, because at least they had the intestinal fortitude to introduce legislation that said up front what the intention was. They made no bones about it. The introduction of their legislation was to further the goals of employment equity as they saw it.
Without a doubt, the enabling clauses in the regulatory power and the authority that that would give the commissioner would enforce quotas and provide reverse discrimination. All of those people who have worked so hard to get experience and to educate themselves in order to be qualified for a particular position or vocation will suffer as a result of this kind of legislation, because the main consideration will not be merit; it will be your sex or whether you belong to a racial minority that will qualify you as an applicant for the job.
I heard the Minister of Women's Equality suggest that there was an arrogance in the suggestion that there should not be this quota system in the hiring of public servants. It has been proven many times that the best and most reasonable way of encouraging people of a minority or who may be of a less than optimal representation within the public service, to increase or to give them the opportunity, is to encourage them to get the experience and education so that they have the ability to qualify on the basis of merit for a particular job, and they would be the candidate considered most optimal for a position because of their experience and abilities.
I think that the people of British Columbia will see that the process the government is engineering in this bill will take away from the opportunity of hiring the most qualified people for the positions. That is not to suggest that those people who may be less than optimum in the government's opinion have less representation within the ranks of the public service than the government feels they should; nor to take from them that they may be the choice as a candidate for a particular job based on merit, because there are hundreds, thousands, millions of people in British Columbia, Canada and the world who are very qualified for various positions. But to hire them on the basis that they represent a particular segment of society and should be given special consideration when the merit consideration is a second qualification for that hiring process is wrong.
I know that it has been said many times that this bill provides discriminatory principles and would provide reverse discrimination. Those people who feel that there is less representation of a particular sex or race in the public service feel that they are doing a favour to those people who are underrepresented. I suggest that the fact is the reverse: by providing this reverse discrimination, a further field of discrimination is going to develop. A quota system that treats people of a particular sex or minority in our society in that way ignores their value as individuals. The end result of putting this legislation in place is going to be that discrimination will become more of an issue, because the best-qualified person, regardless of their age, racial background or whether they are a minority in our society, will not have the same opportunity as others to seek a job in the public service. That is also a type of discrimination.
The secret to our difficulty of ensuring that there is sex representation and that racial minorities are represented at a reasonable level in the public service is to provide opportunities, education and experience. That will naturally happen, and this is the wrong way to do it. I know that this government is very dedicated to social engineering by legislation, but that will not work. It has been proven in many countries that it will not work, and it will be proven over and over again as a result of this type of legislation. I think that the principles behind this bill are wrong. I am not suggesting that the minister is not dedicated and honest in what he is trying to do in this bill, but that is where we differ. That intention is wrong because it will not work. You cannot engineer social changes by legislation; you must do it by education and by providing opportunities -- not by mandating it because of legal requirements.
[5:15]
I look forward to the debate in third reading and to delving into the details of each section of Bill 66. When we have completed that process, if the government does not recognize what they are doing here and if the government is honest in its intention, I think they will reconsider their position. When we go through the process of clause-by-clause debate, I know that the people of B.C. will understand exactly what is happening with this legislation. The polls are detrimental to his popularity now, and they may get even worse if the Premier of our province does not take a second look at this legislation. I look forward to the committee stage debate, and I certainly will be opposing the bill when the vote comes.
G. Farrell-Collins: I've been listening to the debate all afternoon, and it's interesting to hear people on both sides present their views. As happens with many pieces of legislation or with issues that come forward in estimates, the goals of the government and the goals of the opposition -- all three parties for that matter, including the independent members -- are often the same. What we are trying to achieve is often the same. Where we differ, however, is in the methods we use to achieve those goals.
I listened with great interest to the Minister of Women's Equality when she spoke earlier today. I found myself agreeing with a number of the things she was saying, shocking as that may be for some people. There were also a number of things she said that I fundamentally disagree with. One of the main goals that she highlighted -- and all members of the House have highlighted this in their statements on this
[ Page 9170 ]
legislation -- is that we must ensure that every British Columbian -- regardless of where they live, the colour of their skin, what religion they follow, whether they follow a religion, whether they are male or female, whether they have a physical or mental handicap -- should have the same access to employment and to participate in the public service in British Columbia. I don't think anybody in the House would disagree with that. I think everybody understands that and agrees with that. I would say that 99.9 percent of all British Columbians agree with that. There may be a few who don't, but I think that the vast majority of British Columbians would agree with that principle.
The question, however, is: how do you ensure that those doors are open to everyone and that every person in this province has the same opportunity? I have to take not what the members opposite say or what the government says to be fact or what the government says is the way they intend to bring that goal about; I have to take what they put down in writing in the bill as the method they choose to use in order to achieve those goals.
When the Minister of Women's Equality stood up and said that there are lots of ways and lots of things we should be doing as a government to ensure equality of access to these jobs and equality of participation in the public service, I had to agree with her. There are a lot of ways we can do it. She mentioned advertising not just in the two major papers in this province -- the Vancouver Province and the Vancouver Sun -- but in ethnic and aboriginal newspapers. The government should be advertising in all the regional newspapers, so that people out there in the regions who may choose to apply for those jobs know that they are available. Those are some key things. I hope, if the government isn't already doing all of those things, that it would do them starting tomorrow. It's not a hard thing to do. It just takes the willpower to set that policy in place so that everybody knows the jobs are there and available to them. That's something that can be done.
The minister also referred to two advertisements. One listed a number of qualifications like three years' experience, such and such an education, etc. There were about four or five points, and one of them was a driver's licence. The other advertisement for the same position was based more on what skills were needed to accomplish the job. One of the things highlighted was that one ad said you needed a driver's licence and the other said you had to be able to get around the lower mainland or downtown Vancouver. Well, somebody could have a bike. In downtown Vancouver, at most times of the day, a bike is a far more efficient means of travel than a car and is a lot cheaper and more environmentally sound. Someone without a driver's licence but with a bicycle could easily do that job. The better advertisement and job description focused on the skills and abilities one needed, rather than on a set of arbitrary qualifications measured by some arbitrary means. As we all know, you can often find someone who has six years of post-secondary education but doesn't have the skills and abilities of somebody who maybe has only two years. Sometimes that happens. Just because you've jumped through a number of arbitrary hoops doesn't mean you are qualified for a position. There are other similarities like that.
I remember a job description that one of my constituents phoned me about. It was a government posting for someone to work as a workers' adviser in, I believe, Labour and Consumer Services. It didn't say that this person had to be able to speak Punjabi or understand the aspects of Indo-Canadian culture and family life -- all of those things would have been important for the job. It said the person had to be Indo-Canadian. It was an advertisement in the government's Postings. That's fundamentally the wrong approach, because there may well be a person who is not Indo-Canadian who speaks Punjabi and understands the cultural and family aspects of Indo-Canadian society very well, and is able to do that job in a wonderful way. Maybe they have spent their life studying it or lived there most of their life. Maybe they grew up in the Punjab -- who knows. But to limit it to somebody who is Punjabi discriminates against the opportunity of finding somebody who may have all those qualifications but is not Punjabi. Maybe not, it seems like a pretty high risk; there wouldn't be very many people who'd fit those qualifications who weren't Punjabi. But more importantly, that job description puts somebody in a box. It doesn't say you have to have these skills, abilities and life experiences; it says that you have to be Punjabi. They were putting a label on somebody instead of focusing on their skills and abilities, and that's the wrong way to go. It's a subtle difference, but I find myself agreeing with the Minister of Women's Equality on this one. If any employer, government or not, is looking for somebody to fill a position, they should really focus on the skills that are needed and what is necessary. That's one way to help people and help us end up with a public sector or private sector workforce that's truly representative of British Columbia as a whole.
That's what this bill is trying to achieve. Indeed, section 8 says that the commissioner may direct certain parameters to be put in place so that applicants would be limited or given preference in a manner intended to achieve employment equity objectives. While the Minister of Women's Equality talks about removing barriers in a positive way, allowing and encouraging people to participate and actively recruiting people to participate, the bill says something different. It says that this commissioner can put down a set of standards and parameters that exclude people, so that what is left over is what you work with. It excludes people from the process; it excludes them from applying. They're not part of the eligible group -- as if this commissioner is somehow going to be able to determine what the eligible group is.
I don't have a problem with what the Minister of Women's Equality said. I agree with it, and I think most British Columbians would, but what the bill says is something very different. When we vote on this bill, tonight or whenever, we can't vote on the words of the Minister of Women's Equality and we won't even be able to vote on the words of the Minister of Finance when he wraps up. We have to vote on what's in the bill, on the words that are present in the legislation.
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The majority of British Columbians would question not the words of the Minister of Women's Equality but the words that are in the legislation. It says that this commissioner can limit those people who can apply and can exclude people from the pool of people who can apply. It also states that the commissioner can limit the group of people who can apply to a certain geographical area -- so that only people from, say, Vancouver Island or from the Kootenays need apply. It is somehow as if you lived in the Bulkley Valley, you couldn't apply for a job in Castlegar.
Last time I checked around B.C., you could still live wherever you wanted to. Why shouldn't somebody who is a British Columbian, regardless of whether they live in the Queen Charlottes, Castlegar, Bulkley Valley or Vancouver Island, be able to apply for every single position that's available? When we hear wonderful words of inclusion from the Minister of Women's Equality, wonderful words of how we want to provide access for people, to draw people in and encourage those underrepresented in the public sector to participate, why then does the bill say something else? Why does the bill use exclusionary language? Why does it say that these people need not apply?
I find myself torn, and I wonder if either the Minister of Women's Equality didn't understand what's here or has a problem with what's here, or whether I misunderstood what she said. Her words, sentiments and intent don't match what's in the legislation.
I can take the argument from another point of view. Let's say that the government really believes that the way to hire people in the public sector and the public service -- because it's going to all come together, but let's stick to the public service -- is to go out and exclude people first -- to take all the people in the province and pick out major or minor groups and put them aside and say, "Sorry. You, you and all those people over there can't apply for the job, and unless you live on northern Vancouver Island, you can't apply for the job either," and then select from that small group of people. Then we will have a problem and misunderstanding here. I think the government is misunderstanding what the people of the province are saying when they say they want everybody to have access to all jobs in this province, because that's not how you achieve it. That's not how you build a society that's tolerant and respects one another and the different cultures, genders and life experiences of people. That's the wrong way. When we start putting tags on people and excluding them, we get into some really dangerous territory.
[5:30]
Despite the sentiments we've heard from the Minister of Women's Equality and the Minister of Finance initially -- and, I'm sure what we'll hear in his wrap-up -- let's focus for a minute on their words. Let's assume, despite what they've said, that what they really mean is what's in the legislation. If they believe that's the way you go about building a representative public service, then why are there so many exclusions? Why is it that section 10 says temporary appointments of not more than seven months' duration don't apply? If that process of exclusion -- which we were involved in in section 8 -- works and is the way to go, then why throw away those exclusions when it comes to temporary appointments? I think it would work just as well for temporary as for permanent employment.
Why wouldn't it apply to deputy ministers? We have a number of deputy ministers in this province, and that's the senior level of the bureaucracy. Unless you get a good plum by some of these appointments, deputy minister primarily is about as high as you can go. When you've reached the deputy minister level you've really accomplished something. Why is it that, in the process of selecting the top people in the civil service -- those people who are role models for all those people below them to strive for.... Why doesn't that process of exclusion in section 8 apply to deputy ministers? Why would you make that exclusion? If it works so well, why would you have to do that for deputy ministers? I think that's a legitimate question. I think the public would want to know the answer to that. Maybe the Minister of Finance will give it to us.
By far the most enlightening one is section 15. It says -- and this is a good one -- that all appointments made through the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, all the appointments made by those 17 people who sit on the other side and form the government, don't have to follow the process set out in section 8. If the process in section 8 is so good, if excluding people from the lists and then picking from whatever is left over is the way to build a representative public service, why does cabinet need to exclude its own appointments from it? Why wouldn't it operate within the same process? If it's such a good system, why not stick to it? Why not apply it to all appointments and hirings? I would say that the reason we have the limits in sections 15, 12 and 10 -- the sections on Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, deputy ministers and temporary appointments -- is because the parameters in section 8 don't work. They won't work. They won't achieve the goals we want to achieve because they're fundamentally heading in the wrong direction.
They are selecting and tagging individual workers in British Columbia, saying: "Sorry, we don't want you for this job. We don't even want to talk to you, quite frankly. We're going to put it right in the newspaper, and it will say, 'If you are X person from this racial majority, if you speak these languages or if you live in this region of the province, don't even pick up the phone to talk to us. Don't even start to write us a letter, because we don't want to hear from you. We don't care how good you are; we don't care how much experience you have; we don't care what your skills and life experience are. We don't want to talk to you'." That's what the bill is saying. I'm not making this up. This is what's in the legislation.
I don't believe that the majority of fair-minded British Columbians -- whether they're women or members of ethnic minorities, or whether they have mental or physical handicaps, whatever tag the government wants to put on them -- would agree with that exclusionary process, with that way of limiting access. I think it's something that just sticks in people's throats. They want to see that every single British Columbian has a right to apply for every job, no matter
[ Page 9172 ]
who they are -- whether they are a he or she, no matter what their last name is or what it sounds like, no matter what language they speak or what religion they practise, or whether they have a handicap or not.
If the government wants to go out of its way to build up the representation of certain groups, that have historically been excluded from participation in the public service to make a more representative public service in this province, then the way to do it is to bring down the barriers and to go out there and recruit people. Let's encourage people who live in remote regions of the province, who don't have access to the Vancouver Sun or the Province, or in many cases even to a telephone, to make applications, attend the interviews and gain access to the process by which they can participate in the public service in an active way. That's what we want to see.
I don't even think that most British Columbians would mind if we spent a little money to do that. If the government advertised in aboriginal newspapers, aboriginal circulars, aboriginal periodicals and in multicultural or multi-ethnic periodicals that exist in this province, I think most British Columbians would be glad that the government was going out there and actually finding the incredible wealth of people we have in this province, who aren't necessarily white males and Anglo-Saxons.
There are millions of people in this province. One of the riches that we have in Canada and British Columbia is that we have the privilege of having access to some of the most varied cultures that live in any one area. They have different outlooks on things, different ways of approaching policies and different viewpoints and different ways of solving problems. We have the ability to do that.
Many people in this province are just becoming aware of the vibrant aboriginal cultures we have in this province and the different ways aboriginal people look at community and social problems that exist in their societies, which we can learn from and apply to all of British Columbia. Why is it that we would want to start excluding people from various jobs? Why would we want to push people away instead of bringing people together? We have to look, number one, at merit: finding the best person for the job. The government should go out of its way to ensure that they find the best person for the job. I don't think you find the best person for the job by putting two ads in two papers and that's it. You have to recruit people. If big business wants to hire top-notch people for a certain position, they go to all the universities; they go to the various corporations and they try and recruit the most active people they can. They try to find the best people they can; they go out of their way to recruit people. Why would the government try to exclude people?
I can vote in favour of many of the things the Minister of Women's Equality said, but I cannot vote in favour of this bill. This bill says something very different. I would encourage all members to take the time to look at sections 8, 10, 12 and 15 in this piece of legislation and ask themselves why this government is choosing to try and achieve some equity in the public service in British Columbia. Are they doing it in a positive way? Are they doing it in a way that builds respect for the various cultures, languages and genders and all the other wonderful things we have in this province? Or are they doing it in a way that pushes people away and excludes peoples, and labels and tags them? I think we can achieve the goals that I know the government is trying to achieve with this legislation, but the opposition would do it in a much different way, and I think most British Columbians would want it to be done in a much different way.
G. Wilson: As I rise to speak to Bill 66, I am going to take a slightly different approach in my opening remarks and then underscore some of the comments that have been made by the members of the opposition.
First of all, I would like to congratulate this government on at least having the honesty to put in legislation what it intends to do with respect to the hiring procedures for the public service sector. What they could have done -- indeed what they may have wished they had done -- is simply not included under section 8 the question of merit and eligible applicants. Rather, they could have have simply given -- by some form of order or some kind of government regulation -- some deed or commandment to those who would be in the hiring practice to effect what it is they are trying to accomplish.
It is honest to take to the people a philosophical direction that is argued. In this case, I think it is argued by this government because it fits their social, philosophical approach to trying to deal with what is a systemic and very difficult problem. I don't think there is a member in the Liberal opposition who does not recognize that in a multicultural society, we must find ways to remove barriers to entry to the workforce. I think that is critically important. If there has been discrimination against or distinctions made between people, then it is incumbent upon government to seek ways to try to remove or overcome those barriers. The difficulty we have with the philosophical approach being directed by this particular bill is the manner in which that is undertaken.
There are times in a Legislature when the differences between the government and the opposition are honest to the degree that they represent different philosophical approaches toward resolution of what is seen as a common problem. Such is the case will Bill 66. It is not that members on this side of the House don't believe that they have to remove barriers. Indeed, we believe that we must see barriers removed and a level playing field put in place so that equal access is available and equality among people is maintained in hiring in the public service. Whether we agree with it or not, the public service is becoming more and more of a standard by which other people involved in hiring base their direction with respect to procedure. The difficulty we have is something that I will take up in more detail in committee stage, because in second reading, when we're dealing with the philosophy of this bill, we recognize that we do want to remove barriers. Our difficulty with section 8 is specifically with the matter of appointment on merit and with the question to which merit will be applied.
[ Page 9173 ]
I know that in second reading debate we cannot enter into a detailed discussion or explanation of the language of the bill. That is left for committee stage. Let me simply say that while section 8(1)(a) talks about how appointments will be based on the principle of merit, section 8(1)(b) says that appointments will be the result of a process designed to appraise the knowledge, skills and abilities of eligible applicants. I know that was addressed by other members of the opposition in this debate. What is meant by that? Section 8(4) says: "Subject to the regulations, the commissioner may direct in respect of a vacancy or class of vacancies in the public service, that applicants be (a) limited or given preference in a manner intended to achieve employment equity objectives." We know in this House that we have Bill 39, the Multiculturalism Act, before us. The member for Okanagan East and other members have made reference to how it dovetails into this.
Similarly, section 8(4) says applicants are "(b) limited to employees to encourage career development and advancement, (c) limited to employees of a stated occupational group, position level or organizational unit, or (d) limited to a stated geographical area or locale." Inherently, this provides a framework where, in the attempt to remove barriers, we can establish new criteria, barriers, objects or hurdles that people have to try to overcome to be able to meet the eligibility requirements that may be in place.
It isn't so much that this bill takes an affirmative-action move toward quotas. I'm certain that the minister will get up shortly and argue that nowhere in this bill does it talk about quotas. I would acknowledge in advance that that is true; nowhere does it say that we are going to move to quotas. But the problem with the wording in this bill is that while it may be in the interest of this government to have an affirmative action program that falls short of quotas, we know that quotas are in place in other jurisdictions. It leaves that possibility wide open. This bill does not explicitly say that merit will be the primary consideration when hiring. If we can amend this at the committee stage, we should do so.
[5:45]
I don't intend to speak long or to try to bludgeon the government on this from a partisan political view. In my comments today, I try to draw attention to a fundamental difference in philosophy between government and the opposition. With Bill 66, the government is moving to a new employment opportunity that provides for the implementation of affirmative action. They do so, and they stand there and applaud it. Those of us on this side of the House say that affirmative action is not the route to go. What we need to do is approach the problem of systemic discrimination where that problem results. Where that result is seen, we can go to the root cause and remove the root cause of that systemic discrimination. Through education and a process of evolution in society, we can start to eliminate those barriers.
Members opposite say that that is a laudable thing to do, but it takes too long. That kind of process has been at work for 100 years in Canada, and we are not there yet. They are absolutely correct. We have to find a way to overcome those problems that will speed up that process. As we do that, we must be very careful that we do not violate fundamental rights and freedoms or put in place inherent discrimination against a sector in the attempt, through affirmative action, to favour one group over another.
When we get into committee stage, we will explore this in some detail. I believe that this section of the act has regrettable wording. It is open to interpretation and implementation that will cause not only a lot of discomfort among the general public but, I suspect, a great deal of discomfort among the public service. I say that because if we are going to profile our society and community and pigeonhole people into categories in order to make sure that the public sector accurately reflects the makeup of society, then presumably somebody somewhere in this government is now asking the public service to fill out where they think they fit with respect to the categories that are inherently defined in the principles of this bill. Hon. Speaker, I think you will find that people in the public service will resist that, will resent that and will not comply -- nor should they. When you look at what is intended in this bill, in order to make that application work people will either have to pigeonhole themselves or be pigeonholed by someone else to fit into one of the boxes that we see out in society.
If you're hiring, you should hire on the basis of merit. It should not matter whether the applicant is male or female or whether the applicant is of any particular ethnic or racial origin. Nor should it matter what the age of the applicant is if they are best qualified to do the job. Those of us on this side of the House take issue with this bill on that principle. We will fight it in committee stage, and we hope to amend it.
C. Serwa: I am pleased to rise to speak on Bill 66. I call this the Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster bill. It reminds me of the concept developed by the federal government some time ago where Canadian content was deemed to be very important in the entertainment field, and Wayne and Shuster did a spoof on their show. They were interviewed, and one fellow said: "What is your talent?" He said, "What do you mean talent? We're Canadian," as if that was the answer.
Simply stated, that is fundamentally the flaw in this principle. I ardently believe in the requirement for competence in the ultimate determination for hiring: no quotas or discrimination, but one involving competence. The Korbin commission report has been concluded and tabled. Fundamentally, Judi Korbin has done precisely what she was told to do: select the appropriate information, quantify and qualify it and submit what the government wanted at the end of the report.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
Government and the Minister of Finance are responsible for assuring the public that responsibility and accountability on the part of government comes to be. There is no question that we are looking for knowledge and experience and the ultimate generation of wisdom
[ Page 9174 ]
in competent people. No one can convince me that you can be cost-effective or efficient in the private or public sector in providing service on the basis of a quota system. The quota system works against the system, because it gets backs up. I believe it is demeaning to the individual who is selected, whether on the basis of gender or racial origin, because of a quota system being in place. I don't think that there is confidence, self-esteem or pride associated with that type of a questionable opportunity.
I am concerned about it when we are talking about the expenditure of public funds and trying to provide a cost-effective, efficient government -- not only fiscally efficient but efficient in the provision of goods and services to the people. I believe in the free market system. The free market system is the reason why Canadians have such a good standard of living. It's simply because of the free market system, recognized all over the world by individuals who flock to Canada and who want to come to Canada as a destination opportunity for themselves and their children due to the free market system that we have here. Here we're talking about tampering. When we move away from the merit principle, we move away from any basis of acceptable recognition by those within the system and those, for example, in the public looking to restore their confidence and faith in the system.
The mandatory quota system has been tried by the RCMP with a strong backlash. A certain percentage of people seeking employment in the RCMP had to be from Quebec, because they represented a significant percentage of the population. The fact that the province of Quebec didn't use RCMP services didn't enter into that quota system. What did we get because of that? We got a strong backlash against French-Canadians. In the military service, the quota system also required enhancing the promotion of individuals of French extraction. Again, animosity and antagonism is the legacy that still exists because of the memories of that. I don't think the government of the day wants to see that. I don't believe the civil service wants to see that. According to the figures I have, women are in fact well represented in the civil service. As a matter of fact, the figures I have are that, of the approximately 39,500 civil servants, a little over 22,000 are women and just over 17,000 are men. The other thing....
Interjection.
C. Serwa: This is on gender, and I'm just abbreviating my talk, hon. minister, so that you may have your five minutes.
An interesting thing to note in these statistics is that women are entering into the civil service at an early age, but as they advance in age their numbers drop off. There is a dominance of males at the older age end of the spectrum. Part and parcel of looking at statistics is exploring all the reasons for their differences. You cannot draw absolute conclusions. Looking at the graduates of the school system in my constituency, I think the majority of scholarships and bursaries are won by young ladies. More often than not the top student in the school is a young lady. The ability is there. If they desire a long public service career and are able to make that type of commitment, they will. And it is the same for people of various racial origins. They have what we all have in this country, and that is the opportunity. Striving to be the best that we can possibly be is the reason for merit, and merit has to be the very essence of the government's hiring practice.
The Speaker: The minister upon rising closes debate.
Hon. G. Clark: I have been listening for about four hours now to this debate. I must tell the members of the House that I find it quite disturbing to hear members of the opposition say that they are in favour -- except for the last member for Jurassic Park -- of employment equity and of promoting visible minorities and women, but they are not in favour of how we go about doing it in this legislation. They are saying not to legislate it, that it will just happen. They are in favour of this, but they're telling us not to do anything in legislation to promote and advance the cause of minorities, women or the disabled, or anybody else.
I find most contemptuous this thinly disguised attempt to wiggle out from under their opposition to employment equity. They are opposed to this policy, but they don't have the guts to come into the House and say they're opposed to it. It's hypocritical. In fact, it's more than hypocritical -- it's fearmongering hypocrisy that we're seeing from the members opposite. Fearmongering: this means quotas and reverse discrimination, this means that somehow those who are Anglo-Saxon or white will not be promoted in the civil service. That is what we have heard every speaker say. They have pandered to the forces of reaction.
Sometimes I think they read Vaughn Palmer, one of the columnists. I even heard someone read out the writings of a columnist -- you know, the Pied Piper. They read it, and they read that it's horrible. The Pied Piper says it's horrible, so they stand up here and one after another, they say that it's horrible.
What is it we are talking about when it comes to employment equity? We are talking about the fact that every single province in Canada has employment equity policies. The federal government has employment equity policies; the Royal Bank has employment equity policies....
An Hon. Member: No, no.
Hon. G. Clark: The Social Credit Party says that is a communist plot, that there are Reds everywhere. Somehow this is communism -- that the government would legislate the promotion of women. This is communism, they say. The member for Okanagan West is convinced that there are Reds everywhere when it comes to this government and this kind of legislation. Yet as bad as that Social Credit government was for years on these questions, even the government of which that member was a part -- and, very briefly, a cabinet minister -- started to pursue employment equity initiatives, like every government in Canada. In the last administration, in the last Social Credit government, I see here in Education one management-level position restricted to women. The competition was open to
[ Page 9175 ]
women only. They sought permission and received approval -- from the B.C. Council of Human Rights that they appointed -- to advertise for women only. In Environment: three positions for native Indians, solely restricted to aboriginal people. They applied for and received approval from the B.C. Council of Human Rights. In Native Affairs: four management-level positions restricted to natives. In the Ministry of Parks: 12 officer and first-line, supervisor-level positions restricted to four designated groups: disabled people, aboriginal people and gender or visible minorities. They actually went out.... I have an ad right here from the newspaper from one of the ministries during that administration saying that these positions were limited; all other groups were excluded from applying. Solicitor General: 11 management and senior support-level positions in the corrections branch restricted to women. Social Services and Housing: one supervisor and six social worker positions in native family and child service units -- preference given to natives. In Transportation and Highways: six positions. I have it here. In bold letters it says: "For women only."
The member for Okanagan West.... There must have been communists in the previous administration. The Reds! Look under the bed. Look under that desk -- they must be there, because it happened in the previous government. Employment equity initiatives were pursued by the previous government. This isn't a radical idea; this isn't some kind of communist idea. The Conservative government in Manitoba, the Liberal national government, the Mulroney government -- every government in Canada pursues ways to promote visible minorities, women and other disadvantaged groups in the public service.
[6:00]
We're no different from that. It's a travesty that when you look around the public service and at the senior levels, there are very few women. I don't think there are any Chinese Canadians, and there are virtually no Indo-Canadians at the senior level of the public service. Why is that? Are they not qualified? Are they not intelligent enough? Can they not compete for the job? Of course they can. This kind of approach to government is simply saying that we're going to do the best we can, within the merit principle, to advance the cause of disadvantaged groups -- like every other government in Canada. Those who see communists and Reds under every bed can go and make that argument. This is good, solid, progressive and modern government.
I know my time is running out, but I want to make one last point. When it comes to merit, the members opposite said we should have merit the way we had it before and shouldn't fool with the merit principle. The Korbin commission had one year. They spoke to thousands of public employees; they travelled the province and listened to briefs from people. And they all said the same thing: the merit principle wasn't followed by the last administration and is not followed today in the public service in British Columbia. They think there's favouritism.
What we are doing in this legislation, and what Judi Korbin recommended, is reinstituting the merit principle in the public service in British Columbia -- so that it doesn't matter who you know or where you come from, you can advance in positions in the public service in British Columbia through the cause of merit. That's what this bill is all about. After one year of public hearings, we are bringing forward legislation which is supported in the public service and by the management of the public service. It is the result of one year of process to ensure that the merit principle applies and to advance the cause of employment equity, It's something we're very proud of.
I think members opposite should be ashamed of themselves for standing up here and pretending that quotas, social engineering or something underhanded is going on here. This is exactly the kind of progressive government we want to pursue. We want to see more women, minority groups and disabled people in the senior levels of public service. We want the public service of British Columbia to more accurately represent the public it serves; it should. That's what we're trying to pursue here, hon. members. If members opposite were honest, instead of pandering to those kinds of attitudes out there and making up stories about what this bill does, they should look at this legislation, look at it across the country and support it. I move second reading.
Motion approved on the following division:
| YEAS -- 29 | ||
|
Petter |
Barlee |
Beattie |
|
Schreck |
Lortie |
Hammell |
|
Lali |
Giesbrecht |
Miller |
|
Smallwood |
Clark |
Zirnhelt |
|
Blencoe |
Copping |
Lovick |
|
Ramsey |
Pullinger |
Farnworth |
|
Evans |
Dosanjh |
O'Neill |
|
Hartley |
Streifel |
Lord |
|
Randall |
Garden |
Kasper |
|
Brewin |
|
Janssen |
| NAYS -- 17 | ||
|
Chisholm |
Gingell |
Dalton |
|
Farrell-Collins |
Hanson |
Weisgerber |
|
Serwa |
De Jong |
Neufeld |
|
Fox |
Symons |
Tanner |
|
Hurd |
Warnke |
Anderson |
|
Jarvis |
|
Jones |
Bill 66, the Public Service Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.
Hon. G. Clark: I move that the House at its rising stand recessed for 30 minutes.
Motion approved.
The House recessed at 6:10 p.m.
The House resumed at 6:44 p.m.
[ Page 9176 ]
[The Speaker in the chair.]
Hon. G. Clark: I call second reading of Bill 79.
SUPPLY ACT, 1993-94
Hon. G. Clark: Hon. Speaker, this is essentially a formality after the debate on all the estimates has taken place, as well as the motion to pass the estimates. Normally it's done in three readings in one day, under standing order 81. Normally we do it on the last day before interim supply expires, and we pass the three readings in one day after all the debate. But because interim supply does not expire until, I believe, Thursday of this week, it's unusual to introduce a supply bill, as we did on Friday, and have second reading today and then committee stage later. As I said at the outset, all the exhaustive debate on the estimates has taken place, and this is essentially a formality. With that, I call second reading.
[6:45]
The Speaker: The hon. member for West Vancouver-Capilano on what matter?
J. Dalton: Second reading of the bill.
The Speaker: Hon. member, the Chair appreciates that the member has risen on second reading of a bill, but as the Supply Act is merely an administrative rather than a legislative matter, it has not been the practice in this House to debate second reading. With that, I call the motion on second reading of Bill 79.
Motion approved.
Bill 79, Supply Act 1993-94, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.
Hon. G. Clark: I call second reading of Bill 7.
SOCIAL SERVICE TAX AMENDMENT ACT, 1993
Hon. G. Clark: Hon. Speaker, the Social Service Tax Amendment Act, 1993, introduces five revenue measures announced as part of the 1993 provincial budget. The amendments are in keeping with the government's commitment to look for additional revenue first from those with a greater ability to pay and last from those least able to shoulder any additional tax burden. The government recognizes that some of the sales tax measures contained in this bill affect lower- and middle-income British Columbians. For this reason a separate bill, the Income Tax Amendment Act (No. 2), 1993, proposes the introduction of a sales tax credit to offset the impact of these measures on lower-income British Columbians. I'll briefly discuss each of the five revenue measures in turn.
First, Bill 7 increases the general sales tax rate from 6 percent to 7 percent, effective March 31, 1993. Although the increase in the general sales tax rate affects all British Columbians, the proposed sales tax credit will help protect lower-income families and individuals from an increase in their tax burden. In fact, the credit will more than offset the sales tax changes for more than 900,000 British Columbians, who will actually be better off as a result of this package. Even after the many initiatives we have taken to control spending, the increase in the sales tax and the other tax measures contained in this bill are required to reduce the deficit, maintain essential services and invest in British Columbia's future prosperity. I should also point out that British Columbia's sales tax rate will continue to be the second-lowest in the country and lower than the combined state and county tax rates in Washington State.
Second, effective March 31, 1993, Bill 7 increases the sales tax rate on purchases and leases of luxury passenger vehicles to a maximum of 10 percent. Only about 6 percent of all new vehicles sold in British Columbia each year sell for $30,000 or more. The government believes that British Columbians who can afford to purchase these expensive vehicles can also afford to contribute more to the cost of providing essential government services.
Third, effective March 31, 1993, Bill 7 removes the trade-in allowance on the purchases of passenger vehicles. The purchase price of a vehicle was previously reduced for sales tax purposes by the value of tangible personal property taken in trade by a seller as partial payment for a vehicle. The trade-in allowance benefited only British Columbians who purchased a vehicle from the same person who accepted tangible personal property in trade. As a result, the tax benefit was rarely available to British Columbians who chose to sell their vehicles privately. Removal of the allowance places all purchasers of passenger vehicles on an equal footing. I might note that the majority of British Columbians, prior to the budget, sold their vehicles privately rather than through a dealership.
Fourth, effective June 1, 1993, Bill 7 imposes a sales tax on parking in prescribed areas. The tax will initially be imposed -- and perhaps only be imposed -- in the Vancouver regional transit service area. The revenue from this tax is to be discussed with the transit commission on transit funding. I might note that effectively there is an agreement now that the funding for the sales tax on parking in the Vancouver regional transit commission area will in fact all be turned over to the transit commission for the purpose of dealing with the transit deficit that we inherited from the previous administration.
Finally, effective October 1, 1993, Bill 7 imposes a sales tax on services to install, repair and maintain tangible personal property. Services related to a person's home and other real property and to goods that are exempt from tax under the act are not subject to the tax, so farm machinery, etc., is exempt from the tax on labour as well.
This is not creeping harmonization with the GST or anything like that. All provinces with a sales tax, except Saskatchewan, impose their sales tax on similar services. Washington State, of course, goes further than British Columbia and imposes its sales tax on services related to both real property and tangible personal property. The government recognizes that tax increases
[ Page 9177 ]
are never popular. However, the government is determined to make the difficult but responsible spending and revenue decisions required to deal with the deficit while protecting essential government services and ensuring a strong growing and competitive economy for future generations. I move second reading.
F. Gingell: I rise today to debate the merits of Bill 7. If I were to restrict myself to the merits, it wouldn't take very long. So with your indulgence, hon. Speaker, I'm going to deal with some of the demerits of this bill, which will take over $500 million out of the productive side of the economy of British Columbia. Given the growth rate of spending by this government, this bill will probably take close to $4 billion out of the productive side of the B.C. economy by the end of this decade. This is a significant amount of money, so I am compelled to ask why. Why does the Minister of Finance require another $500 million? It is curious that the minister continues to congratulate himself for removing $500 million from the projected deficit. It will be seen through this debate, however, that the minister's deficit reductions are for the most part an illusion based on delay and indecision.
The minister also exercised a prerogative that goverments have to make the previous government look worse, but such devices, while they may be legitimate, are clearly transparent. The indecision factor comes into play through the minister's propensity to announce cuts in spending, which are really just delays in spending. This is a little like a mugger who sees you approaching on a dark street, and moves down a couple of blocks so as to take your wallet a little later. Somehow the victim doesn't feel that he has enjoyed a very great saving.
But again, the question has to be asked: why does the minister need this $500 million? The answer is simple: for all the talk about deficit reduction, this government is committed to an undisciplined and unrestrained course of spending. It is using its political majority to make the taxpayers pay for its lack of political will. So even if we agree for a moment to believe the Finance minister's dubious claims about deficit reduction, we see that with this legislation he has taken more money out of the productive side of the economy than he claims to have saved in government spending. If there is some question as to why the minister feels compelled to take more than half a billion dollars from the economy with this bill, there is no question about what it does.
First, the increased sales tax will dampen consumer demand. We know that these arguments have always been made, and governments have always responded by saying that the impact of sales tax increases is short-term, and that there's always a rebound. But the times have changed. The people in this province are angry, and they're tax weary. All of us work for the government until almost the end of June before we enjoy tax-freedom day.
So consumers will use whatever powers they have to escape the unrelenting pressure by government for more taxes. They will shop in the United States; they will defer or reject new expenditures; they will participate in the underground economy. All of these defensive actions by consumers hurt business -- particularly small business, which is the driver of our economy. Some businesses will be affected disproportionately.
By making the automobile industry a target for more punitive taxation, the government is imposing a perpetual, competitive disadvantage on this important sector of our economy. I know we don't make automobiles here, although we do make wheels in my riding. People who make cars buy our lumber and use our metals. The government seems to think that this discriminatory tax grab will not hurt British Columbians. They are wrong. By broadening the tax base to include new categories of labour and service, the government is hurting those small businesses that have supplier relationships with larger industries. Many of these large industries will now exercise their option to have their repair work done in-house, rather than paying a penalty in taxes by shipping the work out. This may satisfy the delusions of some ideologues in the Ministry of Labour who see it as a means of prohibiting contracting out and perhaps of increasing unionization, but that will be of little consolation to the satellite businesses in our resource communities, where jobs and livelihood depend on serving a large corporate customer.
This bill will lock in government expenditures in perpetuity. We have to stop looking at additional government revenues in an annual context. When we take $500 million from the productive side of the economy, we are adding $500 million worth of civil service and bureaucracy -- or paying for it. Once you add it, it is there for a long time. Increased taxes drive away business, pure and simple. The Premier might have learned this on his junket to California. That state has just voted to eliminate the sales tax on production equipment, knowing that it could cost their treasury $600 million a year. They did this because they just lost a $1 billion semiconductor plant because of the sales tax. They did some studies and found that over the past five years, they had lost over 100,000 manufacturing jobs to other states because of non-competitive sales tax, non-competitive workmen's compensation board levies and other forms of taxation. They further determined that every manufacturing job that left the state took three service jobs with it, so they cut the sales tax.
I know that the Minister of Finance is an avid reader of the Economist, because we had a discussion about it the other evening. I asked him to direct his attention to last week's issue dated July 17 on page 24, where he will find a very interesting article that deals specifically with this subject. But this government believes that they know better. They have a secret strategy for economic development. They send our Premier around the world to entice investment by promising no more taxes, but he comes home and does the exact opposite. The Premier may have his head in the sand, but potential investors don't. They know what's going on, and they know where they are going with their investment dollars.
[7:00]
Is it any wonder that this government is forced into the embarrassing charade of including its spending as part of economic growth? Is it not embarrassed at having to take credit for federal immigration programs that attract entrepreneurial immigrants? Is it not the
[ Page 9178 ]
ultimate expression of a failed economic development strategy that B.C. 21, which is nothing more than a ribbon-cutting program for government members, is presented as a growth policy?
It reminds me of a report from the chairman of the board of the United Bank of Alaska, who was decrying the problems the bank had when the economic world of Alaska collapsed. He described it like this: "We had a growing economy. We had all these workers coming to Alaska to build condos, homes and shopping centres, and they were busy, and the houses were filled. Then one day all the people realized that there were no more jobs building shopping centres, condos and homes, so they all went home to the lower 48, and the whole economy collapsed."
Where is the strength in our economy now? I really believe that a great deal of it is caused through in-migration and dramatically increased demands for housing. You just have to drive through the lower mainland, Surrey, Richmond and parts of Delta to see the kind of growth that is going on. This government doesn't seem to recognize or be concerned about the problems that will occur when that slows down. Problems there will be, and they will be serious. What might the minister have done instead? How could he have given himself the fiscal benefit of $500 million without imposing this drag on the competitive side of the economy? The obvious answer is that the minister could have made real cuts in government spending instead of the camouflage of B.C. 21 and spending delays, which he chooses to call savings. The minister will no doubt respond to the opposition with tedious and tired rhetorical questions. He will ask us: "What hospital will you close? Which schools will you close?" The argument just doesn't wash anymore.
Nobody believes that the layers of bureaucracy and duplicate programs in those ministries are entirely and absolutely essential to the delivery of good health care, compassionate social services and effective education. There are 300,000 public servants in this province. The government established a commission to review those public servants, but took careful precautions so that the commission should not even consider cutting the size of that bureaucracy. There are millions of ordinary voters out there who simply do not believe that their health, their children's education and the social safety net can only be ensured if the ivory towers in Victoria are left intact. If the Minister of Finance doesn't hear that message now, he will hear it loud and clear in the next election.
There are areas of the budget where more can be done. Would we need to spend almost $24 million on running this Legislature if this government -- determined to enshrine all of the ideological baggage it's been dragging around for the past 20 years -- wasn't keeping us here until the end of July? If we're going to continue to spend $4 million a year on the Commission on Resources and Environment, should we not at least be giving it a meaningful role in determining environmental issues? Could not, then, reductions be made in the Ministry of Environment? When governments across the land are making the move to smaller cabinets, can we not see some leadership in the $4 million budget for the Premier's office and the executive council? Is there not some bitter irony in having a $75 million Ministry of Economic Development serving a government that penalizes capital investment and sees wealth as a social evil? Surely the $64 million question in the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources is: why are we not reducing the budget of this ministry in direct proportion to the reduction in the size of the industries it's supposed to be protecting but is failing to? In the Ministry of Government Services we have a $90 million budget, which includes a purchasing agent at $15 million for a free-spending government, and we hear nothing of privatization or any other attempts to downsize this part of the mandate of this ministry.
In the ten minutes or so that I have been speaking, this government has spent $400,000 of the taxpayers' money. On that basis, I trust that the Minister of Finance will be very brief in his reply.
C. Tanner: I congratulate the government on this bill. It conforms to all the very best socialistic principles that they profess to. The Social Service Tax Amendment Act is a procedural piece of legislation through which this government will implement its philosophy. The bill enables the NDP to put in place its belief that the public must pay more tax in order to raise income to pay the government's bills. I don't agree with the government's philosophy; nobody on this side of the House agrees with it. The people out there don't agree with it, but the government knows best. Having made the decision to raise taxes, the government must first choose how they'll raise taxes; secondly, on what goods they'll raise taxes; and thirdly, at what rate they will levy the tax. As to how, well, that's easy: they'll just jack up the sales tax. As to what goods, well, that's a little more difficult. If this government had the courage to harmonize with the federal GST, the decision as to what goods should be made for them would be easy. The tax would be raised on all retail goods, the provincial manufacturers tax would be eliminated and business would not pay PST on goods in the process of being manufactured. But this government has neither the intestinal fortitude nor the candor to tell the public that this is what they pay their taxes for on goods purchased. It prefers instead to hide behind hidden taxes.
I don't agree, but that cowardly decision leaves the government with a problem: the necessity of choosing on what basis they will place their discretionary taxes. They must choose between this and that article and product, and they must discriminate between this line of goods and another. What have they chosen to tax? What they perceive as the necessities of the rich -- cars over $30,000, repairs and accessories. Didn't the Minister of Finance learn anything from his disastrous attempts to extra-tax property over a certain value? In many instances, he was taxing the pension and fixed income of the hard-working seniors who husband their resources and want the right to enjoy the fruits of their labour in their sunset years. I don't agree with this government or this minister.
We come to the third and last problem this government faces when it has made the decision to raise taxes,
[ Page 9179 ]
and that's the rate that they should set. They chose simply to raise the Social Service Tax from 6 percent to 7 percent. What they should have done was lower the rate on a larger range of goods, if that's what they had to do. I don't agree with their decisions or their rates.
This government should stop taxing and spending, and should stop increasing taxes and start putting a plan in action to cut the costs of government. It should stimulate the economy by cutting taxes and encouraging growth in the economy. It should be honest and forthright, and tax when it has to, upfront. This government has subscribed to all the correct programs and dogma to propel it into office, and they will shortly propel it right out again. This government is that 20-year manifestation in B.C. politics -- they come around every 20 years and will soon be back where they really belong, on their rightful side of the House, thanks to this bill and many others like it.
Bills 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, 23, 29, 40, 46 and 64, as well as this Bill 7, are all government tax bills. This government passes more tax bills than some provincial legislatures pass in the total of all their legislation. Why? Because they want to confuse and play a shell game with the taxpayers of British Columbia. This minister has not heard the public outcry. They want less government, less confusion in their lives and less tax.
They are prepared to pay their share on three conditions: the public will pay their taxes if the other person living beside them pays equally, if they can afford to; secondly, they will pay their share if the government is doing its share to cut the cost of government; and thirdly, if they are clearly able to understand why the tax is needed and how the calculation of the tax is arrived at.
This wasteful government flies in the face of common sense in the application of taxation and in the prudent management of the delivery of a service, and it is bordering on dishonesty in the method and diversity of the approach. The Minister of Finance has apparently learned nothing from his disastrous budget of last year and is repeating the same mistakes. There can only be one reasonable explanation: an election in the fall of '94, preceded by a give-it-back budget in the spring of '94.
Since being in office, this minister and government -- please note, Madam Speaker, that I refrained from calling it the Harcourt government -- has continually floated trial balloons to test the public willingness to accept more and different taxes. Now we see the limits of the tax-and-spend policies. Next year there will be a pre-election payoff. They will give us back a little of our money that they filched last year in the hope that the public is gullible enough to buy it.
I have a piece of advice for the Minister of Finance: it won't wash. He will have to do better than that. Perhaps he should come out of the shadows and run the government upfront, as we all know he does anyway. There's a tradition in B.C. for the Premier to be his own Finance minister. Why doesn't Mr. Minister of Finance 'fess up and admit that he has reversed the tradition, that now the Finance minister is playing Premier?
This Bill 7 is the last costly act in a series of financial and tax bills that will cripple the expansion of B.C.'s economy and deter the reduction of our huge deficit. All members would do well to vote against this bill. Let us find all of you another Minister of Finance who understands the economy of British Columbia.
J. Weisgerber: Bill 7 implements some of the key elements of the Minister of Finance's budget. It is interesting that the minister has waited this considerable number of months since he first tabled the budget to bring this bill forward. He was hoping that perhaps time would soothe some of the passions that were around British Columbia when the budget was first tabled. The people of British Columbia have quite clearly demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the budget tabled this spring. They have quite clearly demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the government generally, and indeed it has manifested itself in their dissatisfaction with the Premier.
I believe all of these things are a result of the clear understanding of British Columbians and the clear rejection of the tax-and-spend mentality of the current government. In the short 18 months since the Minister of Finance has been in office, the government has launched an attack on property ownership, eliminated the supplemental homeowner grant, eliminated the homeowner grant on properties above $480,000 and attempted to impose a surtax on higher-priced properties.
Interjection.
J. Weisgerber: The Minister of Finance says: "How many of those live in Dawson Creek?" The reality is that the people living in Dawson Creek, Cranbrook, Kelowna, Prince George and all around this province understand that once you start to eliminate tax conditions for one group; once you identify a group of homeowners to punish with taxation, it will only be a matter of years before the threshold drops so that everybody in British Columbia is eventually affected.
[7:15]
The minister doesn't understand why British Columbians were outraged at the budget. They clearly saw through the ideology behind the tax moves this year, and the Minister of Finance had to back down. He couldn't stand the heat in his own kitchen. He had to abandon the property surtax. He had to say he had made a mistake -- and take some advice from the Premier, I guess. At least it was couched in such a way that we were led to believe that it was the Premier who made the decision. Who knows who might have made that decision in reality.
In this budget we see the tax side of the tax-and-spend mentality. We should recognize that for the 18 months they have been in office, the government has resisted any attempt to reduce or control the size and cost of government. Taxpayers in British Columbia want a government that's willing to come to grips with the cost of government. They don't want more spending or more taxes; they want some rationalization of the cost of government.
Twenty-eight hundred new bureaucrats speak volumes to the growing size and cost of government. They are a cost not only this year but in successive years. We
[ Page 9180 ]
have seen layers of new bureaucracy added in British Columbia -- whole departments and whole secretariats that never even existed before this government was elected. We see welfare costs up by $900 million over what they were two years ago. The result of those kinds of spending has been to dramatically increase debt in British Columbia.
Indeed, the budget this year would indicate that the increased cost of interest on the new debt created by this government will consume about $400 million. The increase in the sales tax, which is outlined in Bill 7, will not be sufficient to cover the interest on new debt created by this government in its first 18 months in office. That would lead us to believe that we should anticipate sales tax increases as a biennial rather than an annual event as long as this government is in office. Many people around British Columbia do not believe that the current government will be in office for more than two years, and so they will say: "Well, then, we only have the danger of one more percent tax increase."
This bill increases taxes in three key areas that are particularly unattractive to British Columbians: first, the increase in the sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent; second, the extension of provincial sales tax for the first time in our history to a whole range of services; and finally, there is a whole new tax regime that deals with the purchase of automobiles. These three taxes will and do impact many British Columbians each and every day. I think it is worthwhile for us to take a few minutes and look at those three taxes in particular. There are other taxes that Bill 7 deals with, but I am going to focus my concerns on those three areas.
In 1987 the Social Credit government reduced the sales tax from 7 percent to 6 percent. Since 1987 retail sales in British Columbia have outstripped increases in any other jurisdiction in the country. There was an immediate and recognizable effect of reducing the sales tax. It stimulated retail sales in British Columbia, and those retail sales continued to increase until the election of this government and the implementation of this new tax.
When it was in opposition, the government was opposed to increases in the sales tax and was particularly opposed to the GST. We heard a lot of impassioned speeches in this House about the GST -- some of them from the Minister of Finance, as a matter of fact. But what did the government do? Instead of bringing in an amendment that would modify the sales tax, the government brought in a whole new tax regime on services. It's a provincial GST of the worst kind. It will offend people, because it's not an across-the-board tax. It's a tax that applies in some areas and doesn't apply in others; it's a tax that will drive consumers crazy and will be the point of friction between retailers and consumers on almost every transaction in the province; and it's a tax that in fact goes to a whole range of services that will be a nightmare for a small business person to administer this provincial sales tax on services. I'm not for a second overstating that it would be a nightmare. Can you imagine having to sit down -- as a small business operator perhaps of a family business where the wife or the husband does the PST and the GST returns -- to deal with the added complication of having to report collected sales tax on service? On some items the PST will be included; on some items the PST and GST will apply; on some items the PST; on some the GST; and the GST and the PST on some -- perhaps not all -- of the services will apply. If you have a car with a boosted battery, but you are unable to keep the vehicle going that way, and you take it into an automobile dealership for a battery replacement, the garage operator will have to charge PST and GST on the battery and the installation, but as I read it, the PST won't apply on the labour charge for boosting the battery.
Those kinds of convoluted taxes drive small business people crazy. The minister doesn't understand that aside from consumers being offended by these kinds of convoluted taxes, a small business will suffer serious administrative costs. Surely the government could have found a better way.
Interjection.
J. Weisgerber: The minister says: "Do you want us to cover boosting too?" It again reflects an attitude that we've seen far too much of.
When the Minister of Finance was in opposition and had an opportunity to talk about the GST, he talked about it being a regressive cash cow with profound consequences for British Columbia consumers. On another day he referred to it as regressive and odious. I'm sure he feels the same way about the taxes that he imposed himself. One day in the Legislature he said that the GST hits women the hardest in British Columbia. He said that its implementation would dramatically increase the unfairness of British Columbia's overall tax system by shifting more of the tax burden, again, away from the corporations and wealthy individuals and onto middle- and low-class families.
When it was someone else's tax, the Minister of Finance was very sensitive to its shortcomings. But particularly with this PST on services, he has brought in one of the most convoluted taxes in the history of British Columbia. We have no experience with it yet, and it's coming into force in October. Not many British Columbians understand that when this tax comes into effect, if a dishwasher is repaired in the home there will be no tax on the service, but if you take the dishwasher out of the home to the repair shop, a tax will apply on the service. The same thing would apply to a vacuum cleaner in the home. A built-in vacuum cleaner repaired in the home as part of the real property wouldn't be taxable. But if you take your portable vacuum cleaner in and have it repaired, it will be taxable under this system.
This again demonstrates how difficult it is going to be to train staff to know when to apply the tax. It's going to be a challenge for business to explain to consumers when they question why the tax is applied on one thing but isn't applied on another. It's going to be an enormous challenge to do the kinds of reporting, and to do them accurately. So aside from the fact that, as the Minister of Finance said, "nobody likes taxes," one of the clear criteria for a tax should be that it's easy to
[ Page 9181 ]
understand and relatively easy to implement and report. This provincial GST misses the mark all the way around. I predict that as we get into the fall and winter, and consumers and retailers start to see the complications of this tax, we'll hear a great deal of criticism, which so far hasn't received a lot of attention. It was noted in the budget, but because the implementation date was October we haven't had much of a public response. I predict that we will.
There's another tax, the third tax, that I find particularly unacceptable: the tax that changes the way automotive purchases are dealt with. Not only has the government now decided to increase the sales tax from 7 percent to 8 percent, but if you purchase a vehicle that's worth $30,000 or more, you'll have to pay 8 percent; if the price is $31,000, the tax rate is 9 percent; and if you buy a vehicle worth $32,000, the tax rate is 10 percent. If indeed there was any logic -- and I don't believe there is -- for an incremental increase based on the value of the vehicle, it totally escapes me why the range would be so narrow -- why you would start at $29,000 with a 7 percent tax and within a $3,000 or $4,000 price increase go through four different tax steps to 10 percent. Quite honestly, I can't for a minute understand the rationale that would go with that.
And when you go to trade in your automobile at your car dealer's next time around, you will find that the PST will apply to the purchase price, not the difference.... There will be no allowance for your, my or any other trade-in in British Columbia. The minister supports that. He says that puts people who sell their automobiles privately on an equal footing with those who decide to sell through a dealer. From that, I suggest that the minister thinks it's probably desirable that people sell their automobiles rather than use the services of a licensed dealer, who, before selling the vehicle again, would be required to check it to make sure it's mechanically sound, warranty it to ensure the title is clear and remove all those obstacles. That allows purchasers to buy a used vehicle from a licensed dealer with a degree of confidence that simply is not there for someone who purchases a vehicle privately.
I thought it was ultimately reasonable for the government to encourage the use of licensed dealers for the sale of used automobiles. Most of the horror stories you hear about bad experiences with used cars come not from licensed automobile dealers, but far more often from someone who purports to be a private individual selling an automobile -- once called a "curber" in the industry -- but who knows the car business and takes advantage of people who set out to buy cars from private individuals, who find, to their chagrin, that the experience is far less than it should be.
I think the members, the cabinet and the government believe they're punishing car dealers with this. They think that somehow, in some perverse way, they want to set out to punish car dealers. Indeed, they're succeeding. Automobile sales in British Columbia have fallen through the floor and dropped at an incredible rate. The Automobile Dealers' Association reports a drop of 40 percent in retail sales. So if the government set out to hurt car dealers, they succeeded.
[7:30]
But they've failed to understand that when they set out to do that, for whatever reason they might have, they also hurt all the people employed in the automobile business. The people in the repair shops, in the sales department and the cleanup area have all been injured by this tax, which discourages automobile sales. I've been in the automobile business, and I understand the business. For example, I know that from time to time people buy an automobile or a truck, and within a short period of time they find that the vehicle is unsuitable for their needs or that their circumstances have changed.
I talked to a friend of mine in the business the other day who had sold a relatively expensive automobile to a customer. The person came back and wanted to trade, because the vehicle was no longer satisfactory for what they needed. The car was priced in the $32,000-plus range. The trade-in vehicle that the customer wanted to get rid of was of about equal value. The customer and the salesman sat down and agreed that about $3,900 would represent a fair difference in value for the new and more appropriate vehicle. They were prepared to finalize the sale until the business agent advised them that the tax on that transaction would be another $3,900.
The minister seems to think that by encouraging people to sell vehicles privately you somehow get around the kinds of problems that exist. In this case the sales tax punished the person who owned the automobile and, because of changed circumstances, wanted to get rid of it. It denied the dealership and the salesman a commission on a sale, and it denied the minister the 7 percent tax on the $3,900 difference that would have been paid. Instead, there was no transaction. Those kinds of examples happen time and time again in the automobile business. As British Columbians go to their dealer to buy an automobile -- many of them for the first time -- they will realize the changes that have been made and the cost to them of these changes. I don't believe that you can rationalize or justify this kind of dramatic change in taxation. It really amounts to that.
In British Columbia there has been a policy of automobile purchases taxed on the price difference. It ultimately made good sense, because every time the vehicle is resold, the tax applies again. To apply the tax to the total price in every transaction doesn't make any sense at all. In Saskatchewan they have a different model. Rather than tax each transaction, they simply tax the purchase price of a new automobile with no tax on subsequent deals. Instead, we have the worst of both worlds.
There is some thought that $32,000 represents a degree of luxury in the automobile business. Even if it does, I'm not sure why that means that the buyer should pay not only a higher tax because of the higher purchase price, but a higher tax rate as well. Originally it was cloaked in the notion that higher-priced vehicles were less fuel-efficient, and that there was going to be an environmental flag wrapped around this tax. That's apparently so indefensible on those grounds that the government has abandoned it.
We know also that the Automobile Dealers' Association has met with the minister on a number of occasions and has genuinely tried to find a way to deal
[ Page 9182 ]
with the minister's insatiable need for more money and also to administer the tax more fairly, in a way that would be more evenhanded. We all understood when the tax was increased from 6 percent to 7 percent. The result was immediate -- and the response quite muted, I must say. I think people were in shock over a number of the other budget measures and simply accepted as fortunate that it wasn't a 2 percent increase, because of the pre-budget work that the Minister of Finance did so ably to soften up British Columbians for this budget. But most haven't been to a car dealership yet to buy an automobile. They will. If the trend continues over the next couple of years, most British Columbians will buy an automobile. They will have the tax explained to them, and they will understand why they're going to be paying an extra several hundred, or perhaps even a thousand, dollars on their purchase. Certainly when we get into October and start to see the application of the tax on services, British Columbians will start to understand just how much they disapprove of these tax measures.
The services tax is going to be a nightmare, and that's putting it mildly. I don't know if the Minister of Finance has done much work with his ministry to develop the tax-reporting mechanisms that will be needed. There's going to have to be some mechanism for retailers and service companies to sort out where the tax applies. I guess we'll have a menu of services: those that apply on the left, those that don't on the right, perhaps the change of the week or the special of the week -- who knows how it will be handled.
Communities with large industries, and service industries that have built up around many small businesses -- I'm thinking about the mining and forest industries and others -- continue to face difficult economic circumstances, there will be a large temptation not to use the local suppliers and to try to manage in-house repairs. Maybe that's what the government wants, but I'm not sure that this kind of shift in a community is very positive. I don't think it will serve anybody very well, at least in the short term, but it's one more side effect of this poorly thought out bill.
We can argue all day about whether or not we should have increased the sales tax from 6 percent or 7 percent, or if the government should have cut back on spending and reduced its interest charges and thereby eliminated the need for an increase in sales tax. It's the other taxes, because whenever a new tax system is introduced, there is a whole series of problems that flow from it. We've seen some of them in the automobile business. We are going to see a great deal more in the service business in the months to come.
L. Stephens: It's a pleasure for me to rise this evening, speak in opposition to Bill 7 and make some short remarks on the implications of this new tax bill. It's another bill in a long series to increase the taxation on the people of British Columbia, and it's an early indicator of the direction that this government, when they repealed the July 1992 Taxpayer Protection Act, which left the taxpayers of B.C. at the mercy of this tax-and-spend NDP administration.... Of the $803.5 million in new revenue measures in the 1993-94 budget, fully two-thirds, or $533 million, are dependent on the passage of Bill 7, the Social Services Tax Act. They include the sales tax rate increase that is expected to generate $305 million; the labour services provision, expected to raise $160 million; parking, at $12 million; the luxury car tax, originally at $56 million and now estimated at $37 million, which we will talk a little bit about later -- for a total of $533 million.
Also included in this bill are a number of amendments that are quite contentious. These include an aboriginal exemption, the sales tax increase to 7 percent, the legal services tax, the tax on luxury passenger vehicle, general and specific measures dealing with leases, the parking tax and the tax on labour services -- to name the most contentious issues in this particular bill. The government's tax-and-spend budgets have left little or no room for effective economic development policies. The rate of increase has been slowed, but the government continues to raise per capita tax rates. As well, the increase in government spending is 14 percent over two years. That exceeds the combination of inflation and population growth, which has been 10 percent over the two years.
A Decima Research survey showed that 94 percent of those polled said that it was important to reduce the deficit. Eighty-three percent said they would prefer the government to cut the deficit by reducing spending, not increasing taxes. The March provincial budget alone combined $633 million in higher taxes with $1 billion increased spending, for a 1993-94 budget of $19 billion. That is up 5.7 percent from the previous year. B.C.'s deficit was forecast at $1.5 billion in the budget, down from $2 billion last year, but the province's overall public debt, including Crown corporations, rose $3.1 billion to $26.4 billion.
I have a letter from the Downtown Vancouver Association that, along with the Vancouver Regional Transit Commission, studied the parking tax issue. I'm sure the Finance Minister has had correspondences from this organization over the last while. Parking is crucial for small business, and particularly for those in the downtown area that don't have access to large parking facilities like small urban shopping malls do. Mr. Lees says in his letter:
"Extending the provincial social services tax to include parking revenues places businesses dependent on pay parking at a further competitive disadvantage, which will result in increased migration of commercial, retail, entertainment and hospitality activities away from downtown centres, where pay parking is predominant, to the suburbs, where parking is free. In the Greater Toronto area, where a similar tax was emplaced in 1990, the effect contributed to a public abandonment of core areas, layoffs in all business sectors, vacant commercial space, empty storefronts, a decline in transit ridership, lower tax revenues and increased crime and vandalism."
These are some of the difficulties that are foreseeable with a parking tax. He goes on to say, in summary:
"The extension of the provincial social services tax to include non-residential off-street pay parking in the lower mainland is as badly flawed as the property surtax on land use for non-residential parking discarded by the VRTC."
[7:45]
[ Page 9183 ]
The other issue with this particular bill is that high technology companies are moving south of the border due to B.C.s punitive corporate tax rates. A company called Chancery Software now runs its international sales division from Bellingham instead of its Burnaby head office. The reason is B.C.'s personal income tax rate on executive-level salaries.
Interjection.
L. Stephens: What this has to do with this bill is taxation, this government's tax-and-spend policies and its removal of incentives for business to come here and contribute to the economic development of this province. This government doesn't seem to understand that in any way, shape or form. The corporate capital tax and the social service tax increases are other ones. All of these things contribute to the difficult economic times that business is having in British Columbia.
It seems that the only growth industry at this time in British Columbia is back yard used-car dealers who avoid taxes. The Finance minister talked about this used-car dealer problem on Friday and admitted that provincial taxes on the car industry are backfiring. He admits that the government will only collect $37 million this year, instead of the $56 million it had projected. It blames that $19 million shortfall on inflated ministry estimates of the number of new cars purchased with a trade-in. It also admits the government will lose at least an additional $10 million in tax revenues because of poor monitoring of the sales tax paid on private car sales. From time to time last week, the minister said in this House that car sales are up. He keeps making that assertion, but he also said that the reason for the shortfall of the $56 million is partly because the sales of luxury cars are down and partly because the government originally overestimated the value of cars that would be traded in. He doesn't say that he included fleet vehicles in his figures, which are not taxed.
N. Lortie: They were included last year.
L. Stephens: The government does not pay tax on fleet vehicles, and they should not have been included in the figures.
The immigrant investor program, which is also responsible for B.C.'s skyrocketing real estate prices, is due to the federal government. The province cannot even take any credit for it.
With those few words, I urge all members to vote against Bill 7.
L. Fox: I'm pleased to stand and speak on Bill 7, the Social Service Tax Amendment Act, 1993.
When I review the bill and the length of time that it has been sitting on the order paper, I'm disappointed. I had hoped that the reason this bill had not moved forward was that the minister was prepared to listen to the people of British Columbia and make some adjustments based on good, sound financial decisions. Once again, the minister proved true to form that he cannot even run a peanut stand. He failed to listen to the people who informed him that the taxing policies in this bill....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please. Hon. members may disagree with the points that are being made, but at this point the hon. member for Prince George-Omineca has the floor. I would caution the hon. member to address his comments to the principles of second reading of Bill 7.
L. Fox: I believe I am talking about Bill 7 and the taxation policies of this government, and the lack of consultation used by the Finance minister to revamp this bill over the course of the last four months. This minister has been told time and time again that this bill will result in less revenue to the province. It will result in harming the economic growth of British Columbia. It will result in the loss of jobs in the province. This minister has been informed time and time again, not only by the opposition members in this House but by the business community at large in British Columbia, and he has failed to listen. In fact, those three particular items are already happening.
Last week the Premier stood in this House in question period and spouted with glee that British Columbia was providing one-third of all the new jobs in Canada.
Interjections.
L. Fox: I find it despicable that these backbenchers should clap, because two years ago British Columbia was in fact providing 50 percent of all the new jobs in Canada. That's a huge decline. The growth of this province is still moving forward. Those are the kinds of actions that the taxation policies are having. The economy of British Columbia is falling back in job creation. Also, if you took out those jobs that this government has created through the manifestation of a larger government -- through more bureaucracy that we see time and again with every piece of legislation that comes into this House -- the situation would be a lot worse than one-third of those jobs.
When we talk about new jobs in British Columbia, we should also recognize how many of the old jobs we are losing, and what the taxation policies are doing that cost us those jobs. When we talk to the Ministry of No Environment, to those people who are involved and should understand what taxation policies are doing in the province -- what they are costing, for instance, in such things as the mining sector of British Columbia -- this government doesn't even recognize what their taxation policies are doing to that sector of the province.
We see the same kind of non-thought put into this bill. This government does not know what the results of this bill are going to be. This Minister of Finance was told by the Motor Dealers' Association what that one clause in his budget would cause, but he failed to listen. He stands up even today and says that the car sales have increased over last year. It's straight nonsense. I quote from one dealer alone, who suggests that while he's
[ Page 9184 ]
been able to maintain most of his volume, a total of 120 vehicles were sold to one provincial agency or another. The provincial agencies don't pay tax.
Another thing that the members should know, because I know they have never been in business, is that those particular units provide very few jobs in the local economy. If we take out of the total sales of this province the 300 vehicles that the province purchased in the month of May, we will see the impact on the economy. We will see that sales have in fact dropped. We'll also see, if we are prepared to open our eyes and look at reality, that some of those dealers are being forced to lay off highly trained and paid technical people who pay a high rate of income tax to the province and who contribute a lot to the local economies of their communities. But this Finance minister has failed to recognize that.
Had this Finance minister done his homework, he would have realized that this year he was only going to achieve $37 million of his projected increase of $56 million. He projected that he would gain $56 million from this taxation in the motor vehicles area alone, but because of the decrease in sales, he is only going to collect $36 million. To understand that, you have to remember that that $56 million was based on last year's numbers. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you are $20 million short in revenues, the sales have obviously decreased. That should be elementary. The Finance minister should have been able to project that, and this government should be able to understand it. They don't understand it, because they won't open their eyes to reality. They are still living in a dream world and trying to blame everything on the previous administration. Day after day the minister is trying to do that, but the people of British Columbia aren't buying that, because the spending has increased substantially.
The minister will say that we have had a lower rate of increase than any previous year. Percentages can be misleading. Take the percentage out of the equation and look at the dollars, and you will find a totally different story. You will find the largest increase in spending by any government in history. When we look at the thought behind Bill 7....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please. I must ask those members who are speaking from their seats without being recognized to desist. I ask the hon. member for Prince George-Omineca to continue his debate.
L. Fox: We get that kind of rhetoric from the same member day after day, but he won't stand up in the House and defend himself, because most of the backbenchers don't understand what's happening. Every member in this Legislature should know that the minute we took away the taxation credit on trade-ins, we took 7 percent of the value of every vehicle in this province out of the pocket of the taxpayers. If you owned a vehicle worth $10,000, that action alone took $700 out of the pocket of the person who owned that vehicle.
When we look at other aspects of this legislation, it's obvious that the government doesn't understand it. Let's examine what the provincial GST has done in the recreational business area. Even more, let's examine what it's going to do. This provincial GST placed on those kinds of units -- and in fact the sales tax -- will not be collectible if you buy one of those recreational vehicles, which does not require registration in British Columbia. And I can name a number of them, whether it's skidoos, Seadoos or mountain bikes. Whatever it is, if they do not require registration in British Columbia, they will not be subject to this tax.
[8:00]
One of the main competitors in that business is Alberta, because there is no way of tracing those purchases. When you increase tax on that segment of business in British Columbia, you are encouraging more and more business into Alberta. That is a proven fact, and this legislation does not recognize that. If you take the communities and those recreational sales businesses along that border, this legislation is going to dramatically hurt their opportunities to continue to do business. That's something this government hasn't considered nor is it prepared to consider. I know that the Automobile Dealers' Association has put many variables to the minister that would have ensured him the revenue that he was looking for, even though, as business people they understand that the priority should not be on tax collection but on tax reduction and on reduction of the size of government.
In an effort to work with the government, the Motor Dealers' Association put forth some alternative scenarios, but obviously the minister has refused them. We couldn't find out what was discussed, because those associations had been sworn to confidentiality. By the fact that this bill is coming forward with no amendments on the order paper to change anything, one can only assume that it's the government's intent to put it through in its present form, and that really disappointments me. It's my understanding that methods were proposed. The government could have gained the revenue it needed and not impacted so severely on that industry. Once again, the arrogance of the Finance minister and this government failed to heed the people with expertise. I find that very unfortunate.
I will get specifically into the provincial GST, or the NDP GST. The leader of our party gave some quotes of the Finance minister when he spoke in this Legislature and publicly on how his party and the opposition of the day would oppose such taxation and some of its impacts. This provincial GST before us is probably going to be the number one issue driving the economy underground. Many actions in this piece of legislation actually conflict with initiatives in other parts of government.
Now we're going to tax motor vehicle repairs, tune-ups, oil changes and lubrication. There has been significant enhancements in the way the industry handles used oil filters and used oil. All those businesses either sell that oil or actually pay to have that oil taken away to be refined and put back into service. Those licensed premises pay to have the filters
[ Page 9185 ]
destroyed in an environmentally friendly way to the tune of $1 per filter.
What's going to happen under this legislation? I will tell you what's going to happen. Now we're going to increase the cost of having that done in a licensed premise by 7 percent through this taxation. We're going to have more back yard oil changes. We're going to have more oil and old oil filters in our landfill sites or down the drain. These kinds of initiatives are counterproductive. In fact, they fly in the face of the environmental initiatives by the Minister of Environment. I find it very disturbing that the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Environment don't seem to communicate. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do find that very disturbing.
When the GST was put on labour, we increased the bartering system and the underground network -- we have more and more business being done underground. What's going to happen in this area is that we're going to drive more business underground. We're going to end up in the long term hurting those businesses that pay taxes locally, that create jobs locally and that reinvest in their own communities. Many of these small businesses keep a lot of the local societies going. These societies provide many of the services that people request, and they receive contributions from small businesses, the targets of this tax. I find that unfortunate.
There are many imperfections in this bill. Now we're going to charge the provincial GST on shoe repairs. When I started talking to people in that particular area in the province, I was surprised to find that there are something like ten million shoes a year repaired in British Columbia -- one of the Liberal members, who has been busy on the campaign trail, says that nine of them are his. I was surprised at the number. But once again we're discouraging recycling. We're discouraging it by way of taxation. We should be encouraging people to have their shoes repaired, not discouraging them. Otherwise, what's the alternative? Once again, a landfill site, and they make it more difficult for us to meet the objective of reducing waste.
There are many issues that deserve a lot of debate and talk. I'm sure we will canvass some extremely lengthy ones later. I'm extremely disappointed that this minister didn't use the last four-and-a-half months since this bill was tabled to listen to those who do have expertise in those specialized areas that this legislation is going to affect.
Another area of this bill that flies directly in the face of an initiative by the Ministry of Environment is the taxation on parking lots. Both the Minister of Environment and the Minister of Finance are trying to find ways and means of encouraging people to use the transit system rather than driving their vehicles in the lower mainland. What do we do? We finally got them to park their cars and use the transit system, and now we're going to tax them because they've done that. It will add another $100 a year to their bill for parking in those lots. It's kind of hypocritical, and I find it rather difficult to understand.
I just want to touch once more on the loss of the tax credit on trade-ins. Like the two other members in our caucus who have had experience in the business, I want to tell you what segment of people this taxation is hitting. It's not hitting those people who can afford it. It's not hitting rich British Columbians. It's not hitting the corporations. As I stated earlier, they buy a fleet, they don't even trade-in their vehicles. They make deals with a manufacturer and buy in large volumes, similar to what the province of British Columbia does. They are not affected by the loss of the trade-in credit. The average British Columbian is affected, the average British Columbian in my riding who happens to work in the woods industry and drives up to 140 kilometres per day just to go to work. Those individuals in rural areas put from 60,000 kilometres to 70,000 kilonetres a year on their vehicles in order to go to and from work. They literally use up a vehicle in three years. I've had many of them tell me that out of spite, they are now not trading in their vehicles. It's not so much that they can't afford it, but by not purchasing a new vehicle, they are showing their dislike for this government's taxation policies in their own way. They'll go for another year or 18 months in the hope that this government will be gone and the future government will recognize the importance of this initiative and wipe out the actions of this bill. This government and these backbenchers are fooling themselves if they don't understand that the people are extremely mad about this one significant part of Bill 7.
On that note, I will just say that I have mixed feelings about this legislation. I know our party's opportunities are much greater because of it, and this government's chances of re-election are much less. The opposite side of that is that in the interim, we're going to see the actions of this government, through this legislation, affect the economy of British Columbia extremely negatively. It's too bad that this government doesn't understand that and doesn't have the wherewithal to cut spending instead of looking at these very devastating forms of taxation.
V. Anderson: I rise not with pleasure but with discouragement to talk about Bill 7. In the minds of most people in this province, the social service tax is raised to enable us to have a provincial social service system that meets the needs of those people who for one reason or another cannot meet their own needs for a period of time. If you look at it from that point of view, you might say that if it causes hardship to some, at least it's of benefit to others.
One of the concerns I have about this social service tax is that in the minds of most people, it is not bein, used for the purpose this government has implied. As was mentioned by the previous speaker, this tax will hit most those people who can least afford it -- people who in their daily life have difficulty finding enough for food, clothing or shelter. SPARC, the Social Planning and Research Council of British Columbia, reported in their newsletter this year that between 1982 and 1992 the purchasing power of those social services recipients had decreased anywhere from 4 percent to 36 percent. That is, the actual purchasing power in 1992 of those who were receiving "the increased support from this present government" from ten years earlier had decreased: for couples, by 24 percent; for single per
[ Page 9186 ]
sons, by 36 percent; and for four persons in a family, by 13 percent.
[8:15]
We hear that the cost of the Social Services budget has increased. It's true. It has increased because the increasing number of those who are unemployed and unable to find the opportunity to support themselves have come onto the social services system. But what many people do not realize is that the social services system is not at all adequate for those persons who are forced to live on it. Just for illustration, the support allowance for a family of four, not including the rent for their house, is $614 a month, which works out to $5 a day per person. That includes everything that they have to pay for in their lives, apart from the rent: clothing, food, education, travel, entertainment, some of their sick expenses and whatever else it might be -- $5 a day per person in a family of four.
That's what this tax is about: social service tax. But it isn't going to the people. It's a social service tax which is going to other elements within the government. It's title is a misnomer, and when we come to the passage of this bill, I will vote against this title, because it is a misappropriation of funds: they are not going for social services.
We need to be aware of what is happening to the people in our province. When I say there's $614 a month for a family of four, I would indicate that that is, for one reason or another, an unemployable family, one that is not able to be employed and has no other option but this particular amount. For those who are considered employable, the amount is even less. For a family of four in which one member is working full-time on minimum wage, the income is even less. This government campaigned that they would make the standard of living better for all people in this province, but they have not maintained that promise. When we come to this particular tax, they will find an increase in the majority of the items that they have to purchase day in and day out, for it is those with low incomes who get hit the hardest and the most, and who have no response to that.
Interjections.
V. Anderson: Now the hon. members in the government across the floor are chiding me for bringing this out and letting the people know exactly what the picture is in British Columbia. I guess they should be chiding me, because it's not something of which they can be proud.
When we look at this act, we're very concerned not only with the increase from 6 percent to 7 percent of taxes on those items previously taxed but also about the increase to 7 percent of taxes on services not previously taxed -- and from which more people on low income will feel the pressure than many others.
Interjections.
V. Anderson: They're tut-tutting me across the hall because I'm bringing to their attention this kind of concern. Or are they saying it's tough that these people should be in this kind of condition? They're saying it's tough that these people should; they're making a mockery of those having to live in this difficult kind of circumstance.
With this act there's also a concern that -- even when we have indicated there is an increase in taxation -- we go to the power of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, and this is wide open. After the act is passed they will decide who pays it and who is exempt. Who pays it and who doesn't is on the whim of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. So if we were to pass this, we're once again signing a blank cheque. They can decide who pays for parking on what parking sites, what classes of persons pay tax, to what geographical areas the tax applies and what vehicles are in or out of this particular tax. We cannot determine who will be paying the sale price on taxes. Even if somebody buys something on sale, the government can decide that the price they paid for it is not an adequate amount upon which they should pay tax and can suggest that they pay tax on a higher amount than they actually paid out.
I stress that this once again is a tax primarily upon the poor, who will pay far more percentagewise than anyone else in this province. I emphasize again that this tax will fall very heavily upon a family of four trying to live on $614 a month. That's something with which we must all be concerned. We cannot continue to support this kind of continuous pressure on the poor -- particularly from a government that promised they would not continue to live in poverty. Their condition is even worse than it was ten years ago at this time, under the government previous to this, about which the NDP riled and raved. But they have done no better. The statistics show they have done even worse. I rest my case.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
G. Farrell-Collins: In going through the preparation for this bill.... I guess it feels like we've been waiting forever for it to come forward. It's the twin brother or sister of Bill 6, which hasn't come forward yet either. They're not identical twins, but certainly twins. They came into this world on the same day, and we were wondering if they'd go out of the world on the same day.
I'm drawing attention to Bill 6, of course, because it's the bill that was never going to be passed. It's the bill that was tabled by the minister with his budget, one of his budget bills -- the bill that he had to back down on because of the error he made.
The member for Prince George-Omineca made a good point when he said that he hoped the reason we hadn't seen Bill 7, which was tabled four or five months ago for debate, was that the government was listening to people -- particularly people in the automotive industry, the legal community and other people who are affected by this bill -- on some other ways of raising tax revenues if they felt they were needed, but more importantly, some better ways to cut spending so this type of tax legislation wouldn't need to be brought in. The minister made a big production about consulting with the automotive dealers in the province. Numerous
[ Page 9187 ]
times during question period, when asked about this legislation, the minister stated that he was meeting with the automotive dealers, that they were putting forward some suggestions to ensure the government raised the money they needed, but in a fairer manner. We were all hoping that the minister was going to take to heart some of those suggestions made by the automotive dealers and members of the opposition. I have a private member's bill on the order paper that would help with the collection of taxation on used vehicles, which would make it more even. There are lots of ideas and alternatives the minister could have brought in, in order to change this bill and still get the revenues, if that was what he really felt he needed, but in a manner that was more fair.
We have also been waiting for the minister to come to his senses regarding the legal services tax. He brought in this type of legislation last year; he was taken to court by lawyers, and he lost his case. That taxation bill proved to be unconstitutional. It was not a fair piece of legislation, and it was not in keeping with the constitution of this country. So what did the minister do? He doesn't realize that he's made a mistake, doesn't change his direction or doesn't look for spending cuts in order to try and recover some of those costs. Instead, he just changes the wording in the bill and comes back with another piece of legislation the next year -- another tax increase.... He is giving me the old fist there.
The minister didn't understand the fundamental argument that when you tax people for legal services, you are not taxing the lawyers or the law firms, you are taxing the people who are seeking legal advice in order to defend their rights. When you do that, you are impinging on those people's rights and access to the judicial system. The government time after time has said that the reason we have to make changes in legislation and go to arbitration and some of these other things is that legal recourse is not accessible to poor people in the province -- the majority of the people in the province -- because of the cost. The Attorney General and other ministers stand up and say that on the one hand.... Yet the Minister of Finance stands up and says: let's add a tax on top of it to make it even worse. Where is the logic in that? Where is the balance? Where does that make sense for the Minister of Finance?
In looking through Bill 7 and the number of taxes that were brought in, just to give people an idea of what we are dealing with, the sales tax was increased to 7 percent from 6 percent and the aboriginal exemption on the sales tax was removed; also the legal services tax, luxury vehicle tax, tax on leases, parking tax, tax on labour services, and various other ministerial injunctions -- and then the commencements. We see a litany of taxes brought in by Bill 7. I believe it amounts to about one-third of all the tax increases that are coming in this year. It is almost $600 million worth of taxes.
I would like to harken back for the sake of the Minister of Finance and some of the other people on the back bench who may be listening. I don't know if they listen only when they heckle, or if they listen all the time. I look at the last budget that the NDP had the privilege and the honour to be the opposition of. That was the budget in 1991, the John Jansen budget that was tabled in this House. I want to read some of the things that the Minister of Finance and the Premier said. The Minister of Finance was then the Finance critic and the Premier was then the Leader of the Opposition. On Wednesday, May 22, the day after the budget, they were quoted as follows: "Both New Democratic Party leader Mike Harcourt and Finance critic Glen Clark termed the budget 'shocking' and said now is not the time for tax increases." When the economy is in a recession, now is not the time for tax increases. We are still in a recession. The Leader of the Opposition went on to say: "Here you are bringing in tax increases on corporations when they are losing money, high-income earners when they are afraid for their jobs...." Isn't that funny? I wonder if he said the same thing when he brought in his own budget, which was even worse. He brought in a corporation capital tax, and this year he raised the rate on that tax.
Here's a good one that I liked. This is the Minister of Finance speaking a year and a half ago, when he was the Finance critic for the opposition. He said: "Only Social Credit would have the audacity to call this a debt reduction plan -- a debt reduction plan that increases debt." That's exactly what we are doing with this legislation. Here's another one by the Minister of Finance, related to cross-border shopping: "Increasing the sales tax wouldn't help slow the southbound flow of consumers."
[8:30]
All those NDP members who sit for ridings that adjoin the U.S. border, and indeed, the Minister of Agriculture, who we know has spent some $500,000 on a Buy B.C. ad campaign that he gets himself into trouble over from time to time.... You would think that he of all people would be sensitive to those types of tax increases. You would think that the minister in charge of the Buy B.C. program would be on his feet here tonight yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs against these punitive sales tax increases that are driving British Columbians south of the border to buy the goods and services down there and bring them back into British Columbia, to the detriment of the jobs of workers in British Columbia. But we don't hear a peep.
Then we have the member for Yale-Lillooet, who never stands up and speaks in this House, but is the most vocal member from his seat. It's either because he can't form a full sentence, or he can't collect his thoughts long enough to actually give a speech. I wish that he also would stand up and defend the workers in his riding.
Deputy Speaker: The member for Yale-Lillooet on a point of order.
H. Lali: I wish that the member opposite would reserve his comments to the bill instead of going off on a foul-mouthed tangent, as he usually does.
Deputy Speaker: Hon. members, we are in second reading of Bill 7, and we should restrict our comments to the principle of the bill.
[ Page 9188 ]
G. Farrell-Collins: I appreciate your intervention, because it allows me to highlight to the member for Yale-Lillooet that if he had taken the time in the intervening four months since this bill was introduced to read it -- it's not a very hard bill to understand; there aren't even that many big words in it -- he would realize that one of the main things in this legislation is an increase in the sales tax. An increase in the sales tax affects cross-border shopping and the jobs of the people he is supposed to be representing in Yale-Lillooet. If he would have the courage to stand up for the people in his riding and actually engage in debate once in a while, particularly the debate on Bill 7, those people in his riding would be better represented by the service he's providing. Instead, he is sitting on his rear end and heckling and trying to say something intelligent.
I think those comments are strictly within Bill 7 and are well in order and very relevant, if not to all the people in the province, then certainly to the people of Yale-Lillooet, whose member fails to stand up and speak for them in this House.
Interjection.
G. Farrell-Collins: I am speaking for my riding, hon. member. I'm up here because I represent....
Deputy Speaker: Order, hon. members. Please address your comments to the philosophy or principles of Bill 7, through the Chair.
G. Farrell-Collins: I have another one here that I think.... I will get back to some of the quotes later, because they will be more timely then.
We have a bill that has been sitting on the order paper since March 30; that's when the bill was tabled in the House. For four months it has been sitting on the order paper; it seems like two years, but it was only four months ago. The only member of the NDP to stand up and speak on this bill, to explain it to the public and to rationalize why they needed to increase these taxes, why they needed to bring in this bill and why they were afraid to make changes to it in order to accommodate some of the people in the industries that are really being affected by this legislation, is the Minister of Finance, who said all those wonderful things when he was in opposition a short 20 months ago.
Where is the Minister of Economic Development, Small Business and Trade? That is the minister who is supposed to be speaking for small business. I think that most small business people in this province don't even know he exists. They don't even know there is a Minister of Small Business in this province. When these types of tax bills come up and they hear about this taxation policy and the incredibly complicated tax on labour that's going to be included in Bill 7 and in this budget for this fiscal year, the only person they hear from is the Minister of Finance. Where is the Minister of Economic Development? Where is the economic development? Where is the Minister of Small Business? Then he spouts these make-believe statistics to us, like the make-believe reports he did on the taxation policies which nobody in the industry believes, except the minister.
Instead of standing up and telling us how wonderful everything is and instead of standing up in this House day after day and saying, "Trade is up, unemployment is down; this is up, that's down," and quoting statistics -- heaven knows where they're from -- why doesn't the Minister of Economic Development exert his energy and stand up in this House and tell the Minister of Finance that before he comes back to the well for another $600 million, he should be going to his own Treasury Board and reducing government spending? He should be trying to make government more efficient and, indeed, his tax collection system more efficient, so that small businesses in this province aren't hampered with another tax that they find impossible to collect.
The Leader of the Third Party raised a point, and I'm sure that other members will raise it. The Leader of the Opposition raised it also. In the proposed changes under Bill 7 for the application of the social services tax to labour, some things are included and some things aren't. He gave an example about boosting a battery or selling a battery or installing a battery. Depending on whether you boosted it first and then replaced it, the tax might be different. Small business people have a lot more important things to do with their time than do what a lot of us have to do, which is sit here and sort through these immensely complex pieces of legislation that make absolutely no sense. Small business people are out there trying to earn a living, trying to employ people and trying to invest any profits they have to make their businesses larger and to provide better service for their communities....
An Hon. Member: What profits?
G. Farrell-Collins: These days there aren't very many.
The last thing small business needs to do -- where one person owns the business, a spouse helps him or her and maybe a bookkeeper comes in one day a week, plus whatever else goes on underneath them -- is hire a tax consultant, of all people. Small business people are to hire a tax consultant to come in and tell them how to sort this thing out. It's so complex and ridiculous, no wonder people get so frustrated with it. No wonder people drive the economy underground. Is it any wonder that instead of going out and getting an automotive dealership licence, leasing space, opening up a shop, selling vehicles above board and complying with the government and their consumer protection legislation, people end up putting ads in the newspaper and circumventing the normal regulatory processes? They curb their vehicles and sell them indirectly. That's not a small business paying their taxes. It's going into their pockets. Neither the province nor the consumer is gaining any benefit out of that industry.
Why doesn't the government bring in legislation that makes sense? Why don't they take a look and develop tax laws that make sense? Who did the Minister of Finance consult with in setting the parameters and regulations for who would and would not be covered
[ Page 9189 ]
by the labour tax? Take a dishwasher, for example. If it's a built-in dishwasher, you don't have to pay the labour tax on it, and if it's not built in, you do. It's something like that; it's one way or the other. If somebody comes to fix a dishwasher, it should either be taxable or not, but it should be simple for people to understand. You end up forcing them either to hire expensive consultants to come in and tell them what to do, or into making mistakes, getting themselves into trouble and having to hire a lawyer later on. People will pay their fair share if they understand what the tax is for, the way it's being collected and the rationale behind it.
Interjection.
G. Farrell-Collins: I hate to say it, but the member for Port Moody-Burnaby Mountain is also making a lot of comments. That's fine. There's a lot of time here tonight. But why don't she and some of the other backbenchers get up and participate. They sit there. Why don't they participate in the debate on the bill?
K. Jones: They've been told they can't.
G. Farrell-Collins: One of the things that a government has to look at when it develops taxation policy is the efficiency of that tax. They have to look at how easy it is to collect and administer that tax. You have to try to get rid of as much deadweight cost in taxation policies as you can. The government can bring in a tax policy -- this one on labour, for example -- hoping to generate revenue to do the things that this government likes to brag about, like their Build B.C. program that they say is going to create jobs. What they don't understand is that by implementing a complex taxation policy they hamper business. They provide so much deadweight in administering that tax that they actually kill jobs in the industry they're taxing. They take the money out of that industry, and it flows through their bureaucracy and their administration, out the other end where the government ends up hiring somebody. What happens is that for every job you kill, you might create one if you're lucky. Governments don't create jobs very well. They certainly don't create them very well when they have to go out and use ineffective and inefficient taxes to collect the money that they turn around and use to create those jobs.
The one time in this session that we've actually had members from the NDP standing up and speaking was during the Build B.C. debate on Bill 3. They all stood up and talked about the wonderful jobs they were going to create in their ridings. Every week now, just before the weekend so that they hit all the local newspapers before the deadline, we see this little flurry of press releases about all the tree-planting jobs that are being created. They have a nice new letterhead with a little logo up on the top corner. It's nicely coloured, very expensive and flashy. That was the one debate where the members of the NDP stood up so proudly and said: "We're behind Build B.C. This is going to be a great program. We're going to create all these jobs. We're going to provide all this economic growth for British Columbia." Indeed, the Minister of Small Business and Trade -- or no business and no trade -- stood up and defended his bill in committee stage, talking about all the wonderful jobs they were going to create. What they don't tell you is that in order to create those jobs the government has to go back and either borrow money -- which hampers the economy, affects interest rates and means that small business people can't get that cash -- or tax that money away from small businesses and individuals and kill the jobs there in order to transfer them to some government-created job over here. If they believed in this as much as they did in B.C. 21, I would think that these members would stand up today and defend Bill 7.
Interjection.
G. Farrell-Collins: Oh, the Minister of Agriculture wants to get up. I'll be done shortly, and I'll be glad to hear what he has to say. I want to state a couple of other things, and I want to be quick. I can't wait to hear the comments from the Minister of Agriculture on how this taxation policy is going to help solve the cross-border shopping problem we have, and how increasing sales taxes -- contrary to what the Premier said when he was in opposition and contrary to what the Finance minister said when he was the Finance critic -- is actually going to help agricultural producers in British Columbia by keeping people here to buy their products. That's an explanation I can't wait to hear. If he can explain how it's going to work, he'll be a true magician. I wonder if he'll need the advertising dollars that he's been investing in on-again, off-again contracts to do it.
I want to make some other points quickly before we finish. I have a little concern about the luxury tax on vehicles. Governments are known to tax luxury items, and that's one way of doing it. I understand that philosophy. But the government has put a $30,000 figure in the legislation. Ten years ago you couldn't find very many cars worth $30,000; now it's pretty hard to find any new cars that aren't $30,000 or above, or pretty darn close to $30,000.
[8:45]
With this $30,000 figure staying the same over the next two to four years, and if the cost of vehicles increases, what's liable to happen is that more and more vehicles will fall into this luxury category, perhaps inappropriately. We'll end up with a level of taxation that affects people who the government really wasn't intending to affect. Many people have vehicles for work in the bush and the backwoods parts of the province. They have to purchase vehicles that cost a lot more money because they need three-quarter-ton trucks, stronger axles and four-wheel drives, etc. Those vehicles very quickly move up to and beyond the $30,000 ticket. It's not that they're luxury vehicles; it's that they're larger and better-built vehicles. Practicality, not luxury, is the intent.
The Minister of Government Services stood up in this House during question period a couple of times and stated that the government needed to buy these expensive trucks and vehicles because of the things that the Forests and Mines ministries were doing. They were
[ Page 9190 ]
out there in the bush, and they needed these types of vehicles. That's justifiable to a certain extent, but if the government is going to take that rationale in question period, then it should use the same logic when it comes to legislation like this. So I ask them to be cautious with this $30,000 figure and watch what happens over time if vehicle prices increase.
That doesn't even begin to delve into the problem of administering the $30,000. Does it include extras, such as a $300 air-conditioning unit? Now your tax rate goes from 7 percent to 10 percent, plus whatever. It gets extremely complex once again. I've just given a bit of a dissertation on the complexity of taxation policies and the effect that has on small business.
I've just about covered these areas; we've covered the main points of Bill 7 the first time through. I know that we will be canvassing them more thoroughly during committee stage, and I know that other members of the opposition intend to speak to this legislation tonight to make their comments. I must say that I eagerly await the Minister of Agriculture's comments to explain to us how, despite the comments of the Premier and the Minister of Finance, increasing social service taxes is going to help keep shoppers in British Columbia, and help the provincial agricultural industry. I await his comments.
Hon. B. Barlee: I listened rather closely to the member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove. Quite obviously, he hasn't done much research.
The key to business is small business. Small business creates about 94 percent of the new jobs in British Columbia -- which we're doing quite well, by the way. In May we created 32,000 new jobs in the province, the highest rate in the country. How does this help the agriculturists? Let's examine it. Much of the food grown in British Columbia is served at the 10,253 restaurants in the province. What have we done with the restaurants? We haven't done quite the same as the Liberal governments across the country.
The Liberal governments across Canada have set a record that is rather revealing. First of all, in Quebec, they have a 7 percent GST and an 8 percent provincial sales tax. So the Liberal government of Quebec has reached into the consumer's pocket for $350 million, and in doing so has devastated the restaurant industry in Quebec. That's the first example. Do you want another example? Let's look at the Liberal government of New Brunswick. They weren't satisfied with an 7 percent GST; they added a 9 percent PST. The people in New Brunswick who go to the restaurants that are left pay 16 percent. Was that good enough? No, sir. Prince Edward Island, another Liberal government, decided maybe they could get away with a little more. They put a 10 percent PST on it. Now it's 17 percent in P.E.I., which devastates the restaurant industry, takes it out of the pockets of all the servers, and cuts into the restaurant meals. People don't go out as much. Was that good enough? No, not at all. Let's take the last Liberal province, Newfoundland.
Interjection.
Hon. B. Barlee: No excuses, please, hon. member. You were waxing eloquent.
They put a 12 percent tax on the restaurant industry in Newfoundland, but they put it on the 7 percent as well as the original meal cost. When I was in Newfoundland I bought a meal for $8.95. When the bill came to the table, it was $10.72; that's 20 percent.
The member talks about protecting small business. We didn't reach into the consumer's pocket. We protected a very vulnerable business in British Columbia. Eighty-four thousand jobs depend upon the restaurant industry in British Columbia, and we have taken good care of that industry. The Liberals have not done that anywhere in Canada, and I doubt that they would do it anywhere else in Canada if they should ever come to power, which I doubt very much. All the pubs, restaurants, fast-food outlets and servers should be backing us right down the line.
The member talks about taxation policy. This is keeping jobs. The Liberal government in Newfoundland has lost jobs; the Liberal government in P.E.I. has lost jobs: the Liberal government has lost jobs in New Brunswick; the Liberal government in Quebec has lost jobs; now he wants to lose jobs here. Frankly, Ontario....
Deputy Speaker: The member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove on a point of order.
G. Farrell-Collins: If he's not going to keep to Bill 7, I would at least encourage the minister to keep to the province of British Columbia.
Deputy Speaker: The House is advised that we are on second reading of Bill 7 in the province of British Columbia, as pointed out by the member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove. We should stay with the principles of Bill 7, hon. minister.
Hon. B. Barlee: I've very pleased that the member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove has become so precise on talking to the bill. Of course, the information I revealed was rather embarrassing. I quite realize that. It is rather distracting, because you haven't done a very good job. We have protected these jobs. We're not killing the jobs like they have in other places. By the way, the restaurant industry in British Columbia, which ordinarily is very vulnerable, is doing exceptionally well. So that's some of the explanation to the hon. member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove.
R. Neufeld: It's a pleasure to rise and speak to the philosophy and principle of Bill 7. The bill has lots of socialist philosophy at its roots. The Minister of Finance grins hard, but it does. It does not have any principle, either. When you listen to the speeches that were made about this bill, it's obvious that there is no principle to it at all, but I will try my best to speak to a bill with no principle and straight socialist philosophy. This bill will dramatically affect the average working person in British Columbia. It's not targeted at somebody with a lot of money, like the NDP government likes to say all the time. It will directly hit the average British
[ Page 9191 ]
Columbian very hard. This government is intent, as they were in their budget the first year they were in office, to take about $1,000 per family -- $1,000 in the first budget and $1,000 in this budget -- and add it to taxes. That hits the average British Columbian. It's an NDP GST -- that's all it is.
The average British Columbian is going to find it repulsive and obscene. The Minister of Finance himself and the Minister of Labour have used the words repulsive, obscene and unacceptable when referring to increases in taxation or when the private sector has increased costs someplace. In fact, when you go to the budget manual for 1993, you'll find that personal income tax is up 11 percent on average. That's 11 percent on the average British Columbian. Is this forward thinking? We see the rate of inflation at 3 percent, something of that magnitude, but we have an increase in income tax of 11 percent to satisfy the goals and objectives of this government. The part that is really unacceptable and obscene in this budget is that social service taxes are up 26.5 percent. That's not my own or our caucus research department's figuring. That comes right straight out of the budget book on page 44. I find that obscene and unacceptable. Most British Columbians do, and that's why the minister introduced this bill in the House on March 30 and it has not come before us until today, at the end of July, the end of the season.
As the member for Prince George-Omineca said awhile ago, we hoped that this government was going to listen to the people and to the Motor Dealers' Association, who had alternatives to some parts of this bill and this increase in taxation. They had alternatives that would have given the government as much money as they wanted, but it would not have hit everyone quite so hard. That's what we hoped would happen. We hoped the government would listen.
Obviously this government is arrogant, driven in its own way, and is not going to listen to the people of British Columbia at all. But I say the day will come -- and it won't be that long -- when they'll have to. They don't have to listen to the people, but they'll have to go to the people in a general election. That's when the people will finally speak. They will not tolerate these tax increases of $800 million last year and $800 million the year before, and just absolutely unbelievable deficits adding $6.4 billion to the debt of the province.
Interjection.
R. Neufeld: Isn't it interesting. Here we go with the member for Yale-Lillooet again. He's over there....
An Hon. Member: He's not even here.
R. Neufeld: Oh, I'm sorry. The member for Skeena -- they sound so much the same -- talking about debt and what the Socreds left them. The total debt the Socreds left them was $20 billion, and that included all Crown corporations. That's from 125 years. And what happened? In two years this government has increased it by $6.4 billion to $26.4 billion. What in the world's going to happen if they're in here for four or five years? We'll double it. I don't think they should be talking about that in a proud way at all. I think they should be looking at that and saying: "My goodness, maybe the cabinet hasn't been telling me the truth."
An Hon. Member: How did you get to $20 billion? Talk about that.
R. Neufeld: I want to go to the Social Service Tax Amendment Act, 1993, Bill 7. The member wishes me to go to the $20 billion, and I could do that quite easily. I've had to do it before and I can do it again. But, hon. Speaker, tonight I will obey your wishes and will stick to the principle and philosophy of Bill 7.
British Columbia's sales tax increase from 6 percent to 7 percent will bring in $305 million in a full year. This, again, is out of the budget manual. It's interesting that this year this government, in debt charges for direct government debt, not including Crown corporations, is paying $400 million. They've increased the interest charge on direct government debt $400 million in one year. In fact, I think since this government came to power we have doubled the cost of servicing direct government debt -- doubled it in two years. That's something this government shouldn't be proud of.
But raising $305 million, from raising the tax from 6 percent to 7 percent.... The government members all stand and say this isn't going to affect the ordinary British Columbian. Well, I wonder who it's going to affect. I guess it's going to affect the average British Columbian -- every British Columbian. That's a lot of money, $305 million. Maybe it isn't to the members opposite, but it certainly is to me when I hear about that.
[9:00]
The other thing is that it contributes to a greater amount of cross-border shopping. Those members who have constituencies that border on the U.S. -- and one of the members talked about it earlier -- are going to feel a bit more about cross-border shopping. The Minister of Agriculture has just had to stand up in the House and defend this bill, talking about what his ministry is doing to prevent cross-border shopping. Here we are, raising the tax to 7 percent to encourage cross-border shopping to the U.S., and we have the Minister of Agriculture getting up and saying: "We've got this program. It's only going to cost us about $1 million or $2 million to keep people at home, to buy B.C." Those kinds of things don't make sense, hon. Speaker.
But it's not just the cross-border shopping to the U.S. We have constituencies represented by a number of NDP members, by our leader and by myself, that border on the Yukon, Alberta and the Northwest Territories. It would be a little far-fetched for me to say that people would drive out of Fort Nelson to Fort Simpson in the Northwest Territories to purchase something. But I can tell you that there are people from Fort Nelson who will drive to Watson Lake and purchase things, because there's not a 7 percent sales tax there. From where I live in Fort St. John, it's just a short drive to the Alberta border, and it's a very short drive from Dawson Creek to Grande Prairie, Alberta, which is a large centre.
[ Page 9192 ]
There are members in the House who represent constituencies further along that border. In fact, some towns probably even come closer to the border than ours do. But it's a problem in Peace River North and in Peace River South.
Increasing the sales tax to 7 percent is going to lead to more people leaving the province to buy goods -- they will do it. One of the members spoke earlier about driving the economy underground, and that is definitely what happens when you increase the sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent. In fact, if my memory serves me right, I listened to the member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove talk about the present Premier when he was in opposition saying how terrible it was, how we were going to drive business out of the province by raising the social service tax. That's exactly what it does, and that's a big part of Bill 7.
Let me go back a little way to 1987, when the Social Credit government of the day lowered the sales tax from 7 percent to 6 percent. That gave British Columbia the second-lowest sales tax rate in Canada. Retail sales outstripped those in every other province, even after the GST. Although it is still the second-lowest, you have increased it to 7 percent. If you decrease it, you are going to keep the dollars at home, and you will be able to have that revenue in tax. If you increase it, it is going to go underground or across the border -- that's what happens to it.
While in opposition, the NDP did not support the GST. In fact, I think they voted along with the Social Credit government of the day to oppose it, because of the detrimental effect they thought it would have on the country. What do we see today in Bill 7? We have the government of the day, the NDP, starting their own GST on labour services and a few items such as that. The NDP-initiated GST is probably the worst part of this bill. I think probably most British Columbians could accept that their sales tax had to increase to 7 percent if they could see that the government really needed $305 million, and they would pay it. But when they see this government increase the sales tax by 1 percent, and all kinds of other taxes.... In two years we have had a flurry of taxes, and tax and fee increases like you've never seen before. It's absolutely astronomical what they've done to this province. People are really upset, and I don't blame them. I don't like paying the GST, either, and I am certainly not looking forward to paying the provincial GST.
Let's look at the list on page 53 in the budget manual. Sales tax is introduced on specified labour services, and examples are given of what it applies to. Examples of taxable services on motor vehicles include engine tune-up, oil change and lubrication. I think someone else before me spoke about what would happen when we started doing this. We're going to have back yard oil changes like you wouldn't believe; we're going to have filters in the landfills; we're going to have people pouring used oil down the drain again, because they don't want to pay the 7 percent on the labour. They're not going to go to the shops to get that done, to get their fan belts changed, or anything like that. They're going to do it in the back yard. What's that going to do for that industry and for those businesses?
The Minister of Agriculture said that small business creates 94 percent of the jobs in British Columbia. What we should be doing is looking very closely at what we do in taxation that will drive business away. If the minister and the Minister of Economic Development were serious about trying to encourage small business, we wouldn't put a punitive tax on them which will affect whether they're going to stay in business. It just doesn't make sense. When will this government learn? Or will they ever learn?
The engine tune-up tax flies right in the face of the Minister of Environment. The environment is very much on people's minds in British Columbia, across Canada and around the world, and so it should be. But when we discourage people from taking their vehicle in for an engine tune-up because it's going to cost them another 7 percent on the labour, what are we doing to the environment? It's backwards. It just doesn't make sense. If we did anything, you'd think we would want to encourage people to clean up the environment, and we would have some kind of a progressive tax that would help to do that, not a regressive tax such as this. Tire installation, balancing and repair will be subject to the 7 percent sales tax. On the installation of parts they use the example of bumpers, which is quite interesting. I don't know how many bumpers are changed in British Columbia, but I know that there are an awful lot of parts changed on vehicles in British Columbia.
In my constituency, in the north and in all those areas that border on Alberta, the average family will go on a shopping trip to Grande Prairie to get out of paying the 7 percent sales tax, because they find it regressive, obscene and unacceptable. When they go down there they can get a little work done to their car. I'll tell you who is happy: the businessmen across the border in Alberta and in Washington State. They're clapping their hands because we have an NDP government that wants to initiate an NDP GST, because they can only see business coming their way. It's not that far a drive for any of those people who have recreation equipment. Look at skidoos. It may come as a surprise to a few members opposite, but there are a tremendous number of skidoos in northern British Columbia, and it's very easy to put them in the back of a pickup and haul them across the border. It's very easy to take them to Grande Prairie and get them repaired, and that's what we are encouraging with this kind of legislation.
The NDP is driving business out of British Columbia. Along with all the other taxation that's happened with this government in the last 20 months, we have seen the mining industry just about fold its tent and leave. We have seen other large businesses just about do the same because of the increases in corporation capital tax, water tax and subdivision tax. I could stand here for 20 minutes and list fee, licence and tax increases that this government has initiated in the last 20 months. It is obscene. I agree wholeheartedly with the Minister of Labour when he says that it's obscene and unacceptable.
If you can also imagine, taxable services include furniture and appliances. Members used various examples of which appliances were taxable and which were not, and the confusion that that could bring, and
[ Page 9193 ]
what could happen there. Repairs to freestanding appliances such as stoves and televisions are taxable, but if they are built in, they are not taxable. It is as confusing as the GST. I remember that when the GST came in, one of the issues that governments across the country took on was the complexity of it, and how to administer and account for it. The federal government has found that the complexity of applying the GST became much more expensive than what they initially thought it would be. That is exactly what this government is going to find out. When our leader talked about some of the issues of what was taxable and what wasn't, I noticed that the Minister of Finance was quite surprised, because he hadn't thought of it.
On the third item, business equipment, here we go again. It is typical of this government, and has been typical from day one, that we're going to tax businesses and corporations because those wealthy people can stand it, and we need the money, and they are not paying their fair share. What we have done is eliminate quite a few well-paying jobs in those corporations and small businesses, and even though the minister stands up and brags about how British Columbia has created 30,000 jobs, and so on and so forth, we don't know where those jobs are, because we have also lost a lot of jobs. I can tell you that there is an awful difference between a job that pays $25,000 a year and one that pays $50,000 or $60,000 a year. The top ones are the ones we are losing because of punitive taxation by this government, and it's the bottom ones that are coming up. That's not going to feed government's needs and desires in the future. Government has to realize at some point that it is just not going to work.
[9:15]
It's interesting when members opposite talk about British Columbia having such a buoyant economy, and that we are creating more jobs than any other jurisdiction in Canada. The Minister of Agriculture got up and talked about taxes in other provinces, and they were 12 percent, 14 percent, 19 percent and whatever else. I don't care what their taxes are; I live in British Columbia. I don't see any reason to think that because the tax in P.E.I. is 12 percent or something, we should try to get there. Why should we? Why do we have to say that we're the lowest and we can't have it at the lowest? We've got to get right up there to the top; we've got room to move. That's the most ridiculous statement I've ever heard in my life.
As you go on, you see other things such as installation, assembly, dismantling, repair and maintenance of production machinery and equipment. We're going to start taxing labour for production machinery and equipment, and that affects my part of the province. It affects every part of the province. Repairs are done in every major corporation, every small business and every business in British Columbia when they have to have something done. When they have someone put in a piece of equipment that will be more environmentally friendly and the labour is $10,000, that company is going to have to pay 7 percent on that labour. Do you think they are going to do it? I don't think so. I think they'll put it off.
In fact, Bruce McConnachie, president of the Certified General Accountants' Association of B.C., says that extending the sales tax to an additional range of services will have a negative effect on economic growth. I quote: "It seems strange to increase taxes on businesses that are attempting to keep production machinery in good working order. If important repairs are delayed as a result, this could result in lost production, lost jobs or dangerous working conditions." I don't think any of us want to encourage dangerous working conditions.
I have spoken many times in the House about jobs. Jobs are important in British Columbians' minds -- retaining a job or finding one. Anyone with young people in their family knows how hard it is for young people to find work today -- young people who have excellent educations; who went through our universities, which are some of the best in the country; and who have achieved a very high standing in school.
Interjection.
R. Neufeld: The Minister of Finance asks what bill I'm on. I'm on Bill 7, and I'm talking about the loss of jobs in British Columbia. And he laughs about it. It's typical of this government, isn't it? When it comes to losing jobs and to driving business and industry out of the province slowly but surely, this government is capable of doing it. They are masters at it, actually.
The specified labour services tax will be on adult clothing alterations and shoe repair, skate sharpening and ski repairs. What is that going to do for Whistler or the other places that depend heavily on skiing? You could say that the only people who can afford to go there are the rich from other parts of the country. Maybe you are going to tax the wealthier people on their ski repairs, but a lot of people in British Columbia ski, and not all the people in British Columbia are wealthy.
M. Farnworth: I'd rather ski in Fort St. John any day.
R. Neufeld: The member says that he'd rather ski in Fort St. John any day. He will have to pay the same tax in Fort St. John as he will in the lower mainland.
The miscellaneous items -- refinishing, restoring and retouching works of art, watch repair and maintenance.... I guess every British Columbian over six years of age probably wears a watch, so it's a good place to get a little more revenue, regardless of how old the people are.
I think this tax is regressive to most people in British Columbia. Going back to the Minister of Finance's quotes about the GST when that was being implemented, he said: "It will have a profound consequence on B.C. consumers. It's regressive. It's odious. It hits hardest on women in British Columbia." Here we have an NDP-initiated GST. It's going to affect small and big business and, in the end, it's going to affect jobs. It's going to affect what revenue can be generated and what taxes can come back to British Columbia. I think, as most British Columbians do, that that is
[ Page 9194 ]
tremendously regressive. It's going to hit the average British Columbian right in the pocketbook at a time when most of them today cannot afford any more taxes.
This government has increased taxes and fees of every description, and I am sure that they are not done yet. I'm sure they will find more, knowing this government's appetite for money to spend on things they say are needed to keep our economy going. But the average British Columbian says: "No, we've had enough taxes."
With that, I voice my opposition to Bill 7. I will take my place and listen to others who wish to speak to the bill.
D. Jarvis: I rise to speak on Bill 7. I shall not talk at any great length, basically because a lot has been said over the past seven hours, and a lot of it will be repetitive. But I could not help but make a comment.
We were talking earlier about Bill 7 when the question of restaurants was brought up. The Minister of Agriculture got up to defend the situation and said that other jurisdictions across this country -- and he named them all -- have excessive sales taxes. Well, it's too bad, and I agree that other jurisdictions have sales taxes that are higher than British Columbia. It's a sad situation, but it certainly doesn't excuse this province raising its sales tax and increasing it to the same height that other provinces may be at in the future. The Minister of Agriculture failed to state that there were no restaurants left in Ontario; and there are obviously none left in Saskatchewan. As a former realtor, I can tell you that every restaurant in British Columbia is for sale right now, because they are not making money.
Interjections.
Deputy Speaker: Order, hon. members.
D. Jarvis: In any event, we have the fifteenth tax bill of this session before us. It appears that a philosophy of this government is that the expenses of the government can only be met by an increase of social service taxes. It's a well-known fact that people in lower income levels are affected the most by sales tax increases, which, by their nature, are very regressive taxes. For each year of two successive years, this government has increased taxes over $1 million in this province. I believe we're up $2.8 million now. In any event, when sales taxes are put into effect, the economy is not stimulated. In fact, it discourages the economy. The markets slow down when there are no incentives. For example, we keep hearing from the car dealers that their sales are slowing down. That's just one group in this province affected by the tax increases.
Like any other market, such as housing or cars, commodities are affected directly by tax increases. It affects one's ability to pay, and this bill certainly affects that by simply increasing the costs. If your product price goes up, then sales follow the purchaser's ability to pay. Increases in costs that are not commensurate with rising wages cause the market to go down, and the revenue for this province goes down along with it. When taxes go up, the consumer's overall purchasing power is limited. The incentive to purchase is slowed down by taxes, and that impairs the economic growth of a country. At this time, we can honestly see that this tax is having a disastrous effect on the licensed car dealer industry, as I mentioned a little earlier.
The bill brings into the taxable field parking and parking sites, parking rights and all the services that go along with this and the luxury car industry. It's having a dire effect. It raises the basic rate from 6 percent to 7 percent. It's not too much, but it's still another increase that a lot of the people in this province cannot really afford.
We are rapidly approaching other infamous jurisdictions that are well known for their excessively high rates -- high inflation and high debt. This province is now classed as a seriously indebted province, along with other provinces in this country. We are on the seriously indebted list. With yet another tax introduction, it is frightening to know that we are behind many Third World countries. We can't control our debt problem by increasing taxes.
Another aspect is that we will see businesses move across the border because of rising taxes. It would be a shame if this happened. Although we only have evidence of a few at present, we will probably see more in the near future. The real estate market is drastically affected by the rising tax structures in this province, and this bill is exacerbating the situation. For example, in the Far East -- where the Premier has been on his Club Med tours to bring business and development investment into this province -- they are not putting the money into British Columbia that people may think they are. Their money is much better off in mainland China, for example, where they can earn twice as much interest on their investment as they can in British Columbia. They are afraid of British Columbia because of its aggressive taxation policies that never seem to end.
[9:30]
The people of British Columbia -- the cash cow for the government -- can't go on forever paying the rising taxes that we see before us. We see all the tax revolts throughout the province because of this government and its taxation policy. It has no idea of how to invest and develop in this province. The government itself ignored the prospect of several billion dollars with the Tatshenshini. They could have had an intevestment there, but they made a decision that will prove to be detrimental to this province in the long run. Right now a family of four in this country with an income of about $50,000 pays $23,000-plus in combined taxes. Here we have more taxes coming on with this bill. Of every dollar, 48 cents goes to taxes in this province. It's very discouraging, and it's the wrong way to lower our debt. Businesses are starting to stall, and I regret to say that we have not turned the recession corner as yet. We have a few problems, but this government does not know how to help. There are no cuts -- just tax and tax, and it goes up and up.
The minister's own words last week were that his tax measures will not raise as much as he had hoped. Does this mean that come the spring, we are going to see higher taxes, putting us into an even more detrimental
[ Page 9195 ]
position? I pity the people of this province. This minister must stop increasing expenditures and start to reduce spending and taxation. He must stimulate the growth in this province, not destroy it.
Before I conclude by saying that I am not in favour of this bill, I'd just like to say that the member for Prince George-Omineca said a little while ago that the Minister of Finance couldn't even run a peanut stand. I just want to tell you that I don't believe this minister has ever run a peanut stand before, so it's not a very good statement for him to make in that sense. In any event, I wish to say that I am against this bill, and I feel that it will be detrimental to this province.
H. De Jong: It gives me pleasure to rise and speak on this bill -- not that I am in favour of it, because it's a really bad bill. Perhaps it's incidental that it deals with a 7 percent tax, and perhaps it's more incidental that we're dealing with this bill in the seventh month of the year. Back in Biblical times, the number seven was the perfect number. I don't think that the minister gave any thought to this scenario, but surely, if he did, he was absolutely wrong in terms of applying the number seven in this manner.
It's ironic that when the members who are now on the government side were in opposition, they spoke very strongly against the GST, and rightly so. It was not acceptable to them, nor was it acceptable to the government of the day. It wasn't acceptable to British Columbians and Canadians in general. Yet here we have two taxes. First of all, the increase in the provincial sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent, costing the average family of four about $400 a year -- that's $1.20 a day. It is expected that the revenues collected from the tax on services will cost the average taxpayer about $50. These combined, every family of four has to cough up another $600 a year, which is $50 a month. It's a lot of money. We don't think of it when we go to the store or the service station. We pay a dollar here, 25 cents there and three dollars in the next place, but day after day it all adds up.
At the time, the opposition and the government spoke very strongly against the GST. We have here, I believe, a GST that is far worse than the federal GST. The federal GST did allow for a floor where the tax would kick in, and that was a $30,000 operation. A small business, be it a shoe or garment repair shop, a home occupation or whatever, that didn't bring in $30,000 did not need to collect the GST and send it to the federal government. So there was some incentive for the small business man. But this government hasn't left any incentive -- nothing whatsoever. At the time we were discussing the GST here in the House, the Minister of Agriculture said that the strength of the economy is the oil for the small business to operate. Here, again, the government is taking the oil away from small business. They've taken the oil away from many families, because ultimately it's the family that needs to pay.
This tax is undoubtedly worse than the federal GST. The government may have considered harmonizing it with the GST.
Interjection.
H. De Jong: The Minister of Finance says no. Well, that's a quick answer. But perhaps the combined savings to both the province and the federal government, had the taxes been harmonized, could have brought the tax down instead of raising it to 7 percent. The minister shakes his head and says no. But I don't think he can confirm that. I would like to hear from him sometime what the difference would have been.
I believe that the GST on top of a 7 percent sales tax is a double whammy. It's going to affect many people. As was earlier stated, it affects repairs on articles that are not directly tied to the home. That raises a lot of unanswered questions. For instance, a stove is connected by way of an electric cable. When the stove needs repairs, is it part of the home or not? That stove is really no different from the countertop kind of stove where basically the only connection to the house is four additional screws. Where does the difference come in? I don't want to get into all of the little nitty-gritty details about where it does and does not apply. This bill will not only lead to a lot of confusion, it will also lead to a lot of abuse and misuse. The honest person is going to pay, and everyone who tries to get out of paying it will get away with it, because they'll find a way of not paying the taxes.
The Minister of Agriculture stated earlier tonight that in some of the maritime provinces the combined taxes, the GST and the provincial sales tax, were considerably higher. But I think it's terrible for a Minister of Agriculture from this province, which is a resource-rich province, to pick on the maritime provinces that are in many respects the have-not provinces. It's shameful for this government to hide behind the higher taxes that the people in the have-not provinces have to bring in in order for their provincial governments to run their affairs -- it's an absolute shame. I simply can't see how the minister would even get to that low a level, to use that comparison to justify this tax implementation and what this bill will do to British Columbians.
I'm not sure what all the effects are on the car dealers in British Columbia, but I do know that there have been a number of articles written in the last little while about the car dealers, and particularly this little article here. I'm sure that over the weekend the Minister of Finance, like many of us, perhaps had a few hours to put his feet up and read some of the newspapers, go through them and discover some of the things that he wouldn't get time for during the busy days in the Legislature here. I suppose we all do that: we take our time on the weekends, become a little more relaxed, and then it starts to sink in as to what Marlaina Gayle says here in a small article in the Province. I just want to read part of it:
"A ministry document obtained by Province consumer reporter Marlaina Gayle shows that the government will get $19 million less in car taxes than predicted. Thousands of car seekers are delaying buying, striking private deals, or exploring the growing underground auto market. The NDP is stuck in the breakdown lane. They were warned, and now with the facts before him, Clark plans to do nothing more than
[ Page 9196 ]
monitor the situation. We hope this lemon is sweeter for him than it is for the car-buying public."
If such a statement does not hit home with the Minister of Finance, then I don't know what will.
R. Neufeld: A hammer between the eyes.
H. De Jong: My colleague for Peace River North made the comment at the beginning of his speech tonight that there is no principle to this bill, and he's probably quite right. If there is any principle in this bill, first of all, it's a bill of pure socialist philosophy. The only principle it contains is tax and tax and tax more, and that's a bad principle, because the people have spoken loud and clear on many occasions over the last couple of years, but particularly during the last six months when they got upset with a painting that is being bought in Ottawa, the refurbishing of the Prime Minister's home, and the list goes on and on.
[9:45]
The people are getting very sensitive as to what the government is spending, but equally so to the taxes and more taxes they have to bring up each and very year. It has to stop. The government can hide behind the maritime provinces, as the Minister of Agriculture did tonight, but that is not the way to do it. We have a resource-rich province. Government should at least try to find more innovative ways of raising revenue than through taxes and more taxes.
I'm going to keep my speech rather short, because we're all bound by time. When I started out tonight I talked about this being in the seventh month, using the number seven. While it may have been the perfect number in Biblical days, it's a bad number today in this context. However, there is still time for the Minister of Finance to stand up, listen to the people of British Columbia, mend his ways and amend this bill -- or perhaps take it off the order paper altogether, because it's not doing any good for British Columbians. It will take away a lot of the initiative that British Columbians have had in the past in building this province. Certainly I believe the government would be better off using the seven in terms of cutting back on expenses. There is still time within the seventh month for the minister to take action, and I urge him to do so.
R. Chisholm: I rise today to speak on Bill 7. Unfortunately, I don't rise in support of it. This bill is very regressive. Unfortunately, this bill is taxing where it should not be taxing. This government has to learn that they cannot tax themselves out of debt, that they have to restrain their own expenditures and reinvest in the resource sector and small business of this province, and that taxation is only going to pay the interest, if that. It will never pay down the principal of the debt we've acquired over the past two governments.
Unfortunately, this bill covers a wide spectrum of taxation. It increases the sales tax rate 1 percent, on which they expect to make $305 million. It covers labour services. I'm not going to go through every one that has been covered, because other people have read exactly what the bill has stated. When they start talking about repairing shoes, or lawyers' fees or whatever.... Parking is another area it covers. It is a tax grab; that's all it is. And they expect to make $12 million on that. On labour services they expect to make $160 million.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
The car tax is another very regressive tax. Unfortunately, it is putting an awful lot of car dealers in an untenable position. They are being taxed this luxury tax that even affects the agriculture industry. If a farmer is going out to buy a farm truck -- on which you can spend $30,000 very easily -- he is now taxed the luxury tax. I've never seen a farmer go to a wedding in a truck that he'd been hauling manure around the farm with. This is not a luxury vehicle, yet he is being taxed a luxury tax. It's a farm vehicle, a working component of a working farm. These are very unfair taxes -- especially when you take into consideration the increased rates on water taxes and Crown land leases, and the different taxes and assessments that farmers are getting these days.
When you add this onto the corporate capital tax and start talking about the luxury tax on automobiles, it becomes very regressive. Unfortunately, all this has done is force people to stop buying cars. Naturally, the taxes end up right back on the normal consumer -- the taxpayer of this province. People have stopped buying cars because of taxes, and because the cars are not being bought, the dealers are not bringing more stock in -- they are not keeping the stock because they cannot afford to pay the interest on the stock -- which means they are not earning what they thought they might earn from the corporate capital tax. In the past two or three months we've seen a 60 percent decrease in car sales in this province. That is a major amount of taxation that is not appearing in the coffers of the British Columbia treasury, and it is due to this regressive tax.
When we talk about taxation, no matter what the hon. minister wants to call it, and no matter how he wants to put it into place, it is not the lawyer who pays the tax, it is not the car dealer who pays the tax, it is not you or me who pays the tax; it is the consumer. It is the person on the street, the everyday taxpayer, the citizen of this province who pays that tax. It comes down to that individual to make up the difference, the money that this minister wants to see in his budget for next year to cut down the deficit.
As I have tried to say to the minister in other speeches, you cannot buy down the deficit with taxes. It will take innovative use of money, cutting back on the bureaucracy, and reinvesting in small business and the resource sector of this province. It's going to take the concerted effort of all ministries. It's going to take the Environment minister, the Finance minister and the Agriculture minister. He cannot tax himself out of debt. But if we look at this logically, and if he starts to cut back on the bureaucracy, and invest the money in the province, we will not have to tax the citizen the way we are. Right now the citizen is taxed out, as they say. He cannot afford any more. Unfortunately, the minister is still looking for more money to buy down this debt. We have not even touched the principal yet -- nor are we going to with this bill.
[ Page 9197 ]
Another principle that the minister has failed to see is the ability to pay. As with any bill, he must measure the ability to pay of each and every individual in this province. If he doesn't, then some people are being unjustly taxed. Unfortunately, we saw this with real estate and leases being unjustly taxed. He's had to adjust how he was going to go about this. He has not taken this into account; otherwise, we would not see a luxury tax on cars which applies to agricultural trucks.
Another principle is equality. We should all be paying equally; there shouldn't be one industry that is penalized. If we are going to have to raise taxes -- and let's admit it; we all realize that we have to pay a certain amount for living in this great province and country -- we should all be paying equally. This has not been taken into account. Again, when you look at the real estate taxes, it becomes very apparent that this was not a principle that has ever been used.
In terms of the efficiency of the tax, they should impose as little administration in collecting as possible. This has not been taken into account.
These are just a couple of the principles that we have to look at when we start talking about taxation. The main thing we have to look at is how we are affecting the British Columbia population and how we are affecting the economy. When a bill and a tax are shown to be regressive over a period of time, then the hon. minister should be taking a look at how he can adjust this, to lessen the pain that he has inflicted on the population of British Columbia.
We have a problem with our car dealers, agriculture and our sales tax. We talk about why we should put the sales tax up 1 percent. Unfortunately, when we talk about sales tax, we're just forcing people to cross the border; we're not helping our economy. Our economy is not blooming and blossoming; the economy south of the border is. I can give him names of a dozen companies that are moving out because of the regressive sales taxes and tax procedures that this government is using. Unfortunately, when we do this, we send another person south of the border. When this tax came into effect, I asked a question in question period. I had phoned the Sumas border crossing. Sumas was full of people down there shopping, and it hadn't been for months. It was due to the 1 percent increase. But if you add that 1 percent, and 1 cent on a litre of gasoline and you go on like that, you are sending people elsewhere. That is not generating our economy. Until we invest in our own economy, we're in trouble.
When we tax in the manner that we're taxing.... Look at Cominco. We're seeing towns that are withering and dying. Why? It's because of our taxation policy and the grab to pay down the debt. This is not working. We've seen the proof. We've seen Cominco closing down. We've seen other projects that have closed down or are in the process or are slowing down. We're losing jobs. We have to take another look at how we are approaching this problem. There are other ways, and it's not necessarily to try to tax our way out of it.
I hope a few of my messages get through to the minister. I said I wasn't going to go through the bill point by point like other individuals have. Everybody has heard it all. But if the minister doesn't listen to some of the recommendations made by the opposition and by the third party, we're in for a tough time. Our businesses are going to go south. We cannot afford any more unemployment; we cannot afford to have any more people on social welfare. We have to get on top of our problems right now and adjust the way we approach them in British Columbia. The old ways of taxing the people to death or adding another infliction of that sort on the population does not work. I hope the hon. minister has listened to these words and will take a few of them into account.
L. Hanson: Bill 7, which imposes the tax on automobiles, has some ulterior motivation. I won't suggest, as the Minister of Finance suggested on an earlier bill, that there is someone hiding under the desks, but I do suggest that there may be some thought on the part of the Minister of Finance to harmonize the provincial tax with the federal tax. As I'm sure British Columbians and members of this House are aware, the GST is applicable to more commodities and in more cases than the provincial sales tax. It appears that this is the first move by this government to harmonize the two. The excuse will be that when they have clearly defined the rules for the federal GST, it would make an awful lot of sense to make the PST harmonize with that, and there would be all sorts of savings and so on. But I suspect that the people of British Columbia may not agree with that. I suspect that this is a deliberate plan of the Ministry of Finance to harmonize the PST and the GST and again increase the tax burden on the citizens of British Columbia and increase the coffers of the provincial government.
During the debate on the GST some time ago, the Minister of Finance commented that there are two main reasons for the increase in cross-border shopping. The second reason, however, is even more significant in terms of the dramatic increase in recent months: the impact of the GST.
[10:00]
I've had some experience in the automobile industry for a number of years, and I don't think the minister really recognizes what the impact of what he has done here will be. For years a certain amount of competition went on between the province of Alberta and the province of British Columbia, simply because Alberta doesn't have a sales tax. We in the automobile industry were faced quite often with the threat of people going to Alberta to buy their automobiles and coming back to British Columbia with a tax-free automobile purchase. We got around that by ensuring that the sales tax was added when the car was registered in British Columbia. When B.C. purchasers went to Alberta to buy a car, they didn't get their sales tax credit when they traded in their car. Then they were captured by the registration process when they came back to British Columbia. If British Columbians shopped at home -- not using cross-border shopping -- the purchase price of the automobile was subject to the sales tax, less the amount of the trade-in that was given as a result of that. So if purchasers from B.C. went to Alberta and traded in their automobile, not only were they stuck with the tax on the total amount of the purchase, they also lost the
[ Page 9198 ]
sales tax credit that they would have gotten in British Columbia by trading in their car. Now we see this minister removing the credit that the individual has in the automobile they have. He has literally taken their wallet out and taken out 7 percent of the asset they have in the automobile they now own. That in fact will deter, and has deterred, the automobile industry.
Somebody mentioned earlier that the Minister of Finance couldn't run a peanut stand. Well, I don't subscribe to that. But I do subscribe to the fact that he knows very little about the automobile industry, and I think he would have great difficulty in managing an automobile dealership. He suggested the other day, as a result of questions that were asked of him during question period, that automobile sales in British Columbia were in fact holding their own and, in most cases, were up.
First of all, he didn't mention the used car sales that an automobile dealer enjoys, which is a very important and integral part of the business. In a new-car franchise, I suspect that well in excess of a third of the gross profit is a result of the sale of used cars. There has been a tremendous downturn in the number of used cars that are being traded in on new automobiles. They are being sold privately, and there's some suggestion that the reporting, when they are transferred, is less than the true value of the purchase, thereby avoiding payment of the proper amount of tax. That's quite possible.
Something that makes me wonder about the minister's knowledge of what is happening.... It has been fairly well publicized that the original expectation from the application of this tax would be some $56 million revenue to provincial coffers. How does the Minister of Finance equate that with the fact that the new estimate of that revenue is now $37 million? Quick arithmetic tells us that revenues expected as a result of the automobile tax changes will be down $19 million. How does the minister justify his assertion that automobile sales have not been affected by this tax? Obviously there has been some method found of avoiding the tax or the original forecast of the minister's automobile sales was incorrect. I have difficulty in understanding how the minister can say that automobile sales are at a level as high as expected -- in fact, in most cases, have increased -- and that the automobile industry has not been affected by this sales tax. I think the people of British Columbia will be able to voice their opinion of that -- hopefully before the full five years that the government is allowed to go.
Not only is the application of the 7 percent to labour in certain circumstances confusing, but it will have the effect of increasing cross-border shopping. It will increase the underground economy that we know has been generated by the federal GST. This provincial GST will no doubt increase that, despite the Finance minister assuring us that his ministry will police the provision of services to that degree. It is well known and documented, and we would have to accept that that is going to be one of the most difficult parts of policing any tax structure the government puts in place. That underground economy will be driven and encouraged by the application of this provincial GST.
I think the people of British Columbia will recognize that this government's intention is to ultimately harmonize the GST and the PST, and this is the first step of a move in that direction. The people of British Columbia will be made well aware of that when this tax actually becomes a fact. So I look forward to the committee stage of this to discuss the various clauses within the legislation.
I hope that the Minister of Finance -- even though he has already revised his forecasts of what this new initiative will bring in terms of dollars to the provincial coffer -- will be honest and tell us what the true impact has been on the automobile dealers and the people of British Columbia.
K. Jones: I take the opportunity now, as we wind up debate on Bill 7 -- the taxation bill that is adding 7 percent to service items and another 1 percent to the general provincial sales tax, which had previously been 6 percent -- to address several areas that are of concern to people in my constituency and to people throughout British Columbia. The Minister of Finance is very well aware of the fact that there is a tax revolt over this whole process of increased taxation. The people of British Columbia are telling the minister that they have had enough. They have had the government dig into their pockets deep enough, and they now want the government to start digging into its pockets, cutting its costs, becoming accountable and getting out of the taxpayers' pockets. They don't have sufficient funds to deal with the increasing costs that the government has been proposing, be it through automobile insurance, increased costs of various services, permits, taxation, health benefit costs or extra charges relating to our social programs. All of these are accumulating. They are continually digging into the small amount of money that people have as disposable income for their regular food supply and clothing for their children. In the eyes of the public, the government has come to the point that it has to stop this continuing roll of adding more taxes.
The farm community in my constituency is really seriously affected by increases in maintaining their farm equipment and their general operating costs. It's a marginal operation at best these days in the farm communities, and for the government to put on another 7 percent is just a little bit more than they can deal with. They have said before that they were just barely making it. They're saying today that you are really hurting them.
Last fall the Minister of Finance imposed a hiring freeze. That hiring freeze didn't seem to be very effective. It was sort of bypassed by the various ministries. It faded out after the Christmas period, and continued to be an increasing rather than a decreasing flow of employees, with the result that we have this year a much greater number of employees than we have ever had in the history of the government.
This minister is not paying attention to accountability. He is not providing the responsibility that the people are asking of him. The type of leadership and guidance that the government is supposed to be giving is supposed to take the costs of government to a level that is within a reasonable amount that the taxpayers
[ Page 9199 ]
can afford. It's on that basis that I stand here asking the Minister of Finance to be serious about finding ways of not increasing taxation, but finding ways to cut the cost of government. That's what our taxpayers throughout British Columbia are saying to you. I hope that you will get that message, and make the changes that are necessary. Do not continue to impose more taxes.
The Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, I call the vote on second reading of Bill 7.
[10:15]
Motion approved on the following division:
| YEAS -- 30 | ||
|
Petter |
Edwards |
Barlee |
|
Charbonneau |
Beattie |
Schreck |
|
Lortie |
Hammell |
Lali |
|
Giesbrecht |
Miller |
Smallwood |
|
Gabelmann |
Clark |
Zirnhelt |
|
Copping |
Lovick |
Ramsey |
|
Pullinger |
Farnworth |
Evans |
|
Dosanjh |
O'Neill |
Hartley |
|
Streifel |
Lord |
Randall |
|
Garden |
Brewin |
Janssen |
| NAYS -- 14 | ||
|
Chisholm |
Gingell |
Dalton |
|
Farrell-Collins |
Stephens |
Hanson |
|
Weisgerber |
De Jong |
Neufeld |
|
Symons |
Tanner |
Anderson |
|
Jarvis |
|
K. Jones |
Bill 7, Social Services Tax Amendment Act, 1993, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.
Hon. G. Clark: I call committee on Bill 78.
PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYERS ACT
The House in committee on Bill 78; H. Giesbrecht in the chair.
Hon. G. Clark: For those members of the House who don't know him, I'd just like to introduce Ron McEachern. Ron is a longtime public employee who is currently the director of negotiation services in the government personnel services division of the Ministry of Finance.
On section 1.
J. Weisgerber: I'm curious to know what agencies or groups would be affected under section 1(g).
Hon. G. Clark: These are essentially contractors with a social services agency 100 percent, or virtually 100 percent, funded by the provincial government who are acting on a contract capacity to provide a service to the public. There are hundreds. In fact, that's one of the biggest problems. We're sort of jumping ahead, but to facilitate things, this sector is probably a year away from forming an employers' council, because it's so disparate and involves so many employers. But there is work going on now to try to coordinate that. It's a constant problem in government, particularly in the contracted-services sector, to deal with pay questions and either inequalities between contractors and/or problems that the government may have in terms of dealing with a pay pattern being set by smaller contractors and service agencies largely in the community social services area.
The Korbin report gives you a sense of the areas covered by contracted social services: mental handicap services; child, youth and family support services; children in residential care -- I don't believe child day care is really covered under this section; and alcohol and drug programs. A large number of alcohol and drug programs are contracted out, and there's no intention necessarily of changing that. In most cases they're unionized, but not always. In fact, some of the contracted agencies in the health care sector, such as home support, are about 50 percent unionized and 50 percent non-union. Obviously we're not making any discrimination on the basis of whether they are unionized or not. This is merely the employer's side of the equation that we're dealing with.
V. Anderson: Under section 1(b)(i), 50 percent or more of board members are appointed by an act. How are the other 50 percent appointed? What kinds of areas are included? Are the new health councils or corporations included in this kind of arrangement where there are community appointees and others?
Hon. G. Clark: This is how we define whether or not they're an employer for the purposes of the act. It's not a question of how we appoint members of a board or commission. We're simply saying that in order to qualify as a public sector employer under the direct control of the government in this part of the definition section, 50 percent of its board of management or board of directors have to be appointed by an act or by a minister or by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. So we're not casting judgment here on how people are appointed or trying to reach into other acts; we're simply saying, for the purposes of describing a public sector employer for the purpose of this act, one of the things that has to be complied with is that 50 percent or more of their members be appointed by an arm of the government.
V. Anderson: I'm just trying to clarify this. Under the Health Council Act we've been talking about a third of those community and regional councils being appointed by the government, and others by community bodies. Does that mean they would not be included as public sector employers?
Hon. G. Clark: They're not necessarily captured by that particular section the member was referring to. Subsection (f) deals with "an employer that is
[ Page 9200 ]
designated in the regulations as a health care employer." Remember, you don't have to jump through each hoop from subsection (a) to subsection (g); you don't have to add them all up and then see whether they apply. This is a definitions section trying to capture the various agencies and organizations.
J. Weisgerber: I wonder if municipal councils are caught under subsection (b) or perhaps some other section. The reference is to councils, authorities and other organizations, but it's not clear from the legislation whether municipal councils are included.
Hon. G. Clark: An excellent question. They are not covered by the legislation. I think one could make a good case to cover them, but Ms. Korbin did not suggest they be captured. They will be invited as an observer to the big table, so to speak, to talk about mandate-setting, but they're not covered by this section.
K. Jones: Could the minister indicate what is intended by "unincorporated board" and "bureau" -- under the "public sector employer" in subsection (b)?
Hon. G. Clark: It's simply a way to capture a variety of public bodies. There are something like 200 public bodies and commissions. I've just got here a listing of some of them which are not referred to in the act. We tried to have a broad definition to capture everybody -- boards of examiners, the Board of Brand Commissioners in the Ministry of Agriculture, and so on. I'm not suggesting they're all going to be captured by the act. But this is a broad definition to capture public sector bodies and commissions.
"Unincorporated board" doesn't mean that we're going specifically to find an unincorporated board that qualifies. This is a broad definitions section -- sort of legalese -- to capture all the public sector bodies that exist.
[10:30]
As I said earlier, I have here from another bill a list of some hundred or so boards and commissions, and we're going through this exercise now to try to reduce the number. Nevertheless, when you're dealing with a public sector employer, you want the definitions section to be broad enough to capture all public sector employers.
K. Jones: Following on that, would such things as a water district, improvement district, diking authority or diking district be included under that? They are unincorporated boards or authorities.
Hon. G. Clark: No, they're not covered. We're really dealing with a provincial act here; we're not trying to capture anything to do with municipal or regional government. When it says public sector employer it means provincial public sector employer. That goes without saying. If it comes to diking questions, if there are any provincial bodies that employ people, then they may well be qualified. The purpose of this is to try to group the various public sector employers in industrywide groupings, for the purpose of coordinating bargaining objectives and other things we'll get into the act. In that case, it would qualify.
K. Jones: Looking at the connector between (i) and (ii) of (b), the "or" in there: does that mean that either situation -- 50 percent or more members appointed by the act, or employees appointed under the Public Service Act -- is the only criterion required to be qualified?
Hon. G. Clark: The answer is yes. But it says: "...and that is designated in the regulations." So we'll have to publish regulations.
To give you an example I have here, Glendale and/or Riverview would be examples of employees appointed under the Public Service Act who may be designated in the regulations, as I understand it.
C. Tanner: I have two questions here. First, if this applies to the government, why do you say "the government," in (a) under section 1, then make a separation for everything else that isn't government? Why wouldn't they all be as one? Second, in the list of a hundred public bodies that the minister has, has he one bureau among them? I've never seen that in any provincial legislation before.
Hon. G. Clark: I'll have to take a look at that last question. But the answer is that we're dealing with the public service -- which is covered by this act -- and then the public sector. The public sector isn't only Public Service Act employees; it's also School Act employees, for example -- teachers and the like. When I said provincial public sector employer, I really meant provincially funded public sector employer. We're really dealing with things that are funded by the provincial government, and obviously some other things capture any board or agency that's either fully funded or virtually fully funded by the provincial government. In the definitions section, we want to not only be as precise as possible and capture as many we can but also deal with broad groupings. If we stood here and said it's anybody the government wishes to define, then I think you'd have some legitimate criticism -- although it would certainly be easier for the government in that respect. Again, this is a fairly comprehensive listing that attempts to deal with the broad range of definitions of public sector employers, excluding bureaus, that could be captured by the act.
F. Gingell: Crown corporations don't seem to have to be in here. They could be caught under section 1(b) only if you designate them. Is it your intention to designate them all?
Hon. G. Clark: Yes, Crown corporations are to be covered by that section. It specifically deals with that. On page G2 of her report, Ms. Korbin recommended some 15 Crown corporations, and in fact virtually all Crown corporations will be covered. But to answer the question, I asked my staff what isn't covered. The answer is that there are some 150 boards and comm
[ Page 9201 ]
issions, bureaus and the like. So there are really 15 Crowns that she suggests should be grouped in that sector by regulation. That's our current intention, but we'll obviously review it to see if any that are not captured should be.
G. Farrell-Collins: I just have one question further to that, and then I have another question. Are any of the Crowns not going to be included, or are they all there?
Hon. G. Clark: For the record, I'll read them out so there's no misunderstanding: B.C. Assessment Authority, B.C. Buildings Corporation, B.C. Ferry Corporation, B.C. Hydro, B.C. Lottery Corporation, B.C. Pavilion Corporation, B.C. Petroleum Corporation, B.C. Rail, B.C. Systems Corporation, B.C. Transit, B.C. Trade, ICBC, PNE and Provincial Capital Commission. By my recollection, they're all there.
G. Farrell-Collins: I just wanted to make sure that B.C. Rail was on that list, given the debates taking place right now. I know it's not.... Well, sometimes it's considered a Crown. I didn't notice the Workers' Compensation Board. I assume that falls under the boards and commissions. Is that correct?
Hon. G. Clark: That's a good question. As I understand it, they're not recommended by Ms. Korbin for inclusion, but the government may wish to consider that. In fact, I think there's a good case for that. The WCB is a bit of a unique case because they work very hard at their independence, and the structure drives a kind of industry, if you will -- it's almost a self-regulated body of industry and labour. The whole purpose of the WCB was to give industry and the major stakeholder -- the labour movement -- as well as public interest representatives on the board, the chance to regulate themselves. I'll let members judge the effectiveness of that. Obviously there's been some very positive moves in that regard, and it's a model that I'm certainly not opposed to. But in terms of wages and the like, they may well qualify as something we want to look at.
On the other hand, they're not funded by the provincial government; they're not funded by general tax revenue. They have a statute themselves, which allows them to do it. But I think the member makes an excellent suggestion, if he's making one, and I certainly take it very seriously. Obviously, the implementation of Korbin's recommendations is going to take a fair amount of time to work through and ask the kinds of questions that staff, the government and others are looking at right now. But it doesn't appear that she has recommended WCB.
G. Farrell-Collins: I do have one other question. I know that this act, along with the Labour Relations Code and other provisions, are essentially taking the collectivized workers and the bargaining groups that the government is putting together here, or that in many cases already exist, and setting out the rules within which they work. Is there any provision in here for excluded staff being engaged in this process or participating in any of the consultation that's taking place?
Hon. G. Clark: It's not really in the definitions section, but I'd be happy to discuss that with the members of the committee. Excluded staff clearly will be involved in a major way, because it deals with not just collective bargaining objectives, but also compensation for excluded staff -- this is a key part of what Korbin is recommending, and something we expect the public sector employers to deal with. For example, the HLRA, which is already a large agency in health care, has no jurisdiction to comment on or otherwise have any influence over excluded staff negotiations. Yet large increases for excluded staff may well drive bargaining problems and the like. So you would have to ask them. But I think you could make a good case to say that the employers' organizations should look at excluded staff and not just the bargaining unit -- not to be punitive about it, but hopefully to deal with the taxpayers' and the Ministry of Finance's concerns, and also to deal with equity and fairness across the board and maybe a mechanism for setting excluded staff compensation.
L. Hanson: I noted with interest your answer on the WCB. Section 1(b) would seem to capture that, in that its board of directors.... Is the government not appointing the members of the WCB board anymore?
Hon. G. Clark: If you read subsection (b), you'll see it has to qualify under (b)(i) and (ii), and then there's another hoop in (ii) that says: "...and that is designated in the regulations." So you're quite correct: WCB qualifies under section 1(b) -- but it wouldn't necessarily be covered unless it's designated by regulation. All I was saying for the members of the committee was that the Korbin commission did not recommend them to be designated. I don't want to prejudge deliberations on this subject, but I think a good case could be made to include them in that employers' council.
L. Hanson: I hope the minister didn't take that as a support for the inclusion; it was simply an observation for interest.
We have seen the formation of a number of societies in British Columbia who provide supervision for some of our handicapped citizens in group homes. They are not large organizations, but they do provide that facility. I wonder if the minister's intention is to capture them. Secondly, there are a number of employers who provide a transitional style of service to young male juveniles who get into difficulty, for example, in the form of a home. Most of those shelters are totally government-funded, and the funding they get comes through contracts they have struck with the government. I'm wondering if it's the intention of this act to capture them.
[ Page 9202 ]
Hon. G. Clark: The short answer is yes. You are absolutely correct. For the handicapped -- the employer or the home.... There are literally hundreds of these, but we are not talking about that sector. Of all the sectors to deal with about pay under the Korbin commission, I would say that it will take a year, or maybe two, to set up an employers' council for this one.
There has been an invitation to all the employers in group homes and the like who are funded by the government, asking if they would like to contribute to this kind of discussion about it. Many of them are small, many are not unionized, and one might argue that many of them are underpaid. What happens now is that the money gets sucked up by the large institutional debates and negotiations, and some of those contracted services, though they are not necessarily underfunded, are really struggling. What we are trying to do here is to put these together and ask if this is fair. If it's not fair, can we fix it, and how can we fix it, given difficult fiscal circumstances? The purpose is to try to bring together a council of employers in the social services field that is broadly representative of all the different small service providers that contract to government, to see if there is a way that we can bring them to the table and have those kinds of discussions and deliberations.
[10:45]
K. Jones: Would that particular type of organization fall under the designation in 1(g)?
Hon. G. Clark: Yes.
K. Jones: Just elaborating on that type of organization, are we talking about an organization that would be a registered society providing functions that are almost 100 percent paid for by contributions from one or various ministries of government to provide social services, such as a women's centre, a program for vocational training, a home for battered women and things like that? Would this program make that agency, which is at arm's length with its own board, and supposedly independent as far as financial reporting is concerned, a part of the labour relations process, and would it also, in doing so, bring it under the financial reporting process?
Hon. G. Clark: I'm not sure about the latter point in terms of bringing them under some broader scrutiny with respect to financial information. I don't believe so. In terms of your earlier point, on whether they could or would be part of the employers' council, the intention is that yes, they would be. This is a sector which is broadly unorganized and very large in scope, and it has some potential cost implications. It will certainly take a year or so before there is some way of bringing them all to the table to see how they fit. It doesn't mean that they are subject to the yoke of government scrutiny or to the Financial Information Act or the like; it simply means that for the purposes of bargaining, that sector, broadly defined, will have an employers' council in which they will participate to help coordinate pay questions across their sector.
K. Jones: Some of these organizations are fairly large, and some of them have already been through their first collective agreement process and are now unionized operations. Are they going to be able to come into this employers' council process immediately upon its implementation? They are in a position of having to negotiate as a single unit within a larger sector where there are other units similar to them, but they get whipsawed against each other for the same staff.
Hon. G. Clark: The answer is no. There has to be one employers' council. They have to have bylaws and a constitution approved by the Minister of Finance. They will still be bargaining the way they do now. We are not going to move quickly in this sector. A lot of work has to be done to bring together a broader organization.
Section 1 approved.
On section 2.
F. Gingell: I was wondering if the minister might deal with "(b) to improve communication and coordination between public sector employers and representatives of public sector employees." One presumes that that is the employer and the union. What role does this act play in having the Public Sector Employers' Council getting involved between the employers who make up that council -- and are subservient to it, I would presume -- and the groups they negotiate with? How do you visualize that happening?
Hon. G. Clark: Any employer has to be mindful of the relationship they have with their union, and this is no different. The employers' organization is trying to improve communication and coordination between themselves and the union representatives. This is a fairly innocuous section. It's to improve communication and coordination between employers and unions. One problem in some sectors is that there are several unions and many different employers. The purpose of the act is to try to promote harmonious and cooperative labour relations practices. In some cases the communication hasn't been perfect -- nor will it ever be, of course -- but the council is an attempt to foster that. One purpose of the council is to foster harmonious labour relations, and that's really all it says.
F. Gingell: If realize the scope of section 1 and the number of employers that can be brought in. Many of them will have non-unionized employees. How do you plan to deal with that? Does this give an indication of an intention later on to encourage unionization?
Hon. G. Clark: No, it doesn't. It's up to the employers' councils to deal with the union-non-union question, as opposed to government generally. Of the 300,000 public sector employees, the overwhelming majority are unionized. They have institutional
[ Page 9203 ]
structures through which they communicate, and that is recognized here. There are many thousands of non-union workers in the public sector, and it makes sense to try to deal with them also. I would argue that what might be broadly termed wage equity concerns.... Some of the non-union sector receive very low pay. One way of dealing with that might be unionizing them. Another way is for the employers, through their councils, to deal with the question that there may be an unfairness there. People should be treated fairly across the sector, and the employer can make those kinds of trade-offs. While I don't have any problem if everybody in the public sector is unionized -- and I make no bones about that -- this section is for the employer to try to deal with wage equity considerations, regardless of unionization.
G. Farrell-Collins: I don't want to be looking for bogeymen in this, because it reads fairly innocuously. We went through a long debate in the fall with Bill 84 and the labour code. It didn't materialize in the bill, but there was certainly lots of talk by the Minister of Labour that sectoral bargaining may be somewhere in the wings. What I'm hearing from the minister sounds like we're setting up the management side to plug in sectoral bargaining from the employers' side. I wonder if in this bill the ministry is able to go into these employer associations and councils and say, "This is the way you're going to do things," if they can't sort it out themselves and set bylaws, etc. -- which come up later. We're able to achieve sectoral bargaining without actually getting it with the labour code. You can come at from the employer's side also, and say: "Here are the rules. Here is the way it's going to be. You are going to have to certify. Sorry, that's the way it is in order to get rid of some of the confusion and the difficulties here. We want everybody in the same employers' group, and we want all the employees in the same bargaining group also." You can get rid of this idea of union-non-union, and then some of the pay equity problems that the minister, the Minister of Women's Equality and the Minister of Labour have brought up. As I said, I'm not trying to look for bogeymen, but it seems to me that there's a process in this bill -- and we'll look at other sections -- to actually impose sectoral bargaining on a sector without having to do it through the labour code. There is another way of going about it: to dictate it from on top to the employer groups.
Hon. G. Clark: The answer is no. The bottom line is that this is an act dealing with employers. For unions to form councils in a sector or something is a separate section of the labour code. In some respects I understand where the member is coming from. The criticism of sectoral bargaining or sectoral certification didn't come largely from government; it came from private industry. So to the extent that this organizes the employers in a sector and may lead to a pay policy being broadly applied in a sector, I guess you could make an argument.... This is the employer's side, so I'm not sure that there's necessarily a big advantage from the union perspective, or necessarily even from the workers' perspective, although I think there are some equity things that we can do. Anyway, the answer is no, it doesn't deal with sectoral bargaining, and it doesn't try to do it through the back door. Even if it did, it would only be the public sector, which was certainly not the focus of most of the concern about sectoral certification -- which was a big part of it -- and bargaining. I give you an assurance that we're not pursuing that approach here.
One last point, of course, is that not only are there a lot of non-union employees in the social services sector, but there are also a lot of different unions. So that poses a whole other question in terms of how one might try to deal with it. That is not being contemplated by the bill, because this is only dealing with the employers.
G. Farrell-Collins: What this may do -- and perhaps the minister can alleviate some of my concerns, and the more he says the more questions come into my mind.... In determining the appropriateness of a bargaining unit, the Labour Relations Board has to look at a lot of things, and one of them that's taking place right now in record numbers is applications to the Labour Relations Board for certification. To some extent that always involves discussion and argument over who is appropriate for the bargaining unit: is it an appropriate bargaining unit, and are these people best included or should they be excluded staff? The debate is always very fluid and there's lots of jurisprudence on that, but it's also a very complex area of labour law, and there are some very difficult decisions that need to be made, as the minister knows from his experience.
I ask these questions as they're things that are coming into my mind. If the government is saying that these are going to be employers' groups, and this is what they're trying to do, and given some of the minister's comments on attempting to alleviate some of those problems that go with union and non-union employees.... I see that one can build up a set of bylaws and parameters in which the employers' groups must operate that would then have a structure on one side where the union can come before the Labour Relations Board and say: "It's appropriate that all these people come into this bargaining unit and that we expand this bargaining unit along a sectoral concept because of what we're arrayed against. Look at what we have against us, and look at what the employers have set up." The employers may not have chosen to set it up that way. It may have been that the government, through regulations, set up that employers' group that way, and now the unions feel that in order to have a balance they must have a larger sector and a broader base of employees to balance what the employers have. That certainly could happen. Are we trying to do that? Does the minister see that as being feasible?
Hon. G. Clark: No, I absolutely do not. Obviously the union could try to take a case before the labour board, and they would hear it. The member made the point that there's a lot of jurisprudence and debate on the question. But that's not the point of the bill. I have a
[ Page 9204 ]
bit of experience in this area, and I can't think of a way a union could try to use this to expand its jurisdiction -- not at all.
J. Weisgerber: It seems to me that the purposes section -- the minister is correct -- is a pretty innocuous kind of section. Groups around British Columbia have been convinced, I think, that they should give this legislation an opportunity to work. I assume that there has been a fair amount of communication between the government and groups like the Business Council, the B.C. Chamber of Commerce and others. My impression from them was that the legislation had been sold to them as a means of controlling public sector wage costs and that they would start to bring together employers in groups, rather than having the whipsawing that we saw with school boards, etc. The community seemed quite willing to accept that and give the legislation an opportunity to play itself out.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be that kind of reference under the purposes section, and it would seem to me that ideally the purposes would be somewhat more specific, if that's in fact the intent of the legislation. I can understand the minister's reluctance to use language that might cause some consternation among the public sector unions. But if in fact one of the purposes of the legislation is to rationalize labour relations and contract negotiations, I think it would be useful if that were to be reflected under the purposes section.
[11:00]
Hon. G. Clark: I think it's unfair to look at this section and say that this is the only section that tries to deal with it. I think that the forming of employers' associations in and of themselves is a major step toward dealing with whipsawing and the like, and this section dealing with purposes is pretty all-encompassing: "...to ensure the coordination of human resource and labour relations policies and practices among public sector employers...."
I'll grant you -- I agree with this, and I commend this approach to the members opposite -- that this is a good bill that tries to deal with these questions, but the test isn't the bill. Setting up employer associations doesn't mean that we're going to reduce public sector wage costs or wage increases. Setting up a public sector employers' council doesn't solve the problem. It's a good structure. The Business Council's approach -- I hope I'm not misrepresenting their position -- is that this is a good step and a good approach. It brings the employers' associations together, and it has an employers' council. We think it has all the elements to try to control wage costs. But at the end of the day, it doesn't do that. What does that is government and public sector employers taking a position to achieve that end. This sets up a framework, but the government will be tested by how well we do. I think that's a legitimate position to take, and as I said, I urge members opposite to take that position, because who forms government over the next decade or two is not important; what's important is that now there will be a framework for government to have some influence over those settlements. How the government exercises that influence is a question for public debate and legitimate public scrutiny.
My view is that the purposes section and the whole act do assist the government in setting a framework to try to deal with these questions, as the member alluded to. But in and of itself it doesn't do that; nor would amending the Purposes section do that, either. It's really a matter of political will, if you will, and the ability of government to try to achieve certain objectives.
J. Weisgerber: Let me try again to convince the minister that the way the purposes section of the act is written, if a group of employers and employees were to sit down and look at the sections of this act and at the purposes, a public sector bargainer might well say: "We should be seeking to bring up those sectors that are at lower wage levels." So rather than controlling public sector wage costs, the effect of the legislation could well be to escalate the cost of settlements, as all the individuals in a particular sector race to catch up with whichever one has the highest or most attractive settlement. I do believe that under the purposes section some wording to reflect the need to control costs would at least start to set the framework for the purposes of this exercise -- assuming, of course, that that is the purpose and that this is not an exercise to appeal to public sector workers and say: "This is how we are going to bring up those of you at the lower end or level within your particular industry or sector." With that in mind, perhaps we can get at least something the minister's very good at: this really tough talk. Maybe he'll like to jump up and read into the record just what the intents are, with relation to either controlling public sector wage costs or, in fact, bringing up those sectors that might be lagging behind.
Hon. G. Clark: I'm going to resist the temptation to engage in what the member suggested. But I will say this: the member is correct in saying that this puts more pressure on government in some respects. There will be groups attempting to make the argument of levelling up. There's no question about that, and that is an area I am certainly cognizant of.
The problem is, of course, that that happens now, and in some respects they have a better chance of whipsawing the thing up. Of course, we still have inequities, so every year you're at the bargaining table where people are seeking to correct that injustice. So I agree with the member that there will be enormous demands to level up, and we're conscious of that.
I want to say, however, that from my perspective, we're trying to pursue fiscal responsibility and accountability in public sector wages, but also some fairness objectives. We're not here just to do one or the other. We're trying to solve legitimate problems and inequities, within the fiscal capacity to do so. That's a very big challenge, but it's not a question of just saying we're going to be tough on public sector unions. Obviously we have to bargain in a tough way, if you
[ Page 9205 ]
will, when we don't have very many resources. But it's also saying we want to be fair and deal with some of these problems at the same time, so that over time we can move forward in a more rational way than we have in the past.
K. Jones: I'd like to ask the minister if the intention of this subsection is to provide for comanagement, as detailed on page C10 of Korbin's second report.
Hon. G. Clark: I'd say no.
K. Jones: Could the minister tell us whether any part of this act includes a provision for the comanagement model as detailed in the Korbin report?
Hon. G. Clark: I'd say no, essentially. This is an employer's act and an employer's council, generally. Obviously we're interested in exploring better relationships with our employees, but there's nothing here that really deals with comanagement.
K. Jones: Section 2(b) talks about communications and coordination between public sector employers and representatives of public sector employees. Is it not the intention of the Korbin commission to have that type of relationship between public sector employers and employees?
Hon. G. Clark: It's certainly not comanagement. It's respectful of labour relations. It's to improve communications and coordination between public sector employers and their unions. It's a big step away from comanagement. Again, we're trying to promote harmonious labour relations and improve communications. But this bill is essentially an employer's bill, and it doesn't contemplate comanagement. I suppose one could argue it's not excluded. This is broad, framework legislation, and we're open to any innovations that would improve productivity; but comanagement is not contemplated by this section.
K. Jones: If that communications and coordination concept is what you want to bring in, I'd suggest an improvement in wording for this subsection by deleting "representatives of" and substituting "public sector employees and their representatives." You would cover the intent of both what you've said you want to accomplish and also what Korbin said in C.1(f): "...to enable representatives of public sector employees to consult with public sector employers on policy issues that directly affect the employees."
Hon. G. Clark: I'm not prepared to make amendments on the floor like that. The member's points are well taken in the sense that we're not trying to exclude anybody from this. What we've tried to do is take the Korbin recommendations, which have gone through enormous consultation, particularly with public sector employers and other groups -- like this council -- and adopt them without amendment. Again, nothing is prohibited in terms of communications. Other sections deal with excluded staff, which we'll be dealing with, but I'm not inclined to change this section.
D. Symons: The concept that is really embedded in this purposes section is that the government, as the main body that holds the purse, wants to be at the table and have some involvement during negotiations. That probably has more to do with salaries, but there are other negotiations with employees. You want to ensure the coordination, and much of this happens around negotiation time. I'd just like to confirm that this is an attempt to ensure that the government is at the table when these discussions are taking place.
Hon. G. Clark: First of all, with respect, that's not the subject of this section; this section doesn't deal with that. There are other sections that deal with the government's involvement in this. The purpose of this act is: "...to ensure the coordination of human resource and labour relations policies and practices among public sector employers...." It doesn't contemplate the role of the provincial government directly. But to deal with the question, we're not intending to be at the bargaining table in all these different sectors -- not at all; far from it. We're not trying to usurp the role of the employer; we're trying to enhance the roles of the public sector employer by pulling all of them together from that particular sector. The government is sitting with them, discussing our fiscal role, sharing what's happening in other sectors and trying to ensure that there is some coordination. We're not going to be at the table with public sector unions, interfering -- to use a stronger word -- with the bargaining process. Rather, it's a higher-level discussion and coordination with the employers' council.
D. Symons: I didn't mean to imply that you're sitting at the table during negotiations with the employees -- maybe the way I asked the question was misleading. Through this employers' council, you will be coordinating the activities, so to speak, of the various employers. If that's the case, I'm wondering what really is different from the current situation, or the past situation, when a restraint program came in back in '82. At that time, I believe the term used by the government, which was derided by your party when it was in opposition, was the idea of the ability to pay. I see that written all over this act that you're bringing in now. Apparently those were bad words to use in '82. Members on your side of the House seemed to think that this was certainly the wrong way entirely to go. But it seems to be writ large in this particular act that the ability to pay is there. And this council, with a fair representation of government members on it, is going to end up being able to impose this ability-to-pay process from the top down through the employers to the employees. It just seems that nothing here is a great deal different from what there was in '82, or from what you currently could do if you so chose.
[ Page 9206 ]
We saw in the recent strike with the teachers how the government chose to wash their hands of it and stay a little aside of it. As the current rail strike goes on and disadvantages people in the interior of this province, we see that the government doesn't seem to want to get involved. Indeed, we had questions in question period today that would certainly leave the impression in the minds of the people in the province that the government is washing their hands and saying that this is a union-management thing and they have nothing to do with it. Indeed....
The Chair: Order, please, hon. member. I really hate to interrupt, but you're getting into a second reading debate. Be strictly relevant to section 2, please.
D. Symons: I was almost at the very end of my little bit. But indeed it seems that through the purposes here, I don't know that you're really getting anything more than you could legitimately use now through this council.
[11:15]
Hon. G. Clark: I would disagree, obviously. Right now the whole thing, if you read the Korbin report, is really unmanageable; it's a real dog's breakfast. But I'll agree with the member in this respect: there was an attempt to try to pull together an employers' council and a variety of things like it in the past. In many respects, this is an innovative approach to dealing with it. But in previous times in British Columbia history, there have been attempts to deal with this question -- say with wage-control legislation. When the government brought in the first wage control legislation in '83, '82 or whatever it was, there was no need for all of this stuff. The member is correct: the government can legislate that everybody gets 2 percent, zero or whatever. That is an option for government.
What Korbin shows, and what other jurisdictions show is that it does not necessarily work. In fact, it does not work; it has not worked. It leads to all kinds of inequities, and it does not solve anything. It solves your problem in the short run, but it does not lead to a more rational way of allocating resources. That would be our position, and I think it's backed up by the facts. But you certainly can do that. Part of the reason why we have this kind of very decentralized and unmanaged system is that there have been two wage control periods in the last decade or so. So you either try to manage the system or government brings in legislation -- and legislation is a short-term solution. Again, look at the history of the last decade with wage control legislation. Wages are still running higher than inflation, for example. So we're choosing very consciously to try to manage this situation better and more rationally. It does give the government more influence, but I don't believe that it is a heavy-handed kind of influence -- although I guess that's a debatable point. The member is correct in making those distinctions, but believe me, this is significantly more government influence than exists today.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
D. Symons: Just one further question on that, and then I will let it go. It seems that the government in a sense has all these powers that the council will have, simply because when you set the budgets for the various school boards, the hospital boards or other boards, you have in effect limited what the negotiators can do at the table. Whether you set up a council to do that or whether you simply do it through the purse strings, which currently is the practice and has been for a few decades, the effect is still the same. So I'm not really sure where the real differences are going to be, because you ultimately have control of the purse strings, and that's where the power is.
Hon. G. Clark: I was more inclined to think that a few years ago than I am today. I'll give you an example. School boards routinely have negotiated collective agreements which they don't have the funding for. So the following year, they either dramatically cut service and blame the provincial government, or they come to the government and ask for more money -- those kinds of things happen. In the past budget, I think we provided zero for wages in the budgets of school boards, and funding for growth and a few other things, and the wage increases across the sector were in the 2 percent range -- mind you, they were lower than in a lot of other public sector places. They can do that now, but there is some good news: efficiency gains, productivity improvements and all that kind of thing is happening in the system. The budget does have a major influence, no question about it, and it will continue to have a major influence over settlements.
But it seems to me that it makes more sense to try to deal with this question broadly. Let's take school boards again as an example, if I could. One school board may be able to afford 2 or 3 percent for some unique circumstance and so they settle for that, and then pretty soon that's the pattern in the industry; and then other school boards, which clearly can't afford it, are kind of locked into it. What we're trying to do in this bill is bring some order and rationale to this system we inherited, and support collective bargaining.
Section 2 approved on division.
On section 3.
F. Gingell: If I may direct the minister to subsection (6): "If an employers' association fails to nominate...the Lieutenant Governor in Council may appoint a person...." There may be some circumstances where various members of what will be an employers' association don't all belong to the same organization or the specific divisions such as there are in the B.C. School Trustees' Association at the moment. I wonder if the minister might enlighten us on how he plans to deal with those circumstances.
[ Page 9207 ]
Hon. G. Clark: Again, with respect, the member is dealing with a legitimate question governing the sectoral associations. It's probably common knowledge that in the K-to-12 sector employers' association, there clearly has to be some discussion and dialogue, if not debate, between the ten boards that are currently not in the School Trustees' Association and those that are. This section deals with the employers' council -- the big board, if you will. After the employers' association has been formed, if they are reluctant to nominate someone for the big council, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may appoint a person to represent that sector.
I think the concerns you are raising are legitimate, but they are more legitimate when you are dealing with forming the association. This is the big council, which has only one person from each sector on it.
L. Hanson: Section 3(7) states: "A representative of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities may attend meetings of the council as an observer." The minister has advised us that it not the intention to capture local governments. A simple question is: who would designate the person to attend on behalf of the Union of B.C. Municipalities?
Hon. G. Clark: That's up to them. This is not a directive that they should send someone; this states that we would be inviting the Union of B.C. Municipalities to send an observer. They may well change the observer from time to time.
L. Hanson: The inference, though, is that this would be extended to municipalities at some point in the future.
Hon. G. Clark: If the question is whether it is intended that this would apply, we have no intention at this time. Any government in the future may deal with it. That's not being contemplated. We thought it advisable that they be invited to participate in the deliberations, because, as you know, in many respects their settlements have an influence on the broad public sector, and public sector settlements have an influence over them. I hope they choose to have an observer, and I hope they choose to think about what's being discussed so that their settlements are in the range of other public sector settlements. But we don't have any intention at this time to make it mandatory or prescriptive.
J. Weisgerber: I am trying to read subsections (2) and (5). From what I can determine, it appears that the government will appoint seven members. They may be ministers or deputy ministers of the Crown. In (5), one of those ministers of the Crown may appoint a deputy or another employee of government to represent that minister if that minister is unable to attend. There doesn't seem to be any provision for a deputy minister to appoint an alternate. There seems to be an inconsistency there. The minister appears to be able to appoint a series of people as alternates, but there doesn't appear to be any opportunity for the deputy. If that's the case, I wonder what the rationale is.
Hon. G. Clark: I assume the rationale is that because they are members of the executive council or cabinet ministers, they can authorize a deputy. If the deputy can't attend, the minister can authorize another person. You are not delegating down to a deputy minister who can then delegate. The authority rests with the member of the executive council, who can authorize someone else to take his or her place.
J. Weisgerber: The confusion is that a minister can delegate to a deputy or any employee. It appears that it would be logical -- unless the deputy can appoint the minister -- that in order for someone to be there representing the ministry, there would be some process whereby the deputy, who wouldn't always be able to attend the meeting any more than a member of the executive council would.... If it's important enough for the minister to have the opportunity to appoint a deputy or anyone else, that would suggest to me that the legislation anticipates it being pretty important that there be someone there if the minister can't make it. I'm curious about the way it's drafted.
Hon. G. Clark: Obviously this is a very senior level of government on the council, so it's executive council members, and if they choose to, they can delegate their deputy minister. That's what is contemplated. If the deputy minister and the minister can't attend, then the deputy minister, I would assume, informs the cabinet minister, who can then delegate someone else if he or she chooses to.
The intent here is not to allow someone down the line to be appointed, but for this to be members of the executive council or deputies and to have it at the most senior level of government. Only in extraordinary cases would the cabinet minister designate someone other than a deputy minister to represent them.
J. Weisgerber: I don't want to beat this to death, but I don't understand why subsection (2) doesn't simply say that you would appoint seven members of the executive council and allow the replacement process to flow from that.
Hon. G. Clark: Actually, I shouldn't say this, but we did have some discussion about this in terms of drafting this question. Originally it was contemplated to be members of the executive council, and for a variety of reasons most people felt that in many cases, as the employer representative, the deputy is the person managing the labour relations side of it. So we broadened it. It may have been Judi Korbin who broadened it, because originally -- I can't remember when the early discussions of this took place -- the notion was that we would broaden it to include deputies. Originally, at least in the early discussions, it was thought to be only members of the executive council or cabinet ministers, and it was deliberately broadened to include deputy ministers and not any further than that, other than the broad power that a
[ Page 9208 ]
cabinet minister may have to choose someone else. It may be that there is a drafting question here, but it is really nothing nefarious. It's really to make it at the senior level and add deputy ministers because of the role they play in managing the staff, as opposed to the minister. It is our intention to keep this at the most senior level of government.
[11:30]
F. Gingell: It certainly would seem that the original intention was to have it only members of the executive council. When the change was made, all the drafting issues weren't followed through on.
This brings us to subsection (7), where someone who is not specifically described under 3(2) is allowed to attend -- i.e., a representative of the Union of B.C. Municipalities. Having put in a specific provision to allow that, does that indicate that no person will be allowed in that room other than these individuals?
Hon. G. Clark: There may be a very small secretariat to the council, and people may be invited to come to the council from time to time. If the member is asking if this is going to broad, open discussion, the answer is absolutely not. This is going to be fairly tightly constrained discussion, because you are dealing with mandates and discussing bargaining questions which, if they were broadly publicized, would have a significant impact. The purpose is to have a small high-level group representing the public sector discussing questions and trade-offs. People may be invited to attend from time to time, but this isn't intended to be an exercise in public participation. This is employers dealing with something very important in terms of their ability to achieve collective bargaining.
F. Gingell: I take it that the intention of subsection (7) gives the representative of UBCM the right to be there, which right cannot be taken away under this act.
Hon. G. Clark: I will just confirm that, but I am quite sure the member is correct. The intention is that they will have the right to attend and participate in the meetings of the council. As I said earlier, it's important that they be knowledgable about what's happening in bargaining in the broad public sector. Unfortunately, it gives them the right to attend, but it doesn't compel them to do any more than that. We think that as public sector employers it would be helpful for them in their bargaining to know what the thinking is, not just of the provincial government but, maybe more importantly, of all the broad public sector that influences their relationships.
I might also say that there's a lot of overlap on the union side, whether it's CUPE or some other unions that deal mostly with municipalities. They also deal with the other public sectors. If they weren't out there as an observer and listening in on discussions, the union might decide to try to drive up public sector wages in the municipal sector to try to take advantage of that. They may do that in any event, and I guess that in some respects I don't blame them for those kinds of tactics in collective bargaining. I just say that it would be useful for municipalities to participate and be fully involved with the discussions, if they choose to do so.
D. Symons: I'm looking at the makeup of this council, and I notice it is quite specific as far as the government members go. Then section 3(2)(b) says: "...a person nominated by each of the employers' associations established under Part 3." We turn ahead a little bit to part 3, and we come to section 6(4) in part 3, which says: "Every public sector employer referred to in paragraphs (b) to (g) of the definition..." -- which is back in section 1.
The way I'm flipping back and forth here, trying to find out who belongs to this council, I'm reminded of my high school days when you had to share books, and sometimes you would find a book that had been passed out before, and it would say to turn to page such and such. You would turn on and on to get to the part to find who had the book, or whatever the little joke was on the final page.
It seems that here you eventually flip back to section 1 in part 1, which tells us who belongs to this. I'm not quite sure, but it seems to me to be a little bit open-ended, and I'm wondering if that's the intention of it. It talks about a university, a college, people under the Hospital Act and the health care employers, and then social services. It also begins in (1)(b): "...a corporation or an unincorporated board, commission, council, bureau, authority or similar body...." "Corporation" would mean all the Crown corporations, I would assume. During your mandate, so far, you have put in a few new Crown corporations, the Crown corporations secretariat, and so forth. And you have a few other organizations. Could this council grow in that sense?
Hon. G. Clark: No, it can't. It's pretty clear in the legislation. Just to refresh everybody's memory, there are seven representatives: one from Health and one from Social Services; one from colleges and institutes; one from universities; one from Crown corporations and agencies; one from Education, K to 12; and one from the public service -- seven executive council members or deputies and a municipal observer. But there's no opportunity.... The act constrains it to various sectors.
Section 3 approved.
On section 4.
F. Gingell: To start section 4, I wonder if the minister would like to talk to us about what "strategic directions" means.
Hon. G. Clark: One might refer to strategic directions as significant programs. In other words, it's broad compensation and wage increases, whether it's pay equity -- which is different in every sector, applies differently and has different bases and formulas -- or pay policy, if you will, across the sector. What we're trying to do here is have the council look not just at the minutiae of managing the public sector in the various fields but also at what is described here as "strategic directions in human resource management and labour relations."
[ Page 9209 ]
I think a good example was the one I mentioned a minute ago: pay equity, which is a policy that we in government strongly support. It was started in the public service by the previous administration under one model. It's completely different in other sectors, and it's applied differently. It's important that there be some strategic focus for how we achieve pay equity goals.
F. Gingell: Would the minister consider that it also includes employment equity and issues such as secondary boycott provisions in collective agreements?
Hon. G. Clark: I don't think it would cover secondary boycotts. I guess that it might, but if the council were.... No, I don't think it would. The employers' association might deal with that question. I don't anticipate it being a problem, but I don't think there would be a broad strategic direction. It could cover employment equity; it's legitimate to say that it is a human resource management question if it's broadly applied. Again, those two things don't immediately spring to mind as the kinds of challenges facing government in terms of dealing with collective bargaining across government. But those are legitimate human resource questions that the council may grapple with.
F. Gingell: We now come down to section 4(2) -- going back and remembering the debate we had under the purposes section of the act: "In addition, it is a function of the council to enable representatives of public sector employees to consult with public sector employers on policy issues that directly affect the employees." Wouldn't the provision of such consultative functions be a part of the collective agreement and the application of the provisions of Bill 84? Is the intention of this to expand that in any fashion?
Hon. G. Clark: I'm not sure I caught all of the member's concerns or questions. All this is really saying is that the council doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is the same union in different sectors, and we will try to drive trade-offs between sectors to deal with the issues. It's important that the council try to have better communication with representatives of public sector employees in trying to deal with some of these broad policy issues. The purposes of this legislation just generally are to try to enhance that communication on the employers' side, as well as on major issues with the big unions that are affected. I don't think the employers' council can operate in a vacuum when it comes to some of these broad questions.
V. Anderson: What is the power of "set and coordinate," particularly "set"? Does that mean that they have the power to set and make the decisions? Does anyone overrule them? What is their relationship to the minister or government? I understand "coordinate," I think, but I just wonder what "to set" means.
Hon. G. Clark: My staff says it's moral suasion. It's not prescriptive in that respect. The council can set strategic directions in human resources. But again, we're dealing with hundreds of employers and several big employers' associations. These would be broad policy questions which are -- and I hate to use this term -- iterative. The employers' associations will make cases to the council, and the council will have a dialogue back and forth to try to achieve broad directions. So it's not a rigid thing which the government can enforce, even if it wanted to.
G. Farrell-Collins: The Leader of the Opposition asked a question with regard to section 4(2). I think what he was trying to ask, or at least the area he was headed in.... I would just like a clearer answer. Is this an attempt at codetermination in the public sector? Is that the parallel we're looking at here?
Hon. G. Clark: No. I think codetermination is too strong a word. I'm not averse to the concept, but this says that public sector employees have the ability to consult with public sector employers. It's more of a consultative and collaborative model than it is power-sharing on broad questions. That's not forestalled. Negotiations like that could be discussed. There is, I would venture to guess, an element of comanagement in many public sector labour union negotiations. But that's not what this section deals with or is all about.
C. Serwa: Who is the employers' council accountable to?
Hon. G. Clark: In terms of money, to Treasury Board. This quite dramatically enhances the accountability of unelected boards and commissions around the province who currently deal with this question. I think he biggest accountability hoop we're putting in here is Treasury Board.
C. Serwa: Okay. So the employers' council is accountable to the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board. But fundamentally, is it not really accountable to the executive branch of government and to cabinet itself?
[11:45]
Hon. G. Clark: I guess everything, at some point, is accountable to the executive council.
There are different lines of accountability; it's an interesting question. School boards are democratically elected and have a budget to manage. This doesn't really usurp their power, except to say that the government, which is providing all of the funding, has a lot more influence over collective bargaining questions. Financially, there's more influence and accountability through the House here, and the executive council and Treasury Board. But the employer is still the employer. We're not taking over that role -- from the duly elected school board in this case. They are accountable, as the employer, in dealing with the broad range of employment practices.
There's maybe not a nice neat answer in terms of accountability. This enhances accountability dramatically, I would certainly very strongly argue. But there are other elements of accountability in our very decentralized model, which we're not doing away with.
[ Page 9210 ]
C. Serwa: Even if we look at the financial accountability of the council, is that not going to be directed fundamentally by the decision of the executive branch and Treasury Board? Certainly the government representatives -- be they members of the executive branch, deputy ministers or other employees -- must have some sense of direction from Treasury Board, the Minister of Finance or, fundamentally, cabinet collectively. Is that correct?
Hon. G. Clark: The answer is yes, but the Public Sector Employers' Council is a forum in which to have that dialogue with the employer. It's not just Treasury Board saying that this is what the mandate is, although it might do that. It's more of trying to give employers a sense of the government's fiscal situation and how it sees its role. It also gives employers the opportunity to say to government: "You may have your concerns, but we have our concerns, and we think our employees should be paid more in this area for competitive reasons in the marketplace." I think the member is essentially correct that that's ultimately where the accountability lies, but it is more of a two-way process to get feedback from the employers.
C. Serwa: As the minister indicated, the employers' council has quite an extensive and important mandate with respect to potential wage increases, pay equity and labour relations. There are quite a number of complex issues. What must transpire as part of the communication process, I suppose, is a consensus. When it is developed among the various members of the employers' council, then it is going to be ratified by the executive branch. Will the employers' council have an independent option, or must the consensus go back to the executive branch for its approval before the decision can be carried out? Is that how it will function?
Hon. G. Clark: The Public Sector Employers' Council would make recommendations to Treasury Board, and some independent advice is brought to Treasury Board from this process that we're discussing. Then Treasury Board would make a decision on a mandate that would be approved by cabinet. That's correct. It's not done in a vacuum. Treasury Board will make the deliberations in the budget process. If we provide minus 5 percent to a particular sector in the budget process, then perhaps that will drive the government's negotiating mandate suggestions to that employer sector. So it's not done in a vacuum, but I think the member is essentially correct.
C. Serwa: Then just for clarification, the final and ultimate decision in this particular situation, with respect to the employers' council, will be the responsibility of either the collective executive branch or a portion of the executive branch. That's my understanding from the words you're saying. Upon the development of consensus in the employers' council, they still have to come back to Treasury Board. So fundamentally cabinet and the executive branch are responsible in the end for the ultimate decision. Is that correct?
Hon. G. Clark: I'm trying to detect a trap here, but I can't find one. I think the member is absolutely correct.
C. Serwa: There's no intention of a trap. I really feel that the ultimate accountability should always be with the executive branch, and I'm pleased to hear the minister finally concede that.
D. Symons: In section 4(2) I have some concerns, which the hon. Leader of the Opposition was asking about earlier, to do with that last phrase: "...on policy issues that directly affect the employees." When you start thinking about things such as secondary boycotts and things of that sort, there are so many things that could directly affect the employees. I'm wondering who is now going to make the decision as to whether this would be able to be discussed and so forth. That seems to be quite an open-ended statement, which would allow an awful lot of things to come up for discussion if it's interpreted fairly broadly.
Hon. G. Clark: The employers' council determines that question. If a union wanted to be heard on a particular policy issue, it may be heard. This is to deal with broad, major policy questions so that there's some dialogue, but basically this is an employers' bill to try to ensure communication.
C. Serwa: I note that in section 4, just underneath subsection (1)(c), it says: "...consistent with cost efficient and effective delivery of services in the public sector." What does that statement mean, and compared to what and whom?
Hon. G. Clark: It means that we are striving toward cost-efficient and effective delivery of services in the public sector, that we have limited financial resources in government and we want to try to pursue.... Maybe a better of way of putting it is more cost-efficient and more effective delivery of services in the public sector than we have today.
C. Serwa: I really appreciate that. The minister may become one of us if he keeps talking like that. The reality in this, though, is that there has to be a comparison -- a base level. When I asked, "Compared to what?" I meant compared to other public sector employers or other jurisdictions or perhaps the bureaucracy in a large corporation for the delivery of certain services. It's certainly a goal, and I appreciate the statement of a goal here. But compared to what and compared to whom? That makes a significant difference.
If you compare inefficiency to inefficiency you look pretty good. But the reality is whether the public is being well served by that comparison. Are we going to expand outside of the public service and look at comparative bureaucracies in large industrial organizations, for example, in accounting or the delivery of a lot of the clerical services that government has to deliver? Will you be looking further afield in the civil service for comparisons?
[ Page 9211 ]
Hon. G. Clark: I think the answer is yes, but we will probably be looking at British Columbia more than anywhere else, so that we're comparing sectors.... Some sectors are more productive by some criteria than others, and there may be a good case to apply some things that we have learned in some sectors of the public service more than others.
C. Serwa: Does the employer's council have the opportunity to explore other methods of encouraging productivity? The dollars and cents put food on the table, and eating is a powerful habit -- we all understand that. But often, there appears to be a genuine sense of frustration in the civil service. Employees do not generally tend to have a sense of proprietorship of the matters on which they are working. Would the employers' council be able to look at types of non-monetary incentives in order to give that sense of proprietorship, and to encourage people in the bureaucracy to attempt something? We don't have a bottom line as in the private sector. If we could come up with something, or if the employers' council could come up with a concept, would that be the sort of thing that would be looked at to improve the efficiency and quality of delivery of service?
Hon. G. Clark: The answer is yes. That's all open. The major thing here is looking at cross-sector questions, but there's nothing against looking at innovative ways of dealing with productivity.
I would just take exception, if I can, to one of the member's comments. I found a fairly, some might say a surprisingly, high degree of proprietorship in government. There are members who work in the government personnel services division who take their role very seriously and conscientiously; and I swear staff members in the treasury branch think they're spending their own money when it comes to dealing with tax dollars. I'm not trying to make a political speech, but I think it is a bit unfair to generalize broadly. There are lots of public employees who take their role very aggressively and seriously. But I think rewarding people and looking at those questions is quite legitimate, and it could be undertaken.
L. Hanson: The minister very agilely went around the clause "consistent with cost efficient and effective delivery of services...." It suggests to me that the ability to pay might have something to do with it, but the minister is very agile.
Section 4(2) seems to give the employees an opportunity to consult with public sector employers on policy issues that directly affect them. It seems to me that if it was used incorrectly, there is an opportunity here for the employees to bypass their direct employer and go to this council to negotiate an issue, or at least talk about an issue that might better be handled at the bargaining table with a direct employer, unless it was an association that bargained for the total industry that it represented. Maybe the minister could assure us that this is not the intention of that section.
Hon. G. Clark: No, that's not the intention at all, believe me. But sometimes, whether it's a union or an employer dealing in their own sector, they don't have the same appreciation for the impact of their decisions on other sectors.
The ability to have a table which represents the employers' side of 300,000 people, and to have someone who may want to make a case on a policy question get the benefit of that broad perspective, is really what we are trying to get at here, so that there is more appreciation for the impact on various sectors, whether it's a union or an employer.
L. Hanson: I can appreciate what the minister is saying, but I don't see where in here that would be restricted to that. Is it the minister's intention that regulations would clearly spell that out? How would you prevent that from happening?
Hon. G. Clark: Very clearly, because all it says is to consult. There's no negotiation or anything. It just says that it is a function of the council to enable public sector employees to consult with public sector employers. That's all.
[12:00]
G. Farrell-Collins: I'd like to come back for just a minute to the end of section 4(1), where is says that the functions of the council are consistent with cost-efficient and effective delivery of services in the public sector. One of the things that the government has been criticized about, of course, is the initial mandate of the Korbin commission. It didn't include an analysis of whether or not the size of the public sector is appropriate or if restructuring is needed. When this section of the bill provides for the function of the council, does it provide under subsection (1) for those members of the council to engage in that questioning, to go back and do some soul-searching and determine whether or not as a sector or group they need to restructure the way they administer the services they provide, remove some of the middle levels of management and flatten their management structure? Are those options available to them on an ongoing basis?
Hon. G. Clark: I would say absolutely, although it's more the function of the associations than the broad council. That's exactly what is happening in the health care sector now. That's exactly what they are trying to come to grips with as they merge the associations: how they can be more effective, delayer and the like -- absolutely.
Section 4 approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Hon. G. Clark moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 12:02 a.m.
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