2000 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 36th Parliament
HANSARD
The following electronic version is for informational purposes
only.
The printed version remains the official version.
(Hansard)
THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 2000
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 20, Number 2
[ Page 16105 ]
The House met at 2:06 p.m.
D. Jarvis: I'd like to introduce a constituent of mine, Mr. Guy Heywood, from North Vancouver-Seymour. He's also a school trustee, here to view some of the Education estimates. Would the House please make him welcome.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I want to make an introduction today on behalf of the member for Nanaimo and myself. I'm delighted to introduce someone who is visiting here from Norman Wells in the Northwest Territories. She's a councillor in that town and very involved in her community. She's also the first woman instrumentation technologist in Canada and currently maintenance planner for Imperial Oil Resources. Probably most important, she is the mother of Trina Somers, who lives with my son -- who's my son's partner. So would the House please make welcome to British Columbia and to the House today Elaine Somers, who we're delighted to have with us.
L. Reid: I'd like the House to welcome this afternoon Mr. Ravi Embar, who is visiting us from the riding of Richmond East.
D. Streifel: I have visiting me and touring the precincts today somewhere around 50 or 55 students from Edwin S. Richards Elementary School in Mission. I've had a good, lively interchange with them on the front steps and in the building. I bid the members make them welcome.
Hon. C. McGregor: It's my pleasure to introduce again in this session my daughter Cara McGregor, who's visiting here today, as well as her friend Sean Baker. But if the House would indulge me for just a moment -- I want to be a proud mom -- Cara has been accepted to the University of Victoria into her third year. She has just newly been informed that she is a recipient of a $2,000 entrance scholarship, so would you join in congratulating her.
Hon. A. Petter: In the gallery today are two special visitors from England who are visiting in Victoria and have decided to witness proceedings today. They are Michael and Dale Jackson from Chiswick, near London. I'd like all members to please join me in making them feel very welcome.
SALE OF FAST FERRIES
D. Symons: You know, on March 13 the minister responsible for B.C. Ferries told us that the fast ferry experiment was over. The vessels would be sold. We have a copy of the request for proposal of B.C. Ferries to hire a sales consultant for the fast ferries. It shows that the minister was not telling the whole truth.
Some Hon. Members: Oh, oh!
The Speaker: Member.
D. Symons: The RFP states that B.C. Ferries' preferences for disposing of the vessels are -- and I quote
The Speaker: Member, could you take your seat, please. I would ask the member to withdraw the comments and to rephrase his question.
[1410]
D. Symons: Well, I would withdraw anything that was offensive. I guess the minister was not entirely accurate in describing what they were trying to do.
The RFP states that B.C. Ferries' preferences for disposing of the vessels are the unconditional sale at an attractive price, sale with vendor financing or leasing vessels to operators. Will the minister tell us why she didn't tell us that her government is actually considering leasing the fast ferries, which means the B.C. taxpayer could be stuck with these lemons again in the future when the lease ends?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Hon. Speaker, our intent is to sell the B.C. fast cats.
The Speaker: The member for Richmond Centre has a supplemental question.
D. Symons: Well, it certainly seems, when we look at the request for proposal for becoming consultants for the sale of these fast cats, that they're considering something other than selling them.
Another option that they had for the disposition of the fast ferries was to sell them with financing provided, courtesy of the poor B.C. taxpayer who had to pay for these lemons in the first place.
The minister told us a few months ago that they were going to get rid of the fast ferries by selling them to the highest bidder. And now we might be going into the business of financing these fast ferry lemons. Will the minister tell us why her government now appears to be backing off from the promise to get these ferries off the backs of the B.C. taxpayer once and for all?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Just a short review of Liberal history, if I might for a moment. When the auditor general's report came out on the project of building the fast ferries, the Liberal opposition slammed the government of the day for not having enough information in making decisions, for making decisions too quickly and for not taking the interest of the taxpayers into account. What we are doing
Interjections.
Hon. J. MacPhail: So today, hon. Speaker, they can applaud themselves all they want, but they can't have it both ways.
This government will take all of the information available about the options. The intent is to sell the fast ferries. But we are going to represent the taxpayers to the utmost in this. We will use all available information, weigh all of that information and make a firm decision in the interest of the taxpayers. And the intent now is to sell the fast ferries.
G. Farrell-Collins: Well, if anything should send a shiver down the back of the taxpayers, it's to think that this government is going to stand up for the taxpayers of British Columbia.
[ Page 16106 ]
Mr. Speaker, we've heard repeatedly that the government's intent is to sell them. We've heard it again from the minister today. Yet the request for proposal states clearly that the three options available for this RFP are (1) unconditional sale at an attractive price, (2) sale with vendor financing, and (3) leasing the vessels -- in which case we get them back at the end of five years, like the ferry that's sitting out there at Ogden Point.
So my question to the minister is: which is it? Are you going to sell the ferries, or are you going to lease them? What are the options for the people of British Columbia?
Hon. J. MacPhail: It's the same question, hon. Speaker. What this opposition refuses to recognize is that the government has moved on from past practice. You may want to say that the past practice is the same as before, but it isn't. We are seeking all available information, we will review all available options, and we will make the right decision about the future of these vessels. Our best information now is to sell the vessels. That's what the board of directors recommended. The Liberal opposition failed to say that the other day. That's what cabinet information from having independent consultants is; that's what we want to do. But we're going to do it if it makes the right decision, and all available information now is that to sell it is the right decision.
The Speaker: The Opposition House Leader with a supplemental question.
G. Farrell-Collins: This is the government's document. The closing date for this RFP is May 1, 2000 -- a month ago. The closing date was a month ago. In that document
It gives three options. It doesn't give one option. It doesn't say that we're going to sell them. It says that we might sell them; we might lease them; we might finance them. So will the minister tell us -- will she confirm today -- that the taxpayers of British Columbia will not be left holding these ships after a lease expires and will not have to finance the sale of these vessels?
[1415]
Hon. J. MacPhail: What our government is committed to do is represent the best interests of the taxpayer.
RESTAURANT HEALTH REGULATIONS
A. Sanders: Today we learned some unsettling details about a number of restaurants in the lower mainland. We know that health officials are frustrated as they try to shut down restaurants that have repeatedly -- repeatedly -- broken numerous health regulations, from rat infestations to filthy kitchens. Toronto health officials are able to post today recent health reports in the restaurant for all consumers to see. Will the minister responsible agree that consumers deserve to be made aware of serious infractions and places that continually make those infractions and change the regulations so that health officials can post a report in that particular restaurant for everyone to come and see?
Hon. M. Farnworth: That is an extremely important question, because I don't think anyone should have to worry about the health status of a restaurant in this province, whether it's in Vancouver, whether it's in Coquitlam, whether it's in Prince George or wherever it is. We place a high priority on ensuring that health and safety regulations, as they apply to restaurants, are in place, and we are happy to work with the health authorities to do whatever it takes to ensure that that in fact is the practice in the province.
The Speaker: The hon. member for Okanagan-Vernon has a supplementary question.
A. Sanders: Right now that isn't the regulation in the province. We need those new regulations, and we need them now. Vancouver does a very good job of checking its restaurants once a year. And still, even despite that, in a small number of places you've got plaster gaps, food scraps, mice scats, big rats, floor stick, grease stick, cockroach food -- to set the mood.
Does this minister wish to see "pied piper" in his legacy? Or is he going to assure consumers that every restaurant in B.C. will have a current restaurant inspection performed, knowing that most communities don't have the money to do that?
Hon. M. Farnworth: I'm more than happy to put in place new regulations. I can think of one restaurant in particular that was closed down, in my own particular constituency, because of rat droppings -- large rat scats and a whole host of things around cockroaches. If they'd spent less time advertising Liberal campaign signs at the last election -- which were all over their front window -- and paid more attention to cleanliness, they wouldn't have had the shutdown notice that came after the election.
TAXATION REVIEW FOR NON-PROFIT
COMMUNITY REBROADCASTING SERVICES
G. Abbott: I don't think we need to take any lessons from the government on rat control. I think they'll hold their own there.
New subject, hon. Speaker. The community of Enderby has had, for well over 40 years now, a non-profit TV rebroadcasting service. Now, they don't have real lavish facilities; in fact, their one facility is an 8-by-8-foot cement block building. Despite their modest premises, they recently received a tax bill for nearly $1,000.
Two years ago we were promised a review by the then Finance minister that she'd look into this. And still the societies are receiving these ridiculous property tax notices from the Ministry of Finance. Could the current Finance minister tell us why his ministry continues to drive these non-profit volunteer community societies into the ground through these ridiculous taxes?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I'll take the question on notice.
[1420]
The Speaker: The member for Shuswap has a new question.
G. Abbott: This is not a new issue. We've raised this issue in the past; we've been promised action by the government.
[ Page 16107 ]
The response simply isn't good enough. There are thousands of people in the interior of British Columbia -- in fact, in all parts of British Columbia -- that depend on these rebroadcasting societies. Will the minister promise us today
Hon. P. Ramsey: I've committed to investigating this seriously. I took the question on notice. If the member wants to do casework in question period, it's his right. But he can't expect detailed answers to specific casework in question period.
The Speaker: The member for Shuswap has a further supplemental.
G. Abbott: Can the minister advise what happened to the last review of this, which was apparently undertaken two years ago?
REGULATIONS CONCERNING STARTUP
OF ECOTOURISM COMPANY
M. Coell: The ecotourism company, Planet Explorer, recently began Canadian operations based in my riding in Sidney. Like all ecotourism companies carrying passengers, they had to undergo a tedious application process to produce a National Safety Code certificate, community support statements, their business plan and their financial statements, to post an application in the local newspapers for 21 days and then attend a government-sponsored public meeting. Can the minister responsible for the Motor Carrier Commission explain why small ecotourism companies are faced with this much red tape and regulations, just to pick up a half dozen passengers from the airport?
Hon. H. Lali: I agree with the hon. member that it is unacceptable to have the kind of delay that it has had. But the hon. member must also understand that the Motor Carrier Commission is an arm's-length agency, and I have no involvement in the day-to-day goings on of the Motor Carrier Commission's operations. He fully understands that. I know that the Motor Carrier Commission is reviewing this matter and has been in contact with both parties.
The Speaker: The member for Saanich North and the Islands has a supplemental question.
M. Coell: Planet Explorer operates tours on six continents and in three oceans and is the kind of ecotourism company this province needs. By making their successful small businesses threatened because the Motor Carrier Commission hasn't extended their licence beyond the end of August, can the Minister of Transportation tell us if he is prepared to allow a successful, job-creating, tax revenue-producing company to leave British Columbia for good?
Hon. H. Lali: The hon. member across the way is obviously asking to bypass the rules. He knows full well that the Motor Carrier Commission is at arm's length from the ministers, and no interference is allowed by the minister in their day-to-day operations. Also, the hon. member must realize that the MCC wants more than anything else to make sure that safety is not compromised. The hon. member, more than anybody, should know that -- also the independence of the Motor Carrier Commission.
B.C.'S CREDIT RATING
F. Randall: My question is to the Minister of Finance. At this time of year the bond-rating agencies normally report on B.C.'s credit rating. I've seen no media reports in this regard. Has the minister heard anything from these agencies? Can he share that information with this House?
Hon. P. Ramsey: As the member for Burnaby-Edmonds points out, it is somewhat amazing that the usual spotlight thrown on bond rating for the province has not been there this year. I'm not quite sure why that is. I am pleased to report to the House that the Dominion Bond Rating Service confirmed our AA credit rating in early May and that Moody's Investors Service confirmed our Aa2 credit rating at the end of May, and that both of them pointed to our low debt-to-GDP ratio and what they described as a very large, sound and continually diversifying economy as one of the reasons why they confirmed these ratings.
Hon. Speaker, unlike the members opposite, they read the actual facts about B.C.'s economy. They look at a 15 percent increase in manufacturing sales this month over last year. They look at retail sales up 5.3 percent in February over last year and unemployment at 6.9 percent, the lowest level in 20 years. They see the positives of this economy; I hope the opposition sees them as well.
[1425]
The Speaker: The bell ends question period.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members. The member for Prince George-Mount Robson rises.
L. Boone: Hon. Speaker, I have the honour to present the first report of the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills, and I move that the report be read and received.
Motion approved.
L. Boone: By leave, I move that the report be adopted.
The Speaker: On that motion, members, all in favour
Law Clerk: Hon. Speaker:
"Your Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills begs leave to report that the preamble of Bill Pr402, intituled The British Columbia Insurance Company, 1904 Amendment Act, 2000, has been approved, and the committee recommends that the bill proceed to second reading.
"All of which is respectfully submitted. Lois Boone, Chair."
[ Page 16108 ]
Leave granted.
Motion approved.
Bill Pr402 ordered to be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
Hon. D. Lovick: Mr. Speaker, I call Committees -- plural -- of Supply. In Committee A, we shall be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Social Development and Economic Security. In this chamber, Committee B, we shall be continuing debate on the estimates of the Ministry of Education.
The House in Committee of Supply B; T. Stevenson in the chair.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
(continued)
On vote 24: ministry operations, $4,536,431,000 (continued).
[1430]
G. Hogg: I would to now address to the minister and her staff some issues with respect to the performance plan which we've seen come forward. Firstly, I understand that the performance plans which we've seen coming forward with each of the ministries come out of the report of the auditor general, which laid out some preconditions for success and asked that each of the ministries be involved in that, combined with former member Fred Gingell, who was very active through his committee in terms of pushing these issues forward.
So my first question with respect to this would be: the format that's laid out and the expectations contained in it -- are they consistent with the "Enhancing Accountability for Performance: A Framework and an Implementation Plan," which comes from the auditor general? Or are they based on some other set of evaluative criteria and format that are laid out within the performance plan?
Hon. P. Priddy: My understanding, member, is that this was prepared in accordance with instructions from the Ministry of Finance to be able to coincide with the recommendations that were made.
G. Hogg: So I understand that to say it is, then, consistent with the expectations that were laid out in the auditor general's report previously referenced. Can I then ask for the process that was followed in terms of the development of this plan? Who was consulted in putting it together? Whether or not it is in fact a part of the culture of the ministry, or whether or not it has been developed by the titular heads of the ministry, what process was in fact used in coming to the development of this plan and the contents therein?
Hon. P. Priddy: I was looking for Crowns for titular heads, but I wasn't sure which ones they were.
This information was put together -- because it is the Ministry of Education, it certainly reflects the culture of the ministry -- with the assistance of people who have program responsibilities in many areas across the ministry. So this wasn't only an executive committee, if you will. This involved people with direct program responsibilities and people who are regional coordinators and who are actually out working in the field on a day-to-day basis.
G. Hogg: Did it involve any of the people who work directly with the school boards, any members of the school boards or any of the partners in education? Or was this solely developed by ministry staff?
Hon. P. Priddy: It wasn't developed with school boards, because it is a ministry and not a school board document. But certainly people who have been involved in putting this together are people who work directly with school boards. Just as an example, there's the fact that Rick Connolly, as the assistant deputy minister, is here, who works on a day-to-day basis directly with school boards. So that would be the case. As well, I would say to the member that while it may not have been in consultation with school boards, it is very consistent with the K-to-12 -- the kindergarten-to-12 -- initiatives in the province followed by all school districts as a result of provincial policy.
G. Hogg: Well, I appreciate that, this being the first effort at putting together the performance plan, it's difficult to tie the words together with the budgetary dollars and resources necessary to focus specifically on the performance plan. However, has there been any specific effort to develop the performance plan and then tie the budgetary resources to the achievement of the plan, or have they been developed, this the first year, almost independently?
I ask that question because I find some places in the budget where I don't think they appear to be appropriately addressed within the performance plan. So I'm wondering if there is an expressed intent, or whether the development of the performance plan was specifically designed, to be consistent with the dollars and the resources necessary to achieve some of the outcomes which are outlined within the context of the performance plan.
[1435]
Hon. P. Priddy: Yes, there has been work to attach or to be able to match initiatives to dollars. I'm not sure we could do them with each and every one, but we can do them with many of them, given that it is the operational budget of the ministry and not the broader budget. Then in many cases we can answer that question.
G. Hogg: Just reading from the performance framework and looking at some of the issues which the auditor general said were crucial in terms of the evolution and development of a performance plan. Firstly, it says: "A culture shift, where results are valued over process, must occur at all levels: Cultural change must take place throughout the public sector, among legislators and all of government. Such change requires steady, ongoing leadership. Initially, the focus of leadership efforts should be in providing incentives to encourage a culture of performance
Has the ministry taken any initiatives with respect to cultural shifts to move towards results rather than process
[ Page 16109 ]
orientations? Have there been any incentives or specific directions or areas within the ministry that we could reference or look at, where these cultural shifts might have started to take place? And how would we start to measure those?
Hon. P. Priddy: I wanted just to make a general comment to the member, if I might. I think always, when you're looking at this kind of work, you have to find a balance between process and outcome. So you could have
So yes, we are able to give some indicators of that. If you ask about cultural change, one of the things I would reference is performance indicators in the ministry. That would come under that first goal, which I think is in the performance document, of improving the effectiveness, efficiency and equity of K-to-12 education. The performance measure, the way we sort of change the culture to try and do that measurement, is with the foundation skills assessment. That would be one of the examples I would give.
G. Hogg: If I may indulge the minister for a moment, I noticed that the minister was waving up behind me. I was expecting a class from Peace Arch Elementary, and I'm wondering whether or not Jessie Lee
I will continue on.
Interjections.
Hon. P. Priddy: I like to wave at all children.
G. Hogg: That's very thoughtful of you. If you wave again
The Speaker: Through the Chair, members, please.
G. Hogg: I see that the Chair waves at all children as well.
I have just a few more questions on the accountability framework. We've made reference to the culture. The second one is with respect to performance measures. Part of the performance measures outlined in the report suggest that there should be a prepared phase-in timetable for the inclusion of output and outcome performance measurement information in the performance plans. I note that in the majority of issues within this plan, there are not specific time lines with respect to those. I'm wondering whether or not, as we go through it in some detail, we can ask some questions specifically about that. Or was there an inability at this stage to put into it some of the time lines which were outlined in the auditor general's report?
Hon. P. Priddy: Thank you, hon. Chair, and thank you for waving at children. It's such a good thing to do.
The Chair: I always do, minister.
Hon. P. Priddy: I knew that.
I will watch for Peace Arch, hon. member.
You're right. If you look at the performance plan, you do not see those time lines. For about 70 percent of the issues you want to raise, I think we can respond with specific time lines.
[1440]
G. Hogg: Then I think I'll move quickly from the auditor general's report, because the issue is time lines, and then it's the measurement criteria that are referenced in it. It's ensuring that roles and responsibilities in terms of the achievement of those are clear. Again, it references under "reporting" that there be reporting in a timely manner and makes reference to the level of timeliness that is acceptable for the ministry to achieve those types of goals. And talking about strategic updates with respect to the performance plan
Is there any intent to have any further updates to this plan other than what happens at the estimates process, the budgeting process? Or will there be updates made available with respect to the performance plan throughout the course of the year?
Hon. P. Priddy: For a number of these, there will be. Certainly before there is an overall annual review, there will be ways to assess that at three months or six months, depending on the particular area that's in here. So there will be assessments other than waiting for a year to do the annual review.
G. Hogg: Moving just a little further into the performance plan and looking at the final issue of accountability, the auditor general made reference specifically to what we are trying to achieve. While it is laid out with respect to the mission and some of the goals, I wonder if from a conceptual point of view, the minister could outline what in fact, overall, we're trying to achieve with respect to the performance plan. As I say, the vision starts to outline that in a very succinct way, but I think there are some other things that come into it. But the first question the auditor general says we start to ask is: "What in fact is government trying to achieve?"
What are we trying to achieve? What are the challenges in doing that, and how are we going to maintain
Hon. P. Priddy: Let me start with more of an umbrella statement, if you will, around what we are trying to achieve and using the performance plan to achieve -- because it's only a tool. Part of that is reflected in there. But if you look at all students and look at the school system, you're trying to ensure that we have a school system that is effective for all students, gives equal opportunity to be successful and provides them with the kind of intellectual challenges, career challenges and challenges in other areas of their skills and abilities to be able to achieve those kinds of successes in school.
I think we want to make sure -- this is sort of a triple E, if you will, and I think the auditor general probably uses these words as well -- that in the second part, the equity of how education is offered, not just effectiveness of how the education is offered
[ Page 16110 ]
dents do. Clearly our job is to provide some equity in ensuring that it is available to everybody and not only people who come with a particular set of advantages.
Efficiency is the third E that the auditor general talks about. For the school system, that really talks about making real effort to ensure that we're focused on improving not only the success and achievement of individual students but also the conduct of the education system in general. So that's the sort of larger pieces of where this would be going.
Welcome, new Chair.
[P. Nettleton in the chair.]
G. Hogg: Hon. Chair
The performance plan that the minister, in her appending letter to the performance plan, talks about -- the three Es: effectiveness, efficiency and equity
Improving public confidence. I made reference this morning to the polling which the ministry had done and some of the references to polling in June last year. Is it the intent, then, that the improving of public confidence -- because I am assuming that is to be a by-product of the plan that is coming out -- and the method by which you will assess that will be further polling? Is that a fair guess as to the intent of that portion of the minister's letter?
Hon. P. Priddy: Certainly polling is one indicator, and I expect that we might do that. But that's only one indicator of people's confidence in the education system. I would just reference a few others in terms of how you either build or bring back, if that's the case, confidence in the education system.
[1445]
So let me talk for a minute, not about accreditation in terms of the details
A couple of other ones I would mention. One is our new performance standards. It's a way of teachers, of course, having an ability -- and I referenced it earlier this morning -- to talk with parents about exactly what the student's achievement is. It's also a way to restore confidence on the part of parents and the public, because they actually see not just a grade -- although, you know, people want a grade
We do have people who come to British Columbia because they have chosen to do that for the school system that is in this province.
So you might do polling, the accreditation teams, the performance standards, foundation skills assessment. I think we're about to have a celebration of some larger results for students, which may be due out tomorrow. The more we celebrate those kinds of things, it helps build confidence too.
Hon. I. Waddell: I wonder if I might ask leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
Hon. I. Waddell: It's very fitting that in the midst of debate on education, I am able to introduce to the House a group of students. I believe they're grade 3 from Walter Moberly School Annex in my riding. Mr. Lepper is the teacher. Would the House please make these students and their teacher very welcome.
G. Hogg: I'm just checking to see whether or not the students I was looking for from Jessie Lee have somehow vanished or been overruled.
If I may move into the business plan, specifically the introduction. In the introduction, it reads:
This is the area my question comes from. In the next sentence it says:"That the Ministry of Education is responsible for the province's K-to-12 education system. The purpose of this performance plan is to articulate significant activities for 2000/01-2002/03, which directly support attainment of the ministry's long-term goals and objectives."
I'm wondering in what sense can there be a core activity which does not in fact pertain directly to the achievement of the ministry's long-term goals and objectives. It seems like a bit of a non sequitur to me. I was looking for core activities and finding that the ministry is saying that they do not pertain directly to the achievement. I have difficulty rationalizing those two statements."Those ongoing, core activities of the ministry which do not pertain directly to the achievement of the ministry's long-term goals and objectives are not described in the performance plan, because the purpose of the plan is to identify those strategies and activities which specifically support the ministry's goals and objectives. Nevertheless, the ministry's ongoing, core activities are integral to fulfilment of the ministry's mission."
Hon. P. Priddy: Let me use one example. I think it would be foolish of me, I guess, to suggest that you could not include anything under a core activity. But for instance, something that would not be listed there and could be a core activity is that we send out financial statements to school boards every month. That's part of how the ministry does its business, but we have not, certainly in this, included all of those day-to-day business activities of the ministry.
[1450]
G. Hogg: Thank you. That helps to clarify that portion of it.
Moving on to the K-to-12 education system and particularly the public school section portion, it talks about the
[ Page 16111 ]
public school system. I'll read from the first paragraph. It says: "The public school system consists of 60 school districts responsible for operating 1,800 schools and providing an education to almost 614,000 students in classrooms and almost 17,000 students in continuing education. The government of British Columbia provides full financial support for public schools."
That, of course, has caused a number of questions and concerns from a number of people around the province when we say that in what sense
The reason I'm asking that question is obviously to try and say: are we able to articulate more finally, more specifically, what in fact the public education system funding level is at? We continually hear, as I'm sure the minister continually hears, of all the other fundraising activities that go into those services that relate directly to the educational needs of students. So the full financial support question, I think, begs for further definition and articulation.
Hon. P. Priddy: In reference to the member's question about full funding, I guess we could have the discussion about what that indeed means. But in terms of the funding formula and the way that the funding formula addresses a variety of issues in both rural and urban schools -- and sometimes they're quite different, because there are many parts of the funding formula -- there is funding for all of those pieces in the funding formula.
But do parents raise additional dollars for things they believe are necessary in their school? Yes, they do. You and I might think that some of those things are not necessary, and sometimes they are things that are indeed necessary. I've actually said this about the funding formula before, but that's why we as a ministry have to keep hearing those comments and seeing if there are ways we should be moving differently in terms of the issues that the funding formula addresses.
The funding for schools that has been mentioned earlier is the second-highest in the country for provinces. It's a little bit behind Ontario's, but otherwise it's the second highest. Could we spend more? Are there things that every school district could make a list of that we, including me, would like to see funded? Yes. But in terms of the items in the funding formula, we believe that we have funded it as the formula recommends.
I would say, though, that we all know the challenges with parent fundraising. One is just doing it, and secondly, we need to pay attention to the areas that are being fundraised. The last thing we want to see is schools that have more opportunities because of the ability of parents within that school to raise funds. There are some examples of that.
G. Hogg: I seek leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
G. Hogg: I'd like to introduce students from Jessie Lee Elementary School in Surrey -- in south Surrey -- and their teacher and parents. I had the opportunity to meet with them earlier. Their teacher is Ms. Lynda Bergstrand, who I went to elementary school with, although she was much younger than me then and continues to be much, much younger than I am today. Lynda has been recognized as one of the outstanding teachers in the Surrey school district and has received awards of excellence for that. She heads over here today with another teacher. I believe there are 54 students -- some of them out riding on horses or being taken around on the Tally-Ho riding system. Others are here to enjoy the discussion with respect to Education debates. So I would ask that the House please make all of these students and their teachers and chaperons feel most welcome here in the precincts.
[1455]
G. Hogg: I'm trying to hook back into all of the comments that the minister made with respect to the full financial support. I know that one of the frustrating issues for me in respect to education budgeting has been in last year's estimates, when we would ask questions of the minister, and the minister would say, "Well, that's a school board responsibility," and the school boards would say: "Well, that's a ministry responsibility." We'd have that vaunted stalemate where each side is pointing at the other side, saying, "That's your responsibility, and why won't you deal with it?" and nobody ultimately taking some degree of responsibility for it.
I think what the issue of full financial support as laid out in the performance plan starts to beg for is: is there some method, is there some system, is there some process, idea or thought that may be in existence that will help us to get away from this finger-pointing and start to articulate more finely as to who in fact has accountability and responsibility for what within the confines of the funding system?
Hon. P. Priddy: Well, I'd like to hope that we, in estimates, will be able to either answer the questions or be clear about why a responsibility lies in one place. I'd hate to think that we'd end up with stalemates on a whole variety of questions.
Just to sort of have a first go at this, if you will
G. Hogg: Has the ministry had the opportunity to look at other funding formulas or other funding models in other provinces which may reflect a method that starts to articulate more finely the divisions of responsibility that exist, so that we can
Harkening back to the auditor general's report where he's talking about the issues of accountability, of course accountability means having somebody that's clearly responsible and therefore can be held accountable. One of the big frustrations I've seen -- and I know that the former Minister
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of Education had as well -- was that issue of how we hold people accountable. So I'm wondering if there have been other educational systems across Canada or elsewhere that have been looked at, where there are any other more finely articulated statements with respect to who is accountable for what in the system.
Hon. P. Priddy: Certainly the ministry staff has looked at how funding formulas are done across the country. One of the ways they had an opportunity to do this was
The second point I'd make is that there always has to be some balance between accountability and the ability of a school board to make decisions as well, based on what they see as the best needs of their students in the district. I have said publicly, albeit the funding formula was held up at this conference of people who were experts in this area as one that was a leader
[1500]
G. Hogg: Where I'm leading with this is the issue of the auditor general's report talking about getting away from process, starting to measure performances, starting to measure results and outcomes. I'm wondering whether or not that might also feed into the process by which we articulate our funding formula, whereby the ministry may be saying to a school district, "Here are the outcomes we expect," rather than saying to them: "Here is your targeted funding, here's what you must spend, and here are your limits with respect to each of these funding areas."
If we are to finally take the auditor general's report, take the performance plan and really start moving it into the financing, can we get to the point where we're starting to say to school districts: "Here are our expectations -- that you provide for the needs of our special needs students, of our gifted children, of our first nations children
Hon. P. Priddy: This is increasingly an area, not only in education but in health care and other areas, where people or organizations are moving to. We do give -- and are beginning to give more -- some direction or guidance to school districts around outcomes not only about how you spend the money but the outcome we might want to look at. One of the areas I would reference is career program funding. We have increased those dollars significantly, actually, over the last years, but we've done that in order to be able to say to school districts: "These are the kinds of outcomes we expect." Indeed, we are seeing some of those outcomes already with career programs.
Another area I would reference would be aboriginal students and the improvement agreements, which I referenced this morning, that we have with Kamloops and that we are about to sign with Campbell River. Those are ways in which we do not just say: "This is the amount of money we've calculated that you get" but "These are the outcomes we expect as a result of it."
G. Hogg: The minister referenced starting to look at this in health care as well as in education. I'm sure the minister is well aware of the Oregon model, where they have a protocol, a regime of services in the medical health plan that says: "These are the services which will be provided." Is there anything that can be learned by this province and by outcome measurements in terms of that? The ministry may be saying to school boards: "Here are the required services that you will provide, here are some optional ones, here is the funding. We will provide full funding, as per the preamble to the performance plan, for those core educational programs that may be on that list. Here are the optional ones, and we'll provide you funding for three of 30, or whatever the outcomes might come."
I'm struggling for ways that we can get away from the finger-pointing, get further into measuring outcomes instead of processes and say: "School boards, here's how we're going to fund. Here's what you must provide, here are the outcomes, and we're going to measure you on those outcomes. Those are the core services you must provide, and beyond that you can cater to your community's needs. Here is the funding that you have, and you can pick one or seven or 12." So when a school board comes to a ministry and says, "We have to cut our music program because we don't have enough funding," the ministry's response might be: " Well, here are the core services that are dictated by the province; here's what you must provide. You have a choice now, and you've chosen to eliminate music and keep first nations education or phys ed."
I'm not sure that that type of model, which is borrowed from the health care system, has value in education, but perhaps it does. And perhaps it gets us into the position where school districts can actually make some sophisticated, legitimate decisions with respect to how they can best provide the educational needs of their communities and can actually make those decisions without having to point back at the ministry or the province and say, "It's the province's fault we can't afford it," where we're clearly articulating the decisions which seem to get so confused, as we heard this morning with respect to the issue of school closures.
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Hon. P. Priddy: Sorry. Let me think about the point I was starting with.
Under the public school act and by regulation, we do say to school districts: "These are core areas that you must teach in order to receive funding." It indeed applies to independent schools as well. So there is a curriculum that is identified, with core areas that must be taught.
Perhaps the member is trying to move towards whether there could be more flexibility. But let me just comment on the current system. School districts have an opportunity to make decisions around the 20 percent of locally developed courses, so they have flexibility in that respect. It's not only the provincial government that might have an influence on that. If you
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ask many school districts or school boards, the parents in that district have very specific ideas as well about the kinds of programs that they want to see offered to their students in a particular community. And that does and should have an impact on what the school districts offer.
One of the things that we have said and that I think we need to do more work in -- and it's probably also a health care one, and we would do that if we were redoing the funding formula or looking at it -- is looking at what the benchmarks are so we actually have better ways to measure how people are delivering those services. But there are core areas; there are flexible areas.
G. Hogg: The minister accurately assesses the issue I was looking at, and that is greater flexibility at the school district level in terms of holding them accountable for the measuring of the outcomes. I guess that comes from looking at the ministry's issues around their accreditation policy and trying to apply some of the issues in the accreditation policy as it would apply to a school and taking those and applying them to the ministry, using some of the same criteria in terms of the levels and degrees of measurement that would exist from there. Am I fair to interpret the minister as saying yes, you're interested in looking at greater flexibility, you're interested in looking at the measurement of outcomes rather than process and in giving greater authority to school districts in terms of their ability to do that?
While you've articulated that there is an expectation with respect to core and optional courses, we haven't articulated those to the degree where they're reflected in an ability to respond and put accountability back to the school boards around the funding around that. There isn't that level of understanding that exists either at the ministry or at the school district level where they could, in fact, do that -- say: "Yeah, we recognize we've made this choice, and it is our responsibility to cut the music program."
Today they're saying: "It's the ministry's fault, because the ministry hasn't given us enough money to manage that." So all I'm searching for is: how do we hold the school districts more accountable, and how do we give them legitimate authority and ability to make some of those decisions?
Hon. P. Priddy: I think some of the ways we begin to do that -- and then I want to make a comment about it, if I might, but just a point first -- are by using our own performance plan that ensures that school districts or school boards are clear about the kinds of objectives we have and the ways in which we see them being met and are able to match some of their activities to that. They therefore have a benchmark and develop very specific things that indicate whether indeed those benchmarks are being achieved.
Secondly, yes, I do support boards having flexibility. I mean, if we're going to maintain school boards -- and I actually believe that we should -- then we have to give them some ability to do their job. I guess it is the balance, though, you know, between ensuring that the core curriculum areas are taught. So maybe it's a discussion about what absolutely has to be core and what the board has some ability to move on, because at some stage you can't do it all. There are a lot of choices available in the high school system for students, and at some stage a school district may say: "We can't fit all this into a timetable, so we're going to make some choices about that." And they should be able to do that.
G. Hogg: I'm agreeing with the minister with respect to wanting to look at that autonomy, but I'm wondering how the minister reconciles the fact that school boards
So really, school boards around the province are saying: "We have no flexibility; we don't have an ability to manage. We're given expectations by the ministry, by the province. We're told: 'This is what you have to do.' It eats up all of the money that we have, and so we're not able to make many, if any, meaningful decisions about education for our community and how it should reflect the nuances and needs of local communities."
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So while I hear the words, I wonder if there's any way that we can start to reconcile those words with the reality the school boards are consistently stating. I'm sure the minister hears exactly the same thing I do with respect to that and the frustration that most school boards express, in many cases, because they are the local representative faces with respect to education in the 60 school districts around this province. They're the ones who first hear the complaints, first hear the concerns with respect to cutbacks, with respect to lack of appropriateness, with respect to programming. They say: "We don't have the ability to respond to it, yet we're the front line." So they become, in many cases, flak-catchers for provincial policy decisions -- funding options that go to them -- yet they can't react or respond to them.
I'm sure the minister knows that many of them are feeling extremely frustrated with their roles. So again, in terms of the process of accountability questions I was asking earlier -- about measuring outcomes, about being able to further articulate and refine and define what the expectations might be of each level -- all are looking at this: how can we meaningfully breathe life back into school boards so that they can respond to local area needs and at the same time the ministry can have a broad set of expectations and standards that are provincewide, so that we look at, articulate and understand what our roles are, stop pointing at each other and both get on with our jobs more reasonably and effectively?
Hon. P. Priddy: The member is undoubtedly correct. I think the average for salaries in education is about 90 percent. There are some statistics that are a bit higher than that. I don't think we should be, necessarily, surprised by that, because education is very much about people. That is who is delivering the service to our sons and daughters or to our grandchildren. So it's not surprising that it is that.
But one of the things I think we can do that gives boards a little bit more ability
G. Hogg: The minister made reference to the value and the import of the percentage
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certainly I fully support that. I recently was reading the Tennessee value-added assessment accountability program, where they're looking at the percentage of the impact that teachers have in terms of the overall educational experience, and certainly reading some of the stuff out of New South Wales, where they've actually taken some averages and broken down and looked at education as a value-added commodity. I don't like that word; I guess that's the word that was used. But the notion of value-added
In the New South Wales information they're saying that if we look at 100 percent of the learning experiences that children have, 50 percent comes from the indigenous qualities of the individual, the socioeconomic background of the families and the things that they bring into it in terms of home support and the parents; 10 percent of it comes from the overall school experience and what the culture of the school is, of things that happen; and the other 40 percent is the teacher and the knowledge the teacher has and the teacher's ability to convey that knowledge and excite people about it.
So I certainly support the notion that the minister has with respect to the impact and import of teachers within that. I'm wondering whether or not we have, in this province, looked at any of those issues and studies around value-added and what that might mean in terms of us being able to tie that into the performance plan -- to tie that into measurements -- and whether that is a significant issue for this ministry, around the educational performances.
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Hon. P. Priddy: I wasn't sure if the member
Interjection.
Hon. P. Priddy: You weren't. Okay. But we can wave. It's our goal today to wave at all students who come to the gallery, so we're doing so.
We have looked at some of those studies. I think that in the one you referenced around New South Wales, it was
But yes, we have looked at those. I don't think we're in the stage of getting them into the performance plan yet, but we are as it relates to equity, which is, I think
G. Hogg: I would be delighted to see the work that the ministry does with respect to that as you look at it in other areas. I guess the minister has reinforced that the selection of our teacher is very important, and perhaps our selection of parents is equally if not more important in terms of that process.
I'd like to move on through another step in the performance plan. On page 3, which is the independent school system
For the purpose of the record, I would like the minister just to respond to the position of the government with respect to independent schools, reassuring us that the $5 million is now reflected in this -- and anything else that she may wish to add regarding the role of the independent school system in terms of providing viable options for parents of children in this province.
Hon. P. Priddy: The $5 million is restored. You won't see it reflected currently in this budget, but it is indeed restored. So that is for the record.
The government does not intend to change the funding formula on which the basis of independent school dollars are calculated, if you will. I think the member knows it's 50 percent of what a student in the public school system would get in that district, if schools are not charging an amount greater than a school district in terms of tuition. You know, we have group 1 and group 2 schools. There's not an intention to change the funding formula; the $5 million is there.
As a general comment, we have a very diverse selection in British Columbia, not only within our school system. Districts like Vancouver and Surrey have probably 30 or 40 choices within their system. We have a very diverse independent school system. The range of choices for parents is quite broad, and I think that that's something parents wish to continue.
G. Hogg: Again for the record, I understand the minister is saying that the intent is that any percentage increases in the operational budget of the public school system will be reflected equally in the independent school system in the future.
Hon. P. Priddy: That's correct.
G. Hogg: Moving on to the next item in the performance plan, that of home schooling. The plan reports that there are 4,300 students registered as receiving their education at home and that home-schooled students and their parents have access to education services and resources. I wonder whether or not the Ministry of Education is planning to do any targeting of funding for electronically delivered education.
Hon. P. Priddy: I just want to make sure that I am clear on how I represent the answer. There are two groups of students: students who are home-schoolers in the sense that you and I would understand home schooling and, secondly, students who are counted as public school students but do
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their education through directed electronic learning. There is not a plan to move or expand the area of directed electronic learning for home-schoolers, but we certainly do do that with those students at home who are part of the public school system.
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G. Hogg: I understand there are something like 18 electronically delivered educational programs in British Columbia. I wonder if the minister could describe for me the current enrolment. I understand there's a funding cap that exists for those. If I could get a grasp of the current enrolment and the funding cap and whether or not there's any plan to review those and to open those up, given that we're moving more into an electronic age
Hon. P. Priddy: There are 2,157.5 students -- the calculation's obviously on the amount of time, so say 2,157 students -- who are part of that system. There is a review currently going on, and at the end of that review the intent would be to remove the cap.
G. Hogg: The review which is currently taking place
Hon. P. Priddy: I've sort of a philosophical point, then, first. As part of that review, it is really important that we ensure that those students who are learning in that way -- through electronic delivery of learning -- are meeting the goals of education in British Columbia, that they are indeed getting the same quality of education as they would be getting if they were actually physically present in a classroom in a school in their area. I want to make that philosophical point.
The review is currently going on. The intent would be to remove both the funding cap and the numbers cap -- the per-pupil cap. We have teams going into school districts over the next few weeks to actually have a look at this. I don't have any sense that it would make a difference before fall, in terms of taking the cap off.
G. Hogg: How much money do we have in the electronically delivered education program, and is there potentially more money to go into that program as a result of the estimates we have before us?
Hon. P. Priddy: The amount that is currently in that budget is about $7.5 million. That's rounding down a bit, I guess -- but just over $7.5 million.
I need to make a correction; I thought I heard two things at once. In terms of when the cap might come off and actually be applicable to students, it's probably not till the next budget year, because it's not currently in the budget to be able to do that, as we speak.
The other thing the review will be looking at is what is
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G. Hogg: So I'm assuming, then, that the report will be received sometime within the limits of this fiscal year, and then any expectations with respect to change will be reflected in the next fiscal year. Is that an accurate
Hon. P. Priddy: Well, I'm really hesitant. I spent too long in the Ministry of Health, you see, having been promised when reports would be ready. So I approach these questions with some reticence, hon. member. But the report will be ready within this fiscal year.
G. Hogg: Just broadly, then, I appreciate the fact that the ministry is doing this review. With respect to and in terms of public policy and public outcomes, just if the minister could be visionary for a moment -- not that she has not been visionary already -- with respect to what the electronically delivered educational programs may mean, particularly to some of our more rural areas in the province and also for some of the more urban areas who may want to get onto this type of system
Hon. P. Priddy: I think one of the things that this will do, particularly for smaller secondary schools, is incredibly expand the range of options or programs or courses that are available to secondary students, particularly in small rural high schools or remote high schools where you don't have the ability to offer the range that you might like to, because of the numbers. This tremendously expands their opportunity to have a more diverse course load.
I think the only thing that I worry about, partly as the Education minister and partly just as a mom or a grandmother, I suppose, is that while there's no question that direct education learning is invaluable for all kinds of students for all sorts of different reasons, we do want to make sure that we look at the piece that is about what the whole student is like. What are the skills that they're acquiring around citizenship and so on? You always have to have that balance between the academic learning and what that is doing for the whole student -- having sort of put that codicil around it. Currently all the courses that are required for grade 12 graduation can be accessed through the directed education learning.
G. Hogg: I know that in Qualicum, I believe it is, the Qualicum high school has looked at the delivery of a number of programs electronically. As a result, I believe it has been able to have a number of grades in one classroom, with one teacher being able to provide, as the minister has pointed out, a broad range -- a much enriched and valued program -- which has allowed them to maintain their school and maintain many options which might otherwise not have been available to them.
The minister has referenced the issue of electronic-delivered education within the school system. Could you also reference what that might mean in terms of home learning, in terms of where that might take us for home-learners -- people who are not specifically attending a school, but are strictly part of a home learning program? Where might that be able to
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take us in terms of issues which the minister dealt with this morning, where there was discussion of the closure of some schools in some very rural areas of this province? What type of options might be provided for us as we start in this province to further articulate electronically delivered education, to start further articulating the options that are available to learning?
I guess the other part of that starts to come. Are we starting to look at education as it steps behind and out of the confines of what I've heard the deputy minister refer to as the system that is based on the old block
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As we start looking at what electronically delivered education will mean, I'm starting to ask you now three or four questions all tied in at once. But the first part of that was: what does that start to mean? What does that start to mean for home-learners as we start to articulate and redefine the way we deliver education in this province? Where can we see home learning five or ten years from now, as we envision the future and the changes in terms of education?
Hon. P. Priddy: If I could just ask for some clarification on the question about whether, when you talk about home learning, you are talking about an expansion of directed electronic learning or whether you are talking about home-schoolers -- those students who are not part of that system
G. Hogg: I would like the answer to both of those in terms of how, of course. Just prior to that, I understand, one of my colleagues is interested in making an introduction.
J. van Dongen: I ask leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
J. van Dongen: I would just like to introduce to the Legislature today a group of grade 5 and 6 students from Yarrow Elementary. They are accompanied by teachers John Letkemann and Ron O'Black. I ask the House to please make them welcome.
Hon. P. Priddy: You know, if you look at where this could lead for students -- and I'm going to talk first about those, if you will, DEL students -- for them the opportunities are huge, not just around courses but around all of the students at home who were able to watch people climb Everest and are able to tour the Provincial Museum. It's not just coursework. It offers a variety of places to go -- literally, geographical places to go -- in a virtual way. I think that range is quite broad.
The challenge of my being about to answer your questions around home-schoolers is that we don't direct their learning. It's hard for me to say how that might affect home-schoolers, except to say -- having nothing to do with our responsibility, because they do direct their own learning -- that simply the expansion of the kind of technology that we have makes a big difference -- not that we provide it. But it is available to parents who have chosen to home-school their children. I'm sure the member knows that.
The other point I wanted to make is around electronic learning. There are increasing numbers of students with chronic illnesses in the province of British Columbia, very often respiratory problems and children who are born with very fragile medical conditions who previously we wouldn't have had the joy of having with us. As we see more of those children, it also offers an opportunity for them to keep up their schooling and not fall behind, which is what we would have seen before as they missed large chunks of school as related to their physical condition. It's making a huge difference for those students too.
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G. Hogg: We know that in this province in the last two years we've enjoyed some of the largest capital expenditure grants for improvement of our educational facilities. I'm wondering whether or not there has been any discussion within the ministry about the building of capital facilities -- the building of schools -- and whether or not there are some options available in terms of electronic models, in terms of getting away from the factory model that was referenced earlier.
Are there other models of delivering education which may allow us to focus -- perhaps through electronically delivered educational services, perhaps through other modalities -- on other ways of ensuring that we're able to focus many more of our dollars into actual services and programs to the students rather than into facilities? Is the new electronic era providing us with some opportunities in that which have been explored, looked at or examined by the ministry as we move ahead? Or are we going to continue to look at the models of delivery within the schools that we currently have?
Hon. P. Priddy: As we all support free votes, I support free thought, so "factory form of education" wouldn't be the phrase that I would choose. My deputy assures me that he didn't either, so I get to do the great part.
I'm going to go back to another point, if I can, before I answer the question. I'm not sure, if you took a teacher who was teaching in 1900 and lodged them in a year 2000 school, that they could teach. I understand the point that the member is making. But I think that if you put them in a classroom with the kind of information, the kind of technology and the challenges of students that we see today, I'm not sure that they could.
But I understand the point the member was trying to make. Your point is: is there some vision or some opportunity for school districts to move away from what you and I come from, which is Surrey, with lots and lots of schools, to move away from a very traditional school building -- I wouldn't call it a factory, but a traditional school building -- and look at other opportunities? There actually are. It's really early to know if it's going to work; we don't have enough information at this stage to even be able to assess that.
I would say to you, though, that we've had some discussions. I don't know if there was one example or not of --
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rather than a school -- learning centres, where you don't have to have a school in the way that we currently see it, but a learning centre where students come in and can access electronic equipment in order to access courses, do assignments, do research, etc. That's probably a sort of ministep, I guess, beyond the traditional school model. Certainly we've actually encouraged districts to have a look at that. We haven't -- I don't think, other than perhaps one discussion -- had people take us up on that at this stage.
Sorry -- did I have another point? If I did, I'll come back. I did, but I
G. Hogg: The factory model -- I was referring to the buildings. I didn't want people to suggest in any fashion that our teaching is factory-based or factory-modelled.
I would agree with the minister that there are probably many parts of the educational system where teachers from 100 years ago would be very lost moving into some of the schools today. But in some of them, I think they would feel quite comfortable. They would probably see a blackboard and students sitting in rows and desks in many schools that are very similar to what they would have seen 100 years ago. But it's substantially different in many other classrooms. I take what the minister is saying appropriately.
I guess I don't want to belabour this, but my issue is: is there a vision that says that 25 years from now we are going to be looking at
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Hon. P. Priddy: Certainly people have done a fair bit of work around literature reviews and, you know, visioning and what people envision 20 years and 50 years from now in terms of school systems. I guess one of the steps I would mention is
Can you envision a system in which students do all their learning at home? Well, you can if you thought that was a good way to learn. It's certainly physically possible that students could do all of their learning from home and almost not be required to be in a school building; that's certainly possible. We have the ability to do that.
We could discuss whether there is a desirability of that, because I think it's really hard, particularly at a younger school level, to replace a really good, sensitive teacher who responds in a really caring way to students and is able to -- and I think this is really one of the real challenges -- notice or intervene when a student needs some support, which is so important to do in the primary years. If you're doing electronic learning, it's going to be much harder for a teacher to see your learning skills, to see if you need extra support in certain areas.
So, while physically we could do it, I think we'd have to have the discussion about the desirability of how far down that road you go. Certainly with learning centres and PLN learning nets and choices for parents, we can get quite a ways down that road. But you can't replace the centrality of education and teachers for students.
G. Hogg: Certainly I would agree that the socialization issues that take place as we plug people perhaps into electronic learning
Has there been any exploration with respect to spending to fund the development of special education modified programs and/or curricula to be part of the distance education curriculum?
Hon. P. Priddy: No, not at this time.
G. Hogg: Will that be a part of the review that's taking place? Is there any interest? Or is that part of the terms of reference of the review that might be taking place around electronically delivered education? Is there an expansion or look at the curricula that are involved in it that may explore this area?
Hon. P. Priddy: That was not part of the criteria for the special education review. The purpose of the review that has just been completed is to try to make the system work better than it does. I think there are a significant number of ways in which it actually can work better than it currently does.
We haven't done that exploration, though, around directed-education learning and electronic learning and students with special needs; actually, I'd be interested in discussion at some stage about that. I think it would also depend on how we define special needs. If you define special needs as children who need additional learning challenges, because they've already learned whatever it is there is to learn in the classroom setting they're in, that's one thing. But for the students that you and I might think of as traditionally being students with special needs, I guess I'd have to see the research to say that was an effective method of learning for most of the students I can think of.
G. Hogg: That's exactly what I was looking at. Are we starting to push the boundaries in terms of electronically delivered education that may allow us to look at some of the other teaching modalities that may be evident there, some of the other needs the students have in the areas that we addressed? But I hear the minister saying that at this stage, that was not part of the review and is not something which is being explored.
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Have there been any evaluations with respect to the academic performance of EDE students -- electronically delivered education students -- compared with the more conventionally taught classroom students in the public schools? Do we have any comparative data in terms of performance or anything that could tell us about that?
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Hon. P. Priddy: During the review, people are in the process of
G. Hogg: I understand that this year the schools of registration with respect to EDE were required to administer the foundation skills assessment or are required to administer that to home education students. I'm wondering how that is being funded. Are there funds to be allocated specifically for test administration to these schools of registration? Are they rolled into an overall budgetary package? How would that be reflected in this year's estimates?
Hon. P. Priddy: Every student that is part of foundation skills assessment, regardless of where they're learning, is funded per student to do that. So the school districts will have a resource based on that number, not based on where they are.
G. Hogg: Just one other comment or question with respect to home learning: I had a phone call in the last couple of days stating that there are some school districts -- I believe it's now up to four school districts in the province -- that are actually going out and trying to encourage people who have been on E-bus and different types of electronic learning to come back in and register at schools, in an effort to try to bolster some of the dollars they have within their school districts by bolstering their numbers. I'm wondering if there are.
In fact, in one case I was told that they were offering $600 to these students, and they were able to use that to go off and take piano lessons and do some other things. I'd be happy to give the minister more details and information with respect to this.
It reflected for me that the marketing of home schooling that some of the school districts are going into, in an effort to try and bolster their numbers
Hon. P. Priddy: Yes, we probably could regulate that. We have anticipated or at least would expect that people would be honourable enough not to necessarily be engaged in that kind of endeavour. I'd be very pleased to hear about the school districts that are doing that. I mean, I assume what they want is for people to register with the district, not actually be in the classroom. Therefore the district gets another $3,500. Well, it's a parental choice, and I don't think we pay a finder's fee in order to register children.
G. Hogg: I'll just move on from home schooling to the funding section of the performance plan. I think we've already discussed the last line of the first paragraph under funding, which says: "The ministry will also provide $140 million to support eligible independent schools
Hon. P. Priddy: I missed part of the member's question. I'm sorry, I was just checking with people who were with me. All of the numbers where independent schools are reflected should have an additional $5 million on top of that.
[1550]
G. Hogg: We then move on to page 4 in the performance plan, which talks about the ministry's vision, mission and values, the first portion of that being the ministry vision. It reads: "The ministry is committed to working with school boards, educational organizations, and others to build on the strengths and successes of British Columbia's school system. To this end, the ministry's vision is: An educational system that is measurably the best in Canada."
I'm just wondering if the minister could articulate for us what the measures will be and whether or not we have some goals in terms of time frames to get us to that point of being measurably the best in Canada. Part of the background to that question comes from the fact that we have seen the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada using the student achievement indicator project as one of the baselines for that -- whether or not that will be one of the measures.
I think that, as the minister has said quite articulately, we want to ensure that our educational system is not just focused on educational outcomes but that we have a commitment in this society and in this province to ensuring that our students are also good citizens and are able to function in a society in a positive and progressive manner. So just in terms of the measurable part, I'm wondering: what are the measurements that we can look at, and what are the time frames that we would look at with respect to those measurements?
Hon. P. Priddy: I was just checking on some time lines. Let me talk first about some of the kinds of measurements, and then let me talk a little bit, if I can, about the time lines.
The first one in terms of measurability, if you will, for outcome is the foundation skills assessment; it happens on an annual basis. So if you speak to a time line, then not only does it happen annually, but we do have the ability then to look at the trend of that data and see if we're seeing an incline or a decline in certain areas. That allows us to do that on an annual basis.
We look at things like the duration. Again, another measurability point, actually, that would be certainly on an annual basis as well, is that you measure the duration of time for secondary school completion. You measure school completion.
Or you can -- we do -- measure school completion and graduation rates. We measure the rate of transition from kindergarten-to-12 to post-secondary education or to the labour force. So, I mean, almost all of our measures are
We look at the difference in performance between different groups of students, if you will, and are able to make
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some
But I think the other measurement that's important for me is -- not because it's topical -- the accreditation one, because it just doesn't measure academic outcome. It looks at: how is the school doing? What are its strengths, and what does it need to do better? Very often a school might say: "Well, our grades are pretty good. We can do better, but they're pretty good. But we want to work on a safe school or we want to work on seeing different things in terms of student citizenship." For me, that's a really important part of the measurement, because it gets at issues other than academic ones.
G. Hogg: The things we looked at in a vision, from back in my days when I did some management consulting, were that we measured where we are today? Where do we want to be? And our strategies -- is this how are we going to get there? So I think that this vision clearly articulates where we want to be, with the exception of the measurability which you've started to talk about.
I'm wondering whether or not the ministry has articulated a sense of where we are today. I've had some discussions with the deputy minister. We agree on some areas, and we disagree on some other areas. But I think it's important as we start, for the first time in the history of this province and the Ministry of Education, having a vision and a full performance plan to put that together to say, "Here is where we are today," so that we can build on this. Next year we can say, "How have we improved from where we are today?" based on the strategies contained in the performance plan, based on the PLAP, on the FSA, on any other baseline data that we have.
Has the ministry been able to put together, or is it able to put together, a document that says: "Here's where we believe we are today; here is the baseline data in terms of where we are"? We're not measurably the best in Canada today, but that is our vision -- to be the very best in Canada. So where are we today? Are we third, fourth, fifth? Where are the areas that you want to improve? How are we going to be able to say: "Yes, we've achieved that vision; we are now measurably the best in Canada"?
So
[1555]
Hon. P. Priddy: I wasn't trying to cut off your question.
There is not one document I could hand you and say: "Okay, so this is where we are." Could you put one together? Probably. But when we look at where we are, and if we were sitting here today putting a document together, there are a number of things we'd look at.
We do have a web site, and I'm sure you've checked the web site. A lot of the information about the goals of the school system and achievement of the school system are currently on that web site. But what would we look at? We'd look at what the current graduation rates are. we've talked about that earlier. I think it's 74 percent for non-aboriginal students and 38 percent for aboriginal students. That's where we are. So that tells us where we are currently. That's not nearly where we need to be, but it tells us what our baseline is. So we look at graduation rates. We look at the foundation skills assessment that has just been finished.
The other one that we might look at -- and this is, I think, being released tomorrow -- is what people call the SAIP results. I think it's the school achievement improvement project. Did I get it right?
Interjection.
Hon. P. Priddy: Indicators. Oh, sorry -- school achievement indicators project. There are a number of conclusions drawn about where our students currently are, and that also gives us good baseline information with which to move forward.
[T. Stevenson in the chair.]
If I might, I'll just give you a couple
G. Hogg: Welcome back, hon. Chair. We've missed you.
With respect to the baseline data and the direction that we're going, I've missed them, perhaps. I can only speak for myself; I've missed them. With respect to the baseline data, if we're standing here next year going through this, I want to be able to say: "Yes, we've seen some improvements; we've moved toward this vision." In order to do that, I have to have a sense of where the ministry believes it is today, so I can say, "Yes, we've made those improvements," and so that as we go through this document and these strategies and goals are talked about, we're able to say: "How do they relate to that vision? How do they relate to where they are today?" This question kind of permeates the whole performance plan in terms of this being the baseline data.
To say 85 percent and throw out different numbers
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We're saying in this vision that it's measurably the best. What do we mean by measurably? What are the criteria? Is it going to mean 85 percent graduation rates? What are the things that are going to show? Are other provinces keeping those so that we can compare ourselves to the nine other provinces and the territories and say we are measurably the best?
I think we need to articulate that and say: "Here's where we are today; there's where we're going; and this is what that means." That's so when you stand up and say we are measurably the best in Canada today, we can come to an agreement as to what that means and we're not the only ones saying it. Other people will say: "Yes, you are, because these are generally accepted evaluative criteria."
[1600]
The Chair: Thank you, member. In Beauchesne, sixth edition, citation 481: normally we don't mention whether members are present or absent.
Hon. P. Priddy: The former speaker was reminding me that it was not necessary for me to note when a new person took the chair. I, of course, just want to welcome people to the wonderful opportunity we have to participate in this kind of discussion, but I will certainly bear in mind that ruling from the Chair and be very careful not to welcome you back at any time when you return to the chamber.
The Chair: Thank you, member.
Hon. P. Priddy: I'm struggling a bit with the way to answer this question or the way to help move this debate along a little bit. By the way, not every province does measure in the same way, so you don't always have a way to say, "We all measure the same thing, so we can do a comparison to how we fare in relation to New Brunswick or Ontario or Nova Scotia, etc.," although there are certainly some commonalties as well.
When I talked earlier about the ways that we figure out where we are now, which was the starting question, I don't know if there's a more refined way to talk about
That's the other part of that. I'm not sure if I can be more refined about saying: "These are all the pieces we would use to establish where we currently are." I think we have enough information to be able to do that. You can always have more; that's fair enough. What's the desired outcome? Where do you want to go next with this particular performance measure? For instance, there's school completion, if you will, where we have seen some measurable difference in terms of students successfully writing grade 12 exams to either maintain those rates or be able to improve those rates.
Now it doesn't say to move from 74 percent this year to 76 percent next year. I'm not sure if refining it down that far as what your benchmark is, or at least your benchmark for this year, that we're actually able to do that in a workable way. But to all of these pieces of performance measure, we do have a desired outcome, which then you start to look
We are, I think, beginning to put that together. I don't know if I can do that in a more refined way for you. We have examples of where we've actually been able to meet those outcomes. For instance, we know that with grade 12 exams
G. Hogg: I'm sorry if I breached one of the time-honoured protocols of this House. I want to assure the Chair that I've seen many people present who are actually absent, and I wasn't making any reference to your absence from the chamber but perhaps from the building in another fashion. It must be Thursday afternoon.
The numbers that you've started to outline are helpful in terms of establishing that baseline data to allow me to look at the measurability of those issues. It would be more helpful for me if you were to have a page or two saying these are the criteria when we talk about having the best education system in Canada -- these are the things that we're looking at. Here's where we are today. And if graduation rates is one of them, that's what our rate is today. If it's graduation of first nations students, here's where we are today and all of the other criteria, all of the other measurements which you started to lay out. Those would be helpful, from my perspective, in saying: "Yes, here's where we are in British Columbia today. Here's where we are on the SAT testing with these grade levels. Our goal is to improve those, and when we've improved on 50 percent or passed X number within Canada, then we are measurably the best in Canada. "
[1605]
But for me, that starts to articulate exactly where we're going, exactly where we are. We're able to say: "Yes, we've made improvements in these areas, and here are some other areas that we should be putting more resources, more time, more energy into." So then when we talk about a performance plan in subsequent years, and we talk about the budget that's tied to it, maybe we'll say: "Well, gee, yes, we did improve well in terms of the graduation rates of first nations students, but maybe we need to do some more work with ESL." So we're able to use that baseline data and reflect our budget in terms of the goals that we have, rather than feeding them into it. That's the reason I've stayed on this subject matter a little longer than perhaps I might otherwise have done.
I'd still be interested in whether or not, somewhere within the ministry, there has been a consolidation of those types of things the minister has talked about, whether or not those could be laid out in that type of fashion. It could be with some goals or just saying that we're going to need to improve them if there's some way of saying, "Yes, now we are measurably the best," and what that means.
Hon. P. Priddy: I take the member's point, or at least what I think the message the member has given to me is. If
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there was a way that this was condensed, as opposed to saying, "Pull it from SAT, or pull it from FSA or pull it from graduation rates or whatever," and be able to condense that in one page or two pages -- something that is easier to read and that perhaps for the public and for parents gives a sense of momentum and where we want to move to. So I take the member's point. We'll have a look at that.
G. Hogg: While I know there are lots of concerns with respect to evaluation and how we rate evaluation -- that we want to compare to baseline, so that we're improving on where things are rather than comparing to some provincial average or some mythical rate that may exist -- I think that that also helps with the accreditation issues the minister has referred to as schools start to look at articulating their issues of accreditation. I'm sure we'll talk more about that a little later -- the issues of accreditation. I've participated in one school's accreditation. I know that being able to say, "Here's where we are today," and comparing those to some provincial standards would have been useful for them. At least, they told me it would have been.
As well, they start setting goals locally: "Here's our baseline data. Here's the provincial baseline data. Here's where we want to be. Here's how we're going focus our energies and our strategies within this specific school to help feed our school's performance into the performance of the province overall." I would welcome that type of consolidation of data and information, and I think it would be quite helpful and useful for a number of people.
Then moving on so quickly now to page 5, with respect to the ministry's mission and values and just the minister
Just with respect to the efficiency value, it reads: "Effort should be focused on improving the success and achievement of students and the conduct of education from kindergarten to grade 12." This descriptive sentence on efficiency speaks to increasing effectiveness, perhaps more so than efficiency, unless one assumes that resources allocated within the system are going to remain constant or decline. I just wonder if that is an unfair assumption or whether that's the ministry's assumption with respect to that.
Hon. P. Priddy: I'm not sure I would encourage someone to read into it that this is about declining funding. I think that you could suggest that there are pieces around effectiveness in there. What it means is that there are ways in which we can deliver education in a more efficient way. We don't have to duplicate something somebody else has already done. We can learn from someone else's experience. We may be able to teach more effectively and more efficiently both. So in the use of school resources, in the use of time, all of those speak to efficiency.
[1610]
G. Hogg: Moving on to the core business, I made reference earlier to my concerns around the core business of the ministry and separating that from some of the other goals contained within it. Does core business
So is there some difference between core business and core activities? Does the performance plan have performance standards for core business as well? Is that tied into the previously aforementioned core activities?
Hon. P. Priddy: As I think we began to comment on earlier, the core business is really about -- sorry, I can't find another word to use -- the business of doing the ministry's work. I think core activities, somewhat differently, are about the strategies that we use to be able to achieve certain kinds of goals that have been set or objectives that have been set in the ministry. So those are the core activities. It's about strategy. It's about how you achieve certain ends, whereas core business is about those three responsibilities that are particularly related to provincial government.
G. Hogg: I think I'll move on to ministry organization. With respect to the ministry organization, the plan states that the ministry has restructured and reduced its size in recent years, and in fact, it goes on to describe the current organization. I'm wondering whether or not the ministry has any reliable, or unreliable, comparative data from other educational jurisdictions to address the question about whether or not its current organization is appropriate in size and expenditure. The genesis of that question, I think, comes from, for example, the ministry data that indicates that B.C. school district administrative expenditures are amongst the lowest in North America. Do we have any ministry expenditures or comparisons that talk about the ministry's expenditures within that same framework?
Hon. P. Priddy: Yes, we do have that data available to us. If you look at that data, what it says, from an efficiency perspective, is that next to Newfoundland-Labrador, we are probably the most efficient and the leanest in terms of administration of the Education ministry.
G. Hogg: Could the minister please advise me with respect to what criteria are put into that type of evaluation? What are the comparative data that are used to tell us that, with the exception of Newfoundland and Labrador, we do have the leanest? What are the criteria? How is that basis made?
Hon. P. Priddy: Let me at least start by giving you two that are probably the most common ones, amongst others -- the two top ones that people would usually look at. If you're looking at numbers of staff, one would be the number of administrators as related to the number of students. So, if you will, it's on a per-pupil basis -- looking at the numbers of administration from that perspective. Also looking at that from a cost perspective, in terms of the amount for the administration of the ministry versus the size of the budget for the ministry
[1615]
G. Hogg: With respect to the ministry organization and the governance policy, finance, educational programs, educational support services and management services, there are some things outlined. I wonder if the minister could just highlight briefly what role each one of those areas plays in
[ Page 16122 ]
terms of the overall vision. I'm just wanting a broad and general statement with respect to the impact, the role, that each one of those divisions has in contributing to the achievement of the overall vision.
Hon. P. Priddy: I don't know if the member is requesting additional information. Let me just walk through those program areas, then. I'm actually doing this out of the plan. For governance policy and finance: it has responsibility, that division, for managing the block funding and the capital planning process and for providing policies, strategic planning and legislative support to the ministry.
If you move to the educational programs division, again, in a very brief way, it talks about the amount of dollars and the number of FTEs. This branch would have responsibility for education program development and liaison with the school system. It includes four areas within that branch: field services, aboriginal education, special programs and curriculum.
The educational support services division -- different from educational programs -- is responsible for services that support the conduct and evaluation of education programs. That would be data management, education technology, student assessment, etc.
And then the last one is the management services division, which would include finance and admin, human resources, information and privacy, and information management. That division actually provides the management and admin support to several ministries and provincial government agencies, including us, Advanced Education, Ministry of Labour, etc.
G. Hogg: My question was leading to whether or not each of the divisions does in fact have a performance plan, a set of goals that tie into the overall performance plan of the ministry. And do they have goals specifically towards helping the ministry achieve its overall vision contained within that, or are they simply what is reflected in this performance plan? Or do they have their own articulated sets of goals, which feed into and allow us to achieve and contribute to the overall vision of the work?
So my question is: organizationally, how are we structured? Not just in terms of what we look at, but how are we structured to ensure that the resources of each of those divisions are focused on that vision we have and that their resources are moving towards that? The people within those divisions know what those goals are, and they are focused on them on a daily basis. They have specific steps and goals and priorities that lead them towards achieving what the ministry has laid out.
Hon. P. Priddy: Yes, for each of those divisions, there are goals and objectives, and those goals and objectives are tied to their budgets.
G. Hogg: Are the specific goals of each of those divisions contained within those? Are those public information? Are those specific goals some things which would be, or could be, made available, or are they articulated to further only the ministry goals and objectives, which don't specifically lay out the divisions or people that are responsible for them? Are those broken down by division, saying: "Here's what your role is"? And how far down into the organization are those goals laid and set?
Hon. P. Priddy: Those goals and objectives go right down through the ministry into the branch level, and yes, that information is available.
G. Hogg: Well, I would certainly be interested in receiving those, with the thought in mind of wanting to look at how those tie into the overall goals of the ministry. As we referenced earlier, we can look at the culture and the response that the culture at each level of the ministry has to the overall vision and how each part of the ministry is contributing to the vision which the ministry has laid out.
Moving on to the ministry link to government priorities and reading from page 7:
"The Ministry of Education plays a central part in supporting the government's 2000-2001 strategic priorities of education, health care, family and communities, the environment, and strengthening the provincial economy. Enhanced education and skill levels are positively correlated with increased independence, reduced reliance on social assistance, reduced dependence on the health care system, reduced levels of crime, increased job opportunities, higher future earnings and overall economic growth."
[1620]
I have looked at some studies that certainly reflect that. I'm wondering if the ministry does have any global performance indicators to support the positive correlations. Does it have any standards by which it would see its performance being measured in these areas?
Hon. P. Priddy: We don't have particular data about the relationship, or at least about the work and its outcome, between education and all of these, which are government priorities. But I know that the member knows, not only because of his critic's portfolio but because of his previous life work, that education does have probably a disproportionate effect on a number of the priorities that are listed here. The one that I always note, of course, is health care, because education is the single biggest indicator of what somebody's health status will be as an adult. We don't have particular data currently relating our education activities to these areas.
G. Hogg: Well, certainly I support that interdependence and the need for government links and tying those together. I have, as I said, looked at some of the longitudinal studies and some of the work that reflects the impact on social assistance, on health care and on levels of crime. I sometimes get concerned that through the process we seem to make most of our social problems, problems of our educational system. We say that the school will somehow resolve and provide the panacea for all of the issues and concerns we have in society. I'm delighted that we're starting to articulate through the performance plan those specific areas we see ourselves focusing on and starting to measure and are able to
Moving on to page 8, unless the minister has any further comments with respect to that.
Hon. P. Priddy: It does in some ways relate to the link, I guess, to government priorities. While we don't have this kind of longitudinal research here in British Columbia, certainly when we look at the Michigan project and look at the long-
[ Page 16123 ]
range data available and how it affects all of those areas -- not so much from education, but from early intervention and the years actually before we see them in the education system
G. Hogg: I believe there is some research in Canada. Clyde Hertzman has been participating for some time in the longitudinal studies that have been happening and its impact with respect to health care and some other areas. I think those actually reflect exactly what the minister is referring to.
I think there's also some research being done in British Columbia with respect to the impact on social services that some of the early childhood education interventions have. It has actually reflected in some instances that we can identify that some schools have a disproportionately high number of families on B.C. Benefits. Certainly there is lots of potential and lots of temptation to look at providing, through the educational system, a response to a number of those other issues which are so important. As we referenced earlier, some of the value-added research, saying that 50 percent of the impact in terms of educational growth and maturity comes from the home and the circumstances of the home and the indigenous qualities that an individual comes with, certainly means that there is a great temptation to step in there even further.
[1625]
I think that leads appropriately into page 8, the next page with respect to the performance plan, which talks about the environmental scan and talks about how British Columbia's schools are among the first institutions to experience the effects of societal change, which raises complex moral, social and intellectual challenges.
I think the minister has made reference to this, but just for the purposes of clarification perhaps, given what we're encountering and seeing in our schools today, what are some of the effects that we're starting to see? In terms of societal change, what are the references?
As I said, the minister made reference to some of the issues around bullying and some of the violence that's starting to occur not just in British Columbia schools but certainly across North America and other parts of the world. The public schools are in many ways the canary of the mines, which start to reflect on what happens societally. What are the things that we are starting to see in British Columbia? I guess the second part of that is: how does this plan start to respond to and reflect the societal changes which we're evidencing?
Hon. P. Priddy: I want to go back just for one minute, because the member referred to the research that Clyde Hertzman does. Actually, I'm very fortunate that in the last four portfolios, I've had the chance -- I just met with him actually yesterday -- to work with him and with Fraser Mustard, who do that linking between health and education. I think they're looking for opportunities to be able to track cohort groups over that length of time here in B.C. Actually, we're looking for some ways to be able to help them do that.
In terms of the environmental scan and what we start to see in the schools, which really are often the first indicators, I'd certainly want to look at the challenges it presents. But it also presents some positive parts as well. So it's not only that we're the first indicator of challenges, but we're also the first indicator of some progress and success.
Let me start with the challenges and move on to the progress and success. You referenced one that I had used earlier around the focus on bullying or anti-bullying in schools, the things that we can do to keep our schools safe and to teach students how to respect others, and so on. And I know that, particularly because of your former work, this will probably be clearer to you even than to me. The society in which children grow up today and the amount of violence that they see around them
If you start to add one on one, there's not one thing. We have children coming to school now who have seen however many murders it is by the time they start kindergarten, who regularly watch the WWF. And there may be people in the room who are big fans of WWF; I don't know. Please don't put your hands up; I don't want to know. So just the visual images that children have
Secondly, we see far more children in our school today -- and I think it's an indicator of a societal change in a couple of ways -- with significant challenges that we wouldn't have seen ten years ago or 20 years ago or even, my Lord, 35 years ago, when I first started this kind of work. We see far more low-birth weight babies at school. We see far more children with very significant medical challenges who are very medically fragile. That's a societal change because of the complexity and the success of our health care system. And because those children are living at home -- which is also a societal change; they're welcomed into their families -- it makes a significant difference in terms of the kind of education environment that we would provide. I think that is very often seen first at school, because that's the first contact outside the family for some of those students. That would be another one that we see.
[1630]
I don't know if this is a challenge or not, but we now see, particularly in smaller communities -- or perhaps I can use the Maple Ridge example, with the tragedy that took place in Maple Ridge a month or so ago -- the community turning to the school to be the centre of crisis support and response. That's a change, and I think in part that's because of a societal change where many of us, particularly in British Columbia -- and I think I'm still right -- came here from somewhere else and don't have a large extended family around us. Particularly here, more people look to the school to be that kind of support and response in a crisis situation than in a province like Nova Scotia, where I came from, where people might immediately turn to their extended family -- because it's big, and it's right there beside you. That's not the case here.
So people see the schools fulfilling a much broader role than an education role and a much broader role than just kind of regular community activities. We see that reflected as a societal change, I think -- not having those supports. Then we
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see people looking to the school for those kinds of supports. It also shows some societal successes too. I want to comment on those, because the others always get focused on.
One of them, if you think about children who come from other than Caucasian ethnic backgrounds, which you might have seen almost all of 20 or 30 years ago, with some community exceptions
Again, just from societal changes, we see how important those successes are and how important early successes are as we look at those societal changes. Around some of those children I referred to as having incredibly complex challenges, then, the earlier we can support those students -- and we are -- and the smaller the class size -- and it is -- then we are able to support those students to be far more successful than they might have been a number of years ago. So for primary, that's extremely important. I think I'll stop. I could go on; I won't.
G. Hogg: I certainly would concur with respect to a number of the comments reflecting societal change. I don't think it's ever been more difficult to be a student, to be a child or to be an adolescent in British Columbia, or in fact in this world, than it is today, with the multitude of changes that we have seen.
I would certainly concur that many people have
That leads me into my theories of extrinsic versus intrinsic motivational factors and the impact that those have. As a result of those societal shifts, we've seen a number of things change. The sense of joy that comes through the processes of play tends not to be there as we've changed our toys and our ways of learning -- which is getting a long way away from where we perhaps should be this afternoon. But it's certainly fascinating and interesting in terms of the environmental scans and the directions that we have to take our educational system in to respond to societal need and societal change in particular.
[1635]
A little more concretely, the latter part of the environmental scan refers to: "Despite improvements in overall completion rates, approximately 20 to 25 percent of British Columbia students do not attain a British Columbia certificate of graduation
I'm assuming that that makes reference to the percentage that do not complete -- that "in a timely manner" means completing with their class that they may have started with in grade 1. I just would like to have that confirmed.
Secondly, over a period of perhaps five or whatever years subsequent to when their cohort group may have graduated, what do the percentage rates look like at that point in time?
Hon. P. Priddy: I think we might have -- but it was probably with your colleague -- had a bit of this discussion earlier this morning as well. When we talk about "in a timely manner," we're generally talking about within six years. So that's within six years. But if you then start to add to that those students who have had high school completion between the ages of 15 and 25, then you add about another 6 percent. You get up to about 80 percent when you add students who have completed somewhere between the ages of 15 and 25.
G. Hogg: I'm sorry. I may have missed some of the answer from the minister there, but I understood her to say that
Interjection.
G. Hogg: The answer was perfect or the fact that I missed it was perfect? I understood her to say that the 20 to 25 percent is a rate that is equivalent to six years subsequent to the graduation of their cohort group. Is that correct?
Hon. P. Priddy: I will work very hard not to have discussion across the floor, as we just did.
No, what I said was that if you look at the students who start in grade 8 -- the cohort group that starts in grade 8 -- then "a timely fashion" would mean within six years of that.
G. Hogg: Do we have any data with respect to how that may have shifted over the past five years, ten years, 20 years -- the percentages that have graduated in that timely manner?
Hon. P. Priddy: Yes, we do. If you look at the current graduation rates
G. Hogg: I think those figures are very positive figures, and they reflect the discussion that we were having earlier. I think the need for us to develop baseline data so that we can look at those types of improvements -- and I know the minister has undertaken to try to compile those in a consistent fashion, so we're able to do that
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Do we have any comparative data with respect to the 20 percent to 25 percent that's reflected in the environmental scan and how that compares to other provinces in Canada? How do we match up with other provinces in Canada with respect to that percentage?
[1640]
Hon. P. Priddy: We actually do have the Canadian data here. We're just checking, so if you want to move on with your question, we will report that back to you as soon as it's been pulled out of the data.
G. Hogg: Actually, I have consumed a considerable amount of water and would like to move on elsewhere for a couple of minutes, if I may. I have spoken with my learned colleague, who would be happy to ask a couple of questions while I take the opportunity to step out for a moment or two.
The Chair: We'll recess, then, for ten minutes and return at five minutes to five.
The committee recessed from 4:41 p.m. to 4:56 p.m.
[T. Stevenson in the chair.]
J. Dalton: The critic has kindly allowed me to get to my feet and go through a few of my shopping-list items. I don't expect I'll cover everything now, and I believe that he would like to get back to his line of questioning as well.
I want to follow up, firstly, on some of the morning discussion about the closure of McLeese Lake. Now, that's a specific example. But the minister referred in her response to the member for Cariboo North to a variety of criteria that would legitimize her rubber-stamping, if you like, the authorization to close the school. Well, I've looked in the School Act, and I don't find any such criteria. So my first question to the minister would be: where would we find these criteria? Are they set out in policy or regulations, and what are the criteria that she relies upon?
Hon. P. Priddy: It is part of policy, so you will not find it in the act. I did go through the policy pieces with the member for Cariboo North this morning for his benefit. If you're wanting me to go through again, I can certainly do that for the second time. Do you want me to do that again? Okay.
Hon. Chair, if I might
J. Dalton: That would be very helpful. I was going to actually ask that. I'm sure that my friend from Cariboo North would probably like a copy as well. It's an unfortunate example, although I can personally say that one school up there that I was familiar with, which I gather is not going to be closed, is Riske Creek Elementary. At least we headed off some of the difficulties that I know the Cariboo district had faced.
I'll deal with one or two probably provincial issues now, and then I'll turn it back to the member for Surrey-White Rock. One is something that comes out of the Sunshine Coast, which I have some working knowledge of, because I met with the former superintendent of schools up there about a year ago and also the chair of the school board. It's something that has become a headline item fairly recently, because the matter has been resolved, although I don't think very happily.
It involves the dismissal in 1991 of a schoolteacher in Sechelt. I think the minister and her staff are probably familiar with some of the aspects of this case. In 1989 the teacher in question was actually warned by the superintendent that certain behaviour was unacceptable. It therefore went into his file as a flag. Two years later other incidents occurred with the same teacher. The school board met at that time, having duly warned him and given him notice, and he was dismissed.
[1700]
Now, that may be not unusual in itself. But this thing escalated unbelievably. There was an arbitration and a 2-to-1 vote. The arbitrators upheld the dismissal by the school board. The matter, however, ended up with the Labour Relations Board involved, and it actually found its way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
I don't need to tell the minister or anyone in this House that taking any matter to the Supreme Court of Canada is very expensive. The then superintendent, who has since left the school district -- he's not retired; he's in the consulting business -- advised me then, and that was a year ago, that the legal fees in this matter were $400,000 just for the school district alone. Then we read the settlement that was finally agreed upon, and I think the school district, just in exasperation, was worn out by this whole thing after eight years of fighting it. They settled with the dismissed teacher for $245,000 in combined payout and pension funds, so that's an additional expense to the school district.
When I met with the chair and the superintendent last year, I did ask them: "Have you approached Victoria for any compensation or assistance? Did you approach BCPSEA or the school trustees?" Unfortunately, they were turned down on all avenues.
My question to the minister, with this rather horrific example, would be: has the ministry any concerns about management rights -- and I think this case demonstrates it -- and would they even reconsider their denial of financial assistance to the Sunshine Coast school district?
Hon. P. Priddy: In this and other circumstances, the board has the ability to apply to BCPSEA for assistance. BCPSEA then looks at the case as presented to see if it has provincial application. If it has provincial application, then they may provide some assistance. I think that in this case, they did not.
J. Dalton: When such an application is made to BCPSEA, does the ministry get involved in any decision-making process, or do they leave it up to the employers association to make that determination? The point I would like to reiterate is the fact that I think there's a very serious issue with management rights. All school districts should be very concerned about the implications of a half-million-dollar -- if not more -- financial obligation that a relatively small school district had to absorb to finally, after eight or nine years, resolve this matter.
Hon. P. Priddy: I take the member's point about management rights. I'm concerned about management rights as I'm concerned about teachers' rights. In the case of BCPSEA and their review, the ministry does not participate. BCPSEA is the employer, and they make that determination on their own.
J. Dalton: I won't belabour the point. Obviously I would like to think that the Ministry of Education might have been a
[ Page 16126 ]
little more proactive in this particular case, even though it's somewhat unique. In fact, I would imagine that this is probably the only example where a B.C. teacher firing has ever ended up in the Supreme Court of Canada. I would defy anyone to show me another example of that.
[1705]
But the fact is, again -- and I'll just conclude my comments about this particular example -- that the school district has been left hung out to dry on this one. How they've been able to manage their budget, having to absorb a half-million-dollar, if not more, financial obligation
I do have a couple of other provincial or provincially related issues that I would like to address at this time, and then I'll be able to turn it back to the member for Surrey-White Rock.
The minister, in her opening remarks, made reference to career centres. In one of the Budget 2000 documents for this year, there is a reference to five new career technical centres. Now, I've searched high and low through the ministry's estimates to find where this line item might be, and I came to a dead end. I was happy this morning when the minister actually made reference to it. Can the minister advise us where these five new career centres will be and what actual budget item has been assigned to these?
Hon. P. Priddy: Let me first talk about where the five centres are. All five centres are located in college regions. So the college will then locate them probably in one of their campuses: Northwest Community College, Okanagan University College, Kwantlen University College, North Island College and Vancouver. In Vancouver it's actually a consortium of several colleges. So those are the five regions to which the career technical centres have been placed or whose proposals have been accepted, if you will.
The funding for those centres is that they get $50,000 each as a planning grant. I'm not sure I can tell you which line it is, but it is indeed in the budget. Then once that planning has been done and they are up and running, they receive a CTC program amount of $1,355 per FTE on top of it.
J. Dalton: I have some familiarity with the Abbotsford Career Technical Centre. Will this be patterned on that, where I believe the students can start in grade 11 and then go through into post-secondary? Is that basically the scenario that these centres will follow?
Hon. P. Priddy: Yes it is. And I do need to say, because the member has raised Abbotsford, that they've been incredibly successful. They've just done a superb job. But yes, that's the model it will be based on.
J. Dalton: That's very good news. I'm happy to actually get the list of where these are located, because I would applaud the ministry and Advanced Education ministry, as well, for this initiative. I know Abbotsford, as the minister has just responded, is an excellent example. I can think of at least one person I'm familiar with, if I may -- i.e., my son; I won't refer to him by name -- who could have profited very well from a career technical atmosphere as opposed to the sort of traditional schooling where he and many other students really don't have much choice. So I think we should all look closely at these initiatives and certainly continue to support them.
One other item I would like to deal with right now, which also has both local and provincial in a sense
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I'm sure the minister has had overtures from parents and districts on this issue. Has there been any specific discussion or consultation about whether funding for next year and beyond may be found for this? A $40,000 figure is the one that has been cut out of the budget.
Hon. P. Priddy: Yes, there has been discussion, and there is not a sense at this time
J. Dalton: Well, I can understand, given the government's fiscal difficulties these days, why a $40,000 figure might have suddenly just been obliterated or cancelled. However, not to belabour this point too much, the fact is this is a longstanding exchange program. I take the minister's point that everyone may want to line up and have Spanish exchanges, exchanges to wherever. But the fact is that the advocates for the German exchange program have a long tradition, and I know it's a very popular one. For example, 57 students left this March on a three-month exchange. That's not an insignificant number. I believe the program's been going for 20 years, so it does have a tradition. I'm just hoping, although I'm sure the minister won't get to her feet right now and say: "Oh well, we've had a change of heart." But it would be nice if the ministry could reconsider.
I do know, because the superintendent in Maple Ridge told me the other day, that he has put out a request to the various school districts involved as to whether they may be able to find the money. But as we know, times are tough all over in the funding of education. It's not just Victoria's problem; it's the districts' as well. My colleague talked at length this morning about the fact that one school district, at least,
[ Page 16127 ]
has been forced into school closures. And other districts, such as Victoria, have cancelled their elementary band program. So it seems to go on and on.
Of course, at the end of the day, the paymaster, which is the ministry, says: "Well, I'm sorry, but we can't afford the $40,000." That then gets downloaded to the districts, and if they can't come up with it, it's either the parents who are going to have to fully fund it -- and the parents invest a lot of money, as I'm sure the minister knows, in this exchange program anyway
So those are the points that I wanted to make. At least it's on the record, and I'm hoping
I do have other items on my shopping list, hon. Chair, but I know that my colleague from White Rock would like to get back in. We are going to be, I believe, adjourning reasonably soon, so I'll turn it back to him.
[1715]
Hon. P. Priddy: Just very quickly in response to
I think the member's correct: there are fiscal challenges everywhere. But when the member referenced his hon. colleague talking about school closures this morning, it's important for me to restate that those closures are not based on the district not having enough money to balance its budget this year.
The Chair: I recognize the Member for Surrey-White Rock. Careful on the water.
G. Hogg: Thank you, hon. Chair, for the warning. I've learnt my lesson many times, I might add.
I appreciate the minister's indulgence in moving around subject matters, and I'd like to come back to hopefully finish off the performance plan in the next amount of time that we have.
So moving on now to the ministry's goals and objectives
Let me say firstly that I support the goals, and I believe that they are to be commended on those goals -- in particular, having improved student success and achievement at the top of those goals. I think it rightly deserves the first position. The descriptions of the strategies and activities combined with the key performance measures and the desired outcomes are both very positive and useful. We have talked earlier about the issues of baseline data and information, and I think all of those pieces make this that much more valuable in terms of moving forward. I just wanted to reinforce that the minister has stated that an effort will be made to bring together some of the indicators that provide that baseline data so that we're able to say, "This is where we are today," and be able to build on that. So if I could just have that again confirmed.
Hon. P. Priddy: Confirmation.
G. Hogg: At the bottom of the first page of the ministry's goals and objectives, it talks about the tables that follow for each of the objectives listed and the strategies and activities which the ministry intends to undertake in the years 2001, 2002 and 2003 in order to attain its goals. It says the ministry "intends to undertake
As I stated earlier, one criterion of a goal is that it be measurable and time-limited. "Intends" sounds a little bit more like a wish than a goal. Is it fair to say that it is the intent of the ministry to have completed each of the strategies? I'm trying to again apply the criteria -- time-limited, measurable, action-oriented -- to these goals. Rather than "intends to undertake," which seems like a soft approach, is it the intent of the performance plan to undertake and complete these goals? Or can we articulate that further as we go through them individually?
Hon. P. Priddy: Perhaps there's another verb than "intend," but this is the ministry's commitment to actually move forward on these goals. Whether they all will be completed
[1720]
G. Hogg: That means that we will have, as the minister has already stated, the baseline data. We'll have an annual reporting with respect to how we're performing in each of those goal areas or specific objectives that fall under those.
I'd like, then, just to move as quickly as we can through some of the strategies and activities and get a grasp of how they contribute to the overall goal, and how the goal reports to the values and the values reflect the vision, as we're moving forward to having "measurably the best" educational system in Canada. The first strategy is to implement the class-size reduction. I'm assuming that is a simple matter of the collective agreement and applying the agreement-in-committee, and that the dates associated with that are the measurement criteria and the time frames for the implementation of that. Is that accurate and fair?
Hon. P. Priddy: That would be correct.
G. Hogg: I noted the minister was acknowledging
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because of the Education estimates and that we were waving to each of them. I noted that the minister was doing that and welcoming the new
The Chair: Well, thank you. If there are any students in the gallery, would the House join in welcoming those students.
G. Hogg: Thank you, hon. Chair. We also welcome people who are not students but have been students at any point in their lives. I'm sure you're wanting to welcome them as well.
We only have another 18 pages
Interjection.
G. Hogg: I'm sorry. I missed that one. I digress.
For my benefit, going through these strategies and activities again, as we talked earlier about the compendium and the baseline data, it would be useful to have these lined up. As we've gone through the first one, the implementation of the class-size activities, the measurement for that would be the date of the AIC and to follow through the collective agreement.
While some of the key performance measures and desired outcomes are reflected, in most cases they're not reflected with respect to a time frame and a specific. So "expand the number of career technical centres" is again a soft goal that doesn't have the measurement criteria in it which would allow us to say specifically that we've achieved it at a specific number. I had this discussion in last year's estimates with the then Minister of Education, and we had some agreement that in terms of being able to establish a goal, it had to be something that was measurable.
When we talk about expanding the number of career technical centres, do we have a goal in terms of we're going to expanding those by five, by seven, by ten? Do we have regions? Do we have some specifics around that specific goal or objective?
Hon. P. Priddy: There is a goal. Now, obviously, the accomplishment of these is somewhat resource-dependent, but we would like to expand by another 15 -- to get to the total of 15.
G. Hogg: To get to
Interjection.
G. Hogg: Thank you. Is it possible, rather than me asking, that we could go through each one of these and get a clarification with respect to those? We're at the next one: "Expand secondary school apprenticeship and industry training programs." I'm assuming that we have some specific goals and, again, with the same time frame, and we have listed the strategies. What is our expansion with respect to secondary school apprenticeship and industry training programs?
[1725]
Hon. P. Priddy: I would not in each of these -- I can in some number, but I can't in all, and this one I can't -- actually say to you: "This is how many more apprenticeships, and this is how many more industry training programs." That is in part because it is not totally ministry dependent. In ones that we totally control it's easier to do that prediction. But with this one it's not only resource-dependent, it's based on the school district, and it's based on the willingness of industry to participate. So it's a bit harder to be able to do that projection. I certainly can with aboriginal education. For some of the other ones I can, and for some I don't have those specific numbers.
G. Hogg: Could I ask the minister, then, just to go down the strategies under this specific objective of improving student success and achievement, and outline, wherever it is possible, what the expansion focus or goal is, so that we can have the comparative data that we talked about earlier?
Hon. P. Priddy: I'm not sure I'm going to be able to provide the member with the information that he's looking for at the moment -- or at all. Well, a little bit of both, perhaps. We have reflected our measurement in terms of either maintain or improve, so I don't have
I think that with a bit of additional work, we could do that for some of these, and I'm prepared to do that and give that information to the member. For some we won't, I don't think, be able to do that, like a number of rationalizing correspondence programs and electronic learning. I don't know if we'll be able to do that in the same way. But if the member would like, I'll do it with the ones we can.
G. Hogg: Does that apply to each one of the objectives under each one of the ministry goals? Are there some of those that we're able to clarify at this point in time?
Hon. P. Priddy: The information that I could share, if the member would find that useful, isn't in the document that I think the member has. Under each of the objectives we have the performance measure, the desired outcome, the source of the data and the indicator that we would be looking for. That is there for each objective. If you would like that additional document, member, then I'm happy to provide that to you.
G. Hogg: Yes, I would certainly like that additional documentation. I am wondering whether or not those do articulate to the degree that I spoke of earlier, that they do actually have measurable criteria in them so we can actually say, "Yes, we have achieved this," as you did with the career technical centres, saying: "We're going to expand the number to 15." Do we have that concrete a statement or that concrete a goal in the performance measures or outcomes that you've made reference to? Or are we able to do that?
The minister made reference to strengthening and focusing aboriginal education initiatives. I know that last year I spoke with the minister with respect to some goals around improving the graduation rates of aboriginal students. We were looking at trying to say that we are going to improve them by 15 percent or 25 percent, or whatever the number might be, over a year or two years or three years.
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[ Page 16129 ]
Do we have those types of criteria -- again, harking back to what the auditor general said in terms of making those measurable and looking at what the criteria have? I think that it makes our system that much stronger to be able to say, "Here's what we're going to do, and here's how we're putting our resources behind it," so that we're able to say that the strategies, the policies, the procedures, the legislation and the dollar resources are specifically focused on being able to achieve these strategies. I think it starts to tie, in a very rational, coherent way, all of the strategies of our ministry together to achieve what I think is a most laudable vision.
Hon. P. Priddy: I don't think the information is presented in the way the member is asking for it. I need to be fairly clear about that. But what he will find is that where we have said either maintain or improve, there is baseline data which people can then begin with. So there will be an ability to assess from baseline data whether indeed we've maintained that or whether we have improved that. It has not been refined to the stage where we say, "This is the baseline data, and for every single one, we will improve it either by a 5 percent graduation rate," or whatever the other categories are. But the baseline and the commitment to improve is there; that refinement you are asking for isn't there.
G. Hogg: I guess when I see the articulation or the finer breakdown of the measures, I'll be able to compare that. Would the minister agree to look at trying to get a greater articulation or refinement of what those expectations would be, so that they are measurable, so that each year we can say: "Yes. Here is our target: expand the number of career technical centres by 15"? We know when we've achieved that, and we have a concrete goal to focus on.
From all of my work within organizations I understand that the greater clarity a goal has, the greater clarity that a vision has, the more likelihood that we are going to be able to achieve it. It becomes part of the culture that we talked about earlier. I think that by articulating those much more strongly and concretely and effectively, we are going to have a better chance of realizing each one of these strategies as they reflect against the goals, as they reflect against the values and as they, again, reflect against the vision that we're wanting to achieve. These strategies become the underpinnings; they become the process by which we achieve that goal. I think that the clearer we can make them, the more likelihood there is of our being able to achieve the vision that we have.
I'm asking whether or not -- again, there may be further refinement in the desired outcomes that you've talked about
Hon. P. Priddy: I would say that in terms of the goals and objectives, they are concrete, they are measurable and they are specific. I don't take issue with whether we can refine some of them even more, but I think we have to at least have some thinking about
G. Hogg: The comment with respect to 2 percent, in dealing with social services and education traditionally, looks at models like goal attainment scaling, where we say the minimum we will accept is 2 percent improvement and the maximum we would look at would be 100 percent improvement. Those goal attainment scaling strategies I think are legitimate and reasonable strategies for helping us look at those issues where a low percentage goal may in fact be debilitating and far less than we may want to achieve. My belief is that by putting a goal attainment scaling strategy or something similar to that in place, we would be able to achieve that.
I fervently believe that by more finely and concretely articulating these goals, we will have a much better chance of achieving them. We will have a much better chance of being able to have the effectiveness, the efficiency and the equity and, more particularly, the accountability that we've talked about wanting to build right throughout the system. This is one way of moving toward that accountability -- by declaring what we want to do and standing clearly beside what we want to do and being able to achieve it.
[1735]
I would again ask the minister not to look at a 2 percent increase as being a debilitating factor but to look at something similar to goal attainment scaling, which would say that this is the minimum improvement that we'd accept but that certainly there are lots of areas that we would go much further in. I guess I'm at a disadvantage, not having the key performance indicators that you talked about. They may further articulate in a finer way the type of things that we're talking about.
Rather than going through each one of these strategies and asking for those specifics, I would ask if the minister would be willing to look at those. Just as she's committed to providing us with some baseline information and data upon which to do some comparisons, if we could have some specifics around each of those, where we could say: "Here are our goals
An Hon. Member: Let's hear your question.
G. Hogg: I was asking if the minister would again be prepared to go through each of those strategies and put some measurable, time-limited criteria around each of those, so that we could proudly say we have accomplished and achieved those and know clearly that we have at any point in time.
Hon. P. Priddy: We will provide the member with the additional information. In terms of the strategies, there may very well be places where it is important and useful to have that, and I don't object at all to our doing that. That may enhance it. I think there will be some of these where I don't think that will necessarily enhance the ability to achieve that particular objective. But with the ones we can, I'm happy to do that.
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G. Hogg: Consistent again with the criteria, I understand the minister's saying that she will be able to provide those, with each of the strategies, in each of the objectives under each of the ministry goals -- that she will have her staff review those and provide us with a statement on those where it can be objectively measured what those criteria would be. I'd ask the minister when we might reasonably expect to receive such a piece of work.
Hon. P. Priddy: I want to be clear on the information we will be able to provide. Maybe we're just using different information or different wording. What we will be able to provide are the performance indicators, which are part of what I think that you are looking at. The additional information, which we may be able to provide for some of these, I expect would be about 30 days.
G. Hogg: With respect to the goals and strategies
I wonder whether or not we should be having some more comment with respect to teachers under the ministry goals. The minister has clearly stated that teachers are the most valuable resource in our educational system and that 90 to 92 percent of the funding goes towards the salaries and benefits of teachers. I wonder whether or not there should be a little more emphasis, with respect to the role of teachers, on improving and enhancing the ability of our teachers to perform within any of this.
I noticed that there's very little that pertains specifically to the teachers, and I wondered whether or not that's reflected in other parts of it or whether or not that's something that the ministry considered and chose not to include or felt was inherent in everything that was being reflected. From my reading of it, I felt that it would have been a little more responsive and accurate to reflect the very important role and value that teachers have in the whole educational performance and to have some strategies to enhance the teachers' performance, looking at their improvements and having those reflected in some of the objectives or strategies that are there.
[1740]
Hon. P. Priddy: Two points, I think, on this one -- three, actually. When we talk about the 90 percent or 92 percent of the budget, it is important to remember -- and I know the member knows that, but it's important for me to say it out loud -- that that's not only about teachers. There's all kinds of other support people within the system who fall into that package of people, if you will, that have incredible impact on students' success. So it's just important for me to state that out loud.
In terms of the presence or absence of teachers, if you will, in the ministry goals and objectives
The only additional ones that I could think of -- and it is part of the ongoing work of the ministry -- is the work that we do with universities around influencing teacher education and the kind of work we're doing, looking at recruitment and long-range human resource planning. I think that with the others, you can't improve aboriginal education without having teachers to support that, teachers who are trained to do that, teachers who are culturally responsive to do that. So for us, I think it was inherent in these goals.
G. Hogg: Let me say that I have found the performance plan to be extremely useful and interesting in terms of focusing a number of the initiatives that the ministry has put forward in a number of different ways over the past number of years. As a first attempt at putting together a performance plan, I think it is a valiant attempt to try to pull together a number of areas that are difficult to pull together and to put them into a format which allows us to say: "Here's where we want to go; here's how we're going to get there; here's where we are."
I think that in the discussion we've had today, the minister has clarified that there is a willingness to provide the baseline data, so that we can look at where we are today, where we are in terms of where we want to be. The vision is very clear about where we want to be. I think that just by perhaps looking at and including
It may well be that it is inherent. It goes without saying that the teachers are an important part, and all of the support staff that are a part of that, but sometimes I think those things that go well without saying go even better with a statement and a recognition of how valuable all of our staff members are to the goals that we have and what we want to achieve. So as the ministry looks at trying to articulate some of the specific goals that we've talked about, or the strategies and the outcomes that we can measure, it may be that they'll want to look at seeing whether or not there is some way to further recognize our staff in that process. And, as you say, those things that we felt were inherent in it -- perhaps there's a way of articulating and recognizing those. But I want to compliment the minister and the ministry staff for the work they've done in putting together a performance plan. As I said at the start of the debate, I really appreciated the work that they did in providing us with a number of the technical background information that we needed to move into this.
I'm prepared to move on to other subject matters at this point in time, or if Committee A has completed
[1745]
Motion approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
Committee of Supply B, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Committee of Supply A, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
[ Page 16131 ]
Hon. D. Lovick: With that, I wish all members a pleasant break from the labours of this chamber and moving into other fields of endeavour. I move that the House do now adjourn.
Hon. D. Lovick moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 5:47 p.m.
The House in Committee of Supply A; D. Streifel in the chair.
The committee met at 2:43 p.m.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT AND ECONOMIC SECURITY
(continued)
On vote 45: ministry operations $2,026,375,000 (continued).
Hon. J. Pullinger: I beg your pardon, hon. Chair and members opposite. I neglected to introduce the staff behind me. Everybody knows my deputy, Sharon Manson Singer. Behind me on my right is Shayne Ramsay, the acting CEO of B.C. Housing; to his left is Kay Melliship, executive director of housing development division; and Jim O'Dea, who is the chair of B.C. Housing.
R. Coleman: Good afternoon, everybody. If we move along, I think we can wrap housing this afternoon, so we don't have to bring staff back across the water on Monday -- I hope.
I wanted to start out today with what has obviously become the focus of so many people on the lower mainland, particularly on Vancouver Island. It is basically the most talked-about issue in housing today, and that is leaky condominiums. As everybody is well aware, and I am sure the minister is as well
I wanted to canvass it this afternoon relative to the Barrett commission, which basically conducted two inquiries relative to the quality of condominium construction in British Columbia and made a number of recommendations. I wanted to go over the recommendations this afternoon and canvass this issue so that the people out there will know where we're all coming from in the Legislature.
The first thing I'll ask the minister, just to get it on the record
Hon. J. Pullinger: Of course, I would be delighted to answer the question. But taking the Chair's guidance from earlier, I would ask the member to direct those questions to the Ministry of Attorney General, where the report is funded.
R. Coleman: That does not mean, I take it, that the minister isn't prepared to discuss the recommendations, because it affects the homeowner protection office and the Ministry of Social Development and Economic Security. I don't actually think that the cost of the commission is an issue here this afternoon.
I want to start with the recommendations, starting out with the Barrett commission. The first recommendation was that the definition of leaky condo be expanded to include a leaky building. A leaky building is "any residential building within British Columbia for which construction was completed in 1983 through 1998, and which experienced building envelope, failures requiring repairs in excess of $2,000 per unit for multifamily construction and $10,000 for singlefamily units or duplexes." My understanding is that there has been some implementation on that recommendation. I am wondering what that implementation is and how you've done that.
Hon. J. Pullinger: Just to clarify with the member for the record that this is Barrett 2 that he is asking about. Is that correct?
[1435]
R. Coleman: Chapter 3, "A Plan for Action."
Hon. J. Pullinger: But Barrett 2.
R. Coleman: Yes.
Hon. J. Pullinger: Thank you. The reason I wanted to clarify that is that we have not yet formally responded to the report. There's a large number of recommendations in the report -- formal recommendations -- but there are also other recommendations in the text. We have taken all of those recommendations, and we are working toward a response on them. But that response is not in place yet.
R. Coleman: Actually, just a clarification for the minister -- page 73 of the first commission of inquiry report, June 18, 1998.
Hon. J. Pullinger: Barrett 1.
R. Coleman: Yes, Barrett 1 is where that recommendation comes from, so maybe you would like to check with your officials relative to those comments.
Hon. J. Pullinger: Of course I'd be happy to answer questions about Barrett 1. That's why I asked for the member's clarification. It was Barrett 2 that his last question was on.
The contractor licensing and third-party warranty are certainly a high priority for government. We wanted to ensure that warranty and licensing are in place. We have taken steps in that direction to make sure we have third-party warranties that will re-establish consumer confidence and ensure that people get quality construction.
R. Coleman: That's actually question No. 2, and that's recommendation No. 2. Recommendation No. 1 is
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$2,000 per unit for multifamily construction and $10,000 for single family units or duplexes." That's the recommendation we're dealing with at the moment.Hon. J. Pullinger: We have accepted those numbers, and I understand that they are in the works in terms of draft regulation.
[1440]
R. Coleman: In accepting that definition, has the ministry also accepted the definition, relative to applying that definition across the board, to repairs on leaky buildings?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The answer is yes, with the exception of the year. We didn't want to exclude people, so we have gone beyond the year -- the limitation.
R. Coleman: That was where I was heading: 28.5 percent of the loan program has been applied to co-ops that are older than 1983. As a matter of fact, they go all the way back to 1977, as far as the percentage of money that had been given to co-ops for fixing leaky buildings.
I guess my next question to the minister is: has the home protection office and the ministry done some pro forma as to that adjustment? What it really means is if we have now
Instead of maybe looking at the number of condos and multifamily units that were built from 1983 onward, we're now going to have to look at the actual costs from 1977 onward. Have you set a standard of practice here that makes you nervous at all? Or have you done a pro forma as to what the long-term costs of that could be if we start getting into deciding that 23-year-old buildings are buildings that we're actually going to pay money out to repair?
Hon. J. Pullinger: All of our projections have been before 1983. The fact is that if a building is built very well, it's not likely to leak. If it's not built well, it is likely to leak. So we're looking at those who have been victimized as a result of condos that have been built or designed in such a way that they leak. To exclude people arbitrarily prior to 1983 doesn't appear fair to me. I understand the member's question and his concern about budget, but it seems to me there's an issue of fairness here as well.
R. Coleman: I'm not actually getting to the issue of fairness; I'm getting to the issue of age and also history. I wonder if, when the home protection office chooses to help out a building that is 23 years old
So I'm wondering what standard of practice you use to measure whether it's actually a building that's been affected as a result of construction or whether it's a building affected because of a number of other issues that could affect buildings leaking.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I understand the member's concern that co-ops built before 1983 may not have been maintained properly. I understand the argument that they should not, therefore, have funding. However, there is a certificate required that states that the repairs are done as a result of premature building envelope failure. That is the problem that we're trying to address here. So that is among the criteria.
R. Coleman: Just to clarify, I did not say that they should not receive funding, nor did I say that I referred exclusively to co-ops relative to this issue. I'm talking about the age of buildings and how we're going to set the standards to decide what is a building envelope failure, how we're going to decide if you have a reconstruction loan program, how you're going to determine the building. I don't care whether it's a co-op or a condominium or whatever you want to refer to it as. It's a multi-family building that's having a leaking problem. I'm questioning how the home protection office makes the decision as to which ones get funded when they get to that age and how we're actually disseminating the ability to do that.
Hon. J. Pullinger: It's very clear that the criteria for homeowner reconstruction loans are: (1) the building envelope failed sooner than it ought to have; and (2) the homeowner does not have sufficient savings or investments to pay for the repairs, based on some criteria which I would be happy to forward to the member if he wishes.
The criteria are very clear. It's a building that has failed -- the envelope has failed -- and therefore those who own it or live in it have the problem of leakage.
[1445]
R. Coleman: I take it the minister's comments are relative purely to reconstruction loans relative to the ability to pay, because whether you have the ability to pay or not, you still live in a leaky building. Somebody has to pay. That's the definition I'm trying to get to here as to the definition, not so much for the reconstruction loan
Hon. J. Pullinger: Perhaps the member could tell me what his concern is about. We have a reconstruction loan program here in British Columbia that provides funding for people who have, quite frankly, been victimized by leaky condos and can't afford to fix them on their own without undue hardship. We also have a PST rebate program to assist those same homeowners. I'm not understanding -- I'm sorry -- what the member's concern is. I've outlined the criteria that we use for that program. I don't understand what his question is about.
R. Coleman: I'm sorry that I wasn't very clear, if the minister didn't understand my question. I believe, frankly, that the issue of building envelope failures on a long-term cost to government and to society goes well beyond the reconstruction loans and well beyond that issue. That's why I'm trying to get to a definition of where, at some point in time, government is going to have to face the rest of the issue on
[ Page 16133 ]
leaky condos. I don't think we need to dwell on that at length this afternoon. I'll accept the definition that you have a building envelope failure that requires repairs in excess of a certain amount of money. That's what you're going to define as being a leaking building, and age does not apply to that definition.
Hon. J. Pullinger: The criteria that government uses are attached specifically to program funding. If in fact we decide to introduce another program or change a program, then of course I agree totally with the member. We would have to look at changing the criteria if that were necessary under the program. But the programs we put in place based on the analysis done are attached specifically to our programs.
R. Coleman: I would imagine that if we'd ever got down that road, a year or a day would be similar to what was done with hepatitis C as far as a cutoff date or something that
Recommendation No. 2 was that the government would "introduce, as quickly as possible, legislation to establish the Homeowner Protection Act" -- which they've done -- "create the homeowner protection office" -- which they've done -- "strengthen consumer protection through implementing mandatory, private sector home warranty and statutory implied warranty on residential construction; improve the quality of residential construction by regulating and licensing the residential construction industry; undertake research and disseminate information; provide access to dispute resolution; and establish a reconstruction fund
[1450]
I think you've implemented basically that entire recommendation. I'm just wondering if I could get comment from the minister as to how
Hon. J. Pullinger: First of all, I should advise the member that the homeowner protection office and the provincial Advisory Council on Homeowner Protection are, and will be, monitoring the home warranty insurance system to make sure that it remains workable and affordable as a model. Clearly we need to do that. There's also a range of instruments that are used, including technical reviews, financial security, indemnity periods, bonding, cash securities, etc. So there's a range of things that are put in place.
Certainly we want to make sure that it remains affordable; that's critical. But on the other hand, the first imperative -- we should all agree, I hope -- is to protect consumers from this ever happening again.
[R. Kasper in the chair.]
R. Coleman: I don't think that's the first time the minister and I are about to agree. Yes, I agree with the minister that we do have to protect the consumer and obviously protect the health of the industry. That's why I asked the question about whether this is actually acting like bonding versus insurance. I'm just wondering if the homeowner protection office has basically looked at this to see whether it's acting more as bonding or insurance and what their comments on that are.
Hon. J. Pullinger: The principle here is that we're sharing the risk between the consumer and the builder. That builds in an incentive for the builders to improve the quality of their construction over time, which in turn will lower the need for bonding, etc. I would assume that if one builds better and better-quality condos that don't leak and don't have other problems, then the insurance companies are going to start saying: "This isn't as high a risk; therefore we don't need as high security." That's the way it's intended to be.
We are, however, monitoring to make sure that it works that way. I am concerned about the builders, but I'm really concerned about what's happened to homeowners who have been hit with massive bills that they can't afford to pay. That just can't happen again. This is partly being paid for by the homeowner, but it's also incumbent upon the builder to make sure that they build good homes.
R. Coleman: I think we're going to get to a discussion about that impact on homeowners as we get a little further in this discussion this afternoon.
The third recommendation made was: "That the role and responsibility of what was formerly the building standards branch be reinstated under the proposed homeowner protection office as part of the education research function of this new body, and that it provide guidance and direction on both the interpretation and enforcement of the Building Code."
As near as I can tell, that implementation is taking place. I'm wondering how far along we are with it, what results you're seeing from it, and what your time line is, basically, for effective implementation of that recommendation.
[1455]
Hon. J. Pullinger: The member is quite correct that we have implemented most of that. I think the member would agree that the shape of the bureaucracy or the shape of the structure is less important than the function. We have, through the Homeowner Protection Act and office, put together a research and education function. Consumer education, particularly, has been one of the HPO priorities. They have put together a number of documents like "Buying a New Home: A Consumer Protection Guide." They have developed and published "Managing Major Repairs." They have developed a notice to mediate residential construction regulation for residential construction disputes, etc.
There are those and other publications based on research, and there's ongoing work for research and education.
R. Coleman: Outside the education side, what about the building standards branch's former responsibilities as far as materials and what have you coming into the marketplace? How far along are you with that?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The building policy branch of my ministry undertakes and continues the Building Code administration role that the member alludes to. The mandate of the building policy section is to provide acceptable standards for
[ Page 16134 ]
buildings in British Columbia. That, then, is the lead within the ministry and within government for establishing and administering building safety for all types of construction, not just residential.
R. Coleman: I think we can move on to recommendation No. 4, which as near as I can tell is sort of like a partial
Hon. J. Pullinger: The inspection remains a local government responsibility. HPO enforces the new requirements such as residential building, licensing and warranty provisions.
R. Coleman: Has the homeowner protection office done any work on the licensing of inspectors both within municipalities and as independent inspectors -- like people that are doing home inspections and providing these reports to homeowners prior to their purchasing?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The major protection built into this -- the way we've done this -- is that if you have a two-five-ten warranty on the work done, then clearly the warranty companies are going to make sure that they also are clear that these are good. They're not going to insure them unless they're well built, so they're going to require
R. Coleman: As you know, there are 20 different jurisdictions on the lower mainland itself that are all interpreting the Building Code somewhat differently, from municipality to municipality. Sometimes that's where a lot of these difficulties come in. That's why I'm wondering about a standardization of the inspection training of these people so that they're all basically on the same page.
[1500]
The other reference I was making was to resale, where somebody comes in and gives an inspection report for somebody purchasing in what could be a leaky building. Have we made any movement at all toward licensing that portion of the industry that's giving these so-called professional reports to people, which are supposed to give them confidence as to what they're purchasing -- as to standards of practice and how we're protecting them there?
Hon. J. Pullinger: There's been no decision or announcement to date that I can tell the member about. However, we are certainly aware of the concern.
R. Coleman: I'm going to skip over recommendation No. 5, because I think we took care of it in recommendation No. 3, as far as the dissemination of information. I would like to touch just briefly on recommendation No. 6. I'm not sure it's actually this minister's responsibility, but the home protection office may have some involvement in pushing that to happen. That's the improvement of having the resources for training and apprenticeship programs within this industry. Frankly, that's probably an issue for a lot of industries. I know this even with my own son. As far as the apprenticeship programs and training in another field, there seems to be a great deal of difficulty getting the education, getting in and getting the apprenticeship program going. I'm just wondering if the office has done any work on that.
Hon. J. Pullinger: ITAC is under the Ministry of Advanced Education, Training and Technology, and the member may want to ask his questions there.
However, I would point out that all education, including apprenticeships, is a very high priority of this government, and we have built apprenticeships into a number of industries. Certainly there's no political barrier to doing that, in this case, and I think everybody would welcome it. But there are budgetary considerations, as the member would be aware. I'm sure MAETT would be happy to talk about that.
R. Coleman: Recommendations 7 and 8 deal with part 5 of the Building Code relative to both renovations and the application of part 5 of the code. I don't believe those have actually been implemented by the home protection office or by anyone. At the same time, when you're dealing with your reconstruction loan, how are you deciding, for instance, who's making the decisions that these renovations are within part 5 of the Building Code? Are you relying on the professional consultants, like the architects who are doing the rain-screening and wall assemblies? How are you actually dealing with that?
Hon. J. Pullinger: In terms of the reconstruction loans, we require a third-party certification by a professional to ensure that the code is applied properly and appropriately. The other comment I'd like to make is that Barrett 2 made a revision to this recommendation, which is under consideration.
R. Coleman: I won't have to ask that question when I get to Barrett 2.
The next question deals with recommendation No. 10, because recommendation No. 9
A number of municipalities changed how they calculate FSRs a number of years ago, where they would take it from the overhang of the building for the calculations of the size of the building you could build versus the footing. This recommendation goes right to, basically, the root of that. I'm wondering what progress has been made and what your plan is for this particular recommendation, because I think it's a very important recommendation relative to future construction. And given that it's a consumer protection issue, I'd like to know where we're at with it.
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[1505]
Hon. J. Pullinger: We worked with UBCM and municipalities. We consulted with them and developed a guide entitled: "Best Traces Guide on Land Use Planning and Weather Protected Buildings," which was published in May last year. We continue to work with local governments, and a number of them, I understand, have implemented the recommendations or are taking the advice of this guide very seriously. And part of the recommendations No. 10 and Barrett 1 were revised in Barrett 2, which, as you know, is under consideration.
R. Coleman: In your guide that you're giving to homeowners are going into municipalities, are you including a question that they ask that they have applied this recommendation from you, within your guide, so that they're asking that question when they're going into any municipality relative to buying a unit, as far as consumer protection is concerned? Is that in your guide, or does it need to be added to your guide?
Hon. J. Pullinger: This recommendation is quite technical, and it's intended to advise planners, etc. It's not so much for consumers. The fact that it was developed with the UBCM and with municipalities, I think, speaks to the member's question.
R. Coleman: I just think it should be sold harder. I think it's a recommendation that should almost be a requirement -- that the municipalities are, somewhere along the line, required to meet this, because I think we're in the climate
I remember that in 1988, when I was in the business, the fellow that was doing all our construction at the time walked out of a meeting in Vancouver and refused to build a building in Vancouver without the overhang, because they told him
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
I think that was the right decision. The building didn't leak, and I think it is something that
Hon. J. Pullinger: We are, as members suggest should be done
Also, I should say again that the fact that you have to warranty buildings now to five and ten means that if a builder wants a warranty on their building, as required, then they're going to have to build it to standards. The warranty companies will be pushing back both in terms of design and in terms of building quality, so there's additional protection there.
R. Coleman: Has there been any movement either with the buildings that we've done reconstruction loans on or with municipalities that the home protection office is familiar with to forgive some setbacks in municipalities that now have buildings without overhangs so that when they do their reconstruction, they can actually change how the building setback is changed -- giving variances, so that you can actually put an overhang back on the building in some cases? And how many municipalities are you aware of that might be doing that?
Hon. J. Pullinger: My understanding is
[1510]
R. Coleman: I think we just have to keep letting UBCM know that more and more of them should be doing that, so that we can get that portion of the problem
I don't think we need to spend any time on recommendation No. 11. Recommendation No. 12 -- just a quick
Hon. J. Pullinger: Yes, the council's in place. People are at the table, and it's working.
R. Coleman: It's always good to see something that's working.
Relative to recommendation Nos. 13, 14, 15 and 16, I believe that those have been partially applied in many cases. I'm most interested in what you can tell me relative to the qualified building envelope specialist being defined by AIBC and APEGBC, and also the revised letters of assurance and field review processes -- whether that checklist is in place and whether that's being applied.
Hon. J. Pullinger: The issue around part 5 of the Building Code -- that's recommendation No. 13
In terms of No. 14, the AIBC has established the building envelope education program, or BEEP, for training professionals in the field of envelope performance. The advisory committee is considering a proposal to create a chair in building science and enclosure design at UBC, and letters of assurance were amended and strengthened in the 1998 B.C. Building Code.
[ Page 16136 ]
R. Coleman: How long is the training on the building envelope specialist side, as far as getting them up and qualified to be building envelope specialists?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I don't know what the length of time is. The member can probably find out from the Architectural Institute. But I understand that it's four modules that start with the theory and go to the hands-on, so it sounds pretty comprehensive.
R. Coleman: Recommendation No. 17 is municipalities, again. I'd just like to know if you know the status of it, because it asks that they should be explicit and give a written statement to all homeowners who inquire, to ensure that the exact function and responsibility of building officials are understood. I would assume this goes back to what each municipality sees as the responsibility of their inspectors and goes back obviously, then, to the discussion about whether the inspectors are actually doing the inspections or just collecting fees. Then we're back into the inspection discussion, I guess, and the licensing and performance of these. So I'm wondering where we're at with this and where they're at with it, frankly.
Hon. J. Pullinger: The member correctly points out that this is a municipal function. I would say for the record that we're working with the municipalities on this. But it is a municipal responsibility.
[1515]
R. Coleman: I guess it's always a concern. I know it's like we're passing it down to another level of government, but that written function seems to be pretty important as far as whether the buildings are being inspected by municipalities. I guess we could go back to the warranty discussion too. They may decide that they're going to have their own inspectors because they don't trust the municipal inspectors.
The Municipal Act is being modified to remove joint and several liability. The municipality will retain a proportionate liability. That was a recommendation here, and I have some concern about that recommendation. I don't think it's been implemented; I don't think the municipalities would want to implement it. It would obviously put them at liability.
My concern is that with the next jump, somebody changes the wording and says: "All levels of government are to remove joint and several liability." I am just wondering what the discussion has been around that point or whether we've actually put this one away somewhere in a file.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I think it would be correct to say that that recommendation has been filed.
R. Coleman: We'll skip over the Union of B.C. Municipalities, and I'll take that one up with them relative to their permitting. I'm wondering how many municipalities are under recommendation No. 21 or whether it's become a standard practice that they're waiving the permit fees on repairs or waiving the building envelope.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I understand it's standard practice for most municipalities, but the member may want to direct that to the UBCM.
R. Coleman: Obviously the regulatory side of the public authority, through a regulatory licensing arm of the homeowner protection office, has been implemented. We're working through that licensing issue. What it comes back to is just a quick understanding for me, an update, as to what we're dealing with, as I look at these. What are we doing with the owner-builder situation?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Trying to resolve it. It's a tough one.
R. Coleman: Do you have any idea how you're going to solve that one, you guys? Or is it just something that
Hon. J. Pullinger: It's unfortunate that some people have chosen to abuse the intent and avoid the intent of the legislation and regulations that protect consumers and ultimately the industry. It's too bad that that's happening. I agree totally with the member.
This is one of those things that appears easy on the surface, but when you start to dive into it, it's very complex. We have not yet found a solution, other than to monitor more closely. We have three new enforcement officers in place to do that. But there are still outstanding issues. We just have not yet concluded that there is a way to fix it that is feasible, that's doable. But we're continuing to work on it.
R. Coleman: We'll skip over a couple of these others, because I believe they have been implemented and we're working on them. I would like to know, though, about the special levy of $1,000 per unit. How much have we collected, if we are collecting it, and how well is that doing? Are the funds being applied back into the reconstruction fund totally, or is some of it going to administration?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The levy is $750; it's been applied on 677 units. I'll leave the member to do the math. It's for interest on the loans as well as for administration of the program.
R. Coleman: I just want to make sure I got that number right -- 677 units is the number? Where are we applying that relative to housing starts? The 677 units seems low to me relative to the number of housing starts that we have, that we can expect even in a low construction year. It's 16,000 this year, I think -- 16,000 to 18,000. I am just wondering how we are applying it. Is there something I'm missing here?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The regulation applies July 1, '99, only to multi-unit housing and only in the coastal zone.
[1520]
R. Coleman: I guess that shows us what has happened to the condominium and multifamily construction market in the lower mainland and Vancouver Island in the last 12 months, as far as 677 units are concerned.
Recommendation No. 26. The previous one, 25, is basically one of those obligation things -- "identify and blah, blah, blah" type of recommendations. I think they've actually worked towards that. But recommendation 26 is: "That the requirement for appropriate professional services on residen-
[ Page 16137 ]
tial buildings, as constituted in the Architects Act be enforced." That, I believe, comes back to provincial responsibility, as far as the enforcement of the Architects Act.
What's the status on that recommendation? If you're familiar with the industry, back in the boom, one of the things that happened was there was a lot of grinding on architects' fees and inspections. That may be one of the areas that slid. I'm just wondering where we're at. I don't have any information that indicates that we've moved on recommendation No. 26, and I'm just wondering about the status or what the plan is for that.
Hon. J. Pullinger: This is a very interesting test of self-regulation. It is the responsibility of the AIBC to enforce this. Obviously they haven't been enforcing this; they must enforce this. Certainly the provincial advisory council on which the AIBC sits is looking at this as well. But it's an interesting commentary about self-regulation and what can happen. I would expect that the AIBC will enforce these, as they are required to do.
R. Coleman: What's the province's responsibility to the Architects Act, as far as making sure that AIBC does enforce those provisions in its act?
Hon. J. Pullinger: That legislation falls under Advanced Education.
R. Coleman: I'm not concerned with where it falls under. The homeowner protection office must have some understanding as to its enforceability and where the province's responsibility falls into it; that's all.
Hon. J. Pullinger: In that regard, we are monitoring what's going on. But my understanding is that the professional body is required under its own legislation to provide enforcement. We're monitoring that, and they should be doing it.
R. Coleman: "
Hon. J. Pullinger: My understanding is that standard forms exist. Again the onus falls on the AIBC, as professionals, to ensure that their members use the forms that are set out by the AIBC.
R. Coleman: Since it was a recommendation, has the homeowner protection office reviewed those forms of contracts that they're presently using, and are they satisfied with their form and their application?
[1525]
Hon. J. Pullinger: The answer is yes, we have looked at them. Where it falls under our responsibility -- i.e., B.C. Housing -- it is enforced that those are used.
R. Coleman: Recommendation No. 31: "That the Architects Act be amended to require, and the Homeowner Protection Act be structured to receive, as part of the funding for the proposed education and research function of that office, an annual fee from each AIBC member of $1,000." What's the status on that?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Legislative change would fall under MAETT, as they only act
R. Coleman: When was that agreement made that they would voluntarily contribute. And what time line were they supposed to
Hon. J. Pullinger: The agreement was made in '99. There was supposed to be a future amount determined. The architects decided they weren't interested in any future amount, I understand, and so they did $250,000.
R. Coleman: Did they send you anything at all? Or did they just walk away from what was supposed to be the deal and not want to talk about it anymore?
Hon. J. Pullinger: They paid the $250,000, but my understanding is that then they really didn't want to talk about it anymore.
R. Coleman: I guess the ministry does have a hammer here, so I imagine you will be having a chat with them in the future, one way or the other, with regards to this particular portion of this issue.
I wanted to move on. There's some language in some of these recommendations that I just find to be somewhat innocuous, when they start to say things like "improved communication" and what have you. I don't think we need to spend a lot of time on those recommendations, because frankly, that's just like saying to somebody: "Maybe you should think about doing something."
I would like to go to recommendation 33, though, because the professional engineers were to work "to establish recognition of building envelope science as an important technical discipline and encourage members who practise in residential construction to upgrade their buildings accordingly." I hate the word encourage in there, because I think they should be told that they should upgrade their practices accordingly.
As far as the engineers and architects right now, where is the accepted science on the building envelope as far as repairs and that stand? Is the home protection office comfortable with it? Are you testing new forms of wall design and what have you to see what you're going to use in the future? Are these
[ Page 16138 ]
two groups, the engineers and architects, playing a legitimate role, or are they just around the edges and you're having to do more than you should have to relative to coming up with that?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The engineers, the architects and the city of Vancouver, I understand, have developed accreditation standards, and accreditation of building envelope professionals is underway, which is a good thing. Further, there have been a number of studies done; for instance, monitoring new and remediated wall assemblies, envelope drying-rate analysis, etc., are among those that have been done. The work is ongoing, as I think the member wishes to know.
[1530]
R. Coleman: I believe the homeowner protection legislation included the recommendation in 35, which was the authority for the homeowner protection office to recommend compulsory trade certification related to multifamily residential construction. Has that been implemented, and I am correct in that assumption or understanding? How is that compulsory trade certification working?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The requirement is there. The authority is contained in the Homeowner Protection Act, section 19, clause 2. But as staff appropriately says, there's not much point in trying to exercise that authority unless the programs are in place, and that work is ongoing.
R. Coleman: That takes me to recommendation No. 36, which requires the developer, builder, general contractor or subtrade who employs the compulsory trades to do the work on a residential construction site to file a report listing the names and trade qualifications of all certified apprentices and trades on the job.
I understand we have one void, which is: are we training them fast enough? The next void is: do we have them, in actual fact, in British Columbia -- enough of them to fill the void, as far as the trades? And then, of course, if we ever get a real estate boom again -- it always does go through a cycle every seven to eight years -- what are we going to do with that in the future?
The other side is
Hon. J. Pullinger: This is certainly an important recommendation. We have not made any announcement on this. If we were to move on this, it would be under the new Strata Property Act. Certainly I think this is a good recommendation. I just don't have anything to tell the member yet.
R. Coleman: The new Strata Property Act has actually been sort of this evolving hybrid for about ten years now. Who knows? I understand we're actually going to implement it on July 1, and then we're going to find out the problems with it and be back fixing some of those difficulties in a year or so. We're certainly going to change how people look at multifamily in a number of different ways. Some of the recommendations are very important, of course.
Recommendation 38 is the mandatory warranty "Under the authority of the Homeowner Protection Act, immediate, mandatory warranty for all residential housing built, as well as units undergoing renovations for structural or building envelope purposes. All units to be enrolled prior to the start of construction renovations to receive the benefit of inspection." I understand that on the new home side, we're accomplishing that. On the renovation side, I don't think that we are. I understand that we're not getting there as far as that is concerned. I'm wondering what the status is relative to that and what difficulties you're running into trying to come up with a warranty for a building that's already leaked, when you want to basically do the repair.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I will be able to advise the House in due course what we're doing about this. I can say at this time that we certainly are aware of this very significant concern. It's something I believe I've said publicly that I would like to act on, to move on.
R. Coleman: Have the various groups -- the engineers, the architects, the council that you have -- sat down and looked at this in some detail to try and figure out how we're going to
[1535]
Are you trying to get to that function that's sort of like that building standards function? Are you getting to a function where you will actually be able to identify what a real repair is and whether these people -- the strata councils, who are usually people that are really not that sophisticated relative to construction and repairs -- are getting the right price and getting the right practice done on their buildings when they spend these millions of dollars?
Hon. J. Pullinger: As I indicated previously, we have not made any announcement on this yet. I am very aware of the concern. It's a very high priority, because obviously it doesn't make much sense to have a leaky condo fixed by a leaky fixer -- or fixed as a leaky fix for a leaky condo.
I would say this to the member to give him some comfort in the interim, until I can give him something more concrete: the homeowner protection office
A Voice: Concrete -- leak-proof.
Hon. J. Pullinger: Concrete, that's right. Yeah, or leak-proof -- a leak-proof answer.
The homeowner protection office and, of course, the government are very concerned about this, but so are consumers. Part of the mandate of HPO is to do education; they are going out proactively to provide education. Also people are calling.
[ Page 16139 ]
Believe me, homeowners who have been hit with the huge cost of cleaning up the mess of a badly built building -- or badly designed building or both -- are very cautious about how they get it repaired, especially in the absence of regulation, licensing, etc., as recommended here.
Having talked to condo owners, certainly the experience of HPO is that the consumers in this predicament are finding the information -- much of it, probably most of it -- through HPO at this time. So I'm fairly confident that buildings are being repaired well. But there is more to be done, and I will advise the member when I can.
R. Coleman: I think this is a concern for all of us. I really don't care to speculate on which side of the House either one of us will be sitting five years from now, but I certainly don't want to be looking five years from now at a bunch of buildings that are leaking for the second time because we didn't give a standard of practice on the repairs of the leaks the first time around and ended up with leaky-condo crisis 2, I guess you could say. That is of huge concern to me; I'm sure it is to a lot of people out there.
Recommendation No. 39 was that the warranty providers be regulated by the homeowner protection office. I guess my question is: are they actually regulated under FICOM for strengthening the ability to regulate the warranty providers?
Hon. J. Pullinger: First I would thank the member for the implicit applause to this government for being the only jurisdiction so far to really act on this leaky-condo crisis. I certainly would welcome their support in terms of dealing with the federal government.
Beyond that, yes, of course, one of the problems is -- we all know; I believe it's out there well and truly in the public -- that the old so-called new-home warranty was not in fact a warranty in the legitimate sense at all. We are requiring real warranties by real warranty companies and real insurance companies, which are regulated by FICOM.
R. Coleman: That just brings me to a quick question. This is not a judgment or reflection or referral of HPO, the homeowner protection office -- I mean the new-home warranty. There is a comment -- I think it's in Barrett 2, volume 1, in February -- that the failure of the new homeowner
Hon. J. Pullinger: Because the new-home warranty was so very limited in all ways, the impact is, by our estimates, less than 5 percent of the total repair cost. But it is indeed an additional burden on the province which should not be here.
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R. Coleman: It's an extra burden either on the province or on the individuals, I guess, depending on whether you end up in the reconstruction loan program. I think you're pretty close, because it seems
Interjection.
R. Coleman: Well, I didn't quite get the implied applause part, but that's okay. I'm sure the member for Okanagan-Penticton will speak to me about my implied "applaudability" afterwards.
I wanted to go on to some other areas, basically to put some quick things on the record, because I think these recommendations are done, and I wanted to ask a couple of quick questions. Recommendation No. 41 was about warranty coverage to be offered in competitive market by private third party warranty providers -- minimal levels of coverage claims, settling procedures and dispute resolution approaches defined by the act. My question is simply: how many actual warranty providers do we now have? It seems to be one of those comments out there that, really, if you listen to the rumour mill, you could have anywhere from one to none to ten to 20. I just wonder how many we actually have approved as warranty providers.
Hon. J. Pullinger: This is a wonderful example of fact versus fiction out there. There are five: Commonwealth Insurance, Kingsway General Insurance, London Guarantee Insurance, Royal, and Sun Alliance and Wellington Insurance. They're all providing the two-five-ten warranties.
R. Coleman: The minimal coverage is two years for workmanship, five years for building envelope, including water ingress, and ten years for structural faults. That was the recommendation; I believe you're following that. What are you finding is the average insurance cost per unit that your providers are charging in order to accomplish that warranty?
Hon. J. Pullinger: It's between $600 and $1,200, depending on things like construction, builder's qualification and the location of the project.
R. Coleman: If they're providing it for that, I hope their actuarials are good, because actually, that's really not that bad a price to pay for consumer protection.
Now, obviously there's some other recommendations here relative to warranty providers, as far as developers, builders, contractors and the home builders association divesting itself of the new-home warranty. Well, I think probably the best thing has been done relative to the demise of that. I think that's a very good recommendation, because it's like: who's taking care of the henhouse when somebody owns all the chickens? It's that sort of thing.
Recommendation No. 46 was that CMHC provide to the borrower a complete copy of any appraisal inspection conducted in the process of obtaining a mortgage loan approval. I haven't been able to get a clear answer from CMHC -- or frankly, from the financial institutions -- as to whether they've actually implemented this. Do you have any feedback on where that recommendation stands?
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Hon. J. Pullinger: This recommendation is directed at CMHC and the banks, which, as you know, is the federal
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government and the banks. My understanding is that most financial institutions will usually provide an appraisal summary if requested.
R. Coleman: We might want to spend a couple minutes on recommendation No. 47. That's the one that says it's imperative that the federal government and CMHC provide a significant contribution toward homeowners who have been hurt by this crisis of quality. This is not only to alleviate the threat of bankruptcy for individual homeowners but also to protect the solvency of CMHC and the stability of the residential housing market of British Columbia.
I guess my question around this is basically: what overtures have we made to the feds, to CMHC? I know that CMHC, for instance, will increase a loan to any financial institution -- I think it's $10,000 -- without a phone call to CMHC to increase the size of the mortgage for repairs on leaky condos. I know that they'll go to $20,000 basically on a phone call or discussion with the financial institution, depending on qualification and debt service. Then after that there is an application process, as I understand it.
I find that the senior level of government has decided that it really doesn't have that big of an involvement in this issue, much to the chagrin, I'm sure, of the provincial government. Where are we at with any communication or negotiations with the federal government on any of the recommendations relative to this?
Hon. J. Pullinger: It is very frustrating indeed that the province is standing alone in terms of dealing with this crisis in so many people's lives and homes thus far. All I'm prepared to say at this time is that certainly there have been discussions, and there are discussions with the federal government.
With that, hon. Chair, I'd like to move a five-minute recess.
Motion approved.
The committee recessed from 3:47 p.m. to 3:54 p.m.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
R. Coleman: When we left, we were having a bit of a discussion about CMHC and the federal government. I guess my question goes back to what the communication is between the feds and the provincial government. I don't know if we actually answered that question as far as what communication the minister has had with the feds and what their comments have been back relative to some of the recommendations that they're trying to look at implementing or dealing with.
Hon. J. Pullinger: All I'm prepared to say at this time is that we have made contact and certainly are discussing the issues and the recommendations with the federal government.
R. Coleman: I'm just going to pick up on this letter here. This is a letter from Lou Sekora, Member of Parliament, Port Moody-Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam -- quite a handle for a riding, I guess you could say. I think I'll read the letter into the record so that we can have a quick discussion about the federal government.
The letter is addressed to the minister:
There is a letter addressed to Jim Stangier, a councillor of the city of Coquitlam, which I also have. Basically Lou Sekora sent a copy of his most recent letter to Jan Pullinger to Mr. Stangier. The assistant to Mr. Sekora was asked to confirm ""This letter acknowledges our meeting of Friday, April 14, at which we discussed provincial-federal cooperation to assist the leaky-condo owners. I then spoke with my colleague, the Hon. Alfonso Gagliano, minister responsible, with regard to the issues we covered in our meeting. It is my understanding that you and Minister Gagliano have since communicated.
"At the meeting you had mentioned to me that the provincial government had put up $75 million in interest-free loans for leaky-condo owners, approved on a case-by-case basis, and that your government had also spent approximately $25 million in out-of-pocket expenses, for a total contribution of $100 million. You further indicated that the federal contribution of $75 million, with an interest of 1-2 percent, would be acceptable. Please confirm to me in writing that this is what the provincial government would be asking the federal government to contribute.
"The federal government, via Minister Gagliano's department, added $4.5 million to the residential rehabilitation assistance program" -- that's the RRAP program -- "administered by CMHC in December 1999. These funds are available to leaky-condo owners in B.C. on a case-by-case basis also. We made it easier to apply and made the program more flexible, in addition to helping set up the homeowner protection office. We have spent approximately $1 million on research and information.
"I very much look forward to working with the provincial government to find a mutually beneficial solution to the problems facing leaky-condo owners. I look forward to hearing back from you at your earliest convenience with regards to the above issues."
So I guess there are a couple of issues around that. First of all, the Barrett commission and other people said they were facing about a billion-dollar problem. According to one letter, we were talking about $75 million at 1 to 2 percent. Is that the position of government? This is May 9, 2000, by the way. Is it the position of government that we're going to let them off the hook for $75 million at the federal level? Where are we going from there?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I believe that the pieces the member has read into the record would come under the general category of political posturing. I would ask the member's agreement to stand down the first part of the question. I will provide him with a full response in a moment. In terms of the disaster, I think that has to do with the political posturing. Let me explain.
Mr. Sekora has suggested that if we would stand up in British Columbia and say, "This is a disaster" -- which in the common parlance it certainly is, in people's lives and people's bank accounts and people's homes -- then suddenly a whole bunch of money would flow.
There are two small problems with that. First of all, a disaster, as proclaimed officially rather than under common parlance, means something like a flood or an earthquake or some huge event that creates a massive problem in the province and requires instant temporary relief and additional powers of government to deal with it. That is what a disaster declaration is. The last time that was used was in the interior when there was a huge fire. All it does, really, is provide additional powers to government to deal with that crisis for health and safety reasons.
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I think Mr. Sekora may have been watching too many American television programs. This is an argument for CBC and Canadian content, I think, because where in the United States that designation may trigger something automatically, it certainly doesn't in Canada. There is nothing in the way of the federal government participating with us in this. I mean, we've already put $100 million on the table in British Columbia, and we didn't have to shriek that this was a disaster to do it.
I appreciate that Mr. Sekora probably has some very big problems as a result of the federal government not participating. But calling this a disaster in the formal sense under the Ministry of Attorney General solves nothing. In fact, it doesn't apply to this situation.
I will respond in a moment to the other piece when my staff comes back with it.
R. Coleman: We'll come back to that, I guess.
Interestingly enough, if you look at one of the recommendations
Maybe we'll come back to that. If you'd like to deal with that first, then we'll come back to that discussion on tax deductibility.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'm happy to read into the record the response to the letter that the member read into the record a moment ago. This is a letter to Lou Sekora dated May 16. It says:
Blah, blah, blah. That's the content. In other words, wrong on every point."Thank you for your letter of May 9th, 2000, on the issue of federal participation in addressing the leaky-condo crisis in British Columbia. As you are aware, I have spoken with your colleague, Minister Gagliano, and we have each asked our officials to enter into a dialogue on how the federal government might play a positive role in providing relief to leaky-condo owners. Though Minister Gagliano was unable to make any specific commitments, he has agreed to look at a possible role for the federal government.
"To that end I'd like to clarify one of the points you raise in your letter. It is not the position of the British Columbia government that a federal government contribution of a $75 million low-interest-based loan program is acceptable. This confusion may stem from my statement that a good place for the federal government to start would be by at least matching the commitment of the provincial government. Also, for your information, our loan program is interest-free for those requiring assistance, and, in cases of extreme hardship, there are no principal payments required for as long as the owner lives in the home.
"It is my hope that the federal government will be able to respond positively to the province's request for participation and a more comprehensive assistance program. Again, these discussions are currently under way at the officials level between our two ministries.
"I understand that you feel the federal government has made some attempts to address the leaky-condo crisis. However, what is needed are concrete initiatives focused on the needs of existing homeowners. To date the federal government has simply not matched provincial leadership in this area. Having said that, I am encouraged by my recent conversation with Minister Gagliano.
"Your letter refers to the federal RRAP program as a source of relief for leaky-condo owners. While I appreciate your intent, it is my understanding that this program is of little help to leaky-condo owners, as the qualifying income has a ceiling of $27,000 for individuals and $34,000 for joint ownership. This ceiling effectively excludes the vast majority of those needing assistance.
"Your letter would seem to indicate that you are under the impression that the federal government had a role in establishing the homeowner protection office. The HPO was established on October 1, '98, through provincial legislation and is based on a recommendation of the provincially funded Barrett commission. The HPO is a provincial Crown corporation that reports to the Minister of Social Development and Economic Security.
"I welcome your support in raising this important information with your colleague, Minister Gagliano."
R. Coleman: And I'm not surprised, however. [Laughter.] I'm definitely not surprised. The interesting thing about this is how this particular Member of Parliament continues to speak out in the community, saying that they're trying to do something, that there's not a cooperation here, that there's not a cooperation there and that he's taking it to Ottawa. This thing has been taken to Ottawa for two years now, as far as I can see. I don't see any movement. Maybe we have the wrong person taking the message back east from that particular caucus or however you want to refer to them. Obviously there's been nothing happening.
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I wonder if the minister would comment, though, on tax deductibility. The issue around tax deductibility, which was in the report, basically dealt with the fact that if I were the owner of a rental property -- if I had a condo as an investment, as a rental -- and there was a repair to be done, that's a loss that can be taken back against my personal income. The homeowner does not have that opportunity.
I'm wondering if there's any movement or any intent on moving forward in that direction by the government relative to tax deductibility on the repairs. To take that burden off people is one of the vehicles. The cost is probably somewhere in the vicinity of, for provincial government, about $125 million for your portion of the taxation, I believe it is, and then the federal government obviously has a calculation above that. That's based on using a number like somewhere around $800 million as a total cost of repairs, etc.
I'm not here to debate the numbers; it's just a question that from the provincial government's perspective you have a recommendation, a report, relative to tax deductibility. We have an act that's going to allow us to basically manage some of our own tax structure in British Columbia that's going to come through the Legislature pretty quickly. What options are you looking at relative to tax deductibility for British Columbians on leaky-condo repairs?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'm only prepared to answer to the present. At present that's under federal jurisdiction. The federal government has not agreed to this provision or any other at this time.
R. Coleman: In your discussion did you ask for that provision from the federal government and then were turned down?
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Hon. J. Pullinger: In the last round of discussions, Barrett 1, that was asked for, and it was turned down.
R. Coleman: So I'm trying to make this clear for the leaky-condo owners out there that the British Columbia government took the initiative. They were prepared to do tax deductibility on leaky condos, went to the federal government and were turned down on the tax deductibility. You were prepared to do your portion of the tax deductibility when you went to talk to the feds, and they turned you down. Or did they just turn it down as a vehicle that they would allow you to use?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We were prepared to consider a partnership with the federal government on this issue and were turned down flat. So we instead have put together the $100 million program, which includes $25 million of PST relief, which is under our control.
R. Coleman: Let's move on for a minute. I think that the federal government is deciding to hide in Ottawa on this particular issue somewhere down a molehill and not recognize it as actually happening out in British Columbia relative to leaky condos. Certainly anytime I've had any discussions with anybody at that level, it's basically: "It's a made-in-B.C. problem, and we're not responsible."
You know, they did spend, I think it was, $700 million on the ice storms in Quebec, and certainly there's been some spending by federal government in other jurisdictions, even on
Recommendation No. 49 was one that I found rather interesting. I'll read it: "That financial institution clients who believe they are being coerced to obtain higher-interest loans for renovation and repair submit their complaint to the federal office of the superintendent of financial institutions or the provincial office of FICOM, as appropriate, for investigation." I don't think that's been implemented, but have you moved on anything to do with that, or relative to it? Have you found that basic
Hon. J. Pullinger: The issue is one of great concern. It's being addressed in two ways. One is that if people are getting into a situation where their loan exceeds their means, we're dealing with that through our reconstruction loan program and our PST tax rebate. We're also ensuring, through the HPO, that information is available to consumers about the complaint process, so that they're aware of it and they can use it, which is obviously important information to them.
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R. Coleman: Recommendation No. 51, I suspect, went the same way as the Architectural Institute, but I see it was a recommendation in there. As with all of these, I don't necessarily have an opinion one way or the other; I'm just wondering what your response is or what's happened with some of these things.
"Financial institutions operating in B.C. be requested to contribute, on a pro-rata basis, based on their residential mortgage portfolio, $10 million to the reconstruction fund." I don't have any indication that recommendation was ever acted upon. I'd like to know whether you had any correspondence that went out to financial institutions or not, and basically if you did, what you're dealing with there.
Hon. J. Pullinger: Those great institutions that are seemingly recording higher record profits every quarter basically told us to take a hike. For them, however, because we're protecting consumers, I might say we inadvertently protected about $250 million worth of first mortgage loans held by these selfsame financial institutions. I think the record speaks for itself on this one, and I will leave it to the member to decide what we should say about the banks. Obviously my sentiments are very clear.
R. Coleman: I suspected that was the case. I had heard that, but I wanted to see that on the record. Obviously what profits the financial institutions make is not open for debate here today. There are also pension funds that need dividends from profits of financial institutions in order to fund the pension funds, so I don't think that's a debate we want to break out into this afternoon.
Recommendation No. 52: "All property management firms for condominium buildings be registered immediately with the homeowner protection office." Has that happened? Frankly, these property management firms for condominiums don't have to be licensed under the Real Estate Act in order to manage condominium buildings, but if they're collecting rents they do. They actually have to have a real estate licence. In addition to this registration, what discussions have taken place relative to the Real Estate Act with the Real Estate Association, between the homeowner protection office and that group of people, who, to my mind, have also said that licensing is something that should be required relative to a real estate licence, to be able to manage a condominium project? I'm wondering where that is, because there is certainly a position of trust here; there's certainly the management of funds here; there's certainly all the things that we would have in a rental situation versus a management of a condominium situation. I'm wondering what movement has taken place on that.
Hon. J. Pullinger: That falls under the Ministry of Finance. We're working with them on this.
R. Coleman: What did I say
I understand that you are working with the Ministry of Finance, and obviously I'll deal with the Real Estate Act with the Ministry of Finance when I get there. But have you made a recommendation to the Ministry of Finance that they look at the licensing of these people that are doing this particular function -- these companies and individuals that represent those companies to strata council?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The nature of the discussions around that particular recommendation recommends just that. One of our biggest concerns as a government and certainly of the HPO, as well, is consumer protection, and this falls into that category. So it's among our higher priorities.
R. Coleman: That brings me to recommendation No. 53, which is obviously an extension of No. 52. One is that they
[ Page 16143 ]
have to register with the office, and the second is that they be licensed by the home owner protection office. Where is the status of the licensing with the home owner protection office versus moving to another body for licensing of this? Are you going to move ahead with licensing through the home owner protection office for this particular portion of the industry?
[1615]
Hon. J. Pullinger: It's essentially the same answer. It's under the Real Estate Act, and we're working with the Ministry of Finance on that.
R. Coleman: Recommendation No. 54 is one of the all-time challenges in strata management. I don't know whether you've managed to get anywhere with this. Basically it's that the strata councils that don't have the services of a management company be trained in the responsibility of property management and that a log book be maintained to ensure the maintenance responsibilities are fulfilled on a continuous basis. Some of that is covered off in the Strata Property Act but not very well, actually, or in very good detail. Maybe the regulations will address that. At the same time, with the homeowner protection side I'm wondering whether you've put into your education materials something where you're moving towards that or whether you're pushing that off to another body and, then, to who it is.
Hon. J. Pullinger: This recommendation was revised in Barrett 2, part 2, and this is
R. Coleman: I guess that also goes to recommendation No. 55. But recommendation No. 55, it seems to me, you've moved further to implementation, if I'm not mistaken. Maybe you can clarify that for me.
Hon. J. Pullinger: That's done.
R. Coleman: Done how?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The Strata Property Act, section 20, comes into force July 1 and fulfils such recommendations.
R. Coleman: To the next series of recommendations which, I basically take the attitude, have implementation because they're relative to the Strata Property Act
I'm going to move on now to recommendation No. 67:
I don't see where we've moved in this direction. I was concerned that we might, because I wonder about an implied warranty and its enforceability and whether you have moved in that direction at all."The Homeowner Protection Act include an implied warranty based on the following:
"(i) a new home is fit for occupancy, constructed from quality materials and is designed and constructed with skill and care;
"(ii) it is not possible for the purchaser to waive these rights;
"(iii) the time limitation applicable for breach of contract is ten years;
"(iv) the implied warranty is of benefit to subsequent buyers but does not impose liability on the original or intervening purchasers."
Hon. J. Pullinger: Such an implied warranty is for those homes that do not have the new warranty provision as a mandatory requirement -- that is, implied warranties under section 23 of the Homeowner Protection Act. Unfortunately, enforcement of that is by the consumer through the courts.
R. Coleman: The next one that I want to deal with quickly is recommendation No. 69:
Have you implemented an alternate dispute resolution system? How does it look relative to the arbitration versus the mediation?"That the Homeowner Protection Act make available an alternate dispute resolution mechanism
. . . for issues arising from problems surrounding residential construction -- in particular, building envelope failures -- and that:"(i) the system be optional for consumers but compulsory for the developer, builder, contractor, subcontractor, professional and warranty provider; and
"(ii) mediation be subject to private proceedings, while arbitration would be conducted under full disclosure rules."
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Hon. J. Pullinger: Mandatory mediation was put in place effective May 31 last year. That falls under HPO; we will look after that process. The parties have the option to go to arbitration, if they wish.
R. Coleman: Briefly, under recommendation No. 70: "That a reconstruction fund
I mean, the reconstruction fund is based on a need basis, I would take it, and those most adversely affected are being given loans first. Could you maybe outline for me the level or what the qualifications for an actual loan are?
Hon. J. Pullinger: That's the $75 million fund that I spoke of earlier. We've actually discussed two of the four criteria. The first two are that the home leaks because the building envelope failed sooner -- we addressed this earlier in the member's question -- and that the homeowner does not have sufficient savings or investments to pay for the repairs. Thirdly, the homeowner does not have enough in the home to qualify for a standard loan, or the homeowner cannot afford the monthly payment on a standard loan. And fourthly, the home is in a coastal climatic zone.
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R. Coleman: If you could just flip me the briefing book open every once in a while, I'll pick a question so that I get a longer answer and get a rest.
There are a number of issues that are in the realm of CMHC here. Obviously if you're not getting the cooperation from the federal government, you may not be getting cooperation from CMHC. But at the same time, CMHC may be actually working with you on some of these issues. Basically, on recommendations 71 and 72, how are you finding that working? Also, on 73, relative to the amount of funding to B.C.'s RRAP program, have you seen any adjustments on any of those things whatsoever relative to CMHC?
[P. Calendino in the chair.]
Hon. J. Pullinger: CMHC did increase the RRAP funding in 1998. However, it applies to everybody. There are no targeted funds for owners of leaky condos. And as my answer earlier indicated, because of the very low limits on those funds, most are excluded. However, co-ops which are totally CMHC-funded have been provided loans through the province, I think to the tune of some $41 million.
A Voice: No.
Hon. J. Pullinger: Oh, $27 million. I stand corrected. It's roughly $27 million.
R. Coleman: Recommendation No. 75, which is: "The same rules as apply for the use of RRSP funds for the down payment of a home apply for any homeowner, resident in B.C., who wants to undertake repairs. This would mean that an individual and spouse could withdraw up to $20,000 each without penalty, to be repaid within 15 years on a schedule of at least 1/15 per year." Have you made any sort of overtures to the federal government with regards to the recommendation No. 75 and also recommendation No. 76, because No. 76 deals with the retroactivity of that process as well? I hesitate to say that's the best recommendation, but it's an option for funds for some people. I'm wondering what overtures you've made and what responses you've gotten.
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Hon. J. Pullinger: All of the recommendations in Barrett 1 with respect to the federal government were taken to the federal government, and all of them got the same answer.
R. Coleman: Recommendation No. 77 is the one we already dealt with, and I had it highlighted. That was the tax-deductibility issue, and I think we've covered that already. And I think it's important just to note that that was an option that could have easily been applied to the tax system as far as relief for condominium owners in cooperation with both levels of government. And the federal government certainly should be sitting down and discussing this with this province relative to this particular issue.
We've already done the PST. The GST, I take it, got the same answer from the federal government as everything else that we've asked to talk to them about relative to this issue. The other two, I think, basically were done, except for recommendation No. 82. Has there been any movement at the municipal level relative to senior citizens being made aware of the opportunity to defer property taxes to alleviate some of the burden of the cost of repairs? Have you done something in your publication to deal with that?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The information is available in publication form, but we, through the homeowner protection office, have helped disseminate it.
R. Coleman: I just want to move on quickly to the first piece of Barrett 2, which came out in February of the year 2000. We've already talked about the fact that the March 2000 report is under scrutiny -- and discussion, I take it -- at the ministry. There are also, as we know, some severed portions of that that are under investigation by other authorities.
In this particular report there's only one significant recommendation that we know of, and that is a recommendation on how we can pay for this, to get people taken care of. I haven't heard what the government's policy is on that recommendation. But basically it was quite
So there was a recommendation: "The provincial government, with cost-sharing provided by federal government and the B.C. residential building industry" -- there's that federal government again -- "take immediate steps to create a compensation plan through the HPO. This compensation plan is to provide financial support to residential homeowners who've been financially devastated as a result of premature building envelope failures." It goes into a discussion of eligibility. Then it deals with the compensation, which is basically the flag that went up for everybody out there that has a leaky condo -- the compensation, in actual fact. That is actual repair expense to the max of $25,000, plus 50 percent of any further repair expenditures -- a maximum grant of $35,000.
"Non-taxable grant -- adjusted for a tax benefit received if the homeowner rented out the property and declared the repairs as a deductible expense; and
Then they basically made a number estimate of $900 million over four years. Basically that was 50,000 homeowners, which comes to about $18,000 per homeowner. The compensation plan would be administered through HPO. Then it just went, "
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Then they came out with a funding formula relative to that -- how the allocations of funds went when the homeowner foreclosed, on bankruptcy, etc.
Obviously I would be remiss if I didn't ask where you're at with that recommendation, if anywhere. Obviously the people out there that have leaky condos, when they read this report in February 2000, got pretty excited and thought that there was going to be an immediate solution for them. I'm just
[ Page 16145 ]
wondering where the government is with this recommendation, or any recommendation, as far as compensating owners of leaky condos.
Hon. J. Pullinger: The intent of that recommendation, read in its full, is for government to front the money to help close the gap between those who've created the problem -- which is not the province -- and those who've been victimized by it. Barrett is recommending that we front the money to the homeowners to assist them to close that gap.
I met with all the homeowners some time ago to make sure that they had Barrett part 2 -- as the first to get it -- and to meet with them and simply talk about all of the issues. I must say that I was impressed. While the member is correct that they are obviously concerned about their own situations, I was impressed by the generosity of spirit of that group, who are in fact very concerned about other consumers beyond themselves as well. That's something that is too frequently missing in our society today. They are very generously concerned about the broader picture as well, as I'm sure the member would appreciate.
The formula, as I told the leaky-condo owner groups that I met with, obviously can't work as laid out, because just right off the top, the federal government isn't going to participate in that -- at least to date they have declined to participate. That's number one.
Number two, we're out the door for $100 million already, and we are the only body trying to resolve this problem, despite the fact that there's apparently no culpability on the part of previous governments for this problem. So we are out the door for $100 million. The formula, as laid out, doesn't work. Quite frankly, there isn't $300 million sitting around to put into this, much as I would love to do so. I'm not sure that the support would be there from the broad taxpayer base and future homeowners to use the purchase of new homes to finance the other $300 million.
My take is that this is an unworkable formula. However, the intention, as I say, is to try to assist the homeowners in getting their repairs done more readily and to close the gap -- the time gap, I guess -- between those who created the problem and those who have been victimized by it. That intention is certainly one that I am working hard to
I would be very interested for the Liberal opposition to put their position on this on the record. I would invite them to do so today.
R. Coleman: I understand the minister's comments relative to this. It is a tall order, no matter how it's approached. There has been some response to me from a group that looked at the $900 million problem. I said, "Okay, tell me the real problem," because outside of the $900 million
problem -- which is the repair of the leaky condo, which is the drop in the real estate market value, which is the inability to sell and recoup and bankruptcies, etc
[1635]
The government has moved on a number of things and not received cooperation from the other level of government. Does the minister see any way to crystallize this issue in the mind of the federal government? Have you worked on any plans that would crystallize it to the effect that we would get them to the table to discuss some form of a compensation plan or some form of tax deductability or some form of something that will assist these people, other than just always meeting a "no" at the door? What approaches have we taken? Are there new approaches sort of being formulated to try and do that?
Hon. J. Pullinger: This government is very concerned about the human and social cost of this tragedy and, also, the fact that it has just punched a hole in the real estate market in British Columbia. People are simply afraid to buy condos, because some of them are so badly built that they just don't know what they're walking into. That also, as the member points out, has hurt. It has sort of doubled or compounded the problem for those unfortunate victims of this problem.
That's why we commissioned Barrett 1 and 2. We initiated that as a province. We have taken those recommendations to the federal government, as I indicated. Certainly my predecessors took Barrett 1 to the federal government and were not able to find success there. There are discussions, as the letter I read and my comments have made clear, currently ongoing with the federal government. So yes, we're looking at all sorts of options.
I would be delighted if we could come up with a way to deal with this that was innovative and didn't cost the province $300 million. It would be lovely if the federal government would come in, even as a beginning place, to match our contribution in terms of GST equivalency and some equivalency around the $75 million reconstruction. That would be a nice start.
So yes, obviously we want to move on this. Discussions are underway. But again, I would invite the opposition -- because actually I'm asked a fair bit -- to put its position on the record here today on this issue.
R. Coleman: As the minister's working through her position on leaky condos and trying to come up with formulas, so are the opposition. I don't think you've found your formula yet, and I don't think we have found our definitive formula yet, either. But certainly the opposition is working on it and has had a committee of caucus dealing with it. Hopefully, we'll be able to get to something that we may even be able to sit down with the government with and go forward together and accomplish something. There is certainly a non-partisan issue here, relative to a real human factor that shouldn't be played out as being us against anybody else or somebody else against anybody. It should be played out for the benefit of the people who are suffering out there.
The ironic thing is that if a person was actually to move across the hall and rent their neighbour's condominium, and they were renting theirs, they'd have a whole different application on tax deductability on the repairs of the unit that
[ Page 16146 ]
they own today. This sort of shows a beginning inequity of discussion with the federal government that makes
That, for me, finishes the Barrett commission this afternoon, hon. Chair. I'd like to move on to some other topics, but I would like to take a five-minute recess, if possible -- if that's okay with the minister.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I would just say thank you to the member opposite for his comments on the subject. I would like to say also that, as government, we welcome their participation. If they have recommendations, I'd like to see their proposals for dealing with any of these issues. I would welcome that.
With that, hon. Chair, I would move that the House recess for five minutes.
The committee recessed from 4:40 p.m. to 4:50 p.m.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
R. Coleman: The primary discussion for me this afternoon was the Barrett commission and the home protection office applications and what have you, because that seems to be the major issue.
I do want to cover a few issues relative to the Housing Commission. I don't think we'll spend a bunch of time today on the home protection office's business plan and corporate plan. Frankly, I've read it and been through it and talked to the individuals involved, etc., over the last while.
I want to talk just briefly about the housing programs. There is, in the main expenditure, assumptions and forecast risk from the consolidated revenue fund for this ministry. On the housing programs of $104 million, it assumes a 7 percent interest rate and no change in tenant income. The 7 percent interest factor: have you looked at that today relative to the five-year rates and how that affects your $104 million? And is the $104 million subsidy payments, or is that actually just mortgage payments?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The $104 million is everything. In terms of the interest rates, yes, of course that's a concern, because we have such a large portfolio. But the majority of our mortgages are longer term for precisely the reasons the member is clearly concerned about, and we are as well. To date we don't have a concern, and nothing has shifted. We're still placing mortgages around that level, but we will monitor that closely.
R. Coleman: In my estimates in 1997 with the then Minister of Housing -- I was reviewing those estimates the other day -- we entered into a discussion about the movement of people within tenancies, both within the non-profit sector and within self-managed units within B.C. Housing. At that time -- I'll paraphrase the discussion, or I could actually reach back there and probably get the details -- basically my question was: how are you monitoring it? Are you monitoring all the tenants in the portfolio -- that being both in the non-profit sector and in the managed sector -- relative to what damages they may have caused to a unit and then moved on to another unit? And are we tracking that relative to the money that is owed to us?
That was a huge concern in '97. The minister said that it better be happening -- or he would want it to be happening -- back in '97. I've asked the question since and really never had the satisfactory answer that you do have a system in place for doing this. It is a concern to me, and obviously should be to the minister, that if somebody does $2,000 or $3,000 worth of damage to a unit, if they move from one project to another -- whether it be from a non-profit into one of the self-managed units -- we would actually know that and be able to have some discipline within the system relative to that.
Hon. J. Pullinger: We do know about unpaid arrears, and certainly both B.C. Housing and the community groups that own and run housing are obviously very concerned about both unpaid arrears and unpaid damages.
Also, when new units are being filled or empty units are being filled, people do check references -- the society or B.C. Housing, whoever is the owner and manager of the units. They check references, and that information is available. However, I do want to say on the record that there is a concern in the social housing and co-op movement, and one that is certainly shared by me, that you don't also want to get into a situation where you start blacklisting people.
[1655]
I mean everybody, but certainly people who are stressed
R. Coleman: I really get nervous whenever we start describing some people on a low income and then start describing any type of behaviour as stress in their lives. I can tell you that in my experience on the landlord and tenancy side, income has little to do with what a good and a bad tenant is. There are some absolutely phenomenally good tenants that live in subsidized housing in this province, and they should never be painted as being anything other than that. There are some people that are living in market housing who are brutally bad tenants that are not being subsidized, because they have income. I think that that distinction always has to be made.
The only concern, when we raised it back in '97 and subsequent years, was not that we would say, "You are no longer eligible for housing," but that there would be discipline in the system to know where we have a problem. And where we have the problem that somebody had done damage, we would say: "We would like you -- at $25 a month or $10 a month or whatever the case may be -- to start paying some money back to us for the damages you did to a previous project or unit."
I believe that may be improved, and I think that there's one reason for that. But the difficulty that was taking place was the movement between the two portfolios. Even though both are subsidized on programs by government, the movement between the two portfolios of the tenant list didn't interact. People didn't actually know the interaction between the two portfolios. I don't know if that has been addressed yet,
[ Page 16147 ]
as far as that side of it is concerned. We all know how references work oftentimes in tenancies, so I don't think we need to get into that discussion. Certainly the interaction was what was being discussed in '97. The minister felt it was important that that was put in place. I'm wondering what the status of it is today.
Hon. J. Pullinger: As I'm sure the member knows, members on this side of the House are pretty passionate about not labelling people, even as good and bad tenants. What I'm suggesting is that from time to time, those who the member opposite might be referring to as bad tenants are actually people who are in crisis for one reason or another, and we were talking in the context of people who have low incomes. My concern is that we don't, just because somebody has had difficulty and has been what the member would call a bad tenant, label them as such on an ongoing basis. I would expect that the member would agree with that.
It is real that there are additional serious stresses that happen to individuals and families because of being poor. That's just a fact of life and something, I think, that we try to alleviate in a number of ways, including providing them decent, safe, affordable housing and supported housing, where that's appropriate. I expect we have some agreement on that issue.
On the other issue, the hard financial issue, we do collect arrears. We do enter into agreements. In terms of people moving from one housing unit to another -- whether it's private, public or co-op -- the standard practice is to check references, and that is certainly advisable. Certainly it is followed and is what ought to happen when an individual moves, say, from a co-op to social housing or from one form of social housing to another.
[1700]
R. Coleman: I think it was about a year ago that the commission changed a portion
Past practice was that 75 percent of the tenants in a housing project operated by a non-profit society would be selected by the local group, based on the same CNIT -- the core-need threshold and all of that -- and all the other requirements. They would do an interview and select the 75 percent. The other 25 percent of the tenancies just came directly off the B.C. Housing Management Commission's lists, whether it be in Burnaby or somewhere in the interior -- whatever the case.
If you change that to 100 percent local selection by the non-profit -- still obviously in the CNIT and all of that -- that obviously must have had two impacts on you. One is
Hon. J. Pullinger: We recognize that housing is more than just having four walls, a door, windows and all of that. Housing, especially in a multi-unit kind of accommodation, is about community. Therefore, having those closest to that community working with that community and part of that community and making the decisions about who lives in that community is appropriate in our view. It has been extremely successful. It really has made no impact on the waiting lists -- there are simply the same people coming from different places -- but it has had some very positive impacts in terms of people having control over their own lives in community. It has also opened the door. For example, hard-to-house people may have been restricted in the past to the 25 percent filled by B.C. Housing. Today, because we've opened the door, they have access to 100 percent of the units. So it's working extremely in a number of aspects, including those two.
R. Coleman: Just for the minister's information, I actually advocated that in 1996, the first year I did estimates. I applaud that, frankly. I was hoping that it was working out as well.
Hon. J. Pullinger: That's twice
R. Coleman: In this particular case, you actually ended up agreeing with me, because I actually asked the question before the minister in '96.
I had a discussion with the chair of B.C. Housing one day with regards to the rent calculation and the management of the portfolio, and I wanted to just sort of touch base on that portion of the operation of B.C. Housing. I realize that I'm bouncing from here to there, because I'm trying to move through the high points so that we can sort of finish.
The rent calculation
[1705]
Hon. J. Pullinger: Let me just give the short answer, because I think it will circumvent or jump us past the second question. The answer to the first question is: no, there isn't any change; it's the same as it was.
R. Coleman: I'm sorry, but I'm going to ask you -- because somebody else was talking in the other ear -- to repeat that.
A Voice: I apologize.
Hon. J. Pullinger: No. [Laughter.]
R. Coleman: Well, I could read all of this into the record for the next 20 minutes and bring you back on Monday, or we could try that again. Can we just have a quick clarification on that please?
[ Page 16148 ]
Hon. J. Pullinger: The answer is no, we're not changing the 30 percent. So it's the same as it was.
R. Coleman: I recently attended a conference on the digital nervous system in government -- which was basically how governments are going paperless and how governments are creating savings and efficiencies relative to how they do operations by using an electronic network. The last I checked, to make an adjustment to rent on a rent calculation form at the commission, it was between four to six months to get that into the system, through the system and then back into the society's hands. That actually has a dramatic affect on the cash flow of societies relative to their operations, to such an extent that they often run in deficits and have trouble with taxes and what have you at the end of the year.
I have a friend that owns or manages 3,000 units of housing and runs the entire operation electronically. He can tell you from moment to moment when a vacancy is in a specific unit. He can do a rent application or an inspection report over e-mail, process that to head office, have a staff of one and a half people do that process and process the information back to the location. In this case, there seems to be a tremendous inefficiency relative to the society's.
I have had a short discussion about it with people at B.C. Housing. I'm wondering if we're moving toward something that's going to take care of this problem, because it's really having a negative impact, as we've discussed, on the operations of societies, their cash flows and their ability to pay the bills and run the projects that we're asking them to run.
Hon. J. Pullinger: We are currently working with the societies and groups affected to determine the best way to simplify this process. We expect, sometime in this fiscal year, to have a new process implemented.
R. Coleman: Is that going to be a paper process, or are we going to try to move to an electronic process?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Actually we have set up the goalposts -- which is simplify the process. We're not going to go to the Big Brother syndrome where we have everybody in a database; we're a little bit concerned about that. Certainly anything we do, we'd have to make sure that we had the freedom-of-information and protection-of-privacy commissioner's nod. What we're doing is essentially setting up a performance-based set of goalposts. Then we'll determine the best way to get through the goalposts without creating other problems.
R. Coleman: Don't you already have that information in a database? You say you're afraid about setting up a Big Brother process. You have a list of people waiting for housing. You know their income levels, you know their location, you know their phone numbers -- you know their information, because otherwise they wouldn't be on your list. You must have some tenancy information on your tenants. I'm not sure how you see that the electronic side would be creating a Big Brother problem for you, but maybe you could explain to me what you mean by that.
[1710]
Hon. J. Pullinger: Yes, of course that information exists. What I'm suggesting is that what we don't want to do is create something that adds to that or makes it easier to access or whatever. What we are going to do is to use the best of paper or technology, human processes and communication processes, etc., to simplify the process. That's the objective.
My view is -- and there's been a lot of moves in government in this way -- to always push decision-making where it makes the most sense. In my view, one of the options is to move that calculation out to the groups, the same as we've moved a lot of other decision-making out to the societies or co-ops themselves. So that's certainly the kind of thing that's being contemplated; but we just want to make it simple.
R. Coleman: Anytime you can simplify that process, I think you're accomplishing something, frankly. It certainly has been an issue for people.
I'm just going to run through a few issues, some issues relative to some communities, so that I can get them on the record for people, rather than having to do it at a later date. One is in north Kamloops. It is a 26-unit project with the John Howard Society. I'd like to just get an update on that particular project. There certainly seems to be an awful lot of stuff, for lack of a better description, running around Kamloops about this project. There are a couple of things I'd like to get on the record. One is: what's the economic rent? What's the status of the project?
I'll tell you my understanding of it, just so that we don't have to beat around the long description. My understanding is that this particular project needs a parking variance that the municipality has to make the decision on. Therefore it does not have a final allocation for construction. It's got some sort of a conditional approval attached to it. One of the comments from B.C. Housing has been that community support has to exist for the project and that has to be clearly demonstrated by either the council decision on the parking or by the community. I'd like to know how you're going to measure that and, basically, the economic rent for the project and the user group.
There is, no doubt, given the correspondence I've had, an awful lot of confusion and misinformation in Kamloops, again, as we find with a lot of these projects. If you've ever done a public hearing on projects like this -- I have, and I know some of the people behind you have as well -- there's lots of that that always takes place. I think the best way to handle this one would be just to throw it on the record so that we can send them a copy of Hansard, tell them what the project is and what it states, and we can be done with it.
Hon. J. Pullinger: The way we function, for the most part, is to look to communities to determine what the problem is -- people in communities know best what needs to be addressed -- and then to also allow and expect communities, for the most part, to come up with the solution to those problems in the form of a proposal to government -- B.C. Housing, in this case. That's effectively what has happened here. Then B.C. Housing confirms that that particular kind of need does exist. It may be the case that the overall rental vacancies are not what would warrant social housing, but there is a subset, if you like, of members of the community who in fact do have a high need and do not have access to the kind of housing that they need.
So the information, the definition of the problem and the definition of the solution come to B.C. Housing. B.C. Housing verifies that the numbers are correct and then, based on the
[ Page 16149 ]
community's approval through zoning and other processes, will provide conditional approval, as we did in this case. That's a very public announcement of the community's proposal.
Then they have run into some difficulties in this proposal, obviously. Our role, then, is to help the community to work out the issues, which we've done. We've been working with the community to try to help them determine the best way to deal with this. I understand there's an open house in June, and then it's going to council. We'll be looking to the council, as the elected leaders of that community, to tell us whether that project will go ahead or not.
The economic rent is more or less $900 per unit. The subsidy is more or less $600. So it's a two-thirds subsidy, for the most part.
[1715]
R. Coleman: What's specific to this user group and this marketplace that meets a specific need? What is the specific need being filled for this particular user group in this marketplace?
Hon. J. Pullinger: For the record, I want to make sure that we're clear that there is both support and concern for this proposal that the community's come forward with. The proposal is to house homeless, at-risk singles and couples. These are individuals and couples in the community who are having a very difficult time either finding affordable housing or finding affordable housing that's in any kind of decent shape. Quality of housing is a big issue, and the market, quite frankly, frequently ghettoizes people in very substandard housing. And the tighter the market, the worse that problem becomes. Hence the need to build social housing as part of community stability and quality housing for low-income people. It's for singles and couples who are homeless and at risk.
R. Coleman: The next one I'd like an update on is, I know, near and dear to the heart of the chair of B.C. Housing. It has certainly been asked before. I'm wondering if there's any update, because it's one of those ever-evolving files. It has to do with a piece of Crown land in the Cheekye fan, a Squamish seniors housing society that I'm sure anybody who has been around the housing market for a long time is aware of. To describe it to the minister, the Cheekye fan has the potential for a mudslide that would come down into the Squamish Valley, and if there wasn't a dike built to stop this like an earthen dike, then it would wipe out a large piece of land. It's actually a very nice piece of Crown land, with the exception of that one little problem.
It's one of those continuous things. I didn't ask about it last year, but of course it seems to have reared its ugly head again. I'm wondering if there's any update on that particular piece of property and any involvement by the commission.
Hon. J. Pullinger: The status of the project is that there is no proposal before B.C. Housing. With respect to the environmental concerns, I understand there was a request to the Ministry of Environment for a waiver of the rules to build social housing there. I understand that the Ministry of Environment has denied the request for a waiver of the rules to allow housing to be built there, but you might want to check with the Minister of Environment.
R. Coleman: I don't know why we would waive rules for social housing that wouldn't be for normal market housing. It's like the one public hearing I was at many years ago in Langley. They said: "You can't build there, because it's near an airport and some planes might crash there and injure a child." They put seniors there a year later, because it was basically one of the arguments for not putting social housing in that location.
I don't know if the minister can give me an update or not, but another one that I've received a number
[1720]
Hon. J. Pullinger: Yes, that co-op had some problems. There's nobody more interested in solving them than the co-op itself. The OCG went in and did a review for the co-op. That review is complete. There have been some changes in terms of the board, and we're working with them to deal with any outstanding issues to make sure that the co-op is functioning as it ought to for the benefit of its members.
R. Coleman: Moving quickly to the CMHC download, as I will refer to it this afternoon, I'm wondering what the status is, relative to that negotiation that's been ongoing now
One of the principles we've discussed over the last two years is that we would want, wherever there was the opportunity, to have control of title so that future opportunities for private-public partnerships or redevelopment -- however we want to use that land and property to create more housing in our marketplace by using the land to our advantage -- would be there. I'm just wondering where we're at with that and what our principles of negotiation are.
Hon. J. Pullinger: With respect to redevelopment, etc., we have an agreement in place. I understand that we can do that without the federal government or CMHC taking back their percentage. Secondly, the principles that the member discussed last year still stand. Nothing's changed. Thirdly, we took co-ops off the table at the request of the co-op movement. Quite frankly, the co-op movement has been looking to B.C. for leadership on that issue, which we have provided. We're also the first to work with the first nations community to respect their desire and right to self-manage as well. So we're working with them, as well, on that front. Negotiations are underway. Negotiations continue.
R. Coleman: I'm glad to see that we recognized the first nations issue, because most jurisdictions just said, "I don't want it," and didn't want to go any further. I don't think they got the opportunity in other jurisdictions relative to the self-management of their housing stock. I don't think anybody should have any quarrel with that, frankly.
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The other side of the coin is that the co-ops have for some time wanted to be in a national body with
Basically we'll be able to create made-in-B.C. solutions to housing, rather than having to go
[1725]
One of the last issues I just want to canvass with the minister
Yet one of the recommendations in here was that there be a ministry where all of things are consolidated in one place so that the agenda for housing basically can be managed in one location. Has there been any movement at the government level to look at that recommendation as something to create efficiencies within government relative to the Housing portfolio -- albeit a huge one -- relative to how it affects condominiums, single-family residential tenancies and what have you? Has there been any discussion or movement within government relative to that recommendation?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We did in fact make a big move in terms of pulling this ministry together. So we have housing policy together with the B.C. Housing and HPO, and that is a very significant step.
One of the difficulties, as the member may be aware, is that you could
R. Coleman: I think that's moving in the right direction. I have a real concern, and I say it in these estimates every year, because I think we haven't seen even the blip of the crisis that we're facing in housing in British Columbia. Sometime in the next 18 months to two years, as we
If you take a look at that, and you look at the existing stock
That's why it concerns me when residential tenancy sort of sits over here in a ministry, not because of the judicial side of the arbitration and what have you, but because of the ability to actually react to what's going to be a need for some agenda in that particular area. I don't know where that reaction to that agenda can come from -- whether it can come from the commission
[1730]
Hon. J. Pullinger: The member is quite correct. There is a problem with rental stock. We're seeing gentrification; we're seeing redevelopment into condos. We're seeing the problems we see in Kamloops. There are all sorts of problems, not the least of which is the fact that the shoddy construction of condos in the late eighties and early nineties has driven a spike through the heart of the housing market. It's a big problem; there's no question.
With respect to all of those things, this government, I think it's fair to say, has been a leader in Canada in many ways. We have a very diverse way of coming at the issue of housing, from the cold-weather strategy and coordinated shelter response to what we're doing to ensure quality construction for people in terms of condos, which is where a huge amount of the action is.
There are also things that municipal governments can do. I would encourage the members opposite to talk to Philip Owen about things such as anti-conversion laws -- or doing what Davis, California, has done, which is that every development is required to set aside a certain percentage of the land, no matter where it is. It's absolutely unchangeable in Davis that if you do a development, a percentage of that land goes to cooperative social housing, which creates an integrated community and also makes land available for social housing.
We have obviously got a great deal of concern about housing. In other provinces there is a crisis in homelessness; in British Columbia there's a big problem. That's because we continue to build social housing, we have a range of rent
[ Page 16151 ]
supplement programs, and we're buying housing such as those in the downtown east side -- the SROs that we've bought -- and so on. We're working with the federal government. One of my colleagues is taking the lead on that, in terms of the Vancouver agreement with the federal government and Vancouver.
So it is fair to say that in many, many ways, we have been on the forefront of dealing with this issue in this country. We will continue to look for innovation, partnerships of all kinds and a broad range of policy responses to the whole issue of housing and homelessness, which is so difficult. The issue of housing is certainly an issue that affects everyone. But it is fair to say, unfortunately, that in a market system it's the people with lower incomes -- and the lower the income, the bigger the problem -- who have the most difficult time. They are the people that are squeezed into ghettos. They are the people that have to live in neighbourhoods that are most likely to be dug up and redeveloped and gentrified. They are the people who, in the market system, end up so frequently in just unacceptable conditions.
One of the keys to stabilizing housing markets and ensuring quality housing that's appropriate is to buy it or build it to make sure that there is a stock of publicly owned social housing and co-ops to fill that need. We will continue to keep that as part of our social housing mix.
R. Coleman: I'd like to thank the minister for her time this afternoon. I understand the other House is ready, and I'd just like to thank her staff. I would suspect that we're done, as far as this is concerned. I have read, over the last four years, about everything that B.C. Housing has put out and had enough briefings with them to know how they're operating and know what's going on. There are always public policy debates that will take place as legislation or changes come along, and I'm sure we'll bump into that over a period of time.
[1735]
I'm not sure, frankly, whether the critic is completely finished with housing, because she may have some issues around seniors housing that she may wish to canvass. I don't think that will be that difficult, and we can certainly schedule around that. I'll be speaking to her over the weekend, and we can move on from there. But thank you for your time this afternoon.
Hon. J. Pullinger: Thank you. With that, hon. Chair, I would move that we rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The committee rose at 5:36 p.m.
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