1995 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 35th Parliament
HANSARD
The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.
(Hansard)
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1995
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 18, Number 22
[ Page 13375 ]
The House met at 2:05 p.m.
Prayers.
The Speaker: Hon. members, I believe His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor is about to enter the chamber. Members, please bear with us.
His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor entered the chamber and took his place in the chair.
Clerk of the House:
Job Protection Amendment Act, 1995
In Her Majesty's name, His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor doth assent to this bill.
His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor retired from the chamber.
L. Krog: It is my pleasure to make two introductions today, hon. Speaker. One of my longtime friends is with us in the gallery today, a constituent of the Minister of Forests, Mr. Doug Riddell. And on behalf of the member for Surrey-Green Timbers, I'd ask the House to make welcome three teachers -- Ms. Depradina, Ms. Sousa and Mr. Benjamin -- from North Surrey Secondary, who are here with 90 grade 11 students. Would the House please make them welcome.
L. Reid: In the gallery today is Michael Paarup. He and I met at a multiple sclerosis luncheon. I ask the House to please make him welcome.
G. Wilson: Seated in the Speaker's gallery today -- and I'm sure she hopes soon to be seated in this chamber with us -- is Cathy Goodfellow. Cathy Goodfellow is the Alliance candidate in the upcoming Abbotsford by-election, in the advance of democracy. I hope all members would make her most welcome here today.
Hon. E. Cull: In the gallery today is Gwynn Stegar, who has been with my office now for a couple of years. Tomorrow is her last day working in the Ministry of Finance, and I would like to wish her well and ask the members to welcome her.
Hon. B. Barlee presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Arts Council Act.
Hon. B. Barlee: This legislation creates an independent body to allocate provincial funding for the arts and culture, and to serve as their advocate. In doing so, British Columbia will get in step with several other provincial jurisdictions. This change is strongly supported by the cultural communities, and the introduction of this bill fulfils a longstanding commitment of this government. The creation of the British Columbia Arts Council will ensure that funding decisions are free of censorship and put the best interests of the arts and culture first and foremost.
This is, however, not a criticism of the existing British Columbia Arts Board, which has served the province well, as well as the cultural community. In fact, this bill is a direct response to the B.C. Arts Board's recommendation that a new organization with a clear legislative mandate come into being. I am calling today for expressions of interest from individuals in cultural communities who wish to be considered for service on the British Columbia Arts Council. I would therefore ask all members of this House to make this opportunity known to individuals in their ridings.
Bill 12 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
PROVINCIAL-TERRITORIAL MEETING OF MINISTERS OF HEALTH
Hon. P. Ramsey: I rise to make a ministerial statement. I'd like to take this opportunity to report on the meeting of provincial and territorial Ministers of Health, which wrapped up two days of meetings yesterday in Vancouver.
As you know, the central conclusion of the conference and the issue that all provincial and territorial Ministers of Health agree on is that we must act urgently to preserve medicare for all Canadians. The efforts of a generation that built our public, comprehensive, universal, portable and accessible health system must not be squandered.
The meeting was a clear success, in that all provinces agreed with the position that British Columbia took into that meeting. The recent federal budget and the severe cutbacks to transfer payments that it includes make it clear that the federal government has, in fact, softened its commitment toward maintaining the national partnership required to preserve medicare. It is no longer prepared to provide its share of dollars to ensure the long-term sustainability of our national public health system. We are disappointed that the federal government has chosen to make cuts to medicare instead of cuts to business subsidies and corporate tax breaks.
The ministers at the meeting firmly restated and unanimously recommitted the provinces to the principles of our publicly funded health system and dedicated themselves to sustaining it. All ministers recognize that our governments, at both provincial and federal levels, must be fiscally responsible and must manage our health resources effectively and efficiently. That's the very reason why British Columbia, like other provinces, has adopted changes to ensure that medicare keeps up with our growing and changing population needs.
[2:15]
This government is committed to ensuring that the system is responsive to the needs of British Columbians, so they continue to receive quality health care for themselves, their parents and their children. We know that the federal government's recent reductions in transfer payments have created grave concern among all Canadians, And those cuts seriously call into question the federal government's moral obligation to work in partnership with the provinces in delivering health care to our citizens.
What the unanimous communique of the conference called for -- and what we need the federal government to do -- was that the federal government ensure predictable and adequate federal funding to maintain our publicly run health
[ Page 13376 ]
system; that we need to meet with the federal and provincial ministers to determine how the federal government intends to provide for the well-being of Canadians, given its cutbacks to health and other support services for members of our province; that the federal government take immediate action within its jurisdiction to control or reduce health costs for Canadians; and that the federal government eliminate the duplication and overlap in the planning and delivery of programs and services between provinces, territories and the federal government.
The reductions in transfer payments cannot help but hurt the delivery of health care services. The federal budget points out the need for us to act decisively, to stop the emergence of a second-tier, American-style health system where the size of a person's wallet, not need, determines access to treatment and services.
The meeting marks the beginning of what I hope will be a full, open national debate on these crucial issues. I also believe it marks the beginning of an alliance between all provinces and territories that deliver health care in order to save that system; an alliance which will fully involve all Canadians -- all those our health system is designed to serve.
Our parents will not forgive us if we abandon what they have built and entrusted to our care. Our children will not thank us if we pass on to them a system which is but a mere shadow of its present shape. We have been given a clear message from Canadians that the federal handling of this issue has caused grave trepidation and concern. It is crucial that we stand together as Canadians on this vital and important national issue.
L. Reid: I will begin by saying that medicare is the essential fabric of this country. It does not belong to any one political party. That is the essence of today's discussion.
We can continue to talk about portability, accessibility, universality and the fact that the system is publicly administered. We need to talk in great detail about comprehensiveness: what does the Canada Health Act stand for? It pleases me greatly that the ministers' meeting talks about a redefinition of what health care means to Canadians. That is a timely discussion. All of us in our constituencies and the people we deal with on a daily basis know that this is in their interests. Will the system continue to expand to meet the needs of all Canadians or do we need to have an understanding of what is appropriate and reasonable in the ramifications of the Canada Health Act?
The report that the ministers came together to discuss brings up a lot of excellent points around health care in this land. Tobacco reduction has been a significant focus in this province, and I trust it will continue to be significant. When we talk about health warning labels on alcoholic products, that is a focus. That is something tangible, measurable and important to do around health care delivery. Those issues should be the ones that Health ministers in this land are coming to discuss. I have no issue with that at all.
The report, as it stands, certainly allows this government to come to the table and suggest that they are there for medicare, and I don't take any issue with that. I do have some problems, and I do find this government's position somewhat disturbing in that it's somehow going to be the federal government's fault if health care is not sustained in the province. Frankly, the way you fund health care is not to give special deals to friends and insiders of the New Democratic government. That's the bottom line.
In his statement, the minister speaks about redefining the relationship. Absolutely, but I can tell you that it is an evolutionary process that will go on for as long as all of us live and many hundreds of years after that. There is no magic solution; there is no magic bullet, if you will. We need to understand that Canadians' health care needs will change and continue to change. That discussion is ongoing, and I trust it will take place in the homes and communities of every single British Columbian because it is something we value highly.
The British Columbia Liberals are there for medicare. None of us, not a single person, came to public life to tear something down. I would hope that applies to every single person in this chamber. This is about preserving something we believe in. Are we prepared to be integral parts of that debate? Yes, we are. Are we prepared to advance the issue for Canadians and for British Columbians? Yes, we are. There's no doubt in my mind that Canadians and British Columbians will come together to stand up for medicare, and the British Columbia Liberals will be with them.
L. Fox: I'm pleased to rise and respond to this very partisan political speech by the Minister of Health. At the outset, let me say that I too believe that every member of this House, irrespective of which party they belong to, believes strongly in providing and preserving medicare for British Columbians. But what seems to amaze me -- perhaps it's the American influence on this particular government, because we saw Bill Clinton.... The last presidential campaign was not dissimilar to what we see unfolding in this Legislature. This government is fearmongering and trying to create fear in British Columbians that they are the only saviours of medicare.
The proof is in the action, not in the words. All you have to do is go into rural British Columbia and see what the level of health care is there, and you will know how successful this government has been at defending medicare. Come into the Prince George Regional Hospital, which used to have a regional capacity, and look very closely at the services that were there three years ago and are no longer provided. Then you will see the true actions of this NDP government.
If this government truly wants to be re-elected, it better put forth some programs and ideas for the 2000s rather than a vision for the past.
The Speaker: The hon. member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast rises on what matter?
G. Wilson: I rise to seek leave to respond to the ministerial statement.
Leave not granted.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please.
PROVINCIAL AND FEDERAL CREDIT RATINGS
G. Campbell: My question is for the Premier. Today we were all dismayed to hear that Canada's credit rating has been
[ Page 13377 ]
downgraded. When the federal government tabled its budget in February, the B.C. Liberals said they should have cut more from their costs so that we may have had a chance to protect our credit rating. Since that time the NDP have demanded that the federal government spend more and more dollars. Can the Premier tell me if he has finally seen the writing on the wall, and is he willing -- and is his government willing -- to start cutting costs, cutting the debt in British Columbia and cutting taxes so we can protect B.C.'s credit rating?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I think it's unfortunate that we got caught up in the sideswipe of Canada's credit rating being downgraded, but I can tell you that nothing defines the difference between the Liberal opposition and this government.... We said cut, yes; but my government, the New Democrat government, said to cut $9 billion of business subsidies, transportation subsidies, and waste and duplication -- not medicare, and not the job training and job skills programs throughout this province for young people. I'm glad that the Leader of the Opposition got up and so clearly helped us define the difference between the Liberal opposition and the New Democrat government.
G. Campbell: The Premier clearly just doesn't get it. His own staff, his own officials, have said quite clearly: the simple message is that the recent accumulation of debt is not sustainable without a credit downgrade in the province of British Columbia. The Premier gets so little of this that he doesn't understand what his own officials have told him. He can't read what his own officials have told him. He is jeopardizing health care and education in British Columbia, because this government increases the costs of government, increases our debt and increases tax bases. Alarm bells are ringing across this country. When will the Premier clean the wax out of his ears and realize that the massive NDP debt buildup is jeopardizing B.C.'s credit rating?
Hon. M. Harcourt: The hypocrisy is overwhelming. Here we have an ex-chair of the GVRD who increased the debt of the GVRD by 50 percent. His first act, when he was mayor of Vancouver, was to increase his salary and build a shower for himself. And he's giving us lessons on how to save money? We're not going to listen to the political rantings of the Leader of the Opposition, who sets no example. As a matter of fact, Nesbitt Burns said of the B.C. budget, when they saw that we had the lowest per capita debt, the highest credit rating, a three-year tax freeze and a surplus: "Happy days are here again." I can tell you that we certainly don't need to listen to the political rantings of the Leader of the Opposition. Every indication from the CAs of British Columbia, the B.C. Taxpayers' Association, CIBC, Wood Gundy and Jerry Lampert of the Business Council of B.C. is that they are saying: "Happy days are here again in British Columbia, and don't let the Liberals take it away."
[2:30]
PROSECUTION OF DRUNK DRIVERS
J. Dalton: Last week I forwarded 3,008 letters to the Attorney General from British Columbians expressing very deep concern over the tragic deaths of people such as Sherri Bell, who was killed in a traffic accident at the hands of a drunk driver in Abbotsford. These letters also expressed the public's outrage at the leniency shown to drunk drivers who cause injury or death.
Will the Attorney General commit to prosecute, to the fullest extent of the law, drunk drivers who cause injury or death, so that tragedies like Sherri Bell's will not be repeated?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: The criminal justice branch of the Ministry of Attorney General undertakes its responsibilities appropriately, and when the case is there to be made, they do what the member is asking: they do prosecute to the full extent of the law.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.
J. Dalton: The motor vehicle branch statistics indicate that there were over 3,000 alcohol-related deaths and injuries on our highways last year alone. Without question, alcohol is the leading contributing factor of deaths on the highways of this province. Will the Attorney General finally take this issue seriously -- and it's his responsibility -- and ensure that drunk drivers are held responsible for the deaths they are causing on our highways?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: Every member of this House treats this issue seriously. We have too many people being killed and injured on our highways in this province. Fortunately, the numbers are fewer than they used to be, but it is still an appalling crime that is being carried out virtually every day in this province. But let me say to the member that the criminal justice branch will prosecute when they have the evidence and when there is a substantial likelihood of conviction. In my view, it is always in the public interest to pursue those matters.
LINKS BETWEEN PREMIER'S OFFICE AND U.S. POLITICAL ADVISERS
J. Weisgerber: My question is for the Premier. Yesterday the Premier confirmed that Karl Struble has been paid a $500 retainer under the table through NOW Communications since April 1993. Given that Struble has worked for the Premier since November 1991, can the Premier tell us how Mr. Struble was paid prior to April 1993, and how much that cost B.C. taxpayers?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I understand that the work provided by Struble-Totten focused exclusively on communications expertise. You have the details of the retainer contract that is now being investigated by the auditor general, and it is one of the matters that is being investigated by Mr. Hughes, the conflict commissioner. But there's a great deal of hypocrisy from the leader of the Reform Party and the leader of the Liberal Party. I would like to ask the leader of the Reform Party to maybe talk...
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, order.
Hon. M. Harcourt: ...to Preston Manning, who regularly talks with Frank Luntz, who is Newt Gingrich's pollster. As a matter of fact, the Leader of the Reform Party probably knows that his leader, Preston Manning, went to Washington, D.C., probably to get advice....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please. Order, hon member. Will the Leader of the Third Party please take his seat. The hon. member for Okanagan West is rising on a point of order.
C. Serwa: My point of order is with respect to rule 47A(b).
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Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please. Please proceed.
C. Serwa: It is apparent that the more is said in the questions, and the more is said in the answers, the less substance they seem to contain.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order! Please take your seat, hon. member. The point of order is well taken, and all hon. members should review standing order 47A from time to time in order to keep in mind that the purpose of question period is simply to ask questions, not to pose questions when you are being asked questions. All members know this. However, there are times when this is difficult to recall, I'm sure; but please keep it in mind.
The hon. Leader of the Third Party on a supplemental.
J. Weisgerber: To the Premier: the way it works in this House is that when you are in opposition, you ask questions; when you are in government, you answer. After the next election, if you're lucky enough to win your seat, you'll be over here. Maybe as the third party you'll get to ask questions once in awhile yourself.
My supplemental. The Premier should have been aware of the serious potential for Struble and others to abuse inside knowledge to the advantage of their American clients and forest interests.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please.
J. Weisgerber: A number of municipal councils have written to me expressing their dissatisfaction with that unhealthy arrangement. Can the Premier tell us when he first became aware that Struble-Totten and the Mellman Group had clients whose interests were in direct conflict with those of the B.C. forest industry?
Hon. M. Harcourt: The degree of hyperbole that's coming from these two Reform leaders on the other side as they try and outcompete each other is getting truly astonishing. We now have him asking about potential conflicts of interest from somebody in Washington, D.C. -- on a matter about which he hasn't expressed the details, and he expects me to answer.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order!
Hon. M. Harcourt: I don't predict the outcome of elections, as the Leader of the Third Party seems to want to do. I leave that to the voters to decide -- not arrogantly making that decision here in House like he's trying to do. That's up to the voters to decide.
In answer to the previous question I was asked yesterday, I can tell you that the 1,800 calls....
The Speaker: If the minister took a question on notice, then he should not take up question period to deal with that.
ATTACK AT BURNABY YOUTH DETENTION CENTRE
K. Jones: As the Attorney General knows, on April 2, a youth being held in the Burnaby youth detention centre was brutally assaulted by three other inmates. This boy was stabbed twice with a lead pencil, and one was a near-fatal stab to the neck. Why hasn't the Attorney General taken sufficient action to protect this 16-year-old boy from attack?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: Two things, hon. Speaker. First of all, there is a police investigation, which is continuing, and secondly, protective measures were taken.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.
K. Jones: Since the original attack, this boy has been moved to a so-called secure area, where he was attacked again. I talked to this boy's mother, and she is absolutely distraught and fears for her son's life. The Attorney General is responsible for the protection of all the youth in his custody. Why hasn't he taken the necessary action to protect this boy from further attacks?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: If the member would have believed the advice he was given by my staff, he wouldn't have asked this question.
APPOINTMENT OF MINISTER OF FORESTS
R. Neufeld: My question is to the Premier. Yesterday the Premier admitted that Karl Struble played an important role in his cabinet shuffle in 1993. Will the Premier confirm that Karl Struble recommended the removal of the then Forests minister, who was acting as a real advocate for the forest industry and for workers in the forest industry? Was it Karl Struble who recommended that the new Minister of Forests must be an advocate for the Greens -- in fact, as we understand it, Mr. Premier, so green he has to be watered twice a day?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I'm delighted that we end question period on this note. I accept the compliment from the member for Peace River North for the excellent Minister of Forests we had for the first couple of years and the continued balanced approach we're taking to get rid of the battle in every watershed, to get rid of the overcutting in the forest and to bring a sustainable and prosperous forest industry to this province. Thank you very much, hon. member, for that compliment.
The Speaker: Hon. members, the bell terminates question period.
I would point out to hon. members that it is advisable that question period not be interrupted on points of order. In some cases it may be a consideration to extend question period, but it is not to be expected.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please.
It is not required under standing orders, and, in the opinion of the Chair, this will not be one of those occasions when question period will be extended.
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NEW DIRECTIONS AND DYING HEART PATIENT
Hon. P. Ramsey: I rise to respond to a question taken on notice.
On March 27, the Liberal critic rose to ask the Premier about concerns raised in regard to the treatment of a Saanich woman who is dying of heart disease and receiving care at home. The Premier took the question on notice, and I'd like to respond at this time.
The letter the Liberal critic raised in the House was already in the hands of the ministry, and the concerns were already being addressed. There were two concerns, as I understand it. One was the billing of ambulance services, and those services have been assumed by the Ministry of Health. The second and more serious concern was the allegation by the opposition that treatment of this case was "evidence that medicare isn't working." I would strongly disagree.
Palliative care is essential in cases like this, and the serious medical condition this woman is experiencing would normally have been treated in hospital. It was because of the wishes of the patient that substantial amounts of both home nursing care and home support were provided and continue to be provided for this individual -- a level of care that goes well beyond what would normally be received at home. I would strongly argue that the response of the health system in this tragic case has been exceptional. It demonstrates both the strength of the system and its ability to deliver care closer to where people require it.
I might point out to the hon. member that it is exactly this sort of out-of-hospital care that has been the subject of debate among those who would see the essential parts of medicare defined and limited. It is precisely this sort of innovation that I think we must work hard to protect. We believe in the protection of medicare. This case is clear evidence that medicare is working for the residents of British Columbia.
The Speaker: The Chair has the honour of presenting the auditor general's report No. 4, 1994-95.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I call Address in Reply to the throne speech.
(continued)
R. Chisholm: I would like to begin my comments on this throne speech by stating that a visionary government would have included in this speech some notice of parliamentary reform that would have made it mandatory for every member to spend some time in the House as an independent. I can tell you in this House that although I've had only 24 hours' experience as an independent, the feeling of freedom and the change of perspective one finds is quite something. If I could make one personal comment, I would like to thank those who've helped me with this move: my wife, Janet, my constituents, my supporters, my friends and my new seatmates here in the House. You know who you are, and I thank you very kindly.
[2:45]
Now back to the throne speech. I think many people in Chilliwack will dislike this throne speech. The throne speech was a disaster. British Columbia is in crisis. We are still on the frontier of this country; we still have the fastest growth area in Canada. This speech from a government in its second term does little to help the situation.
Although I have criticisms of this government today, as an independent member for Chilliwack I am free to criticize the lack of direction, the lack of plan and the lack of firm alternative coming from the present official opposition Liberal caucus -- especially its leadership. Mr. Speaker, it may seem strange to you that only last Saturday I was a candidate for nomination, seeking to spend another five years under that same leadership, yet today I am being critical. I think it's important for you and the members of this House to know how that could be -- and it's important for my constituents, who will have an opportunity to watch me today or later read this speech. It is important to have an understanding of what is changing in the once proud Liberal Party.
But first, if I had these criticisms, why did I run for renewed nomination? I ran to unmask the lack of loyalty that is evident today within the caucus -- a lack of loyalty not to me as a Liberal caucus member so much but to the people of Chilliwack I represent, for it is the private member who holds their mandate. Those citizens provide loyalty to a caucus through their elected member, and they expect those loyalties to be returned on a two-way street. They expect their member to have freedom to participate in question period, to be supported by full research and communications, and to be supported on issues. They want loyalty for their incumbent, and it wasn't there. That has now been unmasked, as of last Saturday night. The great Liberal Party head-office manipulators wouldn't even let my supporters distribute what flimsy evidence I did have of leader support -- a short but terse press release from the leader, written in February of this year -- from the same leader who didn't even bother to show up for the nomination meeting of his incumbent member.
All is not rosy in the official opposition Liberal caucus. Neither the leader of the Liberal opposition nor this government in this throne speech are doing very much to ensure continued employment in Chilliwack, which is threatened with impending closure of a major military land base in western Canada -- i.e., CFB Chilliwack. This is significant, for, once closed, British Columbia will have no land military presence.
Why are we hearing so little from both the government of British Columbia and the official opposition about our rights as Canadians under the national constitution to have our security west of the Rocky Mountains protected? There is an obligation to the province by Ottawa to provide aid to the civil power and to the civil authority. You will find it clearly in the National Defence Act, article 11. In the case of major disasters such as forest fires, earthquakes, floods and prison riots, we will have no military presence in British Columbia to assist. The federal government's obligation to our citizens will be violated.
The closest land force will be in Edmonton -- not Calgary, as the Premier suggests. If all our transportation corridors are closed due to an earthquake, it could be days before we get help. With the military engineers located in Chilliwack, the necessary heavy bridging equipment would be available for immediate response. I will quote from a news release from MP Chuck Strahl: "A company named Risk Management Solutions from California has completed extensive seismic studies of the area and computed the probability of a 7.0 or greater on the Richter scale within 30 years as 48 percent." Risk Management Solutions states that the lower mainland is almost as unstable as Los Angeles and San Francisco.
[ Page 13380 ]
[D. Lovick in the chair.]
The throne speech did not mention how the province plans to act on this issue; how they plan to make up the difference. I urge the Premier to get involved and start representing British Columbia. The Premier must start protecting British Columbia, be vocal and tell Ottawa that closing CFB Chilliwack will not be tolerated. The loss of CFB Chilliwack will be very costly to British Columbia and put us in a crisis situation, yet it wasn't even mentioned in the throne speech. This is a British Columbia issue, not a Chilliwack issue.
To help the Premier, I sent him and all the MLAs a brief on CFB Chilliwack. Obviously they haven't read it, as evidenced by remarks made by the member for Prince George-Mount Robson. She stated: "I'm amazed at the audacity of the member for Chilliwack." What did that member do? That member wrote to our Premier and said: "Your first reaction should be to lobby for the retention of the base." I don't want to be hard on her; she sits behind me now, in the government back benches. You and the Premier should get together and discuss this situation.
I'll quote from the Premier's letter. He said he shared my concern about the impact of the closure. For those of you who ignored my letter, let me read portions of it now:
"The province of British Columbia, Canada's third-largest province, will have no land element presence. Montreal, Fredericton, Calgary, Toronto and Edmonton" -- and Winnipeg -- "each have a major military installation nearby, but Vancouver will not. Vancouver is a community of bridges, located on a faultline, with the prediction of a large earthquake. The Canadian Forces Engineers is the only unit that can respond to building bridges quickly. If they are in Edmonton and all the transportation corridors and airports are closed, how will they transport the heavy, specialized bridging equipment to British Columbia quickly?
"Of the federal government's spending, British Columbia receives $700 million less per year than it should according to its proportion of Canada's population. The CFB closure will exacerbate an already disparate situation. Over the last five years expenditures on CFB Chilliwack have exceeded $40 million. A new $10 million building is scheduled to open in July. The base closure will be a waste of taxpayers' dollars." There are "487 buildings at CFB Chilliwack...valued at $470 million. New facilities will have to be built in Edmonton and Gagetown to accommodate the move. When you add the cost of moving complete units, plus personnel and families, savings do not exist.... In case of an Oka-type crisis, existing military presence would prevent the escalation of such an event.
"Vancouver Island and the lower mainland have over 3 million people. In the event of a disaster, access to the lower mainland could be severely restricted for several days because of the region's topography. In the recently released White Paper, the Canadian Forces was mandated to deliver assistance within 24 hours in the event of a natural disaster. This is too late, as recently seen in Japan."
British Columbia municipalities all depend on CFB Chilliwack as a major partner in their emergency measures plan, due to their specialized equipment and training. What will fill this void when this unit is gone? Hopefully this time the government will not shirk its responsibility, and will speak for British Columbia.
This session of the Legislature may be the last session before the next provincial election. Therefore, in responding to the Speech from the Throne, I will look back on the government's record since elected in October 1991.
Interjection.
R. Chisholm: And I will definitely be fair, as we've just heard.
This throne speech clearly indicates that what British Columbia desperately needs are fixed election dates. Manipulating the time of an election to suit the political agenda does not serve the public interest, as we see with the vote-buying of B.C. 21.
Party discipline is self-serving, and an example of a broken democracy. I urge all my colleagues to make a common commitment to free votes in this Legislature. The government's goal should be to reduce the size, scope and cost of government, and to ensure that our government is both affordable and responsible. The throne speech failed to do this; it failed to guarantee a balanced budget by law. British Columbians feel the increased ferry fees, Hydro rates, medical fees, ICBC rates and WCB rates, and the 400 percent increases on subdivided farms -- from $125 to $500. We are furious at the increased grazing fees, water licence fees, commercial transport fees, vehicle infraction fees and birth, death and marriage licence fees. There have been increased tuition fees, and there now are parking fees on campuses. There is an increased vehicle registration fee, as well as higher hunting and fishing fees. The list goes on.
An Hon. Member: They said they froze taxes.
R. Chisholm: Tax increases have already been implemented by this government to cover the next three years and longer. The people of British Columbia aren't accepting this. People are paying more taxes, so why the huge debt? They are not stupid; they know who created the deficit. They all feel your tax grab. They see this government's squandering of their tax dollars on U.S. spin doctors and party insiders. They want an election now.
Part of my election platform stressed the need for a cost-effective commuter rail to the Fraser Valley. I am glad the NDP has considered a commuter rail to Mission. Let me stress that this is a first step, but in order to rectify the Fraser Valley pollution and traffic congestion, this commuter rail must eventually continue on to Chilliwack. It must be cost-effective. Many people work in Vancouver and must commute by car or bus. It has reached the point where the Trans-Canada from Chilliwack to Vancouver is a continuous traffic jam, regardless of the time of day.
Consequently, the air in the Fraser Valley is becoming polluted due to exhaust emissions. This government cannot afford to wait to rectify this situation. Bus lanes, bicycle lanes and car pool lanes must be installed immediately. To be cost-effective, a commuter rail system, using existing rail lines as during Expo, must be implemented immediately from the Chilliwack area. We must eliminate the pollution before it is too late to make a difference. Also, buses and government vehicles must use pollutant-free fuel such as ethanol to help reduce pollution. The federal government has seen the merit of my ethanol bill and has included it in their Green Plan, along with a $70 million incentive program.
This government cannot afford to procrastinate. We must pass this bill during this session to help the air quality of British Columbia. The traffic congestion on the Yale-Vedder Road overpass in Chilliwack has increased drastically due to population increases. This government must immediately address the unsafe on- and off-ramps from the Trans-Canada Highway to Vedder Road. Also, there is no safe place for pedestrians or cyclists in this area. The people of Chilliwack want this unsafe situation resolved immediately. This throne speech has not addressed any of these critical issues.
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The Chilliwack courthouse is another area where this government has initiated a positive step by purchasing the land and guaranteeing that both the Provincial and Supreme Courts will be in Chilliwack. I wish to thank the Attorney General for his professional approach of inviting me to the meetings in Surrey on this issue. Positive results can happen if we all work together for the common good of British Columbia. I understand the budget restraint connected with building a courthouse during the last three years. And I am willing to work closely with the Attorney General in the coming year to ensure that a new courthouse for Chilliwack is built soon.
There is a real problem with the justice system in British Columbia, yet it was not mentioned in the throne speech. How could they omit this in light of the recent Fetterley case, Danny Perrault and many other disastrous incidents? Our justice system must be more proactive, not reactive. There are empty facilities, such as Masset, Baldy Hughes and Holberg, that are ideally suited for young offender outreach programs and boot camps. We must help educate, counsel and assist these 14- to 17-year-olds to become productive citizens, rather than just jailing them to become hardened criminals. It would cost us significantly more to keep them in prisons. We must stop the multiplier effect of the criminal element.
[3:00]
Education is a priority in Chilliwack. During my term as MLA, the Unsworth Elementary and East Chilliwack Elementary schools have been rebuilt. Chilliwack Junior Secondary, the middle school, has been authorized to be rebuilt. These have been positive measures on the part of this government.
To cut the increasing administrative cost, may I suggest to the Minister of Education that British Columbia have universal textbooks for all our schools? Volume purchases would help reduce costs. It would help students adjust when they have to move to different schools within British Columbia. Due to the high loss rate of textbooks, a deposit should be put on books by the parents at the beginning of the year, which would be refundable if the texts are returned in good condition. This system is in parts of the province and needs to be standardized throughout the province.
Our schools sit empty from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. and on weekends. I urge the government to stop building more colleges and universities and to start utilizing these facilities. This will reduce our capital costs and borrowing and will bring post-secondary education to more students at a reduced cost. With technology today, a class could listen to a taped lecture or receive it through satellite hookups, and postgraduate students could monitor the class and answer questions, giving upperclassmen work in their chosen profession. Students could stay at home and have part-time jobs, thus reducing the need for excessive student loans. The throne speech should have addressed educational costs.
The following criticism of the government is in the spirit of pressing for change that will benefit all British Columbians. Unfortunately, I must condemn this government for some of its actions, which I find repulsive and inappropriate. One of these is legislation by exhaustion. During the last few sessions this government has had all-night sittings, forcing MLAs to work 18 to 20 hours a day. I urge this government to start using logic during this session so that rational decisions can be made with alert minds. Stop the manipulation of the Legislature, and thus the manipulation of British Columbia.
The Social Services ministry spends a large part of our budget adding more staff to police fraud. This doesn't save money. In order to prevent abuse of the system, there must be an automatic sharing of information between federal and provincial government departments. Those who defraud the system should not be allowed to continue using the system. Smart photo ID should be implemented for all B.C. residents. It would combine health care, driver's licence and Social Services -- all government services. This would eliminate corruption and take away the stigma of Social Services. The throne speech has not addressed these issues.
Will there be forest jobs in the province when this government is finished? We have seen recent forestry job cuts and more on the way -- 12 percent in Chilliwack. We've had a lack of leadership, causing a lack of job security for working British Columbians. We do not even know the effects on the TSA of the protected-areas strategy and the spotted owl protection areas, and that will mean more job losses.
This government is using gambling to raise revenue. This is wrong. The long-term effect of gambling addicts on society could be costly. This government is getting too comfortable with this source of revenue. How are we going to wean this government off this new form of taxation?
This government has failed with health care. Just look at the disastrous New Directions program, which is out of control. I suggest cutting the top-heavy administration and putting our health care dollars where needed: in patient care and for needed surgery.
Since this government has taken office, agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture have not been mentioned once in any throne speech. This is appalling, since agriculture is the third-largest industry of our province.
In this throne speech there are three key investment areas: natural resources, infrastructure and jobs. Chilliwack just lost 12 percent of its forestry, 300 jobs at FraserVale and now 747 jobs at CFB Chilliwack. Is that an example of this government investing in jobs? And what are agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture if they are not natural resources? Yet they weren't mentioned in this throne speech.
This government has increased debt to $27.4 billion and has hidden the deficit. When will the NDP start cutting the size of government? It is mortgaging our children's future. This must be addressed now.
This throne speech was big on fluff and very short on substance. But as I have said, the official opposition Liberals are also big on fluff and short on substance, and certainly short on loyalty to my constituents in Chilliwack. In the Fraser Valley it can get quite windy in the springtime, you know, and of course here in the capital city the winds of change are all around us as we enter the fourth session of the thirty-fifth parliament. My hope is that when the winds of change finally calm, my constituents of Chilliwack will be better served by both their government and the official oppositions.
Deputy Speaker: I thank the member for his comments and recognize now the member for...Excuse me, member; I apologize. The member for Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows. My error, pardon me.
W. Hartley: I would ask leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
W. Hartley: On behalf of the member for Mission-Kent, I'd like to introduce visiting grade 5 students and their teacher, Miss Rask, from the Agassiz Christian School. Will members please make them welcome.
[ Page 13382 ]
Deputy Speaker: I do want to apologize to the member for forgetting the constituency. You would think I would know them all by now. I have a hunch it's because on my list I had somebody else I was about to recognize.
Hon. E. Cull: I'm very pleased to be able to take my place in this throne speech debate. The reply to the throne speech is a very unique opportunity, unlike many of the opportunities we have in this chamber, particularly when you are a cabinet minister, because it gives me an opportunity to reflect on my role not as a cabinet minister but as an MLA representing my riding and the people of Oak Bay-Gordon Head, who I have had the privilege to represent now for over five years. I want to take this opportunity publicly to express my thanks to the constituents in this riding who have given me this opportunity twice now -- through a by-election and the 1991 election -- to be able to represent them both in the community and in this chamber.
This year's throne speech was unlike any other that I've heard in this House -- and I have had the opportunity to listen to six throne speeches in the last number of years. What this throne speech does is set out with great simplicity and clarity the real challenge that is facing British Columbia, and it asks people to choose between two opposing visions. I am just going to remind hon. members of the passage in the throne speech that I am speaking of, where it says:
"There are two opposing visions of how a government should move forward in a modern economy. We can stop building infrastructure, cut public services, reduce wages and lower social standards in a race to the bottom to compete with less developed economies in attracting new jobs. Or we can invest in our strengths, in up-to-date skills, increase our productivity, add value to what we produce, in an effort to match the advanced economies of Japan and the European community in attracting new jobs."
It's a very fundamental choice, hon. Speaker, and a choice that is particularly well understood by people in my riding.
As a Victoria-area MLA, I'm very fortunate. I can be in my riding when the House is in session on a regular basis, and as I'm out there talking to people in my community, I have to tell you that they are very tired of the negativity that they hear coming from this chamber. They are tired of the cliches that masquerade as critique and analysis. They're tired of hearing the opposition flag the programs and projects that they themselves have worked very hard in our community to put in place. I invite the member for Chilliwack, who just spoke about the New Directions strategy, to come into my community and sit down with the people who are working on the community health councils and with the Capital Health Board and talk to them about what they are building, because they don't think that it is a waste of their time and effort, and they don't take this kind of insult lightly.
They are also tired of not hearing what the opposition would do differently. People in my riding work very hard to look after their future. They care about their children, they care that they will have the opportunity to prosper, and they want to make sure that the essential services that they depend on are going to be there when they need them. They take a long-term view of the future, they're not just looking for the next month or the next year or the next election. They take a long-term view, and they know that it is necessary to work hard and to make investments today so that we can achieve our long-term goals. They're very puzzled when they hear the opposition trash our economy. Not the government -- I'm not talking about when the opposition trashes the government. That is their privilege. If they want to criticize the government, they can do so. But when they trash our economy and the province itself by denying the truth about our economy, they are seeing the opposition send out a terrible message to investors, to business and to the very people we are counting on to create good jobs for our families and our future here in British Columbia. They ask me: "Well, if they were successful in getting this message out, what would the consequence be?" The consequence would be that they would drive business away; they would drive investment away. Why in the world would the opposition want to do that?
Fortunately, their cries are falling on deaf ears. People in the Oak Bay and Gordon Head communities know that we have one of the best economies in Canada, that over 40 percent of all the new jobs in Canada have been created in British Columbia in the last three years, and that last year we posted the highest growth rate for all of Canada in seven years. Business investment, which is the thing that I think people are concerned about, because it does foretell our future, it does foretell jobs, was up by 23.5 percent last year -- double the rate of neighbouring Alberta. They know this in my community, and they want to make sure that our economy keeps growing. So they are very interested in the choices that have been placed before them by our government and in this throne speech.
When it comes to jobs -- because I think people are concerned not only about their own jobs but for the jobs that their children will get -- it comes down to two things in my riding: what support do we need to provide to the private sector so that jobs can continue to be created at the tremendous rate that they have been created here in B.C. in the last number of years; and more importantly, perhaps, what support do we provide to individuals in the form of education and skills training so that our citizens, our children, can take those jobs? I can tell you, speaking as a parent, there is nothing sadder than knowing that to get the skills training they need to be able to take the good-paying jobs that are there, either your children are going to have to go to another province because they are going to be turned away from colleges and universities in our province for lack of space, or they won't get the training at all, and those good-paying jobs are going to go to other people who are coming in from other provinces.
First, let me talk about the support that is necessary for the private sector to continue creating jobs in the greater Victoria area. I want to note this because many people who live in my riding work in the public sector, and they do an excellent job on behalf of the people of British Columbia. Their jobs depend on the prosperous economy that we have here. But they recognize, particularly as they are looking at their long-term future and the future of their families, that the private sector is the one that's creating jobs.
The private sector can't do this unless the public sector makes the strategic investments that are necessary to support those jobs -- in transportation, the Vancouver Island Highway. You might not think that the Vancouver Island Highway has a direct impact on Oak Bay-Gordon Head, since it doesn't come through the riding. But the people who live in my riding, who have businesses and jobs, know that the economy of Vancouver Island depends very much on businesses being able to grow, on goods and services being able to get up and down the Island. So they are concerned about transportation; they are concerned about ferries. I will also say, again speaking very much as an MLA for this riding, that they are concerned about public transit.
[3:15]
One of the things that they ask me about on a regular basis is the plan for the future of public transit in the Victoria area. That is why I, along with my Victoria colleagues, have
[ Page 13383 ]
been absolutely adamant that what we must do, within the ability of our government and the taxpayers' ability to afford it, is start planning now for public transit -- light rail transit, the rapid transit of the future -- which means beginning to dedicate corridors, setting aside land and doing the long-range planning that is necessary if that's going to be successful in the long run.
The other thing that the private sector depends on, if they are going to be able to create jobs, is the educational infrastructure. We need to make sure that we deal with the educational infrastructure, the expansion of our colleges and universities, so that we can educate our people, so that the workforce we have here, which is probably the single most important resource we can offer to the rest of the world in a competitive way, is the best workforce we can possibly provide in terms of education.
That leads to the second investment, one that is probably of highest concern. No matter where I go in my community, when talking to people about what they want to see from their government the highest concern is education. Families are concerned about their children's education and future. They want to make sure their kids are going to get a quality education. They also understand that the province has limited resources, though, and they want us to get our priorities right. When they are talking about priorities, they're talking about jobs, education and protecting the important essential services that people depend on to be part of a prosperous economy.
When we look at education, people in Oak Bay-Gordon Head are pleased that we have put education at the top of our priority list. Funding has been increased this year by 4.4 percent on top of the 18 percent it was increased over the last three years. Over 4,800 new seats are going to be created this year at post-secondary institutions, many of them right here in our community, for a total of 15,000 new spaces in the last two years.
I was really struck last September when, for the first time I can remember, we didn't see lineups of students being turned away at UVic and Camosun. It was the first time that the local TV station and newspapers weren't there photographing kids in huge lineups or coming away saying they couldn't get the courses they wanted. After years of neglect of our post-secondary system, this government, because it has taken the initiative and has had the courage and long-range vision to invest in education as an important part of our economy, has managed to create enough spaces so that there are choices for our young people, and for our not so young people who really need to go back and get their skills upgraded.
That leads me to Royal Roads, an important part of the educational infrastructure supporting jobs and skills in my riding. You might be surprised, because Royal Roads is obviously not in Oak Bay-Gordon Head, but a lot of the people who work at Royal Roads live in my community. More importantly, the people who live in my community -- again, because they're concerned about their kids and want to know where they're going to get a post-secondary education -- want to see their government take the initiative to seize the opportunity when an opportunity like Royal Roads comes along, and to make something out of it.
I had many calls on this particular matter in my constituency. The only other thing I got more calls and letters on was Clayoquot Sound. This is an issue that people in my riding were very concerned about, and they were very disappointed that the federal government did not have the foresight to plan a transition for this important local institution before simply saying they were going to close it down. They were delighted this government had the courage and foresight to make the investment to keep those seats available for our kids here in Victoria.
That's because people in my community see the wisdom of investment in education. They were terribly disappointed with the federal Liberals and with the Axworthy proposal that was floated around -- which I think is now dead because of the action of students supported by the action of parents -- that would have doubled tuition for students in our community and burdened young people at the very start of their careers with a debt that most of us in this chamber would think twice about taking on. I'm glad that proposal appears to be dead.
They were also equally disappointed with the provincial Liberals. When those proposals were being floated, and when the federal cuts to post-secondary education were announced in Paul Martin's budget earlier this year, the Liberals said that the cuts didn't go far enough. How much farther did they want them to go?
Interjection.
Hon. E. Cull: Throughout this speech, I've been very patient while the member for Saanich North and the Islands has been heckling away over in the corner, but he's just said something that I think really needs to be said to the people in my riding. He has brought up the question of Moody's downgrade today. What he's saying is that he wants more cuts. We got rid of the deficit in this province; we have the lowest debt in Canada; we have the best credit rating of all the provinces. And we did not have to slash higher education or medicare to achieve that. It's a question of getting your priorities right.
Interjection.
Hon. E. Cull: This member over here is making very clear that the priorities of a B.C. Liberal government would be to forsake the future of our young people through higher education, and all of our people through medicare in some kind of race to the bottom, to see who could cut the deepest and slash the furthest. I think that is wrong-headed. I know that that is the message this member is getting so loud and vocal about right now. Obviously I've hit a nerve and he's acknowledging that what I'm saying is absolutely right.
We are considering the choice between a race to the bottom to see who can cut taxes, debt and services the most and who can get rid of government the most, no matter what the consequences are, or putting in place those services that really make us Canadian, that support our economy and quality of life. That's what this is all about. What we're talking about is the difference between what the opposition is putting forward, particularly the official opposition, and what our government has been building over the last number of years in my community.
I said earlier that we have the best economy in Canada, and we do. We will continue to have the best economy in the years ahead. But a strong economy is not only to create jobs. While that is very important -- as a mom I want to see my kid be able to grow up and enter the workforce, get a good-paying job and be able to support his family -- it's also to support essential public services, the most important of which is probably medicare.
Maybe it's the nature of my riding, with a lot of seniors in Oak Bay and a lot of growing families in the Gordon Head
[ Page 13384 ]
area, that health care is a major issue. These are reasonable people. They understand that dollars are limited, but they also understand you can get your priorities right. They are particularly concerned about the current threat from Ottawa. The removal of over $800 million from British Columbia over the next two years for higher education and medicare is a serious concern to people in my community. They see the community growing, the population getting older and the demands increasing, and they wonder how we are going to meet these demands if the federal government is continuing to pull money out of the province's budget.
The thing is that they actually had a choice. The federal government had to come to grips with its fiscal problems. There's no denying that. Every Finance minister in Canada wanted to see the federal government get its fiscal house in order. But they cut overall federal programs by 3 percent, and they cut medicare and higher education by 20 percent.
Interjections.
Hon. E. Cull: It is a shame, as some of the members in this House are saying. They should be ashamed. They have their priorities wrong. They had a different choice, and they failed to take it.
People in our community are looking to their MLAs -- all the MLAs in this House -- to stand up for them and to defend medicare that is universal, comprehensive, accessible, portable and publicly funded, as it states in the Canada Health Act. But they are looking to the official opposition on this one in vain.
Some time back, the Leader of the Opposition said that given his choice, he'd rather have Ralph Klein than Mike Harcourt. I have to say that my constituents were horrified when they heard Ralph Klein's Minister of Health say this week that the Canada Health Act really isn't intended to cover everything and probably should cover only medically necessary services, and then defined medically unnecessary services. Let me repeat that: the services that she thought were not medically necessary included prenatal care, public health and home care. If that's what the official opposition admires in health care and that's the direction they think we should be going, then I say a resounding no to that direction.
Some time back when I was the Health minister, I watched a PBS special on the difference between the American and Canadian health care systems. It was a very, very graphic illustration of why we don't want to go in the direction that the Ralph Kleins of this world would take us. We don't want to go into the American-style, two-tier system. They had two mothers, both pregnant, looking for prenatal care: one in the Sunshine Coast area of British Columbia and the other in California. The California mom was on Medicaid, which is the state health care system for those with low incomes. And it showed this American mother with the yellow pages in front of her open to the listing of physicians, dialing number after number after number to find a physician who took a Medicaid patient. She would phone and say: "Hello, do you take Medicaid patients?" And the response from the receptionist at the other end would be no. She'd hang up and dial again. This went on and on and on until I was starting to feel ashamed for the Americans in terms of the system they have created there. The mother in British Columbia was getting first-quality prenatal care as part of the comprehensive, accessible, universal health care system here.
Interjection.
Hon. E. Cull: The yappy member for Saanich North and the Islands is saying: "What's the point? What's the point?" Well, the point is that a child who is born with problems as a result of inadequate prenatal care will cost the government thousands of dollars more than it would cost to provide decent prenatal care in the first place. And that's why it's very important that we don't get caught into redefining the medicare system as being only for catastrophic illnesses or only medically necessary services, which might not include prenatal care. Under the guise of public health, it wouldn't include the hepatitis B vaccine that has been brought into our school system which, again, is saving thousands of young lives. It wouldn't include the home care that I've heard the Health critic from the opposition benches demand more and more and more of.
We have to be very careful about how we start to redefine -- as the member for Richmond East said during question period.... When she was responding to the ministerial statement, she said: "We need a redefinition." Well, if the redefinition is the one that is being supported by some of the members of that party, then I think we all have reason to be very afraid.
I think what we need to do instead is build on the excellent health care system we already have here in greater Victoria. And we have been doing that through investments in my riding in home care and also in terms of the long-term care facilities, such as the Oak Bay Lodge and the Kiwanis lodge, or the investment that we announced just a month ago in the new cancer clinic. The member for one of the Okanagan ridings -- east, west or centre -- will probably be very interested in this, because his riding, in fact, is getting a new cancer clinic. I hope that when he comes in here he doesn't talk about debt and then go out to his community and talk about investments, like some of the hon. members here do.
Let's be very clear on what we are talking about: an $18 million expansion to the cancer clinic in Victoria that will double its capacity, reduce the waiting lists in Victoria and provide far more opportunities for cancer patients to get their treatment on a timely basis right here in Victoria. Some people will look at me and say: "Well, that's just more debt. You have to borrow money to build those things." I say to those people who say that that's more debt: "Look into the face of a cancer patient and tell them that you're not willing to borrow any more money, and that they're just going to have to wait until times have improved and we're able to do that." That may be short-term smart, but it sure is long-term dumb.
Saving medicare does mean spending smarter, and I don't disagree with anyone who says that we have to find ways of saving money in terms of the health care system. I think one of the most creative things we have been doing has been the Closer to Home fund. Here in Victoria, again, it has enhanced home nursing; it has provided the services that the Minister of Health talked about today to allow terminally ill patients to receive palliative care in their homes. But I want to give an example of perhaps one of the best programs, one of the most innovative programs, in the Victoria area.
I learned recently that one of the main reasons that children are hospitalized, besides accidents, is a reaction to allergies or asthma or some kind of breathing problem. They go into crisis. To get them out of that crisis situation, they are taken into the emergency ward, and they are hospitalized. It would be so much better for the child, for the family and probably for the taxpayer if we could prevent the child from going into a crisis situation. But that has required a kind of community-based care and integrated care that was not avail-
[ Page 13385 ]
able in my community until the Closer to Home fund funded such a program this year. Again, it's going to save lots of money, but it's also going to improve the quality of health care for people in my community. That's what this is all about. We're talking about protecting the system of health care we have here -- not necessarily throwing more money at it, but making sure it is adequately funded and that we're being as creative as possible in terms of how we spend those dollars.
[3:30]
Still on the list of things that I think have to be addressed in health care in Victoria is the Royal Jubilee Hospital replacement. It's very expensive. With my Finance hat on, I know how difficult it has been to find the capital dollars to address this program. But I have to say that as a local MLA, I will continue to fight for the replacement of this old building, because I think the citizens in this community deserve to have a modern, up-to-date, cost-efficient hospital not only out in the western half of the community but also here in the Oak Bay and Gordon Head area.
People were saying today that you really have to rely on the actions to judge a government, and I think our actions -- the budget, the throne speech -- have shown very clearly the choice we are setting out for people in this province. People in my community know where we stand by looking at our government. They see a budget surplus, the lowest debt in the country and the highest credit rating, but they also see that we have not sacrificed things that are important to them: a focus on jobs, on protecting medicare and on making sure that we have one of the best education systems we can afford. But they don't know where the opposition stands. The Leader of the Opposition says they're going to cut $1.5 billion in taxes -- primarily to business. They're going to get rid of taxes on the order of $1.5 billion, but they're also going to balance the budget. Anyone who can add and subtract and do simple arithmetic will determine very quickly that they can do that only if they raise taxes somewhere else or cut services.
Let's assume they're not going to raise taxes. I want to know what services they're going to cut. You cannot take $1.5 billion out of medicare and higher education; that's over 50 percent of the budget. Let's not pretend we're going to take it out of some other part of the budget where it's not going to hurt anybody or have any impact. If you're going to take $1.5 billion out of government spending, then be honest with the people of this province and be honest with the people in my community and say: "Yes, there will be a reduction in health services; yes, there will be a reduction in investment in education." Then let them make a choice if that's what they'd rather do: cut taxes for business or cut services for their kids and for the medicare system.
I can't help, before I wrap up, just talking about the person who spoke before me, the member for Chilliwack. I think that in his introductory remarks he made a very eloquent statement on the state of the Liberal Party. What he basically said is that there isn't a Liberal Party sitting over there on the opposition benches; they have changed so much that he can't recognize them any longer and can't continue to be a part of them. He said they lack leadership, and they have moved away into some kind of a right-wing agenda that most of the liberals -- I'm talking small l liberals -- in this province cannot recognize any more.
I think that opinion is probably shared by the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, who sent me a note referring to me as his MLA. I appreciate the fact that you see yourself as one of my constituents these days. But I think that's one of the things that people in the community have started to look at. We do have a choice. It's not a choice between a Liberal government and an NDP government or a Reform government; it's a choice between a very narrow, constricted, negative view that will not acknowledge that we have a strong economy and does not have the foresight to look at investments in our future and a government that's saying: "Yes, we know there has to be a balance between what we can afford and what we need." You can make choices, you can set priorities and you don't have to trash people to accomplish those.
The folks on the other side, particularly the official opposition, will say that the best way to deal with these problems facing us right now is to just get rid of as much government as possible.
Interjection.
Hon. E. Cull: The member for Saanich North and the Islands is confirming this yet again.
But you know, without government we wouldn't have a public education system and we wouldn't have our medicare system. We have a different view; our view is that government can serve families, it can build a strong economy, it can build for the future, and it can protect vital services like medicare. That's our vision, that's the vision of this government, and that's the vision that is shared by many people in my riding.
C. Serwa: Before I begin with my response to the throne speech, I would like to thank the member for Shuswap and the member for Prince George-Omineca for their courtesy in enabling me to respond to the throne speech. I hope they're not sorry for the opportunity they've created for me.
With the latitude that is allowed with respect to responses to the throne speech, one could become very partisan, and the temptation is very strong to become very partisan. But the reality is that there will probably be ample time in debate on estimates of the various ministries to attend to a lot of the concerns that I may have. Hopefully, I'll remind myself of the words of Mother Teresa, who said that we can do no great things, only small things with great love. Perhaps I'll try to restrain myself and keep to that particular thought. I'm prepared with a set speech today, because there are a number of things I want to say that are very important to me and hopefully are important to British Columbians.
We stand today at a branch in the road. The government has indicated this clearly in the throne speech. They have said that there are two profoundly different approaches to government, and I would agree with them. But I believe both they and some of the opposition parties have taken the wrong path.
The NDP sees the Great Divide as the difference between activist government and market-oriented minimal government. Of course, that is a tremendously important distinction, but I would like to agree -- you will appreciate this, hon. Speaker -- with the member for Nanaimo when he observed that we routinely exaggerate the differences between Left and Right in British Columbia in the course of our legislative debates.
I see the fork in the road in somewhat different terms. The NDP and Liberals, to my mind, are on the same road, headed in the same direction, merely in different lanes. My vision of the fork in the road is closer to that described by Robert Frost when he wrote:
Two roads diverged in a wood
and I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference.
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The people out there do not divide politicians so much between Left and Right as between those who are in politics to do something and those who are in politics to be somebody. One path is totally concerned with instant gratification and is obsessively fixed on re-election; the other is more reflective. It asks: what will be remembered in 100 years' time? What will we be remembered for in 100 years' time?
The biblical promise to the Jewish people was: "Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions." When Sir John A. Macdonald dreamt what Pierre Berton described as the Canadian dream, a national rail link linking Canada from sea to sea, he showed himself to be one of those who dreamed great dreams and was prepared to literally move mountains to see them fulfilled.
Not everyone was so blessed. The Liberal leader of the day, George Brown, condemned Macdonald's dream as folly and a waste of tax money, and in a curiously poetic phrase he wrote off British Columbia as a sea of mountains. I venture to say that not one of us would be here today if the Liberals' narrow vision had then prevailed.
Fortunately, Macdonald was not the only Canadian to dream great dreams. Social Credit Premier W.A.C. Bennett saw the incredible potential of opening up our interior and north to industries based on our truly unbelievable natural resources. That was not laissez faire capitalism, nor was it doctrine socialism. The genius of W.A.C. Bennett was that he was able to understand and fulfil the needs of British Columbians without going hard one way or the other. It was a vision of what could be, based on a government with leadership and imagination working not to dominate or control private enterprise or individual lives, but to lay the foundation for prosperity in which we all had the opportunity, confidence and freedom to share. He rejected the simplistic idea that government must be all or nothing in society. He understood its vital -- but just as vitally limited -- role to enhance the community by marshalling those resources which only government was in a position to direct to the ultimate benefit of all.
His opposition didn't think much of his plans either. Like the central Canadian Liberals of a century before, the CCF-NDP of that era sneeringly referred to Social Credit's province-building as blacktop government. They even called the Deas Island tunnel a tunnel to nowhere and predicted that it would be empty for decades; it's obviously not. They attacked the two-rivers policies then, and today they are diverting the benefits to repay an absolutely unnecessary debt load, which they have built on the same logic of instant gratification that has caused them to reject the vision in the first place. Just imagine what benefits we could be providing to British Columbians from those downstream benefits if the NDP had had the foresight not to add over $10 billion to the provincial debt in three and a half years.
What was true of politicians who just wanted to be somebody in the 1980s and 1990s was true again when the NDP attacked SkyTrain and northeast coal, when the current socialist Premier called for the cancellation of Expo and when Dave Barrett said that B.C. Place, part of a great urban renewal program, would be just one more place for the B.C. Lions to lose in -- his words, not mine. So we do have some similarity to George Brown's incredibly shortsighted putdown of British Columbia. When the NDP killed the Windy Craggy mining project without a fair examination of what measures could have been taken to accommodate environmental concerns, they showed that same fatal flaw of those seeking only instant gratification of today's lobby groups at the expense of a whole region's and industry's future. When the Liberals announced that Kemano completion would be killed before the review was even completed, we saw the modern George Brown in action -- the man who would be and could be Premier followed the polls instead of offering leadership or vision, and the NDP government followed him. Kemano completion might have been a mistake, but we will never know because the Premier and Leader of the Opposition killed it -- not on principle, but in an effort to woo short-term support. Who do they more resemble, Sir John A. Macdonald or George Brown? I fear it is the latter.
There is no guarantee of success in this life. No one owes us a living, and generosity is often uncertain -- so, too, in the lives of nations and provinces. Japan and Switzerland have no great natural resources, yet are extremely prosperous; Zaire and Russia have incredible natural resources, yet are very poverty-stricken. "The fault lies in ourselves and not our stars if we are underlings," Shakespeare wrote, and so it is; but by the same token, the good Lord has given us the intelligence to understand our faults and to change for the better.
[3:45]
New Zealand went broke, but New Zealanders did not despair. They reinvented government in ways we could do well to consider. Argentina and Chile have emerged from military dictatorships and are now working well towards solid economic achievements. South Africa has avoided the predicted bloodbath, even while other African nations have not. Men and women who dream great dreams have not vanished from the earth. Every day, in fact, brings each and every one of us a new opportunity to be constructive dreamers. The government currently fails in this regard on two counts: spending the heritage of future generations through massive, unnecessary debt -- unnecessary because of the huge, artificial costs which they have built in on behalf of their political backers. This is really stealing from our children to buy votes in an election which they are most certainly going to lose in any event, and this is a great tragedy.
The second tragedy is more easily repaired. It is the lack of a great dream for our future. The NDP have been so preoccupied in looking at everything that goes wrong in society and in life in general that they have simply forgotten to look up and see what could be accomplished. I agree with those in the NDP who say we must have an active government, but I draw a clear distinction between an active government and a government of activists. Government can and must do great things for people, but it can only do that when it focuses on matters that are outside the purview of the private sector. This is an important point for the NDP to consider.
Their point of view was all too evident in the recent controversy over regulating the pay of babysitters. The NDP sees no limit to the extension of government into our lives. Aside from other objections to this attitude that government can be a substitute for the family, a substitute for religious values and almost a substitute for society itself, there is a very practical problem with it: it just doesn't work. A government that tries to do virtually everything is not likely to do any of it very well. Only when we have some sense of our own strengths and limitations can we perform to our best capacity as individuals, and the same is true for government.
I'm asking the NDP to take the risk that the Labour Party took in New Zealand and that the Labour Party is now taking in Britain. This government needs to change the beliefs about its role in our province, and it needs to find the imagination not of a welfare program manager but of a province-builder.
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Man is not perfectible. All the dollars in the world won't stop free people from hurting themselves on occasion, any more than all the doctors in the world will save us from growing old and dying someday. To pretend otherwise, to ourselves or others, is to abandon the very real opportunities we have to make our lives worth living and to achieve things for our province that will make us worth remembering in years to come.
There has never been more opportunity than there is today, partially because Social Credit laid a great foundation for it, partially because we enjoy splendid natural advantages and partially because we live in an age of accelerating change on a scale completely unknown in the past. Small businesses in Richmond have created electronic switching software programs for the telecommunications satellites. Just last year, UBC chemistry professor Dr. Michael Smith won a Nobel Prize for work in genetics. We have the ability to be world leaders, and that is undeniable. We in this chamber have the capacity to be world leaders in modernizing the institutions of government and the relationship between citizen and government in the electronic age. We can do it, and we should do it.
Our prosperity for many decades has been based on natural resource wealth, including beautiful scenery that forms much of the basis of our tourist industry, combined with the vital ingredients of an outstanding transportation system, cheap and readily available energy, a skilled labour force and an open and friendly society. With two brief interruptions, we have had stable and progressive government that saw business success as a positive measure of provincial success and created a healthy climate of affordable taxes and regulations while continually improving health care, education and other services. It is no accident that Canada is consistently ranked by the United Nations as the best country in the world in which to live, nor is it any secret that Canadians consider British Columbia by far the best part of Canada in which to live.
Our success has brought hundreds of thousands of new people here with every passing decade. So far, we have avoided being spoiled by success in the way California has been, but the pressures of change are mounting, and we must deal with them soon. The general decay of families around the industrialized world over the past generation has cast unprecedented and unrealistic demands on government, and notably so in British Columbia. As the economy has changed, lifetime employment with a single employer has largely become a thing of the past. Easy access to good-paying jobs for high school dropouts has disappeared.
Along with the decay of families and the pressures on families to keep ahead of economic change, childhood has become a much more dangerous place in which to live. The drug culture and gangs have seeped into every community in our province, along with the opportunities of the Internet world. We are neither effective in rehabilitating criminals nor adequately protecting the public from them or deterring crime. It is difficult for our schools to handle the diversity in parental values or the demands placed upon teachers to be substitute parents or social workers.
Our native people have simultaneously suffered and benefited from double standards; so here, too, we are getting the worst of both worlds. Consensus is absent on a number of issues. Rural residents in particular -- anyone who lives outside greater Vancouver or Victoria -- must view with alarm the increasing tendency of urban-bred and -raised politicians to ignore their legitimate concerns, whether the issue be the appropriate level of withdrawals from the commercial forest base or the over-regulation of hunters as part of the knee-jerk reaction to entirely legitimate urban fears about the criminal use of firearms.
Our politics have always been adversarial, but the international media tend to mix entertainment and opinion with reporting. This has helped to spawn a dangerous sense of cynicism and despair among our people with regard to all public affairs. All institutions finally are coming to question the role of the media itself now.
Political correctness and the sheer terror of being charged unjustly with sexual harassment have greatly reduced the spontaneity of personal interaction in many ways. People who should be happy, based on their physical needs and wants being met, are apprehensive for their own futures and profoundly uneasy about the direction of the world.
No wonder the government is having a bad time. The next government will find that the lack of vision of the NDP will have left them $10 billion less room to deal with many of these problems. But we do know that change is inevitable. So, having stated the problems, we must always have faith in the presence of the ingredients from which we can devise solutions. Perhaps the hardest ingredients to grasp in a transitional period such as this are patience and perspective. When I walk around Victoria, even on a cloudy day, I wonder how we can be other than awestruck at our good fortune to be alive and in British Columbia in 1995. Faith in the future must be built from this perspective.
Most of the big changes in how we live are not the result of any government policy anywhere but of the interplay of new technologies. We are right to be suspicious about the potential misuse of technology. But at the same time, let us be honest enough to admit that knowledge brings progress, and we are far better off if we can learn to use that knowledge wisely. We do not really have a choice. Those who fail to master new technologies will be overwhelmed by those who do. So let's recognize that we cannot go back to nature without giving up the modern world entirely, and the world has grown far too full for that.
To patience and perspective I would also add humility. Much of the damage we suffer from as a society was done at the personal level and can only be repaired at that level. The sixties generation experimented widely. Most experiments fail; we learn from the consequences. Indeed, without mistakes we would not progress at all. As politicians we must steadfastly resist the human impulse to try and fix a broken society, just as parents must judiciously at times allow their children to learn from their own mistakes. Much -- indeed most -- of the repair work that must be done must be done by individuals on their own, taking responsibilities for the consequences of their actions and learning to make better decisions.
That is not to say there is no role for government; indeed, government has several important roles. By becoming more accountable to the public and cleaning up our own act, we can serve as an important role model. Failing to do so will send all of the wrong messages. If blockading a ski hill gets you attention and a joint press release with the government, why should anyone with a concern go through legal channels? So we are a role model, like it or not.
Secondly, we do have an obligation to remove barriers to people who want to do the right thing. The system should not give better tax breaks to unmarried couples living together than to a husband and wife. Serious wrongdoing requires serious consequences. Our justice and correction systems need
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to both improve rehabilitation and get tougher on crime. Jails should not be a pleasant place to visit or produce a pleasant lifestyle, nor should they dehumanize prisoners and turn salvageable kids into lifers.
In the marketplace there must be room for new businesses to form and grow without a jungle of red tape. Predatory labour laws, such as a single-person bargaining unit, or corporate capital tax and the like, simply tell people that it's not worth the effort to try to bring their beautiful dreams into reality. Government has a role in keeping itself affordable and supportive of private initiative.
It also must be accountable. We cannot turn out students from a factory assembly line, a system which does not manage itself on the basis of its cost-effectiveness in achieving demonstrably useful learning outcomes, which will not position young British Columbians to take advantage of job opportunities, even in their own province. West Germany spends far less on education per capita than we Canadians but achieves better results. We must reshape education to match the dynamics and diversity of the new economy in New Zealand. New Zealand has gone to self-management of schools, in effect making every school a parent-owned business. With government funding based on enrolment, while setting and reporting on standards, I believe they are on the right track.
Similarly, in health care they have opened up the system by creating an internal market for the supplying of health care services on a competitive basis involving both private and public sector health care providers. They ensure quality centrally, but service delivery is decentralized and therefore more accountable to patients and taxpayers alike.
These are all important measures, but equally important is how we conduct our own business. Some obvious changes are needed: constitutional limits on debt and deficits, to protect future non-voting taxpayers from the temptation of daily politics; free votes on issues which were not the subject of the election mandate, along with sensible and doable recall and initiative legislation as a sort of insurance policy for the people -- something you only notice when you really need it and don't have it; use of randomly selected citizens' panels to provide grass-roots input on new policy initiatives to develop a consensus and limit the need for the expensive and time-consuming referendum process; use of citizens' panels to question potential judicial and senior governmental appointees in open hearings; more televised committee hearings, including financial accountability of all Crown corporations and boards; decentralization of decision-making which has primarily regional impact -- a real voice for permanently outnumbered rural residents in the resource futures; and conclusions of land claims which are fair, affordable and final -- I emphasize final.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
Much could be added, but the essential message is this: we can be great if we work together to preserve our quality of life. More and more quality of life will attract the good new jobs in the information economy -- just as we once built asphalt highways, we must now build electronic highways. Investments in people must be cost-accountable and demonstrably value-for-dollar in the short run as well as the long run. The discipline of marketplace competition must be brought to government, for that is the ultimate objective measure.
[4:00]
Government must lead by example and create a climate for responsible personal decisions and reward for innovations and effort. We must keep a close eye on how our regulatory and taxation climate impacts on our ability to compete. We must reach a firm ground on the balance between wilderness -- or wildness -- and resource extraction which business can rely on when deciding where and how much to invest. We must signal support for success, in the concentration of government on those things which government does best.
We must reform our electoral system, to better reflect the true diversity of our community through preferential and proportional representation. We must reduce partisanship through free votes and more active use of committees. We must look for real answers to the emerging underclass of disillusioned youth. We must reshape decision-making in land use, health care and education to maximize cost-effectiveness, flexibility and responsibility to the public, particularly at the local level.
We must recognize the tremendous importance of becoming a centre of scientific and technical excellence and must build naturally on our comparative advantages, whether in higher resource use or in Pacific Rim trade. We must recognize the growing value of tourism and cultural industries. The latter will mean a change in attitude for many people. But unless we are open to unfamiliar new opportunities such as Hollywood North, we will become dependent on a narrow and shrinking base which we cannot sustain, and we will not sustain our transition as key players in a rapidly changing world.
Our vision, then, is of a prosperous, generous and creative people who are effective at dealing with opportunities, lifelong learning and an accelerating rate of change. Our dream is that of a society in which our citizens care about one another generously and effectively, from a position of economic strength. That is the magnificent prospect offered to our children if we have the imagination, dedication and discipline to pursue that vision rather than consuming our energies in juvenile and ultimately fruitless political infighting.
When you next walk through the Legislative corridors and look on the faces of governments now long past, remember, too, that someday others will look up at your picture. Their thoughts at that moment will depend on the course we chart today. I call on the NDP, the Liberals and all hon. members of this House to put aside the brickbats for awhile and try to focus on the real reason they are here: to do something of lasting good for the people of British Columbia. I can assure you that the feeling of satisfaction received from the sense of accomplishment which would inevitably follow such an act of courage and imagination would far outweigh the risks of departing from the partisan political rut. We are all British Columbians and rightly proud to be counted in that number.
Let us learn from our own experience and that of New Zealand and others. Let us begin the process of modernizing and redesigning government, not out of dire financial necessity but out of optimism, love for our fellow citizens and an affirmative act of courage and rededication to the values which have made our province the envy of the world. [Applause.]
J. Tyabji: I think the people applauding are recognizing that the member for Okanagan West has given a very relevant speech, certainly the best speech I've heard him give.
I stand today to do a response to the Speech from the Throne. In beginning this response, I want to share with the House a number of petitions I've received as the MLA for Okanagan East. These petitions are ones that the Minister of
[ Page 13389 ]
Municipal Affairs was made aware of a few months ago. I think they go to the heart of the central issue which should be part of this debate, and that is democracy in British Columbia today. I spoke to it a little during the response to the budget, in terms of how decision-making is done in this province, how people are put into the process and how there is any accountability in that process.
Today, in the response to the Speech from the Throne, I want to use these petitions as an example of how democracy is not working. The reason is that these petitions represent over 90 percent of the people who live in a certain part of my riding, an overwhelming majority of people. These people were contacted door to door. Most of them live in mobile home parks -- people who are not wealthy, who work hard for a living and have a good standard of living, but who will not be able to access the halls of power through expensive lawyers or court battles or by financing their way through some of the glitzier political parties. These people look to their elected representatives, and most particularly to their government, for any type of democracy, and they would hope there would be fair process.
I'm talking about the people who live in an area called Lake Country, and most specifically, those who have ended up in the unfortunate position of being in a panhandle. A panhandle is an area where one municipality has usually moved into a neighbouring regional district area to grab an industrial base, and in grabbing that industrial base, they have to help supplement the functioning of that municipality. It's a common enough procedure, but it's not that that's the issue of the petition.
What's at the heart of this petition is that the provincial government recently began the process of incorporating Lake Country, which was the regional district area in which this panhandle sits. One of the first things brought to my attention when I was first elected in 1991 was that the panhandle has resulted in a few thousand people who live in these trailer parks being inside that base, right beside the industrial zone that is now in the jurisdiction of the city of Kelowna.
From the beginning of my tenure as MLA, they have represented to me that they feel very frustrated, because their taxes are going to a municipality that is at some distance from them. They are separated by a lake, and there's a narrow highway corridor as well. They are not physically linked to the municipality of Kelowna in any way other than by the highway, and they don't have a similar community.
If anyone knows the community of Lake Country, which includes Winfield, Oyama and Okanagan Centre, it's a cohesive community. They have an excellent village atmosphere and a very good way of arriving at decisions. It's an excellent model of how villages and communities should work. But in the new municipality of Lake Country, the people who effectively live in the community of Winfield are being shut out of any kind of representation in their own community because they are in the panhandle.
When this government, under the current Minister of Municipal Affairs, moved to incorporate Lake Country, the people there said: "At last, we can make successful representation so we will no longer be paying our taxes to a municipality we are not affiliated with, and we will ask to be taken out of this panhandle and put into our own community." They felt there would be some success for that. There are precedents throughout the province for panhandles being eliminated when a regional district incorporates and a panhandle is inside that incorporated zone.
Because of those precedents and because the Minister of Municipal Affairs was perceived to be somebody who believed in the democratic process, over 90 percent of the people in the panhandle area in Lake Country signed a petition. I spoke to the Minister of Municipal Affairs -- not once, but twice, and directly, face to face -- to tell her there was this feeling of frustration and that these people would at least like to have a say. All they wanted was to be heard. They did not assume that if they demanded something they would automatically get it, but they wanted to be heard by the minister before any kind of incorporation.
They didn't get that opportunity, because the process was done very quietly. It was passed by order-in-council, in fact, before we were ever in debate. Because it was passed before we were in debate, the democratic process of being heard by a minister responsible was not followed up on, and that has led to an incredible feeling of disillusionment. At the heart of this matter is whether we actually live in a democratic society. Do people have the right to be heard? In this instance, they didn't have that right.
As these petitions will be forming a part of this record, I would seek leave to table them now rather than waiting for the appropriate time.
Leave granted.
J. Tyabji: I hope those petitions will serve as an example of how some people in an unincorporated area would like to be heard, and those people would certainly still like to be heard on this matter. We know that the Municipal Act does have a provision through which the Minister of Municipal Affairs could allow them to be heard. She could make the amendment. In the same way she brought in the boundaries, she could make that amendment by order-in-council, and I hope she would do that.
With respect to the entire issue of democracy, I think we have to go back to the Speech from the Throne. What I find interesting is that the Speech from the Throne this year, from an NDP government especially.... When we look at the headlines in it, what do we see? We see a headline that says: "Investing in Our Natural Resources." Another headline says: "Investing in Infrastructure." Then we've got: "Investing in People." And then we have: "Affordable Investments."
I find it very interesting that these are the headlines in an NDP Speech from the Throne. The reason I find it interesting is because when the NDP came up with their update,"A Better Way," a better way wasn't about economic strategies and investments, it was on a vision for the government. Although I didn't share this vision ideologically, I would respect the fact that there was a vision. Well, very little of this vision is actually in the Speech from the Throne.
Let's move to what kind of vision the people of this province would need. In this province right now we know that there is a crying need for change. What kind of change do we need? Are we talking about a change that government mandates on business? Is it a change where a government will come in and direct the investments of the business community? Clearly we don't need any of that, because I don't think any government should be directing the investments of any business community. All they have to do is provide the opportunities for the business community to do their business, which is to direct their own investments.
We know that what government should be doing is taking care of the largest portfolios of government and looking to see that the dollars being taken in by those portfolios are spent responsibly. What are those portfolios? We know that we have health care. What kind of vision do we have right now occur-
[ Page 13390 ]
ring in the health care profession? Clearly health care is something that is going to be a hot debate in the next election. We saw the federal budget come down, almost eliminating health care in Canada, as we know it, and passing on most of the costs to the provinces.
That was a shameful move for them to make, but not a move that could not be anticipated in the late 1980s when we talked about the implications of the free trade agreement and the harmonization provisions of the free trade agreement. Given the free trade agreement provisions for harmonization of our social programs with American social programs, the last federal budget was predictable. But even though it was predictable, what was fundamentally dishonest was that at the time of the debates on the free trade agreement -- and even at the time that they passed the recent federal budget -- very few people were standing up and saying: "If we put in place this free trade agreement, we recognize that we will either have to move towards two-tier health care in Canada or else download the cost to the provinces."
If we look at where we're spending our health care dollars in this province and if we look to a vision of health care, what we should be trying to do is dismantle some of the administration, move away from the incredibly large bureaucracy and free up some of that money for direct spending on the services. That is not happening. Unfortunately, right now we're in a transitional period which has become extremely expensive for community health councils.
I'd like to put on record the Alliance Party's position with respect to the regional community health councils. Although we do not support increased bureaucracy and administration, we do recognize that the current health councils are occurring as a result of countless hours by volunteers at the community level putting in place what they believe to be a workable -- although very cumbersome -- health care system, regionally based and locally controlled with local decision-making. That process and those countless hours must be honoured.
Although it wouldn't have been the model we would put in place and it will be a model that we will amend, should we ever be entrusted with the public's vote in the next election, we would amend that so that the model will be more effective and more efficient, and there would be a greater control at the local level of the moneys that are handed out and a fair and equal distribution around the province. We would move the funding away from Victoria and into those regions.
When we look at the primary sectors in the province, we recognize that many of the primary sectors are in challenge right now. We don't see a lot of that in the Speech from the Throne. Here again, there was another Speech from the Throne from this government where the word "agriculture" was not mentioned. I find this interesting because it was known that agriculture was a fairly high priority, I guess, after the seventies when this party was in power before. Yet there's been almost nothing -- perhaps because it is an urban-based vision. When you watch from this perspective in the House and see the debates that go back and forth, it's an urban-based debate. There is very little in terms of primary economies, production of wealth or actually people-based decisions.
G. Wilson: Two ex-Vancouver mayors.
[4:15]
J. Tyabji: That could be it -- as the leader of the Alliance Party is saying: we have two ex-Vancouver mayors. That might be why we end up with an urban-based vision occurring both in the Leader of the Opposition and the Premier.
Interjection.
J. Tyabji: I hear one of the NDP members saying that there's one too many former Vancouver mayors. We'll leave it to the public to decide which one can go.
Because we have an urban-based perspective driving the agenda, whether it be the Premier's agenda or that of the Leader of the Opposition, the word "agriculture" has not been raised in this House often enough. And what do we see happening there? Unlike some other industries, like the mining industry.... We know that we stood up in this House for the last few years and talked about mining being a primary economy, a producer of wealth and an excellent way of generating jobs. Well, when the mining industry hits a few roadblocks, they just get up and leave. That's what they do. You just have to go down to Chile if you want to see how the B.C. mining industry is doing -- head south. They're doing fairly well, thank you very much. I don't know about the workers in the province of B.C. They're not doing as well, but the mining companies -- the mining industry -- is doing fairly well in South America. That is something that we believe should change.
Let's leave that aside for a minute. Let's look at the forest industry.
Interjection.
J. Tyabji: I'd like to debate that one, actually -- about the wages with respect to mining -- because I happen to believe those jobs should be here and they'd be paying a lot more. We need to reform the entire mining regulation procedure that we have in this province so we don't end up chasing everybody out. The corporate capital tax should go so we don't end up chasing people out because of high capital investment. But that's another debate. Don't interrupt me.
Interjection.
J. Tyabji: I'm onto forestry now, and I'm getting back to agriculture. That member would have a very good debate on mining, but we've moved away from mining and we're onto forestry now.
The forest industry is another good primary producer of wealth in this province. What do we find there? We find, to this government's credit, that they have brought in quite a few initiatives so that we will have a sustainable forest economy. The Alliance Party would have done it a little differently. But we believe that the models they've brought in can be fine-tuned into a very workable solution. For that, when the government does something good, you applaud them. They've done a good job. [Applause.] Gratuitous applause.
When we move into agriculture, though.... Agriculture, unlike mining, cannot get up and move somewhere else. Agricultural capital can move, but the industry itself is landlocked within the province. What else do we have in agriculture in British Columbia? We have a creation of the party that was in government in the seventies which is called the agricultural land reserve.
When the agricultural land reserve was brought in, it was with a promise and a commitment that it was one aspect of a many-pronged approach to agriculture, that the land reserve would not stand alone, that farmers would not be trapped on their land and that they would not be left hanging with only part of a process in place.
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To this party's previous record we must add that they brought in farm income insurance at that time. Farm income insurance was supposed to be the first step in that safety net. It was just the beginning of putting in place a procedure through which 8 percent of the province's land base, which can be arable land.... It's only 8 percent, and we recognize that it needs to be safeguarded. But in protecting that 8 percent through the agricultural land reserve, the farmers would also be protected. We're not just protecting land in some kind of intangible green belt. We're recognizing that those farmers are providing an invaluable service to the province. What is it that farmers do in order to qualify for farm income insurance? How do they have to qualify? Are they some sort of industrial welfare bum, as some people would like to say -- people who would like to end programs to assist the farmers?
An Hon. Member: The Liberals would.
J. Tyabji: That's true -- the Liberals would, and the Reform Party would as well. There is no question that in terms of agricultural subsidies there are those who are not informed enough about the issues to be able to recognize that farmers produce a primary wealth and a value for this province. It's two-pronged. There is the tangible wealth that's produced through the agricultural industry through the direct production of food and agricultural products that can then go into secondary manufacture. Not only does the agricultural industry produce the wealth that can then move on to create jobs, but the agricultural industry protects our ability to maintain some form of sovereignty in this country.
Before I get into some kind of tirade about Canadian sovereignty and what's going on with the federal government in the last federal budget, which I found terrifying.... Agriculture in this province cannot survive with the current level of support in place. Anybody who thinks farmers were whining when the farm income insurance program was cancelled by this government is not paying attention. If we value the agricultural industry and the contribution of wealth they make to this province, and if we want our children to grow up in a province that actually has producing agricultural land rather than a bunch of pink-walled condos on our arable land, then we'd better put in place those programs that are going to keep those farmers viable. When the GATT round comes again, we'd better be fighting for the protection of the marketing boards, because there has been no comprehensive agricultural strategy in this province or in this country for too long.
Unfortunately, this government has fallen into the same trap the Liberals and the Reform Party have fallen into: not looking deeply enough at the issue to recognize that when you become informed about it, you will recognize that agriculture must be protected, and agricultural land must be protected. It's part of our culture; it's part of our value system. But more importantly for the viability of this province, I don't believe that many sectors of the province can last without it. And it will not survive.
There's a very loud group forming. They've been around for a little while, but they're getting very loud. We're going to hear from them in the Abbotsford by-election. They're called the landowners' rights association. That group has been launching litigation. They've been very vocal. The landowners' rights association is out to dismantle the agricultural land reserve. Lest we forget, right now....
Interjection.
J. Tyabji: Yes, they are supporting the Liberals and the Reform Party.
They will not stop until they dismantle the agricultural land reserve, until they get rid of the last protection of our land base we have as British Columbians.
Although I will stand here today and say that the Alliance Party is firmly committed to the agricultural land reserve, I will also say that the agricultural land reserve is not workable in its current form and that it must be amended. It is not fair to keep the farmers trapped on their land and then not give them any tools or resources with which to farm.
Let's look briefly at some of the competitive disadvantages of farmers: property taxes, shorter growing seasons, pesticide regulations and interprovincial trade barriers. Do you know that it is more difficult to get a B.C. agricultural product across the country than it is to bring the product up from the United States? That is shameful. It's absolutely disgraceful that we can't get our own produce sold first. This isn't just in terms of primary produce. If we want to talk about the wine industry, about some of the domestic industries that are secondary manufacturing in B.C., the same interprovincial trade barriers apply. This government has done nothing to bring down those trade barriers -- absolutely nothing.
Perhaps one reason is that this government is, of course, responding to the loudest yells from the opposition bench. Anyone here during question period knows where the loudest yells are coming from. It's very much like a kindergarten classroom in here. But the two larger opposition parties are so intent on getting this government focused on their capital-R Reform agenda and not on an informed small-r reform agenda that they're getting pulled off the best interests of the public.
The best interests of the public with respect to agriculture are clearly to make sure that not only is the land reserve protected in an amended form but that the proper programs are put in place. It's not only for the farmers of today; let's look at the next generation. How many children, how many teenagers, do we know of who say: "When I grow up, I'm going to be a farmer"? They look at the farmers right now, at the capital costs and at the mortgage costs for farmers, and they say: "Forget it." Why would they do that? With NAFTA coming in we'd better watch out, because our own farmers are going to be saddled with that.
What's the Alliance proposal for a reformed agricultural land reserve? We would set up a model very similar to an agricultural land bank. I won't get into too much detail here, because there are other things I want to talk about in this speech, but an agricultural land bank would allow the farmers to take their land and put it in the bank. It's very similar to the concept of money, for those of you who can't really follow this. There's a bank; you put your land on deposit in the bank.
Interjection.
J. Tyabji: That's right, and it's a European design. You're getting ahead of me; just a minute. You put the land in the bank, and the assessed capital value of that land becomes what the farmer gets in return for putting the land in. The farmer is then paid interest on the value of the land that's placed on deposit. That could not be deemed to be an unfair trade subsidy in any of the international trade protocols right now. That's always been a disadvantage; we're very weak in terms of our own position on international forums, in terms of negotiations....
[ Page 13392 ]
Interjection.
J. Tyabji: Not the Alliance -- the governments right now. The provincial and federal governments have been abysmally weak in representing the interests of the farmers in international trade discussions, so let's remove some of the ammunition they have and say: "All right, if you're going to say that farm income insurance might be an unfair trade subsidy, and if you're going to start penalizing us with tariffs, let's move to an agricultural land bank that is very similar to some of the models in Europe and is proving very workable." The farmer is paid interest on the value that's on deposit, which is exactly like a regular banking system, and that's not an unfair trade subsidy. The farmer has enough income to farm; it becomes a form of profession, a business." That's what we need to do. We need to recognize....
This is the Alliance leader's concept. I can't take credit for this myself. It was something he has developed in consultation with farmers over many years.
I want to talk about a changing paradigm that's rolling over British Columbia, which I think many of us are missing.... For you guys, we've moved off agriculture to a changing paradigm.
Interjection.
J. Tyabji: You're with us? Okay, good. We're on the changing paradigm of what's happening in the workplace.
In the last few years, with dual-income parents, with single-parent households, with the changing dynamic of a lot of people out in the workplace, with labour-oriented jobs moving down, with mechanization and advanced technology, what we have seen happen, and it's very interesting, is enormous changes in the workplace. Some people say that the labour model where you have wages, which the Industrial Revolution brought in, is going to be phased out, and that we're moving into....
Interjection.
J. Tyabji: No, this is not the Reform Party or the Liberal Party talking. We're not talking about slavery.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, hon. members.
J. Tyabji: Hon. Speaker, we're talking about observations that are being made in the international arena and in Canada about our changing workplace. If we are moving away from hourly wage models and into contract labour, contracted work, where there is a certain value assigned to a piece of work and people will be bidding on that piece of work, based on their ability to do it, we could enter a very exciting age. We could enter an age where craftsmanship.... What is the politically correct term for craftsmanship? Craftspersonship?
Interjection.
J. Tyabji: I don't think "craftiness" is politically correct.
We could be moving into an age where we move back into craft and ability, and people are able to say: "I happen to have...." For example, in the computer area, if somebody has the best skills, they could end up.... It could be a very lucrative contract that they're winning, but they're not winning based on the hour. It's based on the expertise they bring in. We could see moving into models where people have home-based businesses. They are computerized; they have their modems, their faxes and their telephones. They're prepared to work at home for contracts that are valuable. And based on that value they will be able to compete, not on the basis of unionized jobs.... They may end up, in the long run, making more money, but it's based on a package value.
We're entering a very interesting age in B.C. -- and we'll have to move back to the paradigm debate during estimates debate, because the paradigm shift affects every estimate in this House differently. But if we look to provincial politics for a minute and see what's happening, we'll see we're in flux in British Columbia right now. And nowhere is the flux in provincial politics more evident than in Abbotsford. What we are finding is a very strong pull by certain powerful interests in the province to try to move back to a bipolar system, because it would serve the interests of those who have a lot of money to have a bipolar system. Whose interests should we be concerned about in this chamber? Should we be concerned about moving into a bipolar system so we can fight it out in a partisan political arena and end up with one ahead -- winner takes all and the loser stays in the opposition benches and starts fighting with the winners? Clearly that is not in the best interests of British Columbians.
[4:30]
What we need to look at in British Columbia is a model that would allow for nonpartisan representation and constituency-based representation first. The Alliance Party strongly believes that in the next election the party that puts forward the best model for nonpartisan sitting, for regional seats in the House, for direct delegation -- as the Alliance Party has done.... We only have to look at the Abbotsford by-election to see how much there is a crying need for adequate representation. The party that puts forward the best model for constituency-based representation, constituency advocacy with a clearly defined set of principles and philosophy so that the public is not blindsided every time a major decision hits the assembly, so that they recognize where you are coming from and, based on your philosophical outlook, that you will then go in a certain direction.... Provided a party can do that, with politics in the state of flux they are in right now, I believe that that party will win the trust of the voters in the next election. Whichever party that is, it should not go into the next election assuming that it is going to be government.
We know that every day in this chamber the Liberal Party and the Reform Party will tell us how they're just about to become government. The next election and by-election is not a time for arrogance. It's a time to listen and consult, and take forward a progressive approach to government. Only with a progressive approach will we finally dismantle the octopus of government that is strangling our wallets right now. Only with a democratic approach will we give a voice to those constituents who are crying out to be heard right now and who want to be part of the decision-making process.
No offence to the sitting members, but the solutions to the problems facing the people in the province are primarily out in the field. Those solutions will not reach the floor of this House until this assembly is properly and adequately changed so that we can bring those decisions in, so that people can be part of the decision-making process and feel that their government is actually working on their behalf.
I hope that in this session we will take the time to debate issues, to look at what our constituents are saying and, based
[ Page 13393 ]
on that, bring that forward. We should go into the next election with a high degree of humility, because no one knows what the outcome of the next election is going to be.
D. Mitchell: I ask leave to introduce some guests.
Leave granted.
D. Mitchell: The Minister of Education might be interested in knowing that in the public galleries today we have a group of students from Howe Sound Secondary School in Squamish, in the constituency of West Vancouver-Garibaldi. This is a group led by Mr. Carl Walker. There are about 45 students from grades 9, 10 and 11 -- mostly grade 11, but a few grades 9 and 10. They are interested in this throne speech debate, and I hope that members who are present might join me in wishing them welcome.
L. Reid: I too lend my acknowledgements to the students from Howe Sound Secondary. I had the privilege to visit there last year, so it's very nice to have you with us.
In terms of responding to the throne speech, I have some concerns about the policy of this New Democratic government, because I don't believe that it's policy made in British Columbia. The hon. member who spoke earlier talked about the American influence. British Columbia policy should be made in British Columbia, not in Washington, D.C. I think the theme that permeates the debate in this chamber from the New Democratic benches has always been about blame. They spent three years in this chamber blaming the previous government. Every comment was prefaced with: "The mess we were left by the Socreds...." We've simply moved along the blame continuum, and now every comment is prefaced by some opportunity to deride the federal government. What I hope -- what I've always hoped for governments in British Columbia -- is that they can move beyond the 1950s scapegoat politics. That's what it's all about; this throne speech is about blame.
It has to be about vision. It has to be about ideas. It has to be about putting the taxpayer first. It has to see education as essential service. It has to see patients as the number one priority. It's not about that. It spends a whole lot more time looking at who they can blame next for some of the issues that are happening in British Columbia. That doesn't warm the heart of reasonable parliamentarians, because it has to be about more than that.
We have to have some understanding about the role of government. For us British Columbia Liberals, it's about setting standards; it's about ensuring compliance; it's about having the taxpayers believe that they are getting a reasonable product for the dollars they invest in government. Government is a tremendously expensive exercise, there's no doubt about that. When Liberals stand and talk about downsizing government, it has to happen because the bottom line is that the cost of government is threatening social programs in this province, it's threatening education, and it's certainly threatening health care.
Interjections.
L. Reid: I will commit to that statement that the growth of this government is threatening health care in British Columbia.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, hon. members.
L. Reid: It is not the other way around. The fact that their house is not in order and that this government continues to hire new individuals into the bureaucracy is an additional cost to the taxpayer. It is a cost that we cannot afford. It is not about social programming. It is about the cost of bureaucracy today; that is the point of my remarks.
I think the role of government needs to continue to be around consumer protection. People are utilizing services, a number of which are put before them by government. They have to believe in the quality of that service; there must be some quality assurance. All of us in our constituency offices hear from many, many British Columbians who are frustrated by the process and by the level of service they receive from government. It shouldn't be that way. The taxpayer is paying a great deal of money so that those services are available and, hopefully, responsive, flexible and delivered in a timely fashion.
That is not the impression that the majority of taxpayers have today. They see government as a threat to their livelihoods and their incomes. They will tell you they do not believe that adding more decision-makers to the exercise will result in better decisions. That is absolutely the contention when they see government bureaucracy growing by leaps and bounds. They do not accept for one moment the notion that somehow government knows better how to spend their money than they do. They look at the waste; they look at the inefficiencies; they look at the lame justification. They have questions -- good questions -- about how important it is to demand from government a reasonable service and then have some ability to hold their feet to the fire and to introduce some accountability into the equation.
There's limited accountability in government, and there needs to be. People need to take responsibility for their government, because they're paying their salaries, frankly. They are paying to operate this chamber. They are paying for the numerous offices and agencies around this province. Yet many, many folks can't go in the doors of those same agencies and be treated in a respectful way. That is an injustice, in terms of paying to provide the service so that you can be abused in the process. It's simply not fair.
I will make the case that the growth of government will be a huge dilemma. We have 3.7 million people in this province and $27 billion worth of debt. Will that impact negatively on health care and education? Yes, that scenario certainly exists today. I have one question in terms of hospital waiting lists: how many times can you announce one-time-only funding? It seems that every time a press release comes along from this government in terms of handling the waiting list, they're announcing one-time-only funding. It's a farce; it suggests that there's no strategy. If it's one time only, it suggests that you actually have a sense of the problem and a strategy to get it under control. Obviously that's not the case. One-time-only funding many, many times does not make good government sense -- doesn't make good sense, period.
[M. Farnworth in the chair.]
There are some serious issues around definition of health care in this province. I, as a British Columbia Liberal, believe there are programs that are the responsibility of the provincial government to deliver. I was absolutely dismayed when the Vancouver regional report suggests that something like the B.C. Cancer Agency will receive their funding through the
[ Page 13394 ]
Vancouver health board. It doesn't make sense. It is not just Vancouver that has a cancer agency and cancer services. There will be many, many clinics and service providers around this province. Are we asking each of them to secure their funding through the Vancouver regional health board? Why is that helpful? Why is that useful? It suggests that the government is denouncing their responsibility for that provincial program. Now people who deliver cancer services in this province will need to go on bended knee and try to get those dollars out of the Vancouver regional health board. I don't think that's appropriate. Every single time that cancer research comes down, it talks about uniformity of service delivery and comprehensiveness, and about duplicating that service exactly so that the actual research says something and it makes sense.
What you have today is an opportunity to fragment what could be one of the finest services this province has ever put together. People being lackadaisical about that and not seeming to care while leaping to their feet and defending a really sad decision is not in the best interests of British Columbians, and it's not in the best interests of cancer patients. I know there is some sentiment expressed in this chamber about how important it is to advance the direction the Cancer Agency has taken. You can't give that sentiment away because your government has taken a different tack. I'm hoping you'll stand by your principles and fight for the future of the Cancer Agency. To fragment a provincial structure that works, which is probably the finest in the country, cannot be in your constituents' best interests.
We have a mortality rate that is less than anywhere else in the country, and we only have that because we deliver uniform service. That's the bottom line. I can trust that it's not, but if it's the direction of this government to fragment that service, you will be responsible for dismantling one of the finest health care programs this province has ever seen. I can't imagine you'd want to stand for that. I'm hoping you actually have some principles around this issue and will stand up and advance the cause of the B.C. Cancer Agency. The B.C. Cancer Agency cannot afford to be compromised.
There are a number of programs that I believe the provincial government has some responsibility for. Mental health services would be on that list. We will not see, as laid out to us, an improvement in mental health services if we continue to fragment that service delivery and continue to divorce that responsibility from the provincial government. That is absolutely the intention.
I trust that the next speakers today will leap up and take some responsibility for delivering a provincial program consistently across this province. Regionalizing some programs will not be in the best interests of patients. My constituents are telling me that, and I know they're telling you the same things because I know you have received correspondence on that. I trust you will stand up for what your constituents know to be factual and not allow those two very, very important programs to be dismantled. I can only trust that you will arrive on the scene with some integrity.
As provincial Liberals, we want to see the mental health services respected because we want to see mental health patients in this province respected. I can tell you, as I'm sure you all know, that when patients come to your constituency office, often they do not believe that the process has been respectful of their needs. That is a huge thing in terms of the number of dollars we commit to mental health services. That is a huge priority, and it must be seen to be respectful.
[4:45]
Certainly there's been a number of discussions in this chamber regarding New Directions and how it was going to be a grass-roots exercise with more humane health care delivered in a less expensive fashion. Well, hon. Speaker, based on what? Neither of those contentions has any valid research base: speculation, no baseline, no measurement, no outcome and no sense of an evaluative mechanism coming into being. Those kinds of issues have to be addressed by members in this chamber.
We don't have health targets in British Columbia. As long as I've been here, we have had an ongoing discussion that we're going to work on health targets and an evaluative process. The bottom line is that this government is continuing to spend enormous sums of money when they're not clear where they're headed. This innovation is not stemming from a plan but from an idea. Ideas need some implementation; they need some discussion; they need some vision. It's not reflected in where we find ourselves today around New Directions, because it's absolutely not grass roots. Numerous community health groups have put their names forward to Victoria to have those people appointed to those boards, and no one on the list was found to be satisfactory by the minister or the minister's office.
Interjection.
L. Reid: It's shocking, but no one on the list was found to be satisfactory.
Deputy Speaker: Order.
L. Reid: That is not a grass-roots exercise.
Deputy Speaker: Through the Chair, hon. member.
L. Reid: It's shocking, hon. Speaker, that that is allowed to happen, because those people somehow took the word of this government that their input would be valued and that they would have some expertise that would be valued. It has not transpired, and it causes some great concern, because it's all about a tremendous disrespect for volunteers and for the communities that have put thousands of hours into reaching some decision. They have passed it on to Victoria and found that it's not possible to have those decisions respected. That is the issue around this.
Certainly we talked about remuneration. We're now going to pay people who used to volunteer. Why does that make sense? There are some issues around the flawed premise. Most British Columbians took this government at their word when they talked about a grass-roots exercise -- it was a grass-roots exercise in name only. The actions have not followed suit, and they certainly need to.
Any positive impact for health care in this province must be measurable, and it must be based on some kind of evaluative framework. I have asked for four years now: what's the baseline? What do you hope to achieve? What's the target? What's the taxpayer spending and what's the taxpayer getting for that expenditure? The questions have never been answered -- not in question period, not in estimates, not in debate in this chamber.
I don't believe the public can continue to be hoodwinked by the fact that someone is taking a great deal of money out of their pockets to deliver some kind of smoke-and-mirrors exercise around consensus. It simply is not the prudent way to proceed, and, frankly, it's not fair to the taxpayer. We will see, I'm sure, each community health board and each region continue to hire community planners and community developers
[ Page 13395 ]
-- all those kinds of folks -- who are not about delivering direct care or direct service. It's not about the patient. When the New Democratic folks leap to their feet and suggest that they are there for the patient, do I accept the notion? No, I don't. Their energy and resources are going into bureaucratic structures. They are not going into evaluation, and they are not going into patient care. That's a fact.
As we lead into the next five, ten or 15 years of health care delivery in this province, we will need greater flexibility toward health care providers and, hopefully, greater responsiveness toward patients in this province. It will be a situation of managing health care demand with some sense of dignity and integrity and, hopefully, some sense of vision.
In Los Angeles in 1984, Alwyn Morris was the Olympic gold medallist. His quote has always stuck in my mind: "If you have it in you to dream, you have it in you to succeed." I would ask: what are the dreams of the NDP? Certainly they were not reflected in the throne speech. What have they delivered to us? More debt, more taxes, more fees, more increases, more dollars out of each British Columbian's pocket, more bureaucracy and certainly not more accountability.
It's absolutely time that we as B.C. Liberals recognize that for members of the New Democratic caucus it's not about focusing on the patient; it's about focusing on infrastructure. We want very much to bring the discussion back to patients in this province. What absolute arrogance to take the taxpayers' money and never once report on how well that money has been utilized. What this government spends on New Directions has been the question before this chamber for more than two years. The question has never been answered. It is the critical issue.
We will focus on the student in British Columbia, because we firmly believe that education is an essential service. I had the privilege of attending the vocational meetings in Nanaimo. Rich Johnston, president of Malaspina, did a glorious job of bringing together some very fine thinkers who are interested in creating new opportunities for students in our system. I support that, I acknowledge that and I believe in that.
I also had the privilege to attend the Applied Academics Conference at BCIT with John Watson, who is a very good thinker around post-secondary opportunities, and the results are absolutely clear. Like most folks who think about post-secondary opportunities, I know for certain that it is about increasing opportunities; it is about respect for and integrity of the process. We will encourage those kinds of things to happen in post-secondary education, because it's not about waiting until they are finishing high school or even halfway through high school. It's a commitment from kindergarten through career, because it is about ensuring that we prepare people during their lives for a lifetime of work and for a lifetime of making some kind of contribution as a citizen. That needs to be the thinking, and that's not the thinking. We still have a government organization that fragments education and somehow doesn't even effectively communicate interministerially, let alone with students in this province. Those kinds of issues -- that cost to the taxpayer -- are not about making the system more responsive to students.
We very much need to look at the cost of government and at something that is reducing services to taxpayers and reducing services to students and patients. It is threatening the social programs in this province. We need to decide how best to handle that because the issue will be about accountability. We'll look at a $20 billion budget, and each time any minister rises in this chamber I hope that they talk about the result of a value-for-money audit and about ensuring that the taxpayers received reasonable value for the dollars they expended. Without that commitment, it is about arrogance and the luxury of spending someone else's money without ever being held accountable. Where we are as British Columbia Liberals is definitely in the bailiwick of measurement and of health and education outcomes. I believe you have to find best practice, whether it's around education or health care.
If we're talking about education, I hope we're talking about entrepreneurial spirit and about engaging young people in some love of learning, teaching them commerce, marketing and public relations and how to take some initiative and be their own bosses. The research is clear: most British Columbians will not go to work for somebody else but will become their own bosses, and that means they will be responsible for taking personal initiative for earning an income.
Every elementary school in our province should be encouraged to form an industry or business partnership. I have seen and visited many parts of the world where individual businesses have been responsible for adopting an elementary or secondary school and for believing in putting some resources into service delivery. I can't think of anything finer than encouraging those partnerships. We have directives from this government that talk about a 30-hour work experience requirement for graduation. Nobody disagrees with that, but I can tell you that out of a 23,000 student population in Richmond, we have 6,000 businesses. The absorption rate will not allow those 6,000 businesses to provide a 30-hour work experience program to students, so let's be creative and innovative. Let's rejig our thinking about how we deliver those kinds of programs, because there are some glorious opportunities.
There's a very fine secondary school in Calgary, Alberta, where they offer programming, and they also offer space to businesses. They have a television studio there and an arm of the Canada space program. Their students come to school in the morning with people who are coming to work. It's a very different sense and a very different plan, but it could be a fine vision if we were to think creatively about providing some of those opportunities.
A number of folks have talked about interactive video. Students in Prince George engage in an interactive video program where they can study underwater life around Race Rocks, just off Victoria. They have the ability to talk back and forth with the divers. Those opportunities to gain some work experience and see what somebody else's job is like would be fabulous.
Interjection.
L. Reid: The member is suggesting that we are doing it. My point, if the member were listening, was that we need to do it in every elementary school in this province. We need to ensure that there is some consistency in educational service delivery -- some uniformity, some universality. It's not a universal program. With some commitment, it could be, but we have not seen it to date.
Take your average ten-year-old. We should be offering programming around technology and the principles of technology, around strategic thinking, commerce and understanding the banking system in British Columbia and Canada. Those are the skill sets that will allow people to be productive into the next decade. We wait to do that until third- and fourth-year university. The discussion is about missed opportunities. We cannot continue to give away those opportunities.
[ Page 13396 ]
I had the privilege of attending the Farmers' Institute in Richmond yesterday. Richmond is a collection of urban farmers; there's no question about that. It's an absolute privilege to be the MLA for Richmond East and to see that cranberry and blueberry production. The harvest in my riding is one of the most spectacular tourism activities. People from all over the world come to see that harvest, and those opportunities could be enhanced and well publicized. Some of those things could be done to ensure some sense of future career opportunities and some sense of where we want to be as a municipality and as a province. They presented issues very eloquently yesterday, and their issues are about the future plan for this province. Because it includes expansion, it always comes back to the agricultural land reserve and rezoning, and again, it has to be about not allowing fragmentation of the land base.
For a farmer in my riding to look at a reasonable cranberry harvest, there needs to be a package of land; they need to have chunks of land. We have certainly looked at fragmenting a lot of the riding. We have to decide where our commitment lies, and I'm hoping we can continue to strengthen the agricultural land reserve, because I believe it's very important if we want to have some multi-use of the land base.
I appreciate that land in Richmond is at a premium, and I believe that proximity to the airport and all of those other services only enhances this value. I would certainly hope that we can continue to strengthen the agricultural land reserve for farmers in my riding.
[5:00]
I will return to what all of us were subjected to in British Columbia -- the remedial television episode where the Premier and the Minister of Finance attempted to instruct us on the budget. There were problems around that, because as the average viewer you didn't have a sense of what the New Democratic vision was for this province. You didn't have a sense of what the plan was for the province. The taxpayers paid a quarter of a million dollars for that exercise in futility. I have some sincere problems around the defence that members on the government benches presented in terms of suggesting that that was a legitimate expenditure for the taxpayer.
Interjection.
L. Reid: Well, Karl Struble probably charged more, but that is not a legitimate thing for this government to attempt to defend to the average taxpayer in British Columbia. They didn't get any value for that; it was not about a value-for-money audit. There wasn't an attempt to do it with some kind of professionalism or integrity. It was an opportunity to look almost like buffoons. It wasn't something that taxpayers, had they a choice, would have spent a quarter of a million dollars on.
With any luck, this is not going to be a series, this is not going to be a pilot. It's not going to be picked up, because it's not the way taxpayers in this province wish to see their dollars spent. I can't imagine that any one of them said: "Excellent show." I can't imagine that.
The question that I have put repeatedly to the Premier of this province is: how will he measure success? In my view, he has to be able to answer in order to give the taxpayers some sense of what they receive for a quarter of a million dollars. Frankly, it looked like a barely credible focus group, and that kind of disorganization cannot continue in this province, because the taxpayers simply don't believe that this government is operating in their best interests. If the only thing I'd ever seen was that television program, I too would believe that they were disorganized and that somehow the dreams of average British Columbians were not recognized, promoted or understood. That kind of sense is not appropriate.
It's vitally important that we have a sense of where we want government to take us. We want government to be less intrusive in our lives. We wish to spend fewer dollars in taxation. We wish to have viable service, and we wish to see some value-for-money audits in this province. We have every right, as taxpayers, to know where those dollars are going and to comment on factual information.
The song and dance we've been subjected to in terms of different folks giving different opinions about the state of this province's finances must stop. It must be about truth in budgeting. It must be about coming to the table with a vision.
[D. Lovick in the chair.]
T. Perry: I seek leave to make a brief introduction.
Leave granted.
T. Perry: In the gallery are some young British Columbians: Kristin, Jonathan and Brennan Mayer, and their parents Dave and Wendy Mayer of Houston, B.C. I promised them a really entertaining debate. I didn't realize that the next speaker would be from the nearby riding, but on behalf of the hon. Minister of Transportation and Highways, who represents them, I'd like to ask members to join me in making them welcome here.
L. Fox: Indeed, it is a pleasure to welcome people from the Bulkley Valley -- my birthplace, as a matter of fact. I was born and raised in Telkwa, British Columbia. I'm not going to say when -- some years ago.
I'm pleased to take my place and represent the constituency of Prince George-Omineca in this debate in response to the throne speech. Before I do, I would like to take a moment or two to make a small tribute to an individual who was a seatmate of mine in this Legislature for two years -- that individual being Harry De Jong, who formerly represented the great constituency of Abbotsford. I had the privilege of sharing an office with Harry for two years. I found him to be a very dedicated, considerate and, indeed, very genuine individual who contributed to his constituency in an admirable way -- one that we should all espouse. I hope he enjoys his retirement and does the fishing that he always said he wanted to do. I know he will enjoy his grandchildren and his family. So, good luck to Harry De Jong.
Over the course of debates on the throne speech, it's fairly obvious that there are three themes this government is trying to put forward in order to build a platform that it might take into the next election. I intend, within the limited time I have this afternoon, to try and address each of these three themes: (1) the premise that this government has its fiscal house in order; (2) the premise that this government is the protector of medicare; (3) an issue which is not contained in the throne speech -- the issue around the educational needs of British Columbians.
Contained within the throne speech booklet are some statements that I believe should be clarified. When we look at the statement on page 11, they talk about credit ratings and the fact that this government has maintained the best credit rating in the Dominion of Canada. Indeed, that's a true state-
[ Page 13397 ]
ment, but we've got to be thankful for a very boisterous economy. We've got to be thankful for the lumber prices we have enjoyed over the course of the last couple of years and for the growth in the province through immigration -- in fact, the province has grown by 80,000 people in the current year. Much of this is outside and in spite of this government's policies. They say they have cut the taxpayers' supported debt as a percentage of the GDP -- currently 20 percent, which compares to Alberta's 37 percent -- and that that is the best record in Canada.
The real truth is contained within the auditor general's report that was tabled today in the Legislature. The direct debt as a percentage of the gross domestic product since 1991 has doubled in the province of British Columbia. In fact, other debt as a percentage of the gross domestic product has gone from a little over 20 percent to almost 30 percent since 1992.
What we've seen with respect to this -- and I don't intend to spend a lot of time on the financial things because they'll speak for themselves -- is that the debt per capita, which is also contained in the auditor general's report tabled today in the House, has grown since 1991 from $5,143 per individual to $7,189 per individual in 1994. So there's an increase of $2,000 per capita in debt in the province of British Columbia since this government took power.
Aside from that, the fact of the matter is....
An Hon. Member: What's your point?
L. Fox: The member across the way asks: "What's my point?" Well, my point is that this government cannot boast, and should not boast, in the way that it does in the throne speech. It's misleading, it's totally inaccurate and it's unfair to the people of the province of British Columbia that they're being misled in this way. The throne speech should be a blueprint of what the vision of a government is and how it's going to resolve the issues and concerns of the people of the province of British Columbia.
What we see -- and it's kind of ironic -- is this government consistently trying to articulate and to convince British Columbians that other parties in this Legislature are out to destroy medicare. But hon. Speaker, I want to give you some background to show what this government's record is with respect to health care. It's not a good record; in fact, it's a very dismal record.
First of all, I want to relate a story about a constituent of mine from Vanderhoof who has injured his shoulder. His doctor suggested that he go to a specialist and have an MRI scan. That individual applied, through his doctor and the specialist, to do that and was told that he was going to wait six to 12 months. That was going to be done at a clinic at Vancouver General in conjunction with UBC, where the clinic operates only one and a half days a week.
It seems to me that if there's that kind of demand -- incidentally, this individual was number 486 on the waiting list -- we could be looking at opening up that clinic and providing more service. Because he can afford it, through his doctor this individual achieved that service in Alberta. He's going there on the twenty-first of this month to have that service done. Now here's the kicker: because he can afford airfare to Alberta, B.C. medical is going to pay Alberta to do that particular scan instead of opening the clinic in Vancouver General for another hour. Where does this make sense? If we're talking about a two-tier health system, it seems to me that we already have it. Because this individual can afford to get the service, he goes to Edmonton at his own expense for airfare, and B.C. medical pays for the delivery of that service. It's hypocritical in the least.
I have another issue -- I've got many from the Prince George region that point out very clearly this government's record in health care, and I'll get to those in a moment. I want to first....
Interjection.
L. Fox: We've had opinions expressed that offering a private health care service -- or private companies offering services -- would create a two-tier health care system, one for the rich and one for the poor. That's totally false and nothing more than fearmongering, because if it's controlled correctly, what you do is alleviate the system from the pressures that are there today and create a better service for those who can't afford it and whom we must look after.
A case in point is a lab in Vancouver. This article was contained in the Province on Sunday, March 12, 1995. This Clinical Sciences Inc., a new company that grew out of the University of B.C. research operation, does research work for drug companies around the world. What they've been able to do is treat many people with viral diseases and actually save the province a considerable amount of money, while contributing to the wealth of the province at the same time.
There are many ways that we could save money in health care and give a better service to lower-income British Columbians. In terms of the record of this government in health care, we need only look to PGRH. I have a number of letters, quotes and letters to the editor. In my limited time, I only want to deal with a couple of them, but I have about 30 here that I could bring up.
[5:15]
This letter is dated March 1, 1995, so it's all recent. This individual broke her arm in Prince George while walking her dog on the street -- this happened on Saturday at 8 p.m. -- and was unable to receive treatment. At one time, we had four orthopedic surgeons in Prince George, and it truly did operate a very good level of health care and a truly regional service. But because we have one at the present time, we can no longer provide coverage for emergencies. We cannot expect one orthopedic surgeon to operate 24 hours a day and provide that service. Consequently, we have this individual who had to be sent to Victoria. Her husband had to come down several days later and pick her up.
The ironic part about this -- and I'll skip right over to the next point that I wanted to make and why I outlined this particular issue -- was that the Vancouver and Victoria hospitals had offered to provide Prince George with their orthopedic surgeons almost a year ago, to help look after the shortfall. And that offer was turned down by the province, because it was said to be too expensive. It seems to me that it would be a whole lot cheaper to ship an orthopedic surgeon to Prince George than to ship half a dozen patients down here on an emergency basis. Also -- if we looked at some efficiencies -- that orthopedic surgeon could probably see a number of patients in Prince George while they were there and provide some efficiencies.
L. Boone: How many?
[ Page 13398 ]
L. Fox: We have the member from Prince George-Mount Robson asking: "How many?" Obviously, if she reads the newspaper, she'll know how many, because they're very clearly articulated every day.
I have one more letter, and then I'll leave the balance. This particular lady was diagnosed on May 22, 1994. She had a brain tumour, and needed.... The prognosis was that the longest time she could wait before being operated on was nine months. She ended up waiting eight and a half months, and the many complications that arose -- she had to undergo 23 hours of surgery -- were because of the delay.
That only touches on the issues that we in the Prince George-Omineca region face. I have hundreds of examples that I could bring into this Legislature which show the difficulties very clearly.
One thing that we haven't paid a lot of attention to when we debate the issues of health care is the fact that it's very difficult to have a patient referred to any hospital in British Columbia because of the caseload that those hospitals face, the lack of staffing and a whole lot of other reasons. The community hospital doctors are being totally frustrated. There was a case where a doctor in the community of Vanderhoof spent ten hours trying to find a hospital that would accept a boy with a broken femur, and then it took three days to get him there. The reason I point this out is that if this government intends to win an election based on the theory that it's the protector of health care, I see very little hope. Thank goodness I see very little hope, because, as I said earlier today, actions speak louder than words. The record is very clear for all British Columbians to see.
It's unfortunate; I've run out of my 15 minutes. I would have liked to have spoken a lot longer on a lot of other issues, but in the interests of the hon. Speaker I will take my seat.
Hon. A. Charbonneau: I rise to speak in support of an excellent throne speech -- a speech that outlined a forward-looking and progressive agenda. It's an agenda for the creation of jobs through investment in people and in infrastructure, and it's an agenda to protect medicare.
On the investing-in-people side, particularly close to my heart as Minister of Education, we are investing in schools -- $1.4 billion worth of schools over the first three budgets. That's to accommodate an increase of almost 12,000 new students a year in our K-to-12 system. On the operating side, we have been able to increase the funding in each of those years -- a total of over 20 percent -- to show where the commitments of this government lie. There is Skills Now, a program which reaches down into the high schools to show that we value all the careers and opportunities that young men and women might pursue. We now have 23 school districts with apprenticeship programs in place. Next year we're going to have up to 50.
Earlier today the Minister of Skills, Training and Labour and I announced a scholarship program for apprenticeships -- the first in the country -- to show we value.... We have long given academic scholarships; now we will also give scholarships for technical and apprenticeship purposes.
We're changing the focus of the curriculum through the renewal that we're doing; we're bringing in more applied academics, opening up more opportunities and using current technology in those opportunities. We are bringing in career and personal planning to give young men and women a better idea of what they might want to do with their lives, to develop a career and learning plan with the assistance of teachers and their parents such that they will be more ready to know what they wish to pursue when they leave the K-to-12 system. We will use job shadowing and work experience. All these things are intended to give young men and women real skills leading to real jobs. If we have that pool of talent, it will lead to more investment and more jobs. At the end, that is what we want to see accomplished: good, solid, well-paying jobs for the young men and women of our province.
I come from Kamloops. It's a resource-based community. Four years ago, when we took office, we were at about year eight of what could only be described as a deep, deep recession: high unemployment rates, empty stores and unsold houses. Well, colleagues, how have we done since we took office? What's happened over the last four years? I'll tell you that Kamloops is a thriving community now. There are record housing starts. We are seeing employment up and jobs up. In the Weyerhaeuser pulp mill, they have just completed an investment of over $100 million to improve environmental issues. That is also an enormous vote of confidence in our community. Value-added jobs are being added in our community. In mining, the Afton copper mine reopened, supplying many, many good, steady, high-paying jobs. Highland Valley is working at top production rates. In the mining sector it's jobs, jobs, jobs. One of the major future industries -- is now and will continue to be -- is tourism and recreation. Sun Peaks at Tod Mountain is on the way to developing one of the best year-round on-mountain resort facilities in the province. There are fabulous new opportunities in this area. Al and Nancy Greene Raine have moved to Kamloops to be part of Sun Peaks -- what a great addition to our city they are and, again, what a vote of confidence.
Golf is another area. In a recent survey of all the courses in British Columbia, two of the top ten were courses in Kamloops. That invites people to come in from out of the country and from out of the province to visit, to stay, to spend their dollars in our community and to help the economy of British Columbia overall.
But the thing to be valued above all is the environment. It is the environment in the vicinity that adds so much to the opportunities for quality of life, and it gives those of us who have the good fortune to live in the interior something that we are always proud to point to. We have had over the last couple of years the Kamloops land and resource management plan underway -- a group of volunteer citizens who have come in to give up their time, and civil servants who have given their time on the weekends and evenings as well. They have produced a wonderful product.
There isn't just a small number. Let me give you an example of some of the organizations that have participated and contributed to this process: the B.C. Cattlemen's Association; the B.C. Fishing Resorts and Outfitters' Association; the B.C. Trappers' Association; the B.C. Wildlife Federation; Clearwater Loggers Association; High Country Tourism Association; the Interior Logging Association; IWA-Canada; the Kamloops exploration group -- on the mineral side; the Kamloops Naturalist Club; the Kamloops timber supply analysts group; the Share the Thompson Society -- conservationists; the Shuswap Environmental Action Society; the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council; the Thompson Institute of Environmental Studies; the Kamloops Snowmobile Association; the Clearwater tourism consortium; and the Thompson watershed coalition. An enormous range of citizens have come together and at the end of the day have produced a wonderful document that is now in the hands of government for further deliberation and decision.
[ Page 13399 ]
It was a virtually unanimous job on a mini-CORE basis that has shown the rest of the province how to do it: how to have people with views that cover the complete range who are willing to come forward, willing to work hard for two years, willing to get to know each other and willing at the end to make the compromises that we all must make if we're going to be able to walk down the path together and preserve our environment, while at the same time preserving our jobs and making sure that there are jobs in future -- good-quality jobs that in no way impair....
[5:30]
Excuse me, colleagues, but I must slip back into my role as Minister of Education to report to you. It has come to my attention that there is an error in some of our educational resources. I slipped up to my office, and I jumped on the information highway. I went in there and accessed an encyclopedia, and I've got to tell you that they are reporting in this an incorrect location of a famous trail.
According to this -- it's hot off the press from a well-known encyclopedia -- it says this trail runs from Texas to Kansas. Wrong. I've done some research myself and I want to tell you that the old Chisholm trail runs from approximately over there to right about over there.
I understand that there was an escapee from a rustled herd. They were taken over by a well-known outlaw called the Kid from Howe Street. He bought himself a herd, and we've had an escapee that has gone right by the Wild Bunch, all the way over to the new terminus of the old Chisholm trail.
There also appears to be a new language that we must take note of in our educational system. Reliable sources indicate that the leader of the Progressive Democratic Alliance was heard to chant: "Whoopa ty yi yippy yippy yi, yippy yay; whoopa ty yi yippa yippa yo." There is even a different dialect, apparently, because the Leader of the Third Party was heard to say: "Cumma-ty-yi-yippy-yippy-yay-yippy-yay, cumma-ty-yi-yippy-yippy-yay." We're looking into this. I just wanted to give you the right-up-to-date, right-up-to-the-minute information. So it was wrong information: the old Chisholm trail runs from there to there, and I will have my officials delve into the language issue to determine whether this is indeed a language we should teach in the schools.
Having reported the latest educational information, I would like to say that the throne speech delivered by this government that gave such hope to the citizens of British Columbia is the best throne speech this chamber has seen for many, many years, and I am fully prepared to stand by it.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
The Speaker: There being no further contributors, the question is: shall the throne speech pass?
Motion approved on the following division:
| YEAS -- 36 | ||
|
Petter |
Marzari |
Pement |
|
Priddy |
Edwards |
Cashore |
|
Zirnhelt |
Charbonneau |
O'Neill |
|
Garden |
Perry |
B. Jones |
|
Lortie |
Giesbrecht |
Miller |
|
Smallwood |
Harcourt |
Gabelmann |
|
Ramsey |
Barlee |
Dosanjh |
|
Lovick |
Pullinger |
Randall |
|
Beattie |
Farnworth |
Conroy |
|
Doyle |
Lord |
Simpson |
|
Sawicki |
Brewin |
Copping |
|
Schreck |
Hartley |
Boone |
| NAYS -- 14 | ||
|
Dalton |
Gingell |
Stephens |
|
Hanson |
Serwa |
Mitchell |
|
Chisholm |
Wilson |
Neufeld |
|
Fox |
de Jong |
Symons |
|
Jarvis |
Tanner | |
Hon. C. Gablemann moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 5:43 p.m.
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