2000 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 36th Parliament
HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

SUNDAY, APRIL 2, 2000

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 18, Number 10

[ Page 14693 ]

The House met at 2:08 p.m.

Prayers.

Introduction of Bills

PUBLIC EDUCATION SUPPORT STAFF
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ASSISTANCE ACT

Hon. P. Ramsey: Hon. Speaker, I regret the need to stand before you to introduce this legislation. Negotiations between the school boards of our province and support staff unions have been underway for many months -- in some districts for well over a year. While some school districts such as Vancouver and Surrey have reached agreements, many, many other districts have not.

As members of the House know, the government earlier this week appointed an industrial inquiry commission composed of Irene Holden and Vince Ready. The commissioners spent four days working with the parties in an effort to assist them in settling this dispute. Yesterday the commissioners reported that many outstanding issues remain to be resolved and that a speedy settlement was unlikely. Earlier this week the Premier committed to ensuring that school children would be back in their classrooms by tomorrow morning.

This legislation fulfils that commitment. The legislation requires the full and immediate resumption of educational services in those school districts that are currently affected by the strikes by school staff workers represented by various locals of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

Hon. Speaker, I move that the bill be introduced and read for a first time now.

[1410]

Hon. D. Lovick: Following discussion with my counterpart the Opposition House Leader, we have agreed that this House ought properly to recess for the next half-hour so that the opposition will indeed have an opportunity to review the bill. I would accordingly make that motion.

Motion approved.

The House recessed from 2:11 p.m. to 2:56 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

The Speaker: Members, we'll call the House back to order.

Hon. D. Lovick: I am seeking the Speaker's support for the motion to grant, under standing order 81, permission for this particular bill to proceed through all three stages on one day.

We have standing order 81 in our standing orders precisely because of circumstances such as this one. There are occasions when two or three or more days are simply not suitable or not satisfactory, given the gravity and the importance of a given situation. That's why we have standing order 81; it specifies very, very clearly that a bill may be permitted to proceed through all three stages in one day, given "urgent or extraordinary occasions." Surely what faces us, it goes almost without saying, qualifies probably on both counts -- urgent and extraordinary.

Let me deal with the two parts of the bill. The one part of the bill, of course, is designed entirely to get students back in the classroom and thereby get people back to work. We do that mindful of the fact that if we had our preferences, obviously, free and fair and complete collective bargaining would be desirable. There comes a point at which, however, if the collective bargaining process is not working, we as government, as elected representatives -- I think it's clear -- have an obligation to carry out our legislative responsibilities. What's before us now is a pretty clear indication that the parties are unable to resolve their differences -- i.e., the collective bargaining process is not working.

We have heard from our friends in the opposition and indeed from other people, as well, about the impacts that this disruption in teaching is having. We understand that there are some 360,000 students who are unable to attend classes. We hear, moreover, stories that I think cause us all some anguish and some discomfort about parents who have to grapple with unforeseen and unanticipated arrangements, because their children are not in school -- and also considerable expense. We know, moreover, that there are cases where grade 12 students, for instance, are in danger of losing an entire school year because of this continuing dispute. The arguments as to why children should be back in school, I think, are very, very clear indeed.

I want to simply make this point before going on to part 2: we do this -- we introduce this particular measure in legislation -- not with any sense of alacrity. Rather, we're disappointed that we must do this, but we feel we must. We would prefer that collective bargaining would work -- that the process would continue to unfold to everyone's satisfaction. Given, however, the demonstrable evidence that the process isn't working, then we believe we must introduce this legislation. So much, then, for urgent and extraordinary as far as the first section of the bill is concerned.

[1500]

If we were to do only the first part of the bill, to put people back to work, we would not solve the problem. What we're intending to do with this legislation is solve the problem.

The illustration I would present -- to help you in your judgment, Mr. Speaker, as to why solving the problem is so urgent and why we need to look at the structure and the system of collective bargaining within this part of the public sector -- is best expressed by the commissioners. Indeed, if I may, I would simply quote what Vince Ready, one of the industrial inquiry commissioners, had to say. He makes the point as follows: "It became readily apparent that in addition

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I would also make one other very brief point: namely, that the concern that some would have about invoking standing order 81 -- "urgent and extraordinary" -- is the danger that this kind of legislation would go beyond the particular circumstance. I would just refer all members and you, Mr. Speaker, to the schedules, in which it is made absolutely and abundantly clear that we are talking about a specific circumstance and particular persons involved in this particular dispute. In short, I believe there are very solid and defensible grounds for invoking and allowing standing order 81 in this instance. Indeed, it seems to me that the case before us today, the reason for being here on this Sunday afternoon, is a paradigm illustration of why we have standing order 81.

The Speaker: Opposition House Leader on the point.

G. Farrell-Collins: I think the Government House Leader makes a very good case for being here today, a very good case for why section 1 is urgent. He has a very good explanation for why we need to do part 2 of this bill, but he fails when it comes to the test of whether or not part 2 needs to be done today.

I will agree with the minister. I will set aside the argument -- the fact that this could have happened weeks ago; this issue has been out there for a year; we knew the bargaining process wasn't working, for whatever reasons -- and I'm sure we'll get into that debate in second reading. I'll set aside the issue of whether or not the government could have dealt with this last week -- of whether or not the government could have put a process in place at an earlier date to solve their problem of the collective bargaining process not working. I won't argue all of that; I'll give the minister those arguments.

The minister is correct when he says that section 1, whether or not we agree with the way it does it, is designed to ensure that students are back in school tomorrow. Whether or not we like the way it's done, I want to make it clear that members of the opposition will do what is necessary to make sure that the students of British Columbia are back in school this Monday, even though they should have been back in school last Monday and every day since. So we will not stand in the way of that happening, regardless of whether or not we like the way it's being done.

Part 2 of this bill is something different. Part 2 is the effort of the government, as the Government House Leader mentions, to solve the problem. I agree with him that the problem needs to be solved. I'm sure we will disagree on how the problem can be solved, and I'm sure that there will be lots of discussion about that in the time that comes. The fact remains that we can solve the problem, but we don't need to solve that part today. Part 2 is not what is absolutely critical and urgent that it be done today. Part 2 can be introduced today and tabled as a bill, as it has been -- part of it. It can be debated in second reading tomorrow, on Monday. It can go through committee stage and be amended or discussed or debated, clause by clause, on Tuesday. And by Tuesday at some time, part 2 could become an act and a statute in itself. There is nothing in that normal process of the Legislature -- of having a piece of legislation passed through the stages in its normal three days -- that would preclude the government from moving on its agenda to solve the problem. There is nothing in moving second reading tomorrow and committee stage on Tuesday that would stop that -- nothing.

[1505]

The government can also bring in a new bill that would contain the provisions of part 2 to solve the problem, which is the government's goal. We can deal with that in first reading today. We can deal with second reading tomorrow, and we can debate committee stage on Tuesday. That bill would be in place by sometime Tuesday afternoon, I would assume -- perhaps earlier. We're prepared to let that happen.

The other option for the government, obviously, would be to sever this bill into two parts -- however they determine they're able to do that. We would certainly move through the first part of the bill today. We could give the second part its normal, required, thoughtful process and not obstruct in any way, shape or form the government's desire to solve the problem. So I would argue that the request to move all of this bill in its entirety through the three stages in the House today does not meet the test of standing order 81.

J. Weisgerber: I'd like to support the position put forward by the House Leader for the official opposition with respect to the bill. It's clearly evident from any reading of this legislation that the urgent sections are covered under part 1. As I reflect on the events that have led up to this. . . . On Thursday last week we had the Premier telling us and all interested parties that this legislation would in fact be brought in if the kids weren't back in school tomorrow, if the strike wasn't settled on Saturday. I wonder why the government didn't bring in two pieces of legislation on Thursday, part 1 and part 2 broken into separate legislation. We could have had first reading of both those bills on Thursday. We could have dealt with the final stages of what is covered in part 1 today. We could have had second reading on the elements covered in part 2 today. We could have in fact moved to pass what is covered in parts 1 and 2 in its entirety by closing of the session tomorrow. But that's hindsight.

The fact of the matter is that the government has introduced a bill clearly split into those sections that are urgent, which follow through or tend to implement the commitments that the Premier made last week, and a part 2 which is administrative, which doesn't come into effect for 60 days or have application for at least 60 to 75 days from today. I don't

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Hon. D. Lovick: I'm sorry that the member who just spoke used the term "an abuse of the rules of this House." We are proceeding now precisely according to standing order 81 and what standing order 81 anticipated. We're presenting two sides of the case and asking for the Speaker's adjudication. To suggest that it is an abuse of the rule is, quite frankly, absolutely inappropriate.

[1510]

M. de Jong: Mr. Speaker, the government wants to do something extraordinary here. They want to compress a legislative process that would ordinarily take three days and have that occur within one day. Our standing rules provide a mechanism by which they can do that; it is standing order 81. The Opposition House Leader and the member for Peace River South have, I think, made the point that insofar as part 1 applies to the real problem, the real urgency, they will enjoy an element of cooperation from the opposition benches in achieving that.

But what is the urgency? What is the extraordinary circumstance? The Finance minister identified that for us in his comments at first reading. It is to fulfil a commitment that this government and this Premier made -- a belated one, but a commitment nonetheless -- to have kids back in school on Monday. That is the issue. That is the problem, and part 1 addresses that. Those are the specifics.

Part 2 deals with hypotheticals -- "may," "what if." That surely cannot fall within the meaning of what standing order 81 was intended to do. Think of the potential for abuse, hon. Speaker, and I do ask you to think of this as you consider this ruling. If a government, any government, can take non-urgent legislation and attach it to what is truly urgent legislation, then there is a potential for abuse -- not a potential. . . . Then there is abuse of the use of standing order 81.

It is not as if this issue hasn't come before this House. It has come before this House fairly recently. In 1996, on a matter that I think most members will recall, the Chair rendered a ruling on a piece of legislation and concluded -- and I'll read the ruling into the record. . . . It was legislation dealing with anticipated labour difficulties in the education field. The Speaker said: ". . .on the matter of an emergency which was raised this morning, I have considered, with very great care, all of the submissions made by hon. members. I accept that there may indeed be a most serious situation in Surrey. I feel, however, that the bill in its present form goes well beyond the situation in Surrey, and does not follow the stringent guidelines -- and I must emphasize 'stringent guidelines' -- applicable to standing order 81 to permit this bill to proceed through all stages. . .therefore it fails."

Hon. Speaker, I would urge you to take some time this afternoon to consider the submissions you have heard from the Government House Leader but also to consider the submissions you have heard from the opposition side of the House and earlier rulings from the Chair, which I think correctly identify the potential for abuse if those stringent requirements of standing order 81 are not applied very, very diligently. For the reasons that the House Leader and the member for Peace River South have made -- and I think other members might make -- I think this legislation in its present form fails the test for 81.

[1515]

The House recessed from 3:16 p.m. to 3:53 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

The Speaker: Members, I'd like to call the House back to order. First of all, I want to thank all the hon. members for their arguments earlier today in regard to this matter of proceeding under standing order 81. I heard arguments on both sides. There's no question in my mind that the urgency of this situation is undeniable; I believe that all members would agree to that. I heard that in your arguments.

The question of severing off parts of this bill is not for the Speaker to decide. It's well beyond my powers to sever the bill. So what I'm going to tell you that I'm going to do is follow up with a fuller decision later today. For now, I'm going to allow debate to proceed under standing order 81 to more than one stage this day.

Hon. D. Lovick: Hon. Speaker, pursuant to your ruling and under standing order 81, I would call second reading of the bill before us, the Public Education Support Staff Collective Bargaining Assistance Act.

PUBLIC EDUCATION SUPPORT STAFF
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ASSISTANCE ACT
(second reading)

As I stated in first reading, this legislation ensures that our children are back in school tomorrow morning. The legislation ensures that a reasonable but conclusive process is brought into place to reach fair collective agreements for all the affected parties listed in the schedule to the bill. And this legislation provides for a process to repair the dysfunctional and stagnant bargaining relationship between the parties.

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[ Page 14696 ]

Building on the work accomplished to date by the school trustees, CUPE and the industrial inquiry commissioners, this legislation requires the Minister of Labour to appoint a further industrial inquiry commission to continue working with the parties. Vince Ready and Irene Holden have both agreed to continue their efforts to assist in this regard. In the event that the school trustees and CUPE fail to reach agreements with the assistance of the industrial inquiry commissioners, the commissioners will be required to issue binding recommendations that will become the collective agreements between the parties. I am confident that this process will result in fair settlements throughout the province.

As all members of this House know, the issues in this dispute are complex. In addition to differences over wages and terms of employment, huge concerns over the structure of bargaining between these parties remain unresolved. The commissioners' report issued yesterday recommended that a broader process must be established for the parties to constructively discuss these issues.

Part 2 of this bill will effectively provide for review and possible restructuring of the longer-term bargaining process within the sector. Part 2 allows for the Minister of Labour to appoint a commissioner to consult with the parties and undertake this review in the future. The mandate and general terms of reference of this commission are set out within section 10 of the bill. Section 11 of the bill will then allow government to introduce changes to the current structures to ensure a more effective and workable bargaining process in the future.

The government believes that it must take these steps now to ensure that the education of students in our province is not placed at further risk by the dysfunctional bargaining process. The public interest requires us to act at this time. I urge all members to support quick passage of this legislation.

G. Campbell: Hon. Speaker, this is the third time under this NDP government's mandate where they have had to come back for a special session of the Legislature to make sure that our children get the education they deserve. It is an unnecessary sitting of the House. It is totally unacceptable that our children have been used as pawns, once again, in the collective bargaining process. If you think about what the government's own words suggest today, it is astounding to me that the government is so perplexed by the solution to this problem.

There is one way to make sure that our children stay in school and get the education they deserve while you maintain and protect free collective bargaining in the province of British Columbia, and that is to declare education an essential service. I want the parents and the school children of this province to know that the opposition will continue to do whatever it takes to make sure that they are in school not just tomorrow but each and every school day that they should be there, so they get the education they deserve.

[1600]

The government comes in with the throne speech, and they tell us that education is important to them. Then they allow our schools to be shut down by a labour dispute. They allow our children's education to be held hostage to a labour dispute from one of their political affiliates, one of their major political donors, because clearly the government cares about that group far more than it cares about students and families in the province of British Columbia.

When you read the industrial inquiry commissioners' report, it speaks, I think, loudly to this government's continuing incompetence. When the industrial inquiry commissioner writes back and lets us all know that it's readily apparent that there are huge problems here, when the industrial inquiry commissioner tells us that they have had an extremely limited time to try and deal with this. . . . It has not been an extremely limited time for the government. Some of these CUPE locals have not had a collective agreement for the last four years.

Last summer the government was thinking of doing what CUPE had asked them to do. We knew there was a problem last summer, and instead of dealing with it constructively and openly and honestly with the people of British Columbia, this government allowed our schools to be closed down and our kids to be locked out of their classrooms. That is wrong.

When the industrial inquiry commissioners tell us that three and a half days is not enough time, obviously they're telling everybody the facts. Anyone should understand that. Certainly if the government cared about education, they would have understood that long, long ago. There is a solution to this problem. It does not have to be an emergency solution; it doesn't have to be an urgent solution; it doesn't require an industrial inquiry commissioner to tell this government what it is. The solution is to declare education an essential service in the province of British Columbia now.

Let's see who has paid the price for this government's inaction, for their political agenda. First of all, the CUPE workers have paid the price -- CUPE workers who have been left to negotiate in what has evidently been a situation that's unacceptable not just to them but to many others. Teachers have paid the price. Teachers have been locked out of their classrooms for the last week. More importantly than that, parents have paid the price. The very single parents and working parents that this government claimed to care about were just sent a bill last week for probably between $300 and $500 for day care for the 350,000 to 400,000 children that are out of school in the province of British Columbia. This government did nothing, cared nothing about those parents, cared nothing about the disruption in their lives. The Premier figured out last Wednesday -- way to go; the light went on -- that maybe there was a little bit of a problem here, that families' lives were being disrupted, that children's education was being truncated, that our schools were closed. So maybe he should think about doing it.

I ask you, hon. Speaker: why didn't the Premier figure out that education was important a week ago or two weeks

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What about the taxpayers? Even today -- even with the industrial inquiry commissioners' report, even with the legislation we have before us -- there's no way the taxpayers know what they're going to be paying. The costs of this agreement or these recommendations have not been laid out by the government. I can tell you that in view of the information that was received last week with respect to the education accord -- in view of the words that you read, with the hidden meaning that may well be there in the recommendations of the industrial inquiry commissioner -- I think the taxpayers are correct to think that the costs are far greater than they're going to be told.

I am sure that CUPE is going to maintain its demand that the government repay its efforts at the collective bargaining table. We haven't heard from this government unequivocally that it will not pay CUPE for doing its job as a union. It will not reward CUPE for closing down our schools and closing down our classrooms in the province of British Columbia. I would hope that we can hear that unequivocally today. All we've heard so far is that there was an undertaking to pay CUPE half a million dollars to carry out this labour dispute.

What about the students, though? What about the kids? Today the House Leader for the government decided that it might be important for graduating students that they were locked out of their classrooms, decided it might be important that young people in our province were being banned from getting their education. Today, suddenly, we have an urgent matter -- evidently because the Premier decided it was urgent for this Monday -- whereas on Thursday there was no problem: "It doesn't matter; close them out. Another 800, 900, 1,000, million student-hours out of school -- no problem."

[1605]

Hon. Speaker, I want to remind you and the House of the impact this has on children's and families' lives. This is an e-mail that was sent to the Premier last week.

"I have a son in grade 12 at North Delta Senior Secondary School who is currently awaiting confirmation of admission to several Canadian universities. He is an honour student and has applied for several scholarships. Currently his two most important courses are physics 12 and English 12, as well as grade 12 calculus. He has to write provincial examinations in physics and English. As North Delta is on the semester system, every day lost is critical to his (and every other student's) learning and future academic success."

This is from the letter again:

"I am disgusted that your government is permitting this strike to happen at all and not quickly intervening to end it. Job security, etc., for CUPE members is of little importance when compared to the education of our children, who are the future leaders (and voters) in this province. Why was there no bargaining during spring break?

"You are ultimately responsible and must deal with this. Politics and favouritism to unions simply to be re-elected has no place in this dispute."

"John Barkley, North Delta."

"I have a five-year-old that loves and misses kindergarten. How do you explain to a five-year-old that some union has decided that their education is not important to them?"

"Don't try and tell me that it is both parties' fault, because I know that the employer has not locked out the union, so therefore it was solely the union's decision to interrupt classes.

"I am trying to instil and pass on the love of education that I possess, but if my children are constantly being interrupted from that flow and routine, then my job becomes all that more difficult. The message that their education is not the most important thing is extremely damaging, in my opinion, to their young and impressionable minds.

"As for my 17-year-old daughter, who we have struggled mightily [with] to keep in school to graduate this year, what is the striking union going to do about that? Are classes going to go on longer to accommodate that? Should my daughter suffer because of that? This is just the excuse she needs to not continue. How can we communicate to these young adults that completing education is of prime importance when the message we are so obviously sending says that other issues. . .are evidently more important?"

"I cannot believe that any government would allow this to happen. How can a government be so callous and disrespectful of the rights of our children to quality education? Obviously this government is paying off the union debts it has accumulated to stay in power."

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There is no question that there are difficult issues to be resolved. But there is equally no question that if we want to maintain free collective bargaining, if we want to send a clear, unequivocal message to our kids that their education is the most important item on our agenda, then there is no question that we must declare education an essential service once and for all in British Columbia.

The government had chances last week to deal with this. It could have been dealt with last Monday. It could have been dealt with on Tuesday, could have been dealt with on Wednesday, could have even been dealt with last Thursday, when the government said it was not an urgent matter -- when the government decided that the taxpayers were once again going to foot the bill for probably somewhere on the order of $40,000, just so they could come back and do a little bit of politicking on a Sunday.

I want the parents and students of British Columbia to know that they're going to be in school tomorrow. But with the B.C. Liberal government, with the opposition in power,

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I'm disappointed that we have members on the other side of the House who still don't understand what education as an essential service is. But it's what we really have learned to expect from this government, because they care so little about it that they don't bother to read their own legislation. They don't bother to read how that can work. They don't bother to go back and look at how this can work, so that the young people of our province have an education while we maintain free collective bargaining.

Yesterday I was at the airport heading north. As I stopped in at the ticket counter, the person who checked me in said: "I need my children to be back in school." She'd been off work. One of her children was in the semester system. She was concerned that he was going to lose the balance of his year because of what was taking place. He was going to lose the opportunity to do as well as he should in his exams, probably the most important set of exams that those children will have to write, because this government had allowed school to be closed down for a week. I know the Premier says: "Oh, it's just a week -- just a day here, a day there. What does that matter when we're talking about free collective bargaining?" Well, it certainly mattered to that child, it certainly mattered to that mother, and it certainly mattered to thousands of other parents just like her across the province.

Even today, as we sit and look at the sketchy recommendations of the industrial inquiry commission, I think there are many parents who are very worried about what this government's true agenda is. We have not heard from the government that they are going to guarantee parents the right of access to their schools so that they can volunteer and participate in their child's education. Anyone who cares a whit about the education of young people knows this: the most important ingredient to educational success is parental involvement. I can tell you this: we will fight this government every single step of the way as they start to bar the door to the parents of British Columbia for working in our schools.

Far from saying to parents, "You may not participate," we should be trying to provide incentives to parents to become more actively involved. Last night in Prince George, I was sitting at a table with a parent who spends two days of every week in the school with her kids, working with them, showing them how important education is to her and showing them how important their education is to her. I know of other parents who have spent time in sports activities, in auditorium activities and theatre groups, in cultural activities and in community activities. We want those parents in school with their children. We want to be sure that they're there and they're participating and they're active.

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Hon. Speaker, this is a totally unnecessary sitting of this House. I think it's a shame that people have been put through the wringer over the last week. I think it's a shame that people have had to give up vacation time and paycheques. I think it's a shame that families have had to spend their savings because this government was not willing to put our children at the top of its list.

Our own legislation says that every child in British Columbia deserves 186 days of teaching -- 186 days in school every year. This government, by its inaction, has just said: "Sorry, that's not important this year." Well, it's important every year. It's urgent every single day that our kids be in school. We want to be sure that we give our children the tools that they need to advance their own goals and objectives, to pursue their own dreams. We want to be sure that each one of our children has the most exceptional educational experience that we can provide them. And part of their education is for them not to be blocked from their classrooms because their parents and adults can't resolve their differences.

There is a road to the future that can ensure that education is provided to every young person in this province. There is a road to the future that can be sure that each young person in this province gets the tools they need -- that we provide them with a stable, secure and safe public education, where people look to our province for the excellence that education provides. That road is signposted with two words: essential service. If this government doesn't think that education is essential, then they're further back in the last century than I could ever have imagined. If this government doesn't understand, if every single MLA on that side of the House does not understand how important education is to young people, then they shouldn't be sitting in this House.

I know that all of us have been in school, and there were days even when I was in school when I wished that I wasn't there. I would rather have been outside. But I can tell you that one of the gifts I was given by my parents was a great public education. Taxpayers deserve excellence in education; they certainly are paying for it. This government took away their choices last week. This government took away the opportunities for our young people last week. This government took away -- when there was no reason to subtract -- from the educational future of our young people. So today, on this side of the House, we will support the government's efforts to bring our young people back to school tomorrow. We will support them.

I would urge the government to consider what their actions have meant over the last decade, when students in community after community have had their education disrupted because this government wasn't willing to stand for students. This government wasn't willing to stand for education; this government doesn't think education is essential. The people -- the parents of British Columbia, the working families of British Columbia and even the kids of British Columbia -- understand that education is essential for their future. They want education to be an essential service. They will have education as an essential service, as soon as this government has the courage to call an election.

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It was about a year ago that Vancouver was out for half a day. In November it was Surrey; in January it was Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows and Burnaby. Now we have over 400,000 students out across this province, and there has been no action on behalf of this government to take any meaningful measures throughout all of that period of time as the lessons have been taught to them. Children have been made the pawns of this process rather than being responded to in a meaningful way. The problem has not been that confusing; the issue has not been that confounding. The issue could have been solved simply by introducing essential services in education.

The opposition will do everything it can to ensure that students are back in school tomorrow and everything it can to prevent students from having to be put out and made pawns in a negotiating process one more time. Two million student-days have been lost. They should not have been lost. The train has been coming, and we could have derailed that train. We could have changed that. We could have ensured that our students will not become the victims, resulting in us standing here today.

The legislation that the government puts forward today can perhaps provide us with some small, mild symptom relief. But it's not going to solve the problem, the core issue, of us going through this over and over again. We know there are many more contracts coming up within the context of the next year, and we've got time frames in which we must deal with them. It's time we stopped putting our school system through this. It's time we stopped putting students, teachers, school boards and CUPE employees through this process.

When we look at the lessons to be learned from where we are today, we can see clearly that when the Crown prosecutors suggested that they might go out, this government responded by saying: "No, we're not going to allow that. We'll go to court to take action to ensure that doesn't happen." But our students didn't seem to carry the same priority. The message this government has given to our students -- the message they've received as a result of this process -- is: "You're not as important in this process. You've taken a back seat to those types of negotiations." The priority has clearly not been that of our students. So we've had unnecessary closures going on with that.

The notion of essential services, the process of essential services that we're talking about, is not a process which eliminates collective bargaining. It's not a process which eliminates strikes. The process of essential services will allow those things to happen but will categorically ensure that the core educational services are still there, that our students will not have to become victims of this process which they've once more been held up in front of.

Our goal today is to look at the extraordinary circumstances, look at the urgency of the issue, look at public policy, look at principle, look at the issues that allow us and ensure us that our children get back to school.

The commissioners and their report to us have said that they've not had time to look at, digest and understand the complexity of the many issues that are before them. It's clear that this House has not had that amount of time. The commissioners had four days to spend looking at that. That we've had a very, very few hours to be able to look at and respond to all of the issues contained in this, when the commissioners were unable to do that in four days, is asking far too much. We should be dealing with those issues which will ensure that that core principle is addressed -- that core principle, again, being the fact that our schools have been closed around this province.

[1625]

School boards have been struggling to get their negotiations, but school boards have been hamstrung. The school boards' ability to negotiate has been hamstrung, and it's been hamstrung partially because of this government's imposing of the agreement-in-committee -- downloading the responsibilities to the school boards without giving them the money to manage those responsibilities. The government has negotiated, imposed an agreement, downloaded responsibilities, downloaded costs, but not given the school boards the dollars to manage those costs. As a result, school boards, in trying to maintain the integrity of their educational system within their districts, have had no options but to cut in some of those areas where they do have a little bit of discretion.

School boards' discretionary spending within the context of their budget is probably 6 or 8 percent. It's very, very small, hon. Speaker. Some of those discretionary funds are not really that discretionary. It's like: "Should we be buying textbooks, should we be buying paper, or should we be putting gas in our buses?" School boards have been put in a most difficult, difficult dilemma and problem. They haven't had the ability to respond actively and appropriately to the needs of their students. That is because this government has downloaded more and more costs to them. As a result, the only flexibility they've had in many cases has been with respect to CUPE members. And as a result, school boards have had no option but to reduce some of the services provided by CUPE.

Many of the school boards around this province have felt that their role has been diminished to the point of being almost a flak catcher for the province, in terms of the issues that they're dealing with. They don't feel they have the control, the management or the ability to look at, to deal with and to effectively provide for the needs of the students within their province. So when it gets downloaded to them, they manage as best they can. They work with their budget. And ultimately, in the last while, CUPE has understandably been distressed because their positions have been the ones that school boards have been forced to deal with, because those are the only discretionary areas that they've had to deal with.

As we look again at the history of how we've got to today, we know that the contracts in many parts of the

[ Page 14700 ]

I know, from talking to the Education minister. . . . Two Education ministers ago, last summer -- last July 12, in fact -- the Education minister came to me and said: "We have concerns with CUPE. We have problems. We're concerned; we're concerned that there may be strikes, that students may be out of school." Yet nothing was done. That was back on July 12. There was a possibility of legislation being looked at; it wasn't done. There was a possibility of introducing, ultimately, essential services that would have prevented it; that was not done.

Today we have all kinds of hardships across this province. I would like to point out a couple of the hardships. These have been sent to us by way of letter, by way of e-mail. One was copied to us, copied to the Premier and sent to the Minister of Education, and it reads:

"I write to you in frustration over the lack of concern and sense of responsibility your ministry, as well as CUPE, have regarding education in this province. The strike by CUPE not only affects most schools in the province. . .and thus is detrimental to children's education, it also affects thousands of parents who have to scramble for alternate day care for their children. It behooves me that your chief negotiator would consider, let alone be given permission, to travel [during this period of time]."

[1630]

Going back to quoting from this letter, it says: "It just displays this government's lack of responsibility, accountability and concern. 'Transparent new government,' which the Premier said some weeks ago, was just typical NDP doubletalk."' That's one of the concerns expressed, and I think it reflects the sentiments that I hear from a number of parents across this province.

The second one, written to both the Premier and the Education minister, says:

"I'm writing to express my concerns regarding the current school strike. This school strike -- in fact, any strike that effectively closes our public school system -- is much more than an inconvenience to families in British Columbia. It costs each of us real money in finding child care assistance. Based on estimates of 300,000-plus students forced out of school and a minimum $7 an hour for child care over an eight-hour period, this is costing parents [up to $18 million] per day in child care. Not only is this costing us money, it is draining funds that could be used far more productively than unnecessary child care."

Hon. Speaker, last week we in this House on the opposition side talked about the students in Kamloops at Sa-hali Secondary School; they are on a quarterly semester system. On a quarterly semester system, they're writing final exams on April 18, less than three weeks away. They're writing some of the exams which are going to be the most important exams of their lives, exams which will help to determine whether or not they will have the options for their future that they so dearly want. And they've been put through this.

They have now gone a week without the ability to have in-house study education services provided to them. For those students, missing one day of that is equal to a week. A week is equal to a month; they've already missed a month of school. So when we talk about five days, for some students around this province it's far more than five days that they've missed. They've missed the educational opportunity or the educational equivalent of a whole month. That's not acceptable.

This gentleman who writes, Dennis Ross Rose, says -- and I think this is important to recognize as well:

"Finally, this strike is not just impacting students and parents; it is impacting businesses. For the past two days," he notes, "I have noticed staff arriving late and leaving early, strictly due to the legitimate need to deal with their children -- picking up and dropping off at day care. Again, this is costing the province significantly in terms of lost productivity."

Essential services is not taking away the ability to put pressure on management, on government, in order to effect a collective agreement. Essential services simply means that the core educational services will still be there -- that students will be received. We've seen around this province the ability that schools have had to put enormous pressure on through work-to-rule. We know that this is much more than that. We know that the Labour Relations Board may be making decisions around essential services which would say that the core services perhaps do not include some of the non-enrolling teachers. Perhaps they do not include some of the CUPE workers. Perhaps they do not include some of the issues associated with answering phones or the cleanliness of the school.

[1635]

Under our School Act we require by law that students attend school. This year it's 186 days of instruction in the school year. We require our students to be at school, yet we do not require our schools to be open to receive them. So we put our students in jeopardy. We allow them to break this law that we put together, but we're not prepared to put the same onus -- the same responsibility -- on the schools to be there.

It's not permissible -- it's not good public policy -- to allow our children to be out of school. Good public policy, good positive public policy in a free and democratic society, talks about being able to ensure and to look at and value education as one of our top priorities. The role of education in a free and democratic society is so important. The role of education is to ensure that we look at the economic opportunities that our students are going to have, that they can realize their dreams, that they can look at and move outside the boundaries of this province and this country and compete in an ever more global international world. We're taking away some of the ability of our students to do that.

[ Page 14701 ]

In Surrey-White Rock we've already seen a safe arrival program shut down because this government has not honoured the effective, important role of parents in ensuring that we have a quality education and that parents feel welcome and feel as though they're participants in an educational system which delivers the types of needs that they have. A safe arrival program -- parents raised the money for the phone, and parents have volunteered and worked at -- has now been eliminated. It's now gone because we didn't have support in ensuring that it was there.

A hot-breakfast program for needy children was also victim of a process that said that we're not going to honour parents and the role that parents have in not only ensuring the quality outcomes of education but ensuring that students, when they come to school, are physically prepared and ready to respond to the educational needs that they've been put there for.

We talked last week -- and it comes back to mind -- about an agreement by this government to provide $500,000 to the CUPE union to offset their costs of negotiation. Now, the government would tell us that's okay because, on the other side of it, that money was also provided to BCPSEA -- to the school boards -- in terms of being able to do that. But it certainly casts aspersions and questions -- minimally questions -- when we look at and understand that CUPE has made significant financial contributions to the NDP through the course of this. Is this just a way of funnelling? Certainly it's not above and beyond reproach in terms of looking at what has happened with respect to that.

As we look at the bill that's before us and the issues that are contained in it, we must realize a number of things. Firstly, we must realize that these school closures should never have happened. Contextually we were there; we were ready to respond. Every signpost that should have been heeded has been there for at least a year -- in some cases, for four years and, in other cases, for much longer than that. We should have responded with essential services legislation years ago, ensuring that students have access to school facilities and services and that the collective bargaining process is allowed to continue to do that.

[1640]

It's time that this government put the interests of students at the top of the list, at the top of priorities, rather than respond to union paymasters. Once again this government has failed to put the public interest ahead of its own partisan political interests. Once again they have sacrificed our students' rights at the altar of political expediency.

A quality, reliable education system is based on the highest standards of excellence, and it is the most important service that we can provide to our children and ultimately to our society. It ensures in a free democratic society that we're dealing with social equity and social tolerance and that we're teaching good citizenship -- that we're managing all of those important things, not just the specific outcomes that happen in an educational process. It's much broader and much more important than that. Our children's educational rights should never, ever take the back seat to a labour dispute in this province. We have to respond to their needs and to their issues and ensure that we're delivering on them.

We're here today because this government has failed to respond to those cues, it has failed to respond to those needs, and it has failed to see that the train has been coming down the track.

The union has said that the former Education minister and the former Premier had promised to introduce legislation that would provide them with some of the things that they wanted. CUPE has stated: "The failure of this government to act is nothing short of betrayal." They had expectations in terms of what was going to happen, and those expectations were not met. We could have been responding to the needs of the students and not making side deals and agreements with the union, because the priority should not be the union. The priority is broad-based, and political policy says that it must be broad-based enough to respond actively and accurately to the needs of students.

Forgive me, hon. Speaker, if I am somewhat skeptical in terms of what has taken place and if I'm somewhat skeptical of the whole process that's led us here to this day. There has been an undercurrent vibrating there. The knowledge of where we're going and where we are has been there for a long, long time, and the government has refused to respond to it.

I think that when government makes public policy decisions that suggest, by their actions if not by their words, that students are not the most important priority in this process, we are doing a disservice to our school boards, to our parents, to our students, to the CUPE union and to all the people of this province. We need to -- we must -- respond to those needs and ensure that we're going to move ahead in a positive, effective way.

Skepticism rings through this, because every signpost, every opportunity has been there for this government to respond to the needs. Every opportunity has been there, and the government has failed to respond in each case. In each case, this government has said: "We're not going to respond to the needs of those students. We're going to sit back and allow something else to take place." The tragedy of the something else that has taken place is the tragedy of two million school days lost forever -- two million school days lost in a province that this government likes to call the education province. The irony! The government calls it an education province, yet when we deal with education, it's not an issue.

You would think -- a reasonable person would think -- that an education province would adhere to that principle, would say that the most important thing in an education

[ Page 14702 ]

[1645]

We are stuck here today wanting to -- and ensuring the people of this province that we will -- get students back to school, because we believe that education is a number one priority. Because we believe that the students in this province should be in school and should never again be subject to -- be the pawns in -- a negotiating process that puts them out of school, that doesn't given them the opportunity to work for, aspire to and achieve their goals by working hard, having the opportunity to get to where they want to be.

The part of the legislation before us today that ensures that we're going to respond to education as a number one priority, as an issue that is important to all of the people of this province. . . . That part we want to ensure is there to respond. But we don't ever, ever again want to be put in the process or the place where we cannot do much more than that, where we cannot assure the people of this province that there will no longer be instability and insecurity around education. There should not be that instability, and there should not be that insecurity. People should not have to be wondering -- minutes, days, hours before school is to open tomorrow -- whether or not they need to have day care, whether or not they have to take holidays, whether or not they have to step back from the things that are in the normal course of their duties and days, whether or not they have to expend more of their hard-earned dollars on day care because this government has failed to act, because this government has not put in place the appropriate safety net that would have saved them from having to deal with that uncertainty and insecurity and instability.

Hon. Speaker, we as a province must recognize education as a high priority. We must do more than say that it's a high priority. We must ensure that our actions reflect that and that students are no longer put in this place. This piece of legislation -- the many parts of it that try to bring us to resolution -- does not help deal with the emergency parts of the day. The only parts that do that are the parts that say we're going to put students first. This side of the House has consistently said: "We will put students first." We'll put them first by ensuring that essential services legislation will eventually come to the people of this province, and we will eventually hold education and students in the high priority that they rightly deserve.

Hon. D. Miller: These are very important times, I think, in the life of a parliament. It's not often that we come back to deal with, in this case, a collective bargaining dispute that in the opinion of the government -- and, I believe, the opposition -- has gone to the point where it has impacted on the public in an unacceptable manner, and it has forced us as legislators to deal with it. It's a very important issue, and I think it requires a little bit of discussion about why these situations arise and what some of the remedies potentially are.

I want to start by saying that I think it is a bit absurd to suggest that members on this side, who have families and who have constituents, have no regard for the situation that parents and children find themselves in. I can understand why the opposition would go there, but I think it's a bit ridiculous to suggest that all of us don't have a concern about the education system, the impact on children, the impact on parents -- particularly, I might add, those parents who are often not in a good position to find alternatives, whether it's day care or those kinds of things. . . . It puts a lot of stress on families, which is why we're here.

[T. Stevenson in the chair.]

But I also think it's important that we go beyond the simple rhetoric. With all due respect, I think that simply stating that education ought to be an essential service does not provide a comprehensive solution to these kinds of dilemmas. I want to briefly retrace some of the efforts that have been made by past governments to deal with these problems.

[1650]

There has been a variety of efforts in past years to try to deal with this problem. In the early eighties the then government brought in legislation that was one attempt to deal with the problem. That was based on what was at that time called the ability to pay. It was an attempt through legislation to provide an overriding umbrella that governed the behaviour of collective bargaining and put limits on the amount of settlements. Quite frankly, that system didn't work. It's impossible, given our complex society, (a) to define ability to pay and then (b) to implement that. So it didn't work.

Then in 1987 the Social Credit government of the day brought in two bills -- remarkable bills, in their content, for a Social Credit administration -- that essentially gave the teachers the right to strike. Prior to that, in British Columbia the history had been that in order to avoid disputes in the school sector, teachers had the right to binding arbitration.

I might read into the record a debate from June 15, 1995, wherein the member for Richmond Centre spoke at some length about that condition -- both Bills 19 and 20 and his personal observations with respect to the process where binding arbitration was the method of resolving disputes in the

[ Page 14703 ]

"I might bring to the minister's attention Bill 20, which was companioned with Bill 19 in 1987. If I have the minister's attention, I'm sure he can turn his mind back to the year 1987, when we had a fair amount of labour unrest in the province of British Columbia. Bill 20 is the bill that unionized the teachers of the province. What I think we should look at is why Bill 20 was introduced at that time. Bill 20 replaced what was common practice in this province for the teaching profession -- that is, by legislation in the education act, they had to go to negotiation, conciliation and arbitration on set dates.

"For years that process worked, but during the seventies and moving into the eighties, what generally tended to happen was that too often these things went to arbitration -- it got to the arbitration stage; it wasn't settled in negotiation or conciliation."

"Basically the teachers did quite well in those years. They did quite well because we went to arbitration. In arbitration you simply looked for the district that was weakest and got a settlement with that particular district. After that the arbitration boards often, as Mr. Weiler mentioned, used that as the basis for setting the agreements of those that went to arbitration. So if you got a good negotiation in one district, or if the first district that went to arbitration turned out quite well, that became the norm for the province."

[1655]

I want now to quote from the transcripts of that debate of June 15, 1995, page 15544. I want to quote the member for Vancouver-Little Mountain, who in debate on a bill summed up rather well, I think, the essential dilemma or conundrum we face in dealing with these situations.

"People bargain in good faith and come to a conclusion on their own, and the right of one of the parties is to deny access to the workplace as a form of lockout; and for the other party, the final option is to withdraw their services. That's the way our system of collective bargaining works."

"So we have a conflict here between trying to provide an essential service -- something that the public demands and that we all believe is necessary -- and trying to ensure that the rights of both parties are there and available to them as much as possible. That's the conflict here: we have two desirables, which are both mutually exclusive."

"I think the problem with the bill before us is twofold. First of all, historically, arbitration, as the minister alluded, is not necessarily the best way to go -- you don't necessarily find the best solution."

What method do we then use to allow successful conclusion of negotiations in the school sector? Ultimately -- and I believe this really strongly, actually -- the success of collective bargaining is not a single dispute; it's looking at the history of collective bargaining over time. Does the system work over time? Arguably in British Columbia, since the Social Credit government brought in Bill 20 in 1987, the system has worked, by and large, not too badly. This is the second occasion when the Legislature has been recalled to deal with the failure of collective bargaining, but by and large, since that time it has not done too badly.

[1700]

My own preference, over time, is to continue to put the pressure on the parties to try to make them responsible for their actions or their failure to achieve a collective agreement and the resultant or consequent disruption in the school system. That is, over time, the conclusion that I have come to, and I've looked at this for many, many years. But I would say that if there is desire and if legislators, in their wisdom, say that we cannot afford the occasional disruption in the school system, then you have to replace it with something else.

By the words of the members of the opposition that I've quoted, one indicating the nature of collective bargaining, the other indicating, if you like, the negative aspects of binding arbitration. . . . In other words, over time, binding arbitration essentially leads to the position that the parties don't bargain meaningfully -- they don't really seriously bargain together, and they rely on that arbitrator. Mr. Weiler has written quite a bit on this point, but essentially his conclusion -- I think borne out by the words of the member for Richmond Centre. . . . Mr. Weiler's conclusion is that over time the pattern of settlements is much, much higher, and I would take his advice over many, many others.

Really, members, I only try to offer these few comments because, as well as I understand it, I don't think it's good enough simply for the opposition to stand up and castigate

[ Page 14704 ]

To close, I did make note of a quote from the Leader of the Opposition when he was speaking, and the quote is this: "We must maintain free collective bargaining." I'm puzzled to some degree why or how you can make that statement and at the same time not offer to the House or the public any process by which that can be maintained.

[1705]

So at that time, consulting with a lot of people, we brought in legislation that provided the right for either party in dispute to go to binding arbitration, with some pretty tight qualifications in the language of the bill. But at least we provided a process. I might note that in second reading the opposition voted against it; I think they voted for it when the bill came up for final reading. But we provided a process.

If the opposition were legitimate in their comments today, at the very least they would, I think, try to provide the House -- as I say, the public -- with some idea of what would replace the current system. Saying education should be an essential service and nothing more does, it seems to me, a disservice to this debate.

These issues do arise from time to time. As I have indicated, it is my view, having been in this House for 13-some-odd years and been involved in the labour movement, been involved in other disputes at the municipal level. . . . It is my considered opinion -- and in fact former Minister of Labour Lyall Hanson, speaking to the same firefighters act, expressed the same view -- that there are times when the system fails. The government looks at it, considers the impact, considers the greater good and brings the House back together to deal with that situation. But beyond that, it tries to let the system of free collective bargaining work. I think that's probably the best solution. Lots of people have tried different ones; they haven't worked.

So I'll look forward with interest to, I hope, constructive ideas from members of the opposition about how we might move beyond the rhetoric of education as an essential service and actually talk about how they think they might be able to achieve free collective bargaining if the right to withdraw your labour -- or lockout -- is withdrawn.

S. Hawkins: Well, here we are on a nice, bright and sunny Sunday afternoon at about ten after five. I can't say that I'm delighted to be here today to debate Bill 7, which is essentially the education support staff back-to-work legislation. I don't see too many smiling faces on that side of the House, either, that are happy to be here.

In fact, we didn't really have to be here today. We're here today because of the incompetence of the government, because of their inability to deal with this situation earlier. They failed to make the right decision earlier; they had ample opportunity. Kids did not have to lose five days of school last week; they did not have to. We didn't have to be here on a Sunday, at extra expense to the taxpayer, to put the kids back in school tomorrow.

This side of the House is very happy to see the kids back in school tomorrow; we want them back to school tomorrow. In fact, we didn't want them out of school last week. We had ample opportunity last week. There was a bill before the House that was introduced on Wednesday by the Leader of the Opposition, asking the government to make education an essential service. The members across the way and the minister were up talking about free collective bargaining and that right being taken away under essential service legislation. That's wrong. They know that's wrong. There are other unions and other workers that work under that legislation. In fact, I did as a nurse. It doesn't take away your right to strike; it doesn't take away your right to free collective bargaining. What it does do, hon. Speaker, is ensure that service is provided to the people who need it. In this case, it would be to the children. The children would be in school. The teachers would be teaching in school. And there would be support staff enough to keep those schools open. If we had that, parents wouldn't be inconvenienced.

I can tell you that there are certain issues that really hit home. There are certain issues that as soon as they hit home, hit the phones in my office. Education and kids being out of school last week was one of those issues. I had angry parents walking into my office and talking to me on Friday. I flew home on Friday morning, got into my office, and there was a lineup. There was a lineup of phone calls; there was a line of parents walking in my office. The very first thing one of the parents said to me was: "What is your position on education as an essential service?" So I told her. She said: "Well, that's great, because I am sick and tired of my kids' education being disrupted."

[1710]

[ Page 14705 ]

They were interfering with the process, because last week there was a document that was introduced in this House that revealed that the government had a secret deal with CUPE worth half a million dollars. I don't know. The timing. . . . Was it pure coincidence? It was just weeks before the leadership race. Maybe it was pure coincidence; I don't know. Maybe we'll give them that. But you know, the public and the taxpayer and parents are sick and tired of this government's secret deals and secret accords with the people that they're beholden to.

I heard the Minister of Energy and Mines, who was just up in front of me, saying that the government was forced to deal with this today. Well, they didn't have to be forced to deal with it. They didn't have to be cornered here today. They didn't have to call us back on a Sunday. As I said, there was ample opportunity. The Leader of the Opposition had a bill before the House last week -- which apparently is not new in this House. That bill has been before this House. . . . Four times in seven years the official opposition has tabled essential services legislation for education before this House, and each time the government has refused to even debate that legislation.

On Thursday the Leader of the Opposition tabled a motion for an emergency debate. The government refused to deal with that issue on Thursday. All of a sudden on Sunday, the day before the eleventh hour, before the kids go back to school -- because this Premier, this new Premier, promised parents that he would have the schools open again on Monday. . . . Here we are on a Sunday, trying to get this legislation passed.

I can tell you that the parents who walked into my office weren't only worried about essential services legislation. They were worried about the expenses that they incurred last week because of the government's dithering. Workers and taxpayers were promised by this government that they were going to get a tax cut; I can tell you that they've spent it 15, 20, 30 times over last week when the kids were out of school. I had more parents phone and ask me where they were going to drop off their kids last week, because they were either going to have to take time off work or take vacation time or inconvenience a relative or a friend -- or perhaps I wanted to run a day care in my office, because where the heck were they going to put these kids? They pay for quality education, and they pay to have their kids in school Monday to Friday, when the schools are supposed to be open. And the schools should have been open. This government had the choice.

This government talks about making the right choices by making education a priority. Well, they certainly haven't shown that in the last few months, I can tell you. Two months ago Burnaby and Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows were closed. Two months before that, it was Surrey; and six months before that, it was Vancouver. This government knew that the action was escalating and that sooner or later there was going to be a strike that was going to close down the system. They knew that. They failed to deal with it. It's their negligence and incompetence again. Where is the leadership?

[1715]

In fact, I had students phoning me -- grade 12 students who were preparing for their provincial exams. Other members have read out e-mails and messages from students that have written to them, very upset because those are the exams that are going to determine what institution they go to and whether they're going to get scholarships. Their future depends on those exams. Now they're disadvantaged because they've lost a week from preparing for those exams that they should have had before writing them.

The exams are less than three weeks away. Here we are at the eleventh hour waiting for the government to bring in this legislation that was never required -- that was never needed. They were put in a corner; they were forced into it. Here we are on a Sunday, cleaning up their mess, their little crisis, once again. They could have prevented CUPE from walking off the job last Friday before the strike even started. But they didn't. They chose to let it linger on. They dithered on. Students have now lost five days, and the parents and students are the ones that suffer.

The interesting thing in all this, I guess, is that the government made a little bit of money on this. The government made about $35 million for the total five days when the schools were closed. Many parents ended up spending a lot of money looking after the children, putting them in day cares, paying babysitters -- whatever. So the parents lost money; the government made money.

The opposition suggested that the perhaps the government could reimburse the parents some of their child care costs. I mean, it's only reasonable, since the parents already pay for education and the children should have been in school -- they shouldn't have had to pay extra -- that perhaps the government, in a small token of their appreciation for the parents looking after the kids while they were out of school, could reimburse the parents. But oh no, this government is not going to do that. They're going to pocket that cash.

They saved a heck of a lot of money -- almost $35 million. The parents deserve to get that money back. But this government is making choices. That's what they do. They decided, I believe, to pocket the cash and profit from the strike.

The education act says that the kids get 186 days of learning. This government has wiped out five days in one week -- five days of disruption that didn't need to take place, five days that the students should have had in the classroom. Again, they say they care about children; they say they care about education. Well, what hypocrisy! What contradiction!

If they would just reinstate essential services legislation for education. . . . We do it for hospitals. As nurses, we have the right to strike, but we provide a framework of support staff -- a framework of workers -- that will keep the hospitals open. Well, why can't we do that for the kids? Why can't we do that for education? It only makes sense, doesn't it? Why

[ Page 14706 ]

Now, the public is getting very, very tired of the government making deals with the union, making secret accords, paying off the union for work that, really, the union should be doing and getting money from union dues. I had another parent walk into my office last week. There was actually an ad that ran in my local paper about parents being very concerned about volunteer status being removed from them. Parents go into classrooms -- they go into their schools -- and they like to volunteer and be near their kids. A lot of parents like to see the interaction between the teachers and the students, and they actually kind of enjoy putting in a little bit of volunteer time. There was an ad in our paper that was quite harsh and not very kind about the fact that that status might be removed from parents. I don't know if that is something that is seriously being negotiated and about to be taken away from parents, but I can tell you right now that they are not very happy about the fact that they might not be able to volunteer in the classrooms.

[1720]

I don't mind the fact that we're here to put the kids back to school tomorrow. I think that's great, and I think it should have happened a week ago. I think that kids shouldn't have been out of school at all last week. I think the government should have acted sooner. I think that if the government were honest and absolutely truthful about putting kids and education as a first choice, then they would make the right choice and declare education an essential service, and we wouldn't have been in the House three times in the last seven years debating back-to-work legislation to get the kids back in school. It would never happen, because the kids wouldn't be out of school. They would always be there.

I will support the part of the legislation that puts support workers back to work tomorrow so that the kids are back in school. But again, the closures should never have had to happen. We shouldn't be here on a Sunday. The kids should have always been in school. Again, it's just the incompetence demonstrated by this government and their inability to act and make the right choices at the right time.

V. Anderson: It's Sunday afternoon, April 2. If someone had told us yesterday, earlier in the morning, that we would have been here today, one would have thought that it was an April Fools' joke. One would certainly expect, in our modern society, that a government of competent people would be able to manage the undertakings of this province in a way that this kind of crisis would not happen again and again and again.

For nine years now I have been here in this Legislature under this same government. Three times in those nine years we have come with this particular crisis, to be dealt with at the last minute -- on a weekend, on a Sunday -- because the government had not been able to manage the affairs of the province. We've seen that in many other areas, but it is particularly important in this area. It's our children who are directly affected the most, as well as the members of their families.

Today we're here debating the Public Education Support Staff Collective Bargaining Assistance Act. Hon. Speaker, for those who have not seen the act, which we only saw for the first time as we came into the House today, they should be aware that there are two major parts to this particular act. One has to do with legislating persons back to work in our school system so that our children can be in school on Monday morning, because they have had a whole week in which the schools have been closed to them. The other part of the act is to look at some way of responding to how this came about and giving at least one suggestion for the future.

[1725]

We have consistently, over the years, put forth our own private bill to the Legislature -- hoping that the government would respond to it -- to make education an essential service, because that's what it should be. It's essential that our children be in school.

I can remember that when I was a youngster, if you skipped a day of school, you had the truant officer after you, and you were forced to go back to school as soon as you were discovered. It was the understanding that attending school was compulsory for certain ages of children. But I never, in my imagination, thought it would be the government that would make it impossible for the children to go to school. That's not what the government should be about. Not only does it deprive the children of the opportunity for the education they need, it is also sets a terrible example. If a government can disobey the law, then what about the children? What kind of an example are we setting for them?

We have to look at the kind of mismanagement that has brought us to this circumstance. A few minutes ago the hon. Minister of Energy and Mines apparently had not been listening to what our leader and others have been saying in this Legislature for some time -- that when we say education should be an essential service, we mean that it is essential that the children be in school while the adults strike if they will, negotiate if they will, but that they do it under a process which does not interfere with the children's education.

The hon. Minister of Energy and Mines was talking about the kind of process that has grown up for labour legislation in industry and in commerce, where a factory closes down because the managers of the factory and the workers within that factory or that industry or that mine can't come to a

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As we do in health services, we have a process whereby strikes are allowed; but while the strike goes on, the essential services are still maintained. That's the same process we need for education, and that's what we should have been about.

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But we objected to the process that they brought forth today, (1) because it's had no consultation with all of the people involved, and (2) because it comes in, and within a very few hours they want to take it through first, second and third reading, a process which normally takes at least three days -- longer if there's discussion and argument about the implications of that particular bill. We agreed that the first section should be passed within that one-day period -- today.

We asked that the second section be left for further consideration, but they have not been willing to undertake this. The implications for that in the future are going to be fairly drastic. They have held us hostage here in this Legislature, hostage to letting a bill go through, supported perhaps by persons on one side of the House or the other, which has implications for the future that are strictly against the process of our parliamentary tradition.

If this bill were to go through -- which the government will probably do because of their majority -- it sets in process that the process for bargaining within our province will not come back necessarily at all to the Legislature for future consideration, because it has within it the opportunity for recommendations by a commissioner to come to the government or to the Minister of Labour, and for him to okay them and put them into practice without any reference to the Legislature. That we cannot agree with -- the second part of the bill.

I want to refer to a report that has come to us, which is the report of the commissioner -- that we should be here today, because. . . . There was an industrial inquiry commission of two persons, which was to go and negotiate and meet with both sides of this conflict. I think it's important that the public hear what they wrote, as they returned after the three and a half days that they were given to do the task, and what they said about being unable to complete that task. They said that they sat down with the two sides to the conflict, the British Columbia Public School Employers Association and CUPE, the union. I quote:

"It became readily apparent that in addition to the large number of issues in dispute between the 46 school districts and CUPE, the most difficult issue between them was the bargaining process itself. The parties are at polar extremes as to how collective bargaining should occur in the K-to-12 educational sector. For its part, CUPE seeks provincewide bargaining on what CUPE identifies as common issues, a position that is rejected by PSAC and the school districts."

"This has caused a huge rift between the parties and has resulted in a dysfunctional and stagnant collective bargaining process. Even the ministers today, in presenting the bill, acknowledged that this was a dysfunctional process. We've known that for a long time. Why did it have to wait until the students were held as hostages before they could do anything to respond to it?"

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"With this background to the dispute, our task to recommend substantive terms for a settlement or, in the alternative, a mechanism by which a final settlement could be reached within three and a half days was indeed daunting. On the first day of the commission proceedings, we issued directives to each of the school districts and CUPE locals to continue direct bargaining on their own and report to us on the status of these negotiations by 8 p.m., March 30. The response clearly indicated what little bargaining had taken place to date, and we received over 1,500 pages of submissions outlining the outstanding issues still in dispute in the local school districts. One school district provided a submission of 185 pages of disputed items, for example."

They go on to report:

"CUPE presented us with a revised list of job security issues at approximately midnight on March 31, 2000, of a no-layoff provision with subclauses. This is midnight before they're supposed to give their report the next day at 12 noon. They had issues about a four-hour minimum workday, no contracting out and protection for work of the bargaining unit. In our view we have not sufficient time to properly analyze these matters, nor have we had sufficient input from the parties on these issues to allow us to make a reasoned and informed recommendation."

Hon. Speaker, the parents, teachers and CUPE members all have a right to be concerned. I had the opportunity last year to sit in a meeting for three hours with teachers and support workers, union members, to discuss the situation in the school in Vancouver. They were an unhappy lot. For three hours they went on about the problems and the circumstances and the difficulties they were having trying to be fair representatives, to provide the kind of education to the students that they wished to. Their morale was certainly very low. As a result of that meeting, they met with representatives of the school board and of the parents and came together as a combined body to meet with the representatives of the government to express their common concerns. I express their common concerns as school workers, as trustees and as parents.

Just a week ago I received a report from a meeting that I had attended with parents of the Vancouver district parent advisory council -- representatives from all the schools in the

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Let me just give an illustration. This is a quote by the Vancouver district parent advisory council from their collective meeting of representatives of their schools regarding support services: "Parents note the loss of counsellors, of curriculum support staff, of physiotherapists, of community health nurses, of resource teachers, of technical support and instruction and of youth and family workers and multicultural workers." They report that in many schools, services are being delivered by unqualified or partially qualified individuals, adding stress to an already stressed system. So of course those who are employed by the school, seeing what has happened to those with whom they have worked, are concerned about their future and about the kinds of services they'll be able to provide both now and in the future.

They talk about ESL services and support, which is a very large element of our Vancouver school system. Parents report that the five-year cap has had a strong negative impact on their communities. They regret that ESL staff teaching time has been lost, and the loss of ESL reception classes is also noted. These losses impact on the entire school community, students and staff alike, and not just on the ESL learners.

They talk about the special needs and gifted children. Parents report loss of special needs teachers, loss of special education services provided by speech language pathologists, psychologists and special education assistants, and loss of non-enrolling teachers. Their children are waiting too long for testing for eligibility for district services, and students are losing out on scheduled learning assistance centre time because the shortage of teachers on call results in LAC teachers covering regular classrooms. Some of the support people within the school who work with the teachers and directly with the children are some of the concerns that CUPE has.

They go on to talk about learning resources. Parents notice that existing supplies are often in poor condition and that the quality and quantity of supplies, including paper, notebooks, newsprint, newsletter and photocopied materials, has declined. They report drastic cutbacks in local equipment and supplies budgets and report that smaller schools suffered even greater hardships due to funding systems. We've always been proud of our libraries in the system, and the parents report that their school libraries continue to suffer from loss of staff assistance, reduced funds to purchase new books, part-time library closures and reduced student and staff access to teacher librarians.

[1745]

About facilities. Parents continue to be alarmed over the lack of a provincial building code that mandates earthquake-proofing. They report that their children's schools suffer from insufficient lunchroom and classroom space. They say, regarding general school student losses, that parents report that continued inadequate funding has resulted in loss of classroom blocks or electives for secondary students. Loss of all-day kindergarten -- not available to all students who would benefit. . . . Borderline students are not receiving the services they need to succeed. There's decrease in student-parent staff access to school-based administrators. Cuts in auxiliary services have increased pressure on administrators, who have been forced to take up the slack.

This is true not only in the Vancouver district; this is true across the province. The question that all of us need to ask is: where has the money gone that has been put into the educational system? What has happened to it? It's not there for the teachers. It's not there for the support staff. It's not there for the supplies. It's not there for the classrooms. It's not there, because administration has been cut back.

We need not just a total examination of the opportunity for workers, whether they're teachers or support workers, to meet with school boards and work out a contract -- because that must happen -- but we also need a total review of how this government is managing the educational system within the province. That's really what is at stake here today. On Monday, in order for the children to get back to school -- because even though we emphatically may not agree with many parts of the bill, we will support it because we have no choice -- we're held hostage by this government, by the very process they have put forward. It's not fair to the workers in the system, it's not fair to the parents, and it's particularly not fair to the children. That's not the way we should be undertaking our legislation.

It's unfortunate that we have to be here in the first place. It's doubly unfortunate that we have to be dealing with a double-sided bill, when on one hand, we could very simply have said that the children will be back in school tomorrow -- period. The process is in place within that section of the bill for the immediate needs of all those concerned to be met. Secondly, having got that process out of the way, we could have come back next week and dealt with the other half of this bill in a fair and open manner. Once again we have this government taking the children of our province and making them hostages to an uneconomic, unstable management system that this government has been attempting to foist upon us again and again not only in the area of education but in other areas as well.

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Hon. Speaker, we want the children to be back in school tomorrow morning. We want the parents to know that there's security in the school system and that they'll never be out of school for this kind of purpose again. We want the government to have essential service legislation so that children will get an education while adults work out their problems. That's what government should be about -- helping that process to take place. I trust that finally the government will listen. We put forth that essential services legislation four times. Hopefully now the pressure will come from the people of the province to make sure the government either enacts it or goes to an election and asks the people what their will is.

I. Chong: First of all, I would like to say, before I make comments on Bill 7, the Public Education Support Staff Collective Bargaining Assistance Act, that I don't mind being here on Sunday, April 2 at 5:52 p.m. in beautiful, sunny Victoria, because this is where I live. I'm also pleased to be here because we are dealing with a very important issue. We're dealing with getting the school children back to school tomorrow. That's important, and I believe everyone on this side of the House supports that. So I am pleased about the issue, but I'm not altogether pleased about how we got here.

What's annoying is that we didn't have to be here today -- on a nice, bright, sunny afternoon -- because it could have occurred during a regular sitting day of the House. It could have occurred two weeks ago or even a week ago. The emergency and the concern are not new. We all know what has happened this past week. It was identified early enough. So why did we not have urgent debate sooner -- a week ago or even last Thursday before we adjourned? Perhaps we should even have stayed on the Friday. If we valued education as an essential service, we would have dealt with this as quickly as possible. But no, this government chose to wait yet another few days and to provide even more uncertainty.

The Leader of the Official Opposition and all members on this side of the House know that our students deserve an education that they can depend on. Their parents, our taxpayers, believe that what they're paying for is an education system that they can depend on for their children. We all recognize that importance. We know that so well, which is why a private member's bill was introduced by the Leader of the Official Opposition just last week. The Education As An Essential Service Act was introduced and tabled for first reading, yet this government has failed to bring it forward for second reading. At that time they should have realized that it was an urgent matter, and perhaps it should have been brought forward under the standing orders for full passage in one day -- second reading, committee stage, third reading. But that didn't happen.

The private member's bill that was introduced by the Leader of the Official Opposition says it all. The title explains it all. It reflects how we view the importance of education for our students, for our school children -- something that I don't hear being echoed by members on the government benches. What is important to note is that, as I understand it, it is the fourth time in seven years that the official opposition has sought the government's support for the declaration of education as an essential service in this province -- the fourth time in seven years. Each and every time this was brought forward, the government side chose to ignore it. Instead, it brings in emergency legislation to deal with a situation which was an emergency that was identified to them weeks ago.

Unfortunately, never once in those four times in seven years when a private member's bill was brought forward and introduced did any NDP government have the courage to bring that private member's bill forward for second reading. Not once did any government member on that side of the House have the courage to stand up in their caucus and say to their members: "Hey, everyone, this deserves to be looked at. Maybe we should bring it forward for second reading debate. Maybe we should iron out the things that we don't agree with. Maybe we should go through the committee stage, and just maybe we can pass the Education As An Essential Service Act with whatever amendments would work for the school children and the students of this province. Maybe then we can have something that works for the sake of our children."

But no one had the courage on that side of the House to stand up in their own caucus. Or if they did, I don't know, because I don't have the privilege of sitting in that caucus to find out just what kind of debate and discussions go on around the table in that room about whether education is an essential service or not.

Hon. Speaker, this government really needs to look no further than in the mirror to see who is to blame. It is time that this government takes responsibility for minimizing students' rights, such that students' rights take a back seat, whilst at the same time elevating the rights of their union leader friends instead.

[1755]

The point that also needs to be made here is that last week, the official opposition not only tabled and introduced an education as an essential service act but warned this government several times of what was around the corner. Each and every day we raised this issue, and each and every day we brought these concerns forward, the concerns that were expressed to us from our constituents throughout this province. I know that the members opposite heard them, because the members of this side of the House made sure that they did during question period and throughout the budget speech debate and through interim supply debate. They made sure that members on that side of the House knew there were very serious issues arising as a result of this action.

We had to share with them about the parents who are trying to find child care spaces for their children. We had to

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[1800]

[The Speaker in the chair.]

They knew a week ago that this was an urgent matter, and yet they dithered. Nothing happened until today. So rather than dealing with this warning, the government calls us back here today, Sunday afternoon, to introduce and debate legislation that they deem as urgent.

A part of this legislation is urgent -- no question, no doubt. We will in fact be supporting that, because we do believe our priority right now, right here today, is to get those students back in the classroom first thing tomorrow morning, and we will ensure that it happens. So the commitment is here, the commitment from this member -- myself -- and all members on this side of the House, that we're going to do whatever is necessary to ensure that those school children get the education they deserve.

But there is another part of this legislation that does not speak of any urgency, does not do anything to ensure that education is an essential service. So there is a stark and fundamental difference between members on that side of the House, on the government benches, and members on this side of the House, on the opposition benches. The stark difference and reality of it all is this: the B.C. Liberal opposition believes that education should be an essential service. So we will pass this bill for no other reason than our tremendous concern for the children and students of this province.

The difference is that the NDP government, instead, is more concerned about a free collective bargaining process as being the urgent matter here. If you were to look at the bill and how it was brought forth, you can see clearly that this legislation was not brought forth in good faith for the sole purpose of dealing with getting our students back to the classroom. It was, rather, brought forward to deal with a secondary issue, one that this government failed to address last year and the years before. It failed to address the issue until now that our 360,000 students are being dealt with and held hostage in this manner. I say shame to those members. Shame on them for allowing this to happen and for bringing forth a non-urgent matter as their priority, versus an urgent one.

This government should be listening to everyone, not only to the parents and taxpayers but also to the students of this province. They're the ones who are going to be suffering as a result of this government's inaction and gross negligence of duty. The students are the ones who are going to be feeling the pain of what has happened here.

As I continue my time here in this chamber, I am continually learning, and I am continually being amazed at what this government does in fact stand for. Out of one side of the mouth they speak about protecting education and health care as their highest priorities. Yet the contents of this legislation, Bill 7, are evidence that it is more about protecting free collective bargaining. But, hon. Speaker, I don't see anywhere where free collective bargaining is in jeopardy.

I want to be clear -- I want to be very clear -- about that, for the benefit of those who may have tuned in because they were channel surfing on a Sunday evening and who are watching these debates. Education as an essential service does not at all diminish the workers' democratic right to bargain. That's something that we have been trying to make very clear, yet the government members on that side of the House are refusing to listen to it. And I don't know if they're refusing to listen to this because they have been so swayed by certain of their supporters as opposed to being swayed by their own constituents, the ones that elected them to this chamber.

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It's important that students do not suffer the loss of crucial preparation time for the provincial exams. To me, that would make education an essential service. We should ensure that there is stability in B.C. classrooms and ensure that our children continue to receive education during times of labour unrest. So then, again, it would imply that education needs to be an essential service.

The needs, also, of special needs children are very great. They cannot always afford to lose any time in the classroom, because they are in need of special needs. How are they to catch up, unless their parents have to look at expensive private tutoring? So again, education as an essential service? I think so.

Parents, in the last week, have had to spend some of their hard-earned dollars -- the dollars saved from so-called tax cuts. They've had to pay that out already to deal with day care or babysitters over the past week. I won't diminish the value that some of them have placed on those hard-earned dollars. They've had to pay that out, and they're never to recover that.

But what has also hurt some parents is not so much the money but the time. Some of these parents who could not find the resources for the entire week have had to take time off from work. They've had to give up some of those wages. And if they haven't had to give up wages, what they had to do was stay at home and thereby use up some vacation time -- vacation time that would have been more valuable to them in the summer months, when their children are off, when they want to spend some time with them on a well-earned vacation that they have planned for some number of years or months. But that's not to be made up, because once again, the parents have lost that time. They've lost time and they've lost money. So, hon. Speaker, I find those very compelling reasons why we should have education as an essential service.

I want to go back to 1993 for a moment. I wasn't here at the time. On May 30, 1993, the then Labour minister -- the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin at the time -- brought in Bill 31. He said at that time, introducing the bill: "The purpose of this bill is to support collective bargaining where it is working and to fix it where it is broken. This bill puts students and teachers back in the classroom in Vancouver" -- where that was the problem -- "and serves notice to those districts still bargaining that it is time to conclude their negotiations expeditiously."

The first sentence of that comment -- that the purpose of the bill was to support collective bargaining where it was

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In 1993 a bill very similar to this was introduced, and I've read it through very quickly. I got a copy of that and read it through, and it very closely mirrors what we're seeing today. It begs the question: why are we repeating history in this way? Why did this government have to, after seven years, bring forward similar legislation if they could not fix it seven years ago? If they cannot fix it, then I tell them to move aside and let us have an opportunity to fix it -- and fix it right once and for all.

[1810]

While we've been convening in this chamber. . . . I have a youth group that I started in my constituency. I was supposed to meet with them today, but because I couldn't, I brought them to the Legislature and was able to have them convene their meeting here. They wanted to know if they would be going back to school tomorrow morning. These are secondary school students, and they're working on developing some important issues to be brought forward, perhaps by myself, to this Legislature. These young people wanted to know: "Will we be going back to school tomorrow morning?" I looked them in the eyes, and I said: "No matter what happens, you will be going back to school tomorrow morning, because we on this side of the House believe that education is an essential service. We will pass the legislation that is necessary to get you back in the classrooms, because we know how important education is to you. We will ensure that you get the education that you deserve." I told them that; I committed to that; I believe in that.

Hon. Speaker, I implore members on that side of the House to listen and listen well and to make sure that they will protect the educational rights of our students first and foremost so that we never, ever have to deal with this kind of legislation again. Look at our piece of legislation -- the piece of legislation that was tabled by the Leader of the Official Opposition. Be serious about it. Put the Education As An Essential Service Act in force, and let's get on with our students back in the classroom.

The Speaker: Hon. members, I said earlier today that I would be bringing back further clarification to the ruling I made earlier today. Today the House has been called together to consider legislation to end the support staff strike in the school system and to permit students to return to school tomorrow, April 3, 2000.

Upon introduction of Bill 7, Public Education Support Staff Collective Bargaining Assistance Act, the Government House Leader requested that the Speaker exercise discretion, pursuant to standing order 81, to permit the bill to advance through all three stages today.

Standing order 81 provides as follows: "Every bill shall receive three readings, on different days, prior to being passed. . . . On urgent or extraordinary occasions, a bill may be read twice or thrice, or advanced two or more stages in one day."

All parties in the House seemed to agree that part 1 of the bill qualified, in that it would put an end to the strike or lockout and provide a method through arbitration to bring the issues to an end. Exception was taken by members of the opposition to part 2 of the bill, which created a process for addressing the bargaining structure and which they considered did not coexist with conditions that would render the situation urgent or extraordinary.

The Government House Leader urged that the provisions were necessary to address a long-term solution to the problems identified in the special report of the industrial inquiry commission appointed last week. Having listened to the submissions of all members and considered the authorities, I stated that I was prepared to apply standing order 81 to allow the bill to proceed through more than one stage, but that I would provide further written reasons.

It is the practice in this House that the Speaker determines whether a bill may proceed through all stages in one day. Such rulings have been made with respect to interim supply acts on numerous occasions in anticipation of the imminent end of the government's fiscal year and with respect to emergency legislation to end labour stoppages. See Bill 34, intituled Metro Transit Collective Bargaining Assistance Act, 1984.

In 1996 at a special sitting of the House to deal with a labour stoppage, the Speaker found that the requirements of standing order 81 were not met with respect to a bill, and its form went well beyond the situation at hand -- namely, in Surrey. I have compared that bill with the one at hand and note that it applied to all collective bargaining, while the bill at hand is strictly addressed to the work stoppage in the various school districts and involving clearly identified groups. The definition of employer in section 1 and the enumeration of school districts in the schedule of the bill make its application specific.

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With that, I would now continue debate.

Hon. A. Petter: Hon. Speaker, I've listened with interest to the debate thus far. I heard some members on the other side referring to the fact that it was a sunny day outside. In fact, I think the member for Okanagan West said that members on that side of the House weren't smiling, because they were here as opposed to being outside on a sunny day. She noted, as well, that members on this side of the House weren't smiling. I want to assure all members of the House that it has nothing to do with the absence of us enjoying a sunny day that we're not

[ Page 14712 ]

I saw some television coverage of students in the last week. I was impressed that the students, despite the fact that they were concerned about their education, when asked by the interviewer, said: "There are important issues at stake here." They talked about the balance between workers' rights on the one hand and their right to education on the other -- the kind of balance that I haven't heard referred to by the members opposite. They too were struggling as students with some important issues.

Indeed, what this bill is about is balance. It's not about simplistic solutions, but about trying to achieve a balance between some very difficult choices, some difficult values: the right to education, which we all care about, and the right of workers to bargain collectively, which is an important value that's hard-fought and hard-won in our society. It's also a bill that reflects balance, and I lament the fact that the opposition doesn't celebrate that aspect of the bill but rather criticizes that aspect of the bill. It's a bill that speaks not only to the need to resolve the short-term challenge of getting workers back to work and schools open but also to the longer-term challenge of fixing the underlying problem. In that sense, it's a bill that speaks to the need for balance.

I really regret the fact that after what I thought was a remarkable presentation by the member for North Coast, the Minister of Energy and Mines -- going through some of the history and the difficult balances and choices that have to be made -- none of the members opposite has risen to that challenge and explained how they propose to declare education an essential service, on the one hand, without addressing some of these difficult choices and difficult balances. I've read the bill that was tabled by the Leader of the Opposition, and clearly that bill in no way reflects any thought about those difficult choices and difficult balances.

What I think people in this province want to see is a government that does wrestle with these issues, that doesn't come up with simplistic solutions that seem to solve a problem but don't, that does speak to the need to maintain some stability for workers and for students. These workers are part of the educational system. That's why I think this bill is a bill that merits support in this House. It doesn't provide easy answers. It tries to wrestle with a very tough situation that the people of this province understand is a tough situation, and they're not going to be likely to fall into what the opposition is suggesting -- that is, simply view this as though this is a matter of simplistic choices that can be made. They can't.

In respect of the value of education, which the members opposite speak so strongly about today in relation to this bill, the question here is not just that the doors to education be opened in the coming week -- which they will assuredly be if this bill passes, as I hope it does. It's what kind of education students get once those doors are open to them. Unfortunately, the members opposite have not shown the commitment to education in other ways that ensure that students will get that quality education when it comes to funding, when it comes to tuition policy in post-secondary education, when it comes to class size.

So I would urge the members opposite not to underestimate the people of British Columbia. The people of British Columbia understand that these are tough choices. They're looking for leaders who wrestle with the tough decisions that have to be made. They know that the simplistic answer may be convenient to opposition parties but does not provide the lasting solution that they want to see. I think that's why they are looking at the leadership on this side of the House as a leadership that does reflect the need to balance issues, to balance rights and not to jump to extreme or simplistic conclusions.

[1820]

There's been some reference made to the private member's bill which the Leader of the Opposition introduced -- I think last week or earlier this week, depending on whether Sunday is the beginning or the ending of a week -- the Education As An Essential Service Act. I join with all members of the opposition in putting forward the argument that, were education to be declared an essential service in the manner proposed by that private member's bill, we would in fact be beginning a process to structure a relationship, the proper relationship that education should have within the overall scheme of labour relations in British Columbia, including in particular labour relations in the public sector.

But I don't want anyone in this House to think that what we're proposing by this private member's bill is something which is drastically new, drastically different, totally radical. It is in fact nothing more or less than the continuation and the expansion of a theme that is very, very present in the statutes, the laws of British Columbia.

Section 72 of the Labour Relations Code of British Columbia -- as I'm sure you're well aware, Mr. Speaker -- is already there. It's already there; it's entitled "Essential services." One of the ways in which that section works is that if a dispute arises in a particular context -- an industrial relations dispute, a collective bargaining dispute, a labour dispute arises in particular ways -- then certain officials have particular powers.

In particular, the Minister of Labour is given the power to consider whether a particular "dispute poses a threat to the health, safety or welfare of the residents of British Columbia. . . ." If the minister forms that view, then "the minister may direct the board" -- that is, the Labour Relations Board -- to designate certain services as essential services, which would have the effect of ensuring that those services continue to be provided and supplied, notwithstanding the fact that there may be work stoppages as a result of a breakdown in collective bargaining.

So what the law does -- the law that we have already here before us as the law of British Columbia -- is recognize

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[1825]

I think that is actually one of those things that does raise a point of philosophy almost -- certainly a point of attitude and values -- which I think is a legitimate part of public debate and a legitimate area for political debate. We on this side of the House think that if you're trying to create a list of the circumstances in which the traditional rules around collective bargaining may need to be set aside to some extent, it's really important that we give effect to our sense of the primacy and the importance of public education as a critically important service delivered by government in British Columbia and as a critically important value of our life in society in British Columbia.

It's so important, from our perspective, that we think that it's one of those things that should be added to that very small but very important list that's already there in the law. We've got health, we've got safety, we've got welfare as being the ingredients of that little package that sits there in section 72 of the Labour Relations Code. We on this side of the House think that it's important to add education to that list, because our view is: education is so critically important to who we are as a society in British Columbia, to what we hope to achieve and to our future as a society that it's worth putting it there in section 72.

We think that when labour relations disputes interfere with the provision of public education services, we've lost something. We've lost something really valuable, something that we really should not lose. In the same way, when there's a threat posed by collective bargaining disputes to the provision of health care services or the provision of public safety police services, really, we have to be careful and ensure that notwithstanding the fact that there may be disagreements between an employer and his or her employees and that those disagreements may result in interference in the way in which work is provided, the essential services -- the service of ensuring that we are healthy, the service of ensuring that we are kept safe, and yes, the service of ensuring that our kids have access to public education, all of those things -- are too important to allow them to be disrupted by strikes to the extent of preventing any access to those services at all.

Essential service designation is one of those things that labour relations people talk about. There's a large body of jurisprudence around it. Anybody who has studied it for more than about a minute and a half knows that when you designate something as an essential service, you're not in fact precluding the right to strike; you're just ensuring that the service that is essential -- in this case it's education -- continues to be provided. I really do think that if that were the context within which we had collective bargaining taking place in the public education sector in British Columbia, we wouldn't be constantly dragged back here, as it seems we have been so many times in this past decade, to try and do that which is something we ought to avoid doing wherever we possibly can -- that is, dictating by law the requirement that people go to work.

I'm not going to spend much time talking about that, but truly it is something we should be very, very careful about doing. Tomorrow morning, if support staff union members in British Columbia do not go to work, notwithstanding what we do in this Legislature. . . . I certainly hope this doesn't come to pass, but if there are some of them who don't go to work tomorrow, they will be breaking the law. I think we ought to be very careful every time we create that situation in this House -- where people's actions will constitute a breach of the law.

[1830]

The history -- and the member for North Coast may have talked about this earlier -- is that when you have, in effect, top-down imposed decisions as to the terms and conditions under which people work, they don't work. They certainly don't work as a way of building good labour relations, and they tend not to work in any other way I can think of. When you take that approach and use it in the public sector, there's this further additional wrinkle, which I want to leave with you, Mr. Speaker. The track record is that when you use processes like this to resolve labour relations disputes in the public sector, the taxpayers end up paying more. Taxpayers always end up paying more when there is binding arbitration or an analogous process than when you have a process that is essentially free -- where the parties actually agree amongst themselves on the terms and conditions that will govern their employment.

I'm disappointed that we don't see and hear any recognition in the short term of better processes -- and I agree that

[ Page 14714 ]

What I think that leads me to is this: we're here because we have to get the kids back to school. We're going to support this bill -- in second reading, at any rate -- because that, we think, is the most important priority for us here today in this Legislative Assembly. In fact, there really isn't much else about this bill except one single fact that is worthy of support by anyone who's committed to principle labour relations, by anyone who's committed to creating a workable relationship between the public education sector employers and their employees, by anyone who's committed in the long term to building an environment in our schools which will encourage and ensure kids that they will in fact have a place to go, as opposed to a place to go and watch people fight about labour relations issues. We are here and we will support the bill because it will put the kids back in their schools.

But in just about every way that I can think of, the rest of this bill -- and we'll talk more about it later when we get to committee stage, because part 2 is truly mystifying -- commits a number of significant public policy errors. It really is a tragedy that we're here having to do this and, I think, finally and ultimately, a truly damning indictment of a bad and lamentable record of public sector labour relations coming from, of all people, the government that's supposed to know how to do this stuff. Yeah, I'll support Bill 7, but I'll do so with about as much reluctance as I can possibly muster.

[1835]

Hon. P. Ramsey: I'm glad to be able to close. . . .

S. Orcherton: Point of order, hon. Speaker.

The Speaker: The member for Victoria-Hillside rises on a point of order.

S. Orcherton: The point of order is that I didn't realize we were closing debate, and indeed I do have some brief remarks to make. If I could. . .to do that, I'd appreciate it.

The Speaker: Member, the Chair will recognize members who wish to participate in the debate. You can continue, please.

S. Orcherton: Hon. Speaker, I know that these are difficult times today -- very difficult times. Firstly, I want to say congratulations to you on your election as the Speaker. I wish I could be here under better circumstances to offer those congratulations.

Bargaining in British Columbia has a long history. It's a history that started at the turn of the century, with workers who did not have a legal standing to be able to withdraw their services, to today, where we have a system in place that provides a balance to the employer-employee relations in the province of British Columbia. It is a system that has, tied to it, the Labour Relations Board and has free collective bargaining, but it is a system where there are rules attached to that process. The reason that there are rules attached to the process in terms of the bargaining relationships in British Columbia is because at the turn of the century, the employer had all the authority and all the power, and that was wholly inappropriate. We've gone through a history in British Columbia of balancing the relationship between the employers and the employees in the province.

The question is: who has the power, and who has the authority? I've heard members from the other side of this House talking about essential services, talking about how they believe that essential services are an absolute requirement in the education system in the province of British Columbia. They may believe that, but there is a process in place in free collective bargaining that takes that out of the political and arbitrary hands of the people across the way.

I know the difficulties that people have been facing in the province of British Columbia because of this strike. I've got four children: one's out of school, one is in kindergarten, one's in junior high school, and one is indeed in grade 12. I've heard people make arguments to me in my community, and I've heard the arguments made here in this House that there should be some definition around grade 12 in terms of essential services. A B.C. Labour Relations Board decision numbered B-147/93 offered an opportunity to school boards to act and ask the board to make a determination around essential services. The decision was made by Stan Lanyon, the chair; Mr. Longpre, vice-chair; and Mr. Oleksiuc, vice-chair. If I can just read this for the members. It's very short.

"The teachers' right to strike has been enhanced in the new code with the deletion of educational services from section 72. The concept of welfare is broad enough to incorporate exceptional circumstances which may require the designation of essential services in education. The potential consequences of this dispute on grade 12 students brings this matter within such an exemption. The board will have its officers investigate the actual impact of the strike on grade 12 students."

[1840]

There are many professions that the members opposite could make some kind of determination on about being essential. Doctors were withdrawing services. Was that essential? I didn't hear them yelling about that. Health care workers go on strike from time to time. They use the process through the Labour Relations Board to define what are essential services. Maybe they think that garbage collectors should be essential, and there's probably a case to be made, but that case needs to be made at the Labour Relations Board.

This is a serious matter. Legislating workers back to work is a very serious matter. It should only be done after all the

[ Page 14715 ]

When I was elected to this assembly. . . . I have a history, as many will know, of representing working people, both union and non-union working people in British Columbia. I have advocated for positive changes in the Labour Code that allow a balance to be put in place between employers and employees in terms of the unionized sector in the negotiating processes. I've also argued in this House, and outside of this House prior to being elected, for changes in the Employment Standards Act for workers who have very little chance of maintaining any kind of balance with their employers. All of these things are in jeopardy.

There are two pieces of this bill, fundamentally. The second piece is a framework for support staff collective bargaining. That piece is a piece which I support. There's no question that this process has not worked. There's no question that if the members opposite had engaged in debate and discussion in our last sitting, this process would have had an opportunity to work, and perhaps we would not be here today.

The first section of this bill talks about putting workers back to work. I argue that all of the steps have not been taken. I argue, as well, that there is a mechanism to deal with a serious issue which my daughter has talked to me about, and that's around grade 12 education and writing exams. I cannot understand why the board and the B.C. Public School Employers Association did not exhaust this option. However, we are here today with this in front of us. While I support the framework, I am in a position where I cannot support the first piece of this legislation.

Thank you, hon. Speaker, for allowing me to bring those remarks.

M. Sihota: Hon. Speaker, first of all let me congratulate you on being selected as Speaker of the chamber. I haven't had an opportunity to speak, and I was somewhat indifferent about whether I was going to speak in second reading around this bill.

As I sat here and listened to the reaction from the members opposite with regards to the comments made by the member for Victoria-Hillside, I felt perhaps it was important to get up and say a few words about what they were chortling about on the other side of the House and also the situation that we find ourselves in.

[1845]

I think it is important to reflect on what's happened with that code, particularly at this time, over the last eight years since that code's been in place. It's important to note that the free collective bargaining process in this province has worked, and it's worked very well. In fact, it's important for all members, both on this side of the House and the other side of the House, to recognize that since this bill was introduced in this House we have had the fewest days lost to strikes since the Second World War.

It's demonstrated very well that you can have a period -- in fact, an unprecedented period in many ways in this province -- of remarkable labour-management stability through a piece of legislation that is not particularly interventionist and that allows for free collective bargaining to prosper. As a consequence, workers have prospered and businesses have benefited from the stability brought forward by the legislation.

That's not to say. . . .

Interjection.

M. Sihota: No. Investment, quite frankly has been very good in this province. In fact, particularly during the first three or four years prior to the downturn in the economy, it was very, very good in that regard.

Hon. Speaker, we have allowed as a government, however, when situations like this arise, opportunities for essential services to be invoked. The members opposite would have one believe that there is no opportunity through this legislation, our labour code, to deem provisions of education to be an essential service. I think the member for Victoria-Hillside makes an appropriate point. The Lanyon decision of May of 1993 demonstrated that the board was open to allowing for essential services designations, even in the field of education when it related to grade 12 students and their preparation for grade 12 exams. I think that demonstrated that the document we have in place is flexible in terms of being able to allow for a designation of essential services if and when required.

It is true that the collective bargaining process doesn't work at times, and we've also experienced that over the last decade. When that has occurred, this House has intervened, and it's taken all the risks that are associated with that intervention. In that regard, I think that was contemplated when we brought the bill forward in 1992 and is also appropriate.

Why? It's appropriate in this context: it's appropriate in terms of accountability. If government wants to intervene and thinks that the time has arrived for intervention to occur, then it ought to do it in a very public way, in the way that we're doing it here, rather than the sort of legislative mechanisms that have been in place in the past.

Therefore I have no problem with the Legislature having this kind of a debate. On one hand, it reinforces this side's commitment to free collective bargaining and sort of exposes the rather draconian approaches we'd find ourselves in terms of labour relations and the degree to which we'd turn back the clock if the members opposite were ever to secure power.

Now, I'm not comfortable with all of the provisions of the legislation that's before us. I would dare say many members in our caucus aren't particularly comfortable with every element that's here. We've gone through quite an elaborate process this week of trying to determine whether or not we should come forward to the House at this time and at this juncture with this bill. So that level of discomfort, I think, is found in all of us. It's expressed by all of us in different ways. The member for Victoria-Hillside deserves credit for being

[ Page 14716 ]

We'll move forward from this event, I'm sure, and continue to build on what has been a remarkable record for our government of labour stability in the province.

The Speaker: I now recognize the Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations to close debate.

[1850]

For the benefit of those who are watching us at home, I would say this: in spite of the much talk about it during the last few hours, I don't think that this debate is fundamentally about who values education more. That's not the issue we're deciding here today. Frankly, I think there are differences on the two sides of the House about what the hallmarks of support for education are and how we show that we think that the future of this province is in the education of our children. On this side we do believe that things like raising funding for education, lowering class size so that kids can get a better start in school, getting rid of portables, building new schools, hooking schools up to the Internet, providing them a modern and revised curriculum and linking education to work are really important things in having a high-quality education system -- and we're proud of them.

I do not think that the debate today is really about the necessity of getting children back to school on Monday. Both sides have spoken eloquently on their commitment to see the current dispute, which has broken out as a result of what the industrial inquiry commission called the "dysfunctional and stagnant" collective bargaining process, end and children go to school tomorrow.

I do think, however, there are some real fundamental differences between the two sides of the House on how you achieve what I believe is important in valuing people's right to organize and bargain collectively in a free and unfettered manner, with the right of students to have education. That, I believe, is the fundamental difference here.

I want to acknowledge, as I close second reading debate, the efforts of the many who worked hard over the past many months to settle these negotiations with freely negotiated collective agreements: first, the negotiators, both from the school trustees around the province and from CUPE -- they worked hard and long; second, the professionals from the Labour Relations Board and the Ministry of Labour, who worked with them, providing mediation services and seeking to assist the parties in getting to agreements. Particularly, I want to acknowledge the services of Vince Ready and Irene Holden, the industrial inquiry commissioners who worked so hard during the last week to bring these parties to resolution. Finally, I want to acknowledge the work of public servants who worked well with both sides to address issues surrounding the collective bargaining process.

In spite of their efforts over many months, heightened during the last two weeks, they have not been able to get to resolution of these intractable negotiations. The recommendations of Mr. Ready and Ms. Holden are clear: it is time to reform the bargaining structure. It is time to say that the dysfunctional and stagnant collective bargaining process that has not served the parties well be changed. What I have not heard -- I have not heard from the negotiators involved, I have not heard from the trustees, I have not heard from CUPE, I have not heard from mediators and I have not heard from the industrial inquiry commissioners -- is that there is a simple, one-size-fits-all solution to this, and that is simply to declare education an essential service. That is not the solution that is being proposed here; nor is it being proposed by the members who have actually been working with this in the field. That is a simple solution. I submit that it is fundamentally a wrong solution for ensuring that collective bargaining can proceed and succeed in the kindergarten-to-grade-12 system.

The provisions of this bill will enable us to do three things. They ensure that school opens Monday morning for the 360,000 children who have not been able to attend school for the last week. They enable us to build on the efforts of the industrial inquiry commission of the last week so that we can assure that settlements are reached without further disruption of education. Finally, they allow an independent commissioner to consider the problems of this dysfunctional and stagnant system and propose ways of making it work -- making it work for the workers in the education system, making it work for the trustees and, most importantly, making it work for the children who deserve an education in British Columbia.

Hon. Speaker, I'm pleased to move second reading of Bill 7.

[1855]

[1900]

PUBLIC EDUCATION SUPPORT STAFF
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ASSISTANCE ACT

Section 1 approved.

On section 2.

G. Hogg: Just a question with respect to the intent of this section.

Regarding section 2(d) -- ". . .any declaration, authorization or direction to go on strike given before or after the coming into force. . . " -- is the intent of this to allow bargaining to continue, to not continue? Or is the imposition similar to what we would look at in what we had proposed with respect to the essential services that we've talked about?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The act allows collective bargaining to continue where it is ongoing.

[ Page 14717 ]

[1905]

Hon. P. Ramsey: Section 2 essentially does two things. One, it requires a return to work; it requires no strike or lockout. It requires that the collective agreement that was in force on March 1, 2000, continues. It doesn't reference any of the particular observations or recommendations of the industrial inquiry commission of Mr. Ready and Ms. Holden.

G. Hogg: Just so I'm perfectly clear with respect to that, then, the intent is. . . . I'll rephrase that as a question. Is the intent therefore to change, at this stage, any of the abilities, with respect to BCPSEA and its rights with respect to the negotiating process with the school boards and the parts which it has delegated at this stage for sections under CUPE? Is there any intent throughout this to in any way mitigate any of the authority that might be contained currently by BCPSEA and the school boards?

Hon. P. Ramsey: It does not change the authority in bargaining, either of BCPSEA or of local school boards, other than that it forbids them to lock out their employees and mandates the continuation of collective agreements that are in place as of March 1, 2000.

G. Hogg: With respect to section 2(2), is there any impact or effect on those school boards which have already established an agreement? And is there any intent or impact with respect to what that might have on them? Has the minister or his staff examined and discussed with those school districts which have already established an agreement the impact that it might have on them? And is there any concern or issue expressed by them with respect to that?

Hon. P. Ramsey: If the school boards have a firm collective agreement in place, either one recently negotiated or one not so recently negotiated, they remain in force and are unaffected. If they have tentative agreements in place -- i.e., one that is subject to other procedure, has not been ratified by either party -- those are captured by the provisions of this act for resolutions of agreements.

M. de Jong: I just want to confirm that this section 2 is the portion of the act that ensures that students will be able to attend school tomorrow. Am I reading the act correctly?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Yes.

M. de Jong: Part and parcel of section 2 -- in ensuring that students have the ability to attend school tomorrow, as the objective that is being served by this part of the legislation -- is to ensure that employees are in place and that they are working pursuant to the terms of an existing collective agreement. Is that also correct?

[1910]

M. de Jong: So all that flows beyond this, sections 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, insofar as part 1 of the bill is concerned -- and I know we haven't gotten to these sections yet -- relates to the process by which you move from the provisions of a rolled-over agreement to something different, to other terms of settlement. Is that correct?

Hon. P. Ramsey: I would say to the member that generally you're correct. I think that section 3 is relevant to the extension of collective agreements. The schedule at the back clearly is, because it specifies, I believe where. . . . Yes, it's because "employee" and "employer" refer to the schedule, and this section makes reference to employees and employer. There are some links between this and other sections of the act. But in general the member is correct that section 2 is the heart of the provisions of the act that require resumption of work and reopening of schools tomorrow.

M. de Jong: Last question, I think. It's the government's position that section 2 within part 1 of this statute or within the broader context of the statute as a whole requires these additional provisions in order for it to represent a meaningful response on the government's part to the situation that has developed? It could not function, in the government's view, as a stand-alone provision to simply return students to the classrooms.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I would refer the member to the industrial inquiry commission. Mr. Ready made many recommendations. He did recommend the extension of agreements, as we are providing here, while the parties work out their ongoing differences. He did recommend that we need a process for sorting out remaining disputes and arriving at collective agreements. And he did say, with some vigour, that what he was seized with was -- in his words, and I've repeated them several times already -- a "dysfunctional and stagnant" collective bargaining relationship, which badly needed to be changed. He made all those references in his report.

Section 2 approved.

On section 3.

G. Hogg: Section 3 makes reference to "the right of an employer to suspend, transfer, lay off, discharge or discipline an employee in accordance with the collective agreement that is in force on the day. . . ." It's entitled "Other rights not affected." Can the minister advise as to whether or not it is contemplated or whether or not there is any intent that any other rights of the employer might be affected by anything contained in this section? There are not mentioned within this. . . . I want to be assured that there are no intended or contemplated limitations on the rights of the employer that may not be written or made explicit with respect to this section.

[1915]

[ Page 14718 ]

Section 3 approved.

On section 4.

G. Hogg: The minister, in making reference initially to the intent of the act, talked about the report of the industrial inquiry commissioners talking about it being dysfunctional and stagnating and about the bargaining process. There are obviously many variables that are associated with that. Is there any expressed intent on behalf of this section that there would be any specific or contemplated changes, with respect to the role of BCPSEA or school boards at this stage, that in any way might have any of their responsibilities with respect to the outcomes mitigated? Is there any expressed intent at this stage with respect to that?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Before I reply to the member's question, I just want to advise the House of who's with us assisting in making sure we have full legal understanding of this: Donald Chiasson, who's assistant deputy minister in labour relations; and Patrick Stanton, who is a policy adviser, labour relations, both in the Ministry of Labour.

Section 4 does not contemplate any change to the ability of workers and employers to continue bargaining. But there's an overriding thing here in that you are appointing an industrial inquiry commission who has, in subsequent sections of the act, the ability to determine the terms of a collective agreement. In that overarching thing, that obviously does change the rights of the bargaining agents -- both of them.

G. Plant: I think that last bit of the last answer may have dealt with the issue I had. I'll try again, to make sure I understand it. In section 4(1) there's part (a) and part (b). For the sake of the record, we're talking about the appointment of an industrial inquiry commission under section 79 of the Labour Relations Code. Part (a) is to provide assistance to employers and support staff unions to conclude collective agreements. I'll deal with part (b) in a minute.

I want, for a moment, to hold the two separately, and then we'll put them together. Holding them separately, subsection (a) doesn't really add anything to what's already there in section 79 of the Labour Relations Code. That power would exist to appoint such a commission under the law as it now is and for the purposes outlined in what is now subsection (a) of this new provision.

Hon. P. Ramsey: The short answer is yes, and I'll refrain from the longer one.

G. Plant: So the guts of this is actually subsection (b), which gives the industrial inquiry commission appointed under this provision, "if necessary," the power to "determine collective agreements under section 5 of this Act," which is conferring upon this statutory-designate, if you will, the authority to essentially make a collective agreement for the parties if they are unable to do so. We'll get to the details of that, I'm sure, when we look at sections 5 and 6.

[1920]

Hon. P. Ramsey: Yes, I think that's fair. Section 79 of the Labour Relations Code, while it provides for appointment of an industrial inquiry commissioner, does not contain in itself the ability of the commissioner to impose or arbitrate a collective agreement, unless of course the two parties actually, by themselves, would confer that power on the commissioner. Absent that, the commissioner would have no power, and it is this provision of Bill 7, section 4(1)(b), that confers that power on the industrial inquiry commissioner.

G. Plant: Functionally, it doesn't look to me as though at the end of the day, there's much difference between the authority given to this commission and a binding arbitration process. There may be, at some stages, some difference in process, but sooner or later what the government is doing is constituting, supposedly, a neutral third party decision-maker who is going to have to make a decision at the end of the day. That's pretty much the same whether you're in arbitration or in this process under these provisions in Bill 7.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Let me just say this to the member. Up until this point, I think we were in general agreement about how this works. I think there are some fundamental differences between how the industrial inquiry commissioner will conduct himself -- or themselves, in this case -- and how an arbitrator acts. An arbitrator essentially sits as a judge. Parties submit their positions to him or her, a decision is rendered or a collective agreement is imposed, and that's the end of it. What is contemplated here is far different. What is contemplated is first, as we talked about earlier, ongoing collective bargaining between the parties. Hopefully, in some cases at least, in spite of what I would say is a dysfunctional environment, some agreements can be reached there.

Further, the industrial inquiry commissioner -- commissioners, in this case -- will continue the work that they have done. That is essentially a process of identifying issues between the parties and seeking to mediate between them. It's a far different process than simple arbitration. If all that fails and there is no resolution between the parties, then indeed the commissioner has the authority to sort them out and say: "This is where the collective agreement lies." But as a far more extensive process, it's far more respectful of the role of the parties in sorting out their issues themselves than simple arbitration.

G. Plant: The process that the minister is referring to is the process that occurs within the 60 days after designation in the schedule. If the various other processes that the minister has talked about don't work within the 60 days, then at the end of the 60 days the commissioners will at that point essentially be in the judge-like position of having to make a decision. Is that a fair statement?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Roughly, I think that's accurate. There are some provisions for how that's exercised and time frames in subsequent sections, but in rough terms, I agree with you.

[ Page 14719 ]

[1925]

Hon. P. Ramsey: The provisions of the act are silent on that. As they negotiate, the parties will obviously put forward positions and, I would say, incorporate in them our assumptions about who pays.

G. Hogg: A number of school boards around this province have expressed a concern that there have been a number of decisions made by the provincial government that have resulted in costs to local boards -- costs which have not been fully funded. Therefore school boards are, as a result of decisions being made at the provincial level, burdened with costs and dollars which they're not able to pay. And they have been given authorities and responsibilities without the commensurate funding to support that. Is that an issue that could conceivably occur again with respect to this section?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The member raises a point that has little to do with the collective bargaining situation or the provisions of this act. It does have to do with policy matters in the broad education sector, and I'm sure you will raise those matters and others when we get into estimates around the Ministry of Education. It's always been my view as a former Minister of Education that provisions of a collective agreement should be funded, and we've sought to do that.

G. Hogg: Given those comments with respect to pay and costs associated with this section, I would like to propose an amendment and submit this amendment in my name. It's to amend section 4(1)(b) by adding the following: ". . .taking into consideration the employer's ability to pay." So it would be at the end of subsection (b): "if necessary, determine collective agreements under section 5 of this act, taking into consideration the employer's ability to pay." I would so move.

On the amendment.

G. Hogg: Just speaking to the intent and the policy behind this, it is again to avoid the possibility of further downloading of costly responsibilities without the commensurate ability of local boards to have access to paying for those responsibilities. So this gives a broader mandate and ensures that local authority, responsibility and control around those financial matters are held at a local level and their "ability to pay" is part of the decision-making process with respect to this.

The minister advised me earlier that it has always been his intent to ensure that there is commensurate funding with the responsibilities to go there. This allows the minister's desire and intent to be better addressed through this process. I appreciate the principle he was talking about, and we've been able to come up with an amendment that supports the minister's principle and intent with this. Hopefully the minister will see this as a very positive and friendly amendment to the principle that he highlighted earlier.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I regret to inform the member that I will be disappointing him in my reaction to this proposed amendment. I think that we are mixing two things here. This bill is about sorting out a bargaining process and making sure that kids stay in school, and getting in place a more functional bargaining regime in the K-to-12 sector.

[1930]

G. Hogg: In response to the minister's comment. . . . He made reference again to the dysfunctional nature that has taken place. It is my belief -- and certainly supported by discussions with a number of the boards around the province -- that part of that dysfunction which is inherent in the process is as a result of those decisions which have been made and not fully funded.

So not only do the majority of boards in this province, I'm sure, support this notion. . . . I again call upon the minister and, as he so clearly and eloquently stated the principle of maintaining that together, hope that in fact he will reconsider the position he's taken on that and allow the boards to have the local autonomy and authority which we have talked about on so many occasions.

Amendment negatived on division.

Section 4 approved.

On section 5.

G. Hogg: With respect to the intent of the full section 5, I'm wondering whether the minister would again just give us the public policy statement behind that. His comment earlier when he went to speak to the principle was one which I found most enlightening -- upon which to base the decisions by which legislation comes forward. So if the minister would show me or state to us -- this House -- the principle behind the intent of this section, so that we can clearly again get back to base and understanding with respect to this.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Since the member asked me to comment on all of section 5, I will. First of all, it provides for a period of some 60 days after they're designated in the schedule for collective bargaining to proceed. If that 60 days, another two months, of hard work with the assistance of any personnel that the industrial inquiry commissioner feels are appropriate -- mediators or other facilitators to enable parties to reach a conclusion. . . . If after that period -- again, being respectful of the parties' ability to work things out themselves -- they do not succeed, then the industrial inquiry commissioner must, within a period of an additional 15 days, make a decision on a collective agreement between employer and support staff union.

[ Page 14720 ]

Finally, the IIC decision must provide that the renewed or revised collective agreement takes effect from a date set out in the decision so that you have some continuity. Those are the basic principles of how you get to a collective agreement under section 5.

[1935]

But then we get to "Part 2 -- Framework for Support Staff Collective Bargaining." As I look at this, it seems to me that the intention is that whatever results from -- whatever is expected to result from -- the putting into effect of part 2 would take effect for the next round of negotiations, presumably, and not operate retroactively to try and force everyone to go back into this current situation. So we've got the collective agreement that's going to get implemented as a result of the process talked about in part 1 and then, in part 2, a process for rearranging the framework so that negotiations in subsequent collective agreements will proceed according to a new framework. Is that a correct reading of the process?

Hon. P. Ramsey: I'm sure we'll have ample opportunity to debate the provisions of part 2 when we get to it in the bill. I'll say only this: part 1 and this mechanism for resolving collective agreements apply to parties that are in dispute. What date a revised bargaining structure might take place is a matter for the commissioner to determine under part 2.

G. Plant: But we're not going to have the situation where we go back and renegotiate whatever agreements are implemented as a result of part 1 or as a result of the negotiations that have already taken place. We're not going to reopen all of that, are we?

Hon. P. Ramsey: No.

Section 5 approved.

On section 6.

G. Hogg: I'm sure the minister is aware of -- and I've seen reports that other members of the executive of the government have talked about -- the impact of binding decisions. The binding decisions would run out of the control of government. A binding decision -- a lot -- would have government having less input, less management, less control of an outcome.

I wonder whether the minister could tell us what the government's feeling is with respect to binding decisions and the impact that that will have on ability to pay -- on all of the other issues which we had spoken about earlier in section 4.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I think we're revisiting some of the territory we covered before. I mean, people from this side of the House and, I think, even from that side of the House have said clearly that the preferred option is agreements reached by the parties between themselves. That is the greatly preferred outcome in collective bargaining. For this side of the House, at least, we don't think binding decisions should be the rule. This is, as I said when I introduced it, done with considerable regret. But given the failure of the parties to resolve their differences under the current environment, it is something that we have included provisions for in the legislation.

G. Hogg: There has been much discussion with respect to the half a million dollars which has been involved in the negotiating process to date -- that was made available. Is the minister prepared to say that such commitments to unions within the process, which would ultimately be binding in this instance. . . ? Is the minister prepared to say that that's not something which has in any way been contemplated through any portion of this section or other parts of this?

Hon. P. Ramsey: It is not contemplated by this section or other provisions of the act.

[1940]

I'm not persuaded that in the particular and unique circumstances of this case, it is in fact necessary now, at this stage, to move directly to the point where, by legislation, we have to create what amounts to binding arbitration. There's a lot in other provisions in this bill, including the ones we've just passed, that gives the industrial inquiry commission renewed authority, renewed vigour, renewed influence -- the ability to go and talk and find out what the problems are, to mediate and perhaps even in due course to find out what the structural issues are and to bring those back to this Legislature for resolution, if that's the right way to deal with the problems.

I'm really unhappy that the government has thought that the way to solve this particular series of disputes is to in fact give the industrial inquiry commission the power to make binding decisions. I think that's not in the interests of the parties. I don't think it's in the interests of school children; I don't think it's in the interests of taxpayers. There's all kinds of research that demonstrates that in the long run when you use this process, you do erode the basic atmosphere for collective agreements, collective bargaining. Also, I think you affect the taxpayers in ways we really should struggle to avoid.

It seems to me that we've reached the point where we've got the kids back to school, and we've got a process in place

[ Page 14721 ]

I'm going to invite the minister, on that basis, to stand down section 6 of this bill and to say: "Let's move ahead without it, and let's not do any further damage to the labour relations climate in the public school system than we have to." The way to do that, I think, is to call a halt to section 6. I'd be interested in the minister's comments on that suggestion.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I think the member opposite and I agree on some part of the effect of this section on collective bargaining. As I said in my second reading comments, obviously this side of the House thinks that free collective bargaining should be the norm and that we should violate it as few times in as few circumstances as possible. I must advise the member, though, that I do respectfully disagree with him. I think this is one of those times.

I would simply ask him to look at the process over the past year of the parties seeking to reach agreement on their bargaining issues with mediation, with the assistance of an industrial inquiry commissioner, with all sorts of assistance. Regrettably, in the majority of cases, they have not been able to come to an agreement. It is appropriate in such a circumstance to set a firm end point for the work of collective bargaining, provide additional assistance during that time -- which the industrial inquiry commissioner is charged with doing -- and then to have a process for final resolution.

I would point out that Mr. Ready and Ms. Holden, in their recommendations to the Minister of Labour, said clearly that some sort of binding process was needed. I don't think either of those individuals welcomes that sort of responsibility; it's not something they seek. Their entire professions have been built around enabling parties to find resolution by themselves. But in this case, what they said is that there should be a dispute resolution mechanism after a set number of days of local bargaining, with the assistance of mediation, and that the mechanism must lead to final and binding decisions by the IIC.

[1945]

I'll just say -- sort of from my professional experience as a lawyer -- that oftentimes parties who are having a bit of trouble doing the deal that they need to do give up on the process, because they know that at some point they can hand the problem to a third-party dispute resolution person, be it a judge. . . . I've actually been in situations where the third party -- the arbitrator, the judge -- has said: "Well, I'm not satisfied that you guys have tried hard enough yet. I'm not going to help until you actually, really work at it."

Now, there may be problems in this relationship. There clearly appear to be problems in this relationship. There may be problems in trying to sort their way through this relationship. But I think that this act, up to the point of section 6, creates a bit of a new framework, a bit of a new impetus and a bit of a new opportunity to actually come to terms with the decisions that have to be made. If we add section 6 to that mix, we may be taking all the incentive away. All the parties know that no matter what they say or who says what, if they wait long enough, the commissioner will come along and make a decision.

I think we should try here to break out of that cycle of labour relations, which hasn't been working in the public education sector. Goodness knows we passed a whole bunch of bills to try to fix it, including one as recently as 1998. We should try a little creative thought right now to break out of that cycle and not give everyone what they want but force them back to the table with a bit of this new process to try to sort their problems out themselves.

I'll have to say this: I can't support section 6. I think it sends the wrong message, sends the wrong signal, and takes the wrong step if we really do want to try not only to solve the problem and to get the kids back to school but to create the beginning of a relationship that's going to work.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Maybe I'll just speak a little bit from my experience as a bargainer and administrator of collective agreements, both for workers and for management. In my experience, a third-party intervention is not welcomed. Parties seek to resolve issues among themselves before third-party decisions are made, because you never know what the judge is going to do. They'd vastly prefer to work it out among themselves.

Having said all that, these parties are having more than what the member calls a "bit of trouble" in sorting things out. In some cases the school districts and the support sector unions have been in negotiations for one or two years. This is more than a minor difficulty, so with respect, I accept the advice of Mr. Ready. Having looked at what he calls this "dysfunctional and stagnant" bargaining relationship, I accept his advice that there must be an end point and support the provisions of section 6.

G. Hogg: The incentives inherent in the accord process for coming to agreement in the collective bargaining process were not successful in this instance, to this point in time. Is the government contemplating, in this section or in any other portion of Bill 7, that the accord process is concluded, or is it the intent to continue with the accord process and the impact it might have with respect to this bill?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The bill does not speak to the efforts of public servants to work with both parties in these disputes to resolve non-collective agreement issues -- so-called accord processes. The bill does not speak to them at all.

[1950]

Hon. P. Ramsey: The accord process goes on. The parties -- and remember, there are three parties -- seek to reach agreement on them, but it is not affected by this bill.

[ Page 14722 ]

Hon. P. Ramsey: The role of either BCPSEA or individual school boards does not change as a result of the provisions of section 6.

[1955]

YEAS -- 35
Evans	Doyle	McGregor
Sawicki	Kwan	Lali
Hammell	Pullinger	Bowbrick
Mann Brewin	Boone	Calendino
Zirnhelt	Randall	Robertson
Sihota	Cashore	Conroy
Smallwood	Miller	MacPhail
Dosanjh	Petter	Lovick
Priddy	Ramsey	G. Wilson
Farnworth	Waddell	Gillespie
Streifel	Kasper	Giesbrecht
Goodacre		Janssen

NAYS -- 35
Whittred	Hansen	C. Clark
Campbell	Farrell-Collins	de Jong
Plant	Abbott	L. Reid
Neufeld	Coell	Chong
Sanders	Jarvis	Anderson
Nettleton	Penner	Weisgerber
Weisbeck	Nebbeling	Hogg
Hawkins	Coleman	Stephens
J. Reid	Krueger	Thorpe
Symons	van Dongen	Barisoff
Dalton	Roddick	Masi
McKinnon		J. Wilson

The Chair: As there is a tie vote, the Chair must cast a vote. I vote in favour, preserving the status quo. The section is passed.

[2000]

On section 10.

G. Hogg: The history of our current negotiating process has been outlined at some length. For some 20 years there have been successful negotiations occurring with the local boards at the local level. Part 10 talks about modifications, inquiries, structures, practices, procedures with respect to the impact that might have on that. Can the minister advise us of the intent behind making some major modifications without looking at moving to the essential services legislation, which we have contemplated on this side of the House, and the intent for the changes, given that there has been an experience that has been comparatively positive beyond the most recent experience?

Hon. P. Ramsey: I guess I would disagree with the member opposite that the recent experience in support staff bargaining in the K-to-12 sector has been positive. I would tend to agree with Mr. Ready and Ms. Holden that what we are seeing is the result of a dysfunctional and stagnant bargaining relationship that needs serious examination and possible change. That is why in his comments, Mr. Ready makes the need for that very important. He says in his report:

"Our mandate does not grant us the jurisdiction to alter the current collective bargaining structure. However, given our strong view that it was the breakdown in the bargaining process that has led to this strike, we would be remiss if we did not strongly recommend to the parties and the government that the collective bargaining structure in the K-to-12 education sector for support staff be revised to provide for meaningful collective bargaining and thus avoid a dispute of this nature in the future."

G. Hogg: While I would certainly concur with the comment you just made as it makes reference to the most recent experiences with respect to this, clearly there are some vested responsibilities with respect to where negotiations may take place. This contemplates the ability of the minister, through a commissioner, to be making some significant fundamental shifts of the onuses of responsibility for decision-making around the collective bargaining. And it looks like there's certainly the dramatic potential for that shift to be coming provincewide or vested within the province or a structure which would reflect the intent of the province, rather than being vested in local authorities.

My question to the minister is: is that something that is being contemplated with respect to this section, or is that something that is outside the parameters of this section?

[2005]

Actually, we don't know who the commissioner is going to be here. I should back up a little bit. There's been no decision made on who would be appointed to inquire in this matter. But clearly the commissioner has a responsibility to go out, listen, consult and inquire into what's working and what's not working in the view of all parties and all people concerned with the bargaining structure. This is surely not a matter where the commissioner would simply go away and write a set of recommendations without doing that sort of work.

G. Hogg: To ensure that I perfectly understood the statements from the minister, then there is no intent on this government's part, at this stage, to be shifting any of the locuses of control and responsibility with respect to decision-making from any of the local authorities. Is that a correct interpretation of what the minister just stated?

Hon. P. Ramsey: No, there is not. Obviously the commissioner has the ability to recommend in that matter, as in many others. But we are not, in this section, prejudging what recommendations the commissioner might make.

[ Page 14723 ]

Hon. P. Ramsey: I'll refer to my comments at second reading. The answer is yes, we see the necessity of the act for getting kids in school, finding ways to get to agreements in spite of the sort of bargaining structure that Mr. Ready describes and then seeking, through an inquiry, to find ways of repairing that structure.

G. Plant: My question was probably way more ornate than it should have been. Here's my confusion. In part 1, section 4, of the act, which we passed, the Minister of Labour must appoint the industrial inquiry commission that's referred to there. But in section 10 -- the one we have before us now -- it reads that the Minister of Labour may appoint a commissioner, which means the minister may not appoint that commissioner. It's not clear to me why this is so gosh darn important to the government that we are expressing this in permissive terms, whereas apparently it was really, really important in section 4 that it be expressed in mandatory terms. Is there some rationale for the difference in approach?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The member is right in that the word is "discretionary." I think that in the way we brought it forward and the importance that we placed on it today. . . . We think that attending to this is part of repairing a structure that has led to a really regrettable breakdown in collective bargaining. The parties themselves do not seem to be able to reform it into a way that works. It's time to see if we can sort it out with a third-party investigation.

G. Plant: I read section 10 through as carefully as I could in the time available, and I know, as the minister does, that under section 79 of the Labour Relations Code -- we've already been there for another purpose -- the minister has the power to appoint an industrial inquiry commission. Those powers are expressed in pretty broad terms. I'm going to venture to suggest that in fact there's nothing in section 10 that goes beyond what already exists in section 79 -- that is, in fact, the inquiry commission that is talked about in section 7 could have been appointed yesterday by the Minister of Labour under the existing provisions of section 79 of the Labour Relations Code without coming here to inflict this on us in a separate bill. Is there something that is in section 10 that is different from -- that is not permitted by -- the existing section 79 of the Labour Relations Code?

[2010]

G. Plant: The answer, although it wasn't given, is that there's nothing in section 10 that isn't already permitted by section 79. I gather the theory behind this is to lead to section 11, which we'll get to in a moment, and section 11 allows the minister to make regulations. I'm tempted to ask why the government didn't actually appoint the commissioner that it could have appointed yesterday, last week, six months ago or a year ago under section 79 to do all of the things that are talked about in section 10. It clearly had the power to do that; it clearly knew there was a problem. I'm sure the minister's answer would be less than illuminating. . . . I did want to make sure that I understood the point -- that really in section 10 there 's nothing that isn't already permitted by section 79 of the Labour Relations Code. Surely that's correct.

Hon. P. Ramsey: The member is correct in that there's nothing in here that would not be permitted. What we have sought to do is to lay out in some detail the matters that a commissioner would be looking under. I thought it was important to do that, particularly since it does lead, as the member referenced, to a process for adopting those recommendations and changing the structure of bargaining.

G. Hogg: The minister has assured us that there is no implicit intent to shift authority or responsibility in terms of the negotiating process for the local authorities or structures which are in place. I'm sure the minister will allow this side of the House to be somewhat skeptical when we look at a number of provisions which seem to be paving the way for that opportunity to take place within the context of this, such as subsection (2)(b), sub (3)(a) and sub (4)(a). Therefore the only solace I've been able to garner from the minister is that he assures this side of the House that there's no implicit intent for any of that to occur. But certainly I remain skeptical, given the number of avenues which appear to have been paved to allow those types of shifts to take place. With that comment, I'm prepared to move on.

[2015]

On section 11.

G. Plant: Just a quick one to begin with. Section 11 is this regulation-making power, and I must admit that it's an interesting thing to try and figure out how it works in relation to the Labour Relations Code, the public service. . . . There's a plethora of legislation that seems to now apply. This is going to be one more bill that's going to deal with this.

Let's say that the inquiry commission, under section 10, makes 100 recommendations and that the Minister of Labour only likes 99 of them. Section 10 is only triggered if the minister accepts all of the recommendations made. If I were a cynical skeptic, I might be of the view that you're looking around for a very sympathetic commissioner. In fact, maybe somebody in the government is already writing the report of the commissioner, because that's how you're going to know you're going to accept all of the recommendations. Why is it that the triggering is that the Minister of Labour has to accept every single one of these recommendations before having any of the powers under section 11?

[ Page 14724 ]

G. Plant: It's all or nothing, though. The minister has still has the ability, because the minister doesn't like one of the recommendations, to in effect say no to all of it -- in which case, we're no further ahead.

Hon. P. Ramsey: You are correct -- a situation devoutly to be avoided.

V. Anderson: With regard to section 11, I was curious. Does this section mean that if the minister accepts these recommendations, which could be major changes to the whole process, the Minister of Labour is able to go ahead and do these changes without any reference to the Legislature in doing it?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Yes, that is the process.

G. Hogg: Just in reference to the minister, I assured the House some short time ago that there was no implicit intent to shift responsibilities. Will the minister agree that section 11-- section 11(2)(a), (b), (e), and (f) -- is peppered with the opportunity for those major shifts in responsibility to take place and therefore certainly gives rise to some concern that there is some implicit motivation which would result in some effective change with respect to the loci of responsibility in terms of decision-making?

Hon. P. Ramsey: If we are to reform the dysfunctional environment, surely the things that the member references need to be looked at. It does reference a structure both on the employers' side and employees' side -- union side -- in making this structure work better. It's simply makes explicit what the commissioner would have to be considering in looking at reforming the collective bargaining process.

[2020]

YEAS -- 35
Evans	Doyle	McGregor
Sawicki	Kwan	Lali
Hammell	Pullinger	Bowbrick
Mann Brewin	Boone	Calendino
Zirnhelt	Randall	Robertson
Sihota	Cashore	Conroy
Smallwood	Miller	MacPhail
Dosanjh	Petter	Lovick
Priddy	Ramsey	G. Wilson
Farnworth	Waddell	Gillespie
Streifel	Kasper	Giesbrecht
Goodacre		Janssen

 

NAYS -- 35
Whittred	Hansen	C. Clark
Campbell	Farrell-Collins	de Jong
Plant	Abbott	L. Reid
Neufeld	Coell	Chong
Sanders	Jarvis	Anderson
Nettleton	Penner	Weisgerber
Weisbeck	Nebbeling	Hogg
Hawkins	Coleman	Stephens
J. Reid	Krueger	Thorpe
Symons	van Dongen	Barisoff
Dalton	Roddick	Masi
McKinnon		J. Wilson

The Chair: As there is a tie again, the Chair will vote. I vote in favour, to preserve the status quo.

[2025]

Schedule approved.

Title approved.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I move the committee rise and report Bill 7 complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

Bill 7, Public Education Support Staff Collective Bargaining Assistance Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

The Speaker: Members, His Honour the Administrator is in the building, and he'll be here shortly. If members could keep their seats.

[2030]

Clerk Assistant:

Public Education Support Staff Collective Bargaining Assistance Act

In Her Majesty's name, His Honour the Administrator doth assent to this act.

His Honour the Administrator retired from the chamber.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Hon. D. Lovick moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 8:31 p.m.

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