Hansard -- Wednesday, March 12, 2003 p.m. -- Vol. 12, No. 12 (HTML)



CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Page

Introductions by Members		5457

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		5457
	Coastal Ferry Act (Bill 18) Hon. J. Reid University of British Columbia Services Continuation Act (Bill 21) Hon. G. Bruce J. MacPhail

Statements (Standing Order 25b)		5458
	Hazelton Secondary School D. MacKay Prince Rupert container port B. Belsey Joint strategy for downtown Victoria J. Bray

Oral Questions		5460
	School-based education funding J. MacPhail Hon. G. Hogg Affiliation of B.C. Teachers Federation with B.C. Federation of Labour K. Krueger Hon. C. Clark Privatization of B.C. Hydro assets B. Penner Hon. R. Neufeld Availability of foster care for youth J. MacPhail Hon. G. Hogg Marijuana grow operations and electricity theft D. Hayer Hon. R. Coleman

Committee of the Whole House		5462
	Unclaimed Property Amendment Act, 2003 (Bill 15)

Report and Third Reading of Bills		5463
	Unclaimed Property Amendment Act, 2003 (Bill 15)

Standing Order 81 Motion		5463
	J. MacPhail Hon. G. Collins Hon. G. Bruce

Standing Order 81 Motion (Speaker's Ruling)		5468

Second Reading of Bills		5469
	University of British Columbia Services Continuation Act (Bill 21) Hon. G. Bruce J. MacPhail Hon. S. Bond

Committee of the Whole House		5480
	University of British Columbia Services Continuation Act (Bill 21) J. MacPhail Hon. G. Bruce

Report and Third Reading of Bills		5487
	University of British Columbia Services Continuation Act (Bill 21)

Royal Assent to Bills		5488
	Small Business Venture Capital Amendment Act, 2003 (Bill 3) Budget Measures Implementation Act, 2003 (Bill 6) Income Tax Amendment Act, 2003 (Bill 7) Employee Investment Amendment Act, 2003 (Bill 8) Auditor General Act (Bill 9) Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2003 (Bill 11) Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act, 2003 (Bill 13) Unclaimed Property Amendment Act, 2003 (Bill 15) University of British Columbia Services Continuation Act (Bill 21)

Hon. J. Reid: Joining us, I would like to welcome today Ray Whitehead and Tom Harris, who are both members of the B.C. Ferries board of directors. I would ask the House to give them a warm welcome.

J. Bray: Being half Scottish, it's my pleasure to introduce three of my constituents: Roger and Sally McGuire and their son, Harry. They're joined today by Roger's parents, Frank and Diana. Roger, a recipient of the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal, is the well-known pipe major of the regimental pipe band in the Canadian Scottish Regiment — Victoria's famous highland militia unit — and a founding director of the Victoria Military Music Festival Society, which arranges popular, exciting band concerts and tattoos in our capital city. I would ask the House to please make them all very welcome.

W. Cobb: With us in the House today is Sharon Whitely, a longtime resident of Cariboo and a 28-year employee of the government. She is presently with Land and Water B.C. In all those years, this is only the second time — and I understand it was only earlier this year — she's been in the precinct. Sharon is one of the hardest-working and most conscientious employees I know, and her attitude is not why something cannot be done but how we can make it happen. I ask the House to please join me in making her welcome.

R. Hawes: Today in the gallery we have Lt.-Col. Don Copple, the division commander of the Salvation Army, and Capt. John Murray of the Salvation Army, who are here to hold some meetings with MLAs. Could the House please make them welcome.

R. Stewart: It's my pleasure to introduce a constituent who is visiting the House today. Carole Helter is a member of the parents advisory committee at the l'École des Pionniers de Maillardville. Would the House please make her welcome.

I. Chong: In the gallery today are two young adults whom I have had the pleasure of working with over the past year. The first person, Miss Lindsay McCray, began as a volunteer in my constituency office in Gordon Head and then went on to be a part-time constituency assistant. Now, here in the Legislature buildings, she is an assistant legislative assistant doing, I know, a fine job.

The second individual is Mr. Rowan Shaw, another young man who has worked in my office since the beginning of this year, again providing invaluable service to my constituents. They're here to watch question period. I know it's exciting for them to see it in live, real action as opposed to on television, so I hope the House would make them both very welcome.

Hon. R. Thorpe: Mr. Harry Chesher, the general manager of the Penticton Convention Centre, retires today after 22 years of service. Harry started with the city in 1981, and during his employment he was a driving force in the redevelopment of the convention centre in Penticton and spearheaded the 1988, 2000 and 2002 expansions of the centre. Over his 22 years of service he has worked in bringing over 2.5 million delegate-dates to Penticton. Harry plans to remain in Penticton and become even more involved in the community of the South Okanagan. Would this House please acknowledge Harry Chesher's contributions to the tourism industry of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, it is indeed a pleasure for me to introduce to you a former Speaker of this House, who is sitting on the floor with us today. He's here in Victoria with his wife, Ella Mae. She is in the gallery and is otherwise known as Little Red. Harvey is a former Speaker and was elected to represent the riding of Chilliwack in 1972, '75, '79 and '83. He served as Deputy Speaker and then Speaker from '78 to '82. In August of '82 his political career suffered a setback. He was made Minister of Agriculture and Food. He has rallied from that and is looking good, and he's always welcome on the floor of this House. Please welcome Harvey Schroeder.

Hon. J. Reid presented a message from Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Coastal Ferry Act.

Hon. J. Reid: In December we announced a new future for B.C. Ferries and its role in our province's growing economy. B.C. Ferries is being transformed into a modern, safe, reliable ferry system that is designed to provide superior service with no additional financial burden on taxpayers.

With the introduction of this legislation, we will be establishing a new regulatory framework for coastal ferry services — an independent regulatory framework — and a new service delivery model. Coastal communities and ferry users will see improved service and greater customer choice, guaranteed service levels and fair rates, an

independent regulator to protect the public interest, economic development and job creation, continued public ownership of ferry terminals, no new public debt and new mechanisms to ensure ongoing accountability.

Fulfilling a new-era commitment, B.C. Ferries will also be designated an essential service, ensuring that coastal communities receive the service they need. The legislation will provide for a long-term contract between the province of British Columbia and B.C. Ferry Services to establish a marine transportation system, while ensuring that B.C. Ferry Services becomes a financially viable service provider for the first time in more than four decades.

While designed to protect consumers, the new structure has enough flexibility to allow B.C. Ferry Services to encourage strategic private sector partnerships and entrepreneurial ingenuity, which will transform our ferry services into a customer-focused, financially stable marine transportation system that will ensure the ongoing safety of its vessels, passengers and cargo.

I move that the bill be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 18 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. G. Bruce presented a message from Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled University of British Columbia Services Continuation Act.

Hon. G. Bruce: It is out of concern for students at UBC that I present Bill 21, the University of British Columbia Services Continuation Act, for first reading.

Our first and most important priority is the 23,000 students impacted by the current labour dispute between UBC and its striking CUPE members. This dispute poses a very real threat to students being able to complete their academic term. This could mean they cannot progress in their studies or, in some cases, graduate. That outcome is not acceptable.

Government does not want to see students hurt by this labour dispute, but at the same time, we want to see bargaining succeed. With the possibility of a long-term harmful impact to students' education, government can take some steps to help the process along and do what it can to end this impasse.

The University of British Columbia Services Continuation Act will give government the authority to impose a cooling-off period at the University of British Columbia. This cooling-off will also see the parties return to the bargaining table within 72 hours and will allow students to get on with their studies.

In crafting this legislation, we have sought a reasonable balance that will allow the parties to continue to work on a resolution while students get to their classes. The last collective agreements that were in force have been extended for the period of this legislation or until the parties come to a new collective agreement. Finally, the legislation includes a sunset provision that will see the legislation expire on March 31, 2003.

It is my sincere hope that the parties will use this time creatively and responsibly but, most of all, in a manner that no longer makes students the focal point of negotiations.

The government wishes to seek today, under standing order 81, that Bill 21 be moved through all stages in one day. The reason for this is twofold. First of all, 1,600 teaching assistants and 75 English-as-a-second-language instructors have been on strike since February 10, 2003. Secondly, on March 7, 1,400 support and library staff joined that strike. The Minister of Advanced Education has informed members of government that 23,000 students are in jeopardy of losing their school year. That is why the government believes that given the urgency of the issue, this legislation should be put through this House at the earliest possible opportunity to ensure that students can get to their classes.

I move that the University of British Columbia Services Continuation Act, Bill 21, be placed on the orders of the day for second reading today.

Bill 21 introduced, read a first time and ordered to proceed to second reading forthwith.

J. MacPhail: Mr. Speaker, I request a clear 15-minute recess in order to examine this bill. I note the minister suggested the government was going to try and ram this through in one day under standing order 81. I need time to prepare an argument for your consideration before you make that determination.

Mr. Speaker: By agreement, would it be all right with the Leader of the Opposition if we proceed through question period and then take our recess?

J. MacPhail: That's fine, as long as it will be a clear recess with no other business. Is that your determination?

D. MacKay: Ensuring that our children are provided with a good education is very important to the

people in the north. As a government we have protected education funding and ensured that the resources are directed into the classroom, where they belong. We have developed a system that allows for all voices to be heard — parents, teachers, students and principals. We believe educating children needs to be shared by all.

The Fraser Institute's recent report on B.C. high schools revealed that Hazelton Secondary is one of the most improved schools in the province. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the staff and students of Hazelton Secondary for their hard work and dedication. The results are starting to show, and I have every confidence that the improvement is only the beginning.

Not long ago Hazelton Secondary was ranked zero out of ten and near the very bottom of the school rankings. In 1995 nearly one in four students didn't graduate. Last year only one in 20 failed to graduate. While this is not precisely where we want to be, we are definitely heading in the right direction.

In part this progress can be attributed to Hazelton Secondary implementing a number of creative programs to better connect students to their school. For example, monthly recognition assemblies and homework clubs offered by teachers have improved the school culture. This flexibility and innovation is an example of the combined commitment our students and staff have shown to improving their education environment. They're doing their part, and I congratulate them. We are doing ours. Further, our government has pledged an additional $50 million to school boards across the province to meet increasing financial demands. Examples such as these demonstrate our government's commitment to rural education by focusing resources on students. We are starting to see the results.

B. Belsey: I rise today to speak about a pending development of a world-class container port to serve northern British Columbia, a container port that will open the world to a northern British Columbia cargo route but, more importantly, will open northern British Columbia to markets around the world.

Prince Rupert anchors North America's shortest and most efficient land-sea route to Asian markets. Small wonder that shippers increasingly look to Prince Rupert to solve their transportation problems. More than 400 hectares of industrial land are open for development, while modern truck and rail infrastructure links this existing port to North America's industrial heartlands.

Prince Rupert is 30 hours sailing time closer to Asia than any other port of western Canada or the west coast of North America. This reduces both the time and the costs of shipping and allows carriers an additional route, one round trip each year. The Port of Prince Rupert is accessible to the entire continent on all-weather roads and rail connections. As a western terminus of CN Rail shippers, again the added advantage of the lowest rail grade through the mountains of any Canadian rail route and faster railcar turnaround time and access to 80 percent of CN's total capacity on state-of-the-art northern lines…. It is an ice-free harbour, one of the deepest in North America. It can accommodate not only the vessels of today but also the superships of tomorrow. If you are a specialty grain producer in the Peace or a log home manufacturer in Prince George or a sawmill owner in Terrace or Smithers or maybe a pulp mill operator in Prince Rupert, a container port in northern British Columbia will open the world of opportunity for marketing your raw product or your value-added product.

J. Bray: Over the last few weeks I have been speaking in this House about the city of Victoria, the Vancouver Island health authority and the Victoria city police and their joint strategy to deal with the problems of drug use and homelessness in Victoria's downtown core. In their strategy, they call on the other levels of government — including the province — to work in partnership on several short-term and long-term strategies.

I have been talking regularly with Mayor Alan Lowe over the last several weeks on where the province can assist with some immediate solutions. I also did a walkabout with Rev. Al Tysick from the Open Door to meet many of the 65 permanently homeless persons living on the streets in the downtown core. Through these discussions, I have learned several things:

(2) We need to increase treatment and supportive housing for these individuals and improve access for the person with a mental illness and substance abuse issue to actually get into the system.

(3) This problem is not limited to downtown but is, in fact, throughout many family neighbourhoods in my community.

(4) The city, regional, provincial and federal governments must all be part of the solution.

This is why I am so pleased to advise this House and my constituents that the provincial government has agreed to provide funding for one of the key short-term strategies identified by the mayor. This is the training and education of volunteers to expand needle collection services in the downtown area and adjacent neighbourhoods. Intensifying the needle cleanup program is one of the six short-term goals listed in the downtown action plan. This provides increased public safety and also a visible sign to citizens and tourists alike that downtown is, in fact, safe. I am pleased to be able to work in cooperation with the city of Victoria and Mayor Lowe. Tomorrow night I will be on a panel discussing the issue of street drugs and treatment at the screening of the movie FIX: The Story of an Addicted

City. I will continue to work with the city to find other opportunities to partner with the province on real solutions for all concerned.

J. MacPhail: The Minister of Children and Family Development is cutting the budget for specialized programs for poor kids by $7 million this year. Yesterday we heard how the government is attacking poor seniors. Today it's poor kids. How can the minister justify this draconian cut when the Premier's budget for public affairs has been increased by that very same amount?

Hon. G. Hogg: I assume that the member is referring to the issues with respect to the school-based programming. I want to point out to the member that there is a reorganization of these figures. We're actually providing funding this year at rates higher than we have in previous years because of the refocus of the programming that we've been doing. We've been meeting with parents, with school trustees, with principals, with vice-principals associations, with community service providers and with teachers. We are developing a program which more accurately addresses and focuses on the needs of the high-risk children.

There are 705 schools in this province where there are children coming from families which have over 10 percent of those children on income assistance…. We are now addressing a program which focuses on and addresses the needs of those children in more effective ways than we ever have in the past.

J. MacPhail: Well, a cut is a cut. This government has cut school-based programs to help poor kids by $7 million. Just like yesterday when they refused to tell what's really happening to poor seniors, they refuse to tell exactly what's happening to poor kids today — $7 million less. Over 140,000 kids depend on this funding. They depend on it for hot lunches. They depend on it for counselling. They depend on it for activities. These are at-risk kids who need specialized support and help.

Again to the minister: will the minister ask the Premier to show some compassion and spend a few less bucks on misleading Pharmacare advertising so that poor kids don't have to go to school hungry?

Hon. G. Hogg: The auditor general in 1998 did a review of some of these programs and pointed out that, in fact, one of the programs that was provided by the last government was inefficient, ineffective and not focused on the outcomes necessary to assist children.

We have done a review, and we've looked at all of the countries and the organizations for economic cooperation and development. They've told us that there are three criteria that have to meet an effective program. One is that it's locally focused. A second is that it has the participation of parents, and the third is the community. Those are the important criteria in terms of making sure that a program has some impact on the educational performance of children.

We are refocusing these programs so that we do measure and look at those outcomes that we found the international studies suggest must be there. In the past, when the NDP government was in power, there was not a focus on those types of outcomes. There was not clarity of expectation. We are having a chance now to involve a coordinated, integrated service delivery model that includes our local authorities meeting with school boards so that we can have a coordinated approach which will make a difference for children in their educational performance.

J. MacPhail: There isn't one poor kid, one poor family, one inner-city school or one inner-city organization that supports what this government is doing to these programs. Every single group, parent and child is bemoaning and decrying the $7 million cut, no matter what this minister likes to say. As always with this government, they find a problem, and what do they do? They don't correct the problem; they cut funding. They penalize the poorest of the province.

There are over 700 schools in British Columbia where more than 10 percent of their kids are in families on income assistance, just as the minister said. It's been shown over and over again that school-based funding improves academic achievement for these youngsters. These programs help support learning. They help student achievement, parents and teachers. School boards across the province say these programs help. So what does this government do? They cut the program, and they say to every poor kid: "You're going to get less."

Does the minister agree that funding is essential, and if funding is so essential, like all of his caucus is saying now, why did he cut the program by $7 million?

Hon. G. Hogg: I'd like to point out that in the past, when these programs were funded by the past government, there was no rationale for the way the funding went out. In fact, those school districts that were provided….

Hon. G. Hogg: We have used the research of Dr. Clyde Hertzman to look at how we could actually reorganize this funding so it would have a maximum

impact to work at and improve the educational performance of children. That was not done in the past.

Hon. G. Hogg: For the first time, this government is using evidence-based research to make decisions around how this money should be allocated so it will be far more effective. In the past, I don't know — and no one can find out — how that was done. We are actually improving by moving to evidence-based research that will suggest how those should be allocated. We will see better outcomes because we can measure how these programs are going forward. We can measure them and know we're having the improvements we wanted so that this money will be expended in ways which will have a far better impact than it's ever had in the past.

K. Krueger: The word today is that approximately 9,900 members of the B.C. Teachers Federation have voted to affiliate all of British Columbia's teachers with the B.C. Federation of Labour. To many of my constituents, my colleagues and many teachers, this presents a choice between being independent professionals and being trade unionists. My question is to the Minister of Education: what does this mean to the integrity of the B.C. College of Teachers and the issue of whether membership in the BCTF should be mandatory?

Hon. C. Clark: I think it's important to point out that while it was a minority of teachers — I think it was about 23 percent of teachers in the province who actually voted to support the affiliation with the B.C. Fed — an election is an election. Whether or not it has a low turnout, it's still conducted by all accounts as a democratic process. Individual teachers, who I've heard from quite a bit this morning, who don't support this move and may regret the fact that they stayed home and didn't vote are nonetheless bound by the result.

The issue that arises for government is an interesting one, because while the BCTF has made no secret of the fact in the last little while that it intends to move to a very aggressive, very partisan and highly political stance — one that includes funding political parties and engaging intimately in taking sides in elections — that is very much at odds with the role of the College of Teachers.

The College of Teachers is required to be an independent, non-partisan, standard-setting organization. The issue, though, is that the College of Teachers' membership on the board is elected. Fifteen of them are elected in elections conducted by the BCTF. Given that the aims of the two organizations are so irreconcilably at odds, apparently, the government will certainly have to give some consideration to how we might try and resolve the situation.

B. Penner: My question is to the Minister of Energy and Mines. Earlier this morning the B.C. Citizens for Public Power, a politically charged advocacy group, released a report once again alleging this government is privatizing B.C. Hydro's transmission assets. This group, tied to longtime NDP supporters and the B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair, has consistently misrepresented the truth about the B.C. government's energy policy to the people of this province.

Can the Minister of Energy and Mines tell British Columbians if the B.C. Citizens for Public Power is fearmongering to promote the political interests of their NDP friends? Or have they simply failed to bother reading the new energy policy for B.C. released last November and available on the ministry's website?

Hon. R. Neufeld: To the member: I want to assure him and all British Columbians — and if some of the NDP are listening, I want to assure them too — that B.C. Hydro is not for sale. B.C. Hydro and all its core assets are a great benefit for British Columbia and will stay publicly owned in this province as long as this government is in place. The fearmongering that continues to go on from individuals is unfair. It's unfair to the people of British Columbia, and it's untrue.

Actually, what you have to do is go back in history a little bit, so I went back to some minutes of B.C. Hydro. Of course, regional transmission organizations have been talked about for quite a long time — in fact, back to 1994, when B.C. Hydro started talking about them. In 1994 there was that real good NDP-supported group on the board: Angela Schira, Marjorie Griffin Cohen and Sharon Manson Singer. When it came to vote…

Hon. R. Neufeld: …the only one that would vote no was Angela Schira — that NDPer who at least stood up for what she thought. Who didn't stand up were Marjorie Griffin Cohen and Sharon Manson Singer, who abstained…

J. MacPhail: Yesterday seniors; today poor kids. Not only is it a group of poor kids who go to inner-city schools that they're cutting funding for, the government is now cutting funding for the poorest and most vulnerable kids in B.C. When they become teenagers, this Liberal government is making life no easier for them.

According to news reports, some 15-year-olds who turn up at the Ministry of Children and Family Development are being sent away to collect welfare rather than being placed in foster care. The ministry started diverting youths as young as 15 to welfare offices six months ago, the same time as there was a dramatic increase in the number of street youth.

Can the Minister of Children and Family Development, the man who is supposed to be responsible for protecting vulnerable children, explain why foster care advocates are saying that kids are being denied the care they need and thrown onto the welfare rolls?

Hon. G. Hogg: I can assure you that this government and this province's primary responsibility is ensuring the safe care and protection of all children in this province. I can further assure you that there have been no changes to the criteria in terms of addressing that. We have more social workers now working in protection in this province than we've had before. We don't have the shortages that we've had in the north in the past. We are now equipped with social workers at full complement, and we have not changed the criteria for ensuring…. If children are coming forward in need of protection and support, then that protection and support is found for those children.

D. Hayer: My question is to the Solicitor General. Lately it is difficult to watch the evening news without seeing a story about another marijuana grow operation being discovered. The growers are increasingly moving to the family-oriented neighbourhoods to conduct their operations. My constituents are concerned about this illegal activity in their neighbourhood and the related issues that it brings along with it. Can the Solicitor General please tell us what is being done to combat marijuana grow ops in our communities?

It is widely known that marijuana grow ops generally use a large amount of electricity. In many cases, the criminals running the grow ops steal power in order to avoid large hydro bills. Can the minister tell us what is being done to crack down on the illegal practice of electricity theft with regard to marijuana grow ops?

Hon. R. Coleman: First of all, the member is right. Grow ops are an increasing, insidious problem in our society. They are the base of organized crime in British Columbia. They fund the illegal gun trade. They fund the cocaine. They fund the methamphetamine labs. As a matter of fact, they are responsible for in excess of 60 homicides that we are presently investigating in the province. They are an insidious problem. What do we do?

Our study shows that 82 percent of the people that are charged with marijuana grow ops in British Columbia do not receive either a punitive fine or a jail sentence. In Washington State, south of us, the minimum sentence on first offence is three months in jail. In Whatcom County, south of the Fraser Valley, they will deal with maybe a handful of grow ops this year. In British Columbia we will deal with thousands of grow ops in the Fraser Valley.

We need help. We need help from our justice system. We need help from our federal prosecutors. We need help from our communities to raise this issue so that we can deal with it. That's why we're going to have a dialogue on crime, because we are going to raise the bar so people start to understand how we're going to fight crime in the future in British Columbia.

Hon. G. Collins: By agreement between the opposition and the government, what we'll do is call committee stage of the Unclaimed Property Amendment Act, 2003. Once that bill is complete, we'll have a 15-minute recess.

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 15; J. Weisbeck in the chair.

Hon. G. Collins: I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Bill 15, Unclaimed Property Amendment Act, 2003, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker: The House will now recess for 15 minutes. We'll ring the division bells and reconvene at 3 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, the Chair will now hear arguments on the motion put forward by the Minister of Labour under standing order 81.

J. MacPhail: Just to clarify, were the Minister of Labour's comments during first reading the argument the government made for standing order 81?

J. MacPhail: Well, I would rather reply to what the government's argument is. That's all.

Mr. Speaker: Well, it is the wish of the Chair to hear all arguments, pro and con, and we will not cut debate off. You can proceed, and you will have an opportunity to speak again.

J. MacPhail: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's fine. Thank you very much for that.

I've had an opportunity to examine the legislation, and I make the following arguments about standing order 81. For those who are not familiar with the toings and froings of parliamentary procedure that guide us in this legislation and which are extremely important in the democratic process, standing order 81 says this: "Every Bill shall receive three readings, on different days, prior to being passed. After the second reading it shall be ordered for committal on a subsequent day. On urgent or extraordinary occasions, a Bill may be read twice or thrice, or advanced two or more stages in one day."

The British Columbia government has asked that this bill, Bill 21, University of British Columbia Services Continuation Act, be considered as an urgent — I assume urgent or extraordinary — bill and therefore must be passed through all three stages today. There will be arguments made that I'm not familiar with by the government. I hope to have a chance to respond to those arguments.

It's interesting to note that the government actually named this bill, Bill 21. We had another Bill 21 back in 1996, brought in by a previous government of which I was part. That bill was called the Education and Health Collective Bargaining Assistance Act. It's interesting because the government of the day argued that the legislation was extraordinary and that the three stages of the bill needed to be passed within one day. The reason why I say it's interesting to note the same numbered title is because the Speaker of the day ruled that there were not extraordinary circumstances that would allow the bill to pass through all three readings.

I want to begin by making reference to that debate. I'd be happy to give anybody in the House a copy of this debate. It's straight from Hansard. The first speaker is the now Minister of…. Well, first of all, it was the Minister of Finance of the day who introduced the legislation. Then the Opposition House Leader of the day, now the Minister of Finance, replied to that, arguing that…. Sorry. It was quite an interesting debate, and there was a lot of extraneous wrangling, including an order by the Speaker that I lower my voice, which was the first time I'd heard that, and I don't want to ever have to face that again.

Indeed, there was a lot of procedural wrangling, but then there was a point made by the member for Okanagan-Vernon of the day, who said: "As I understand section 81, it deals with matters of an emergency nature. If you look closely at the bill, you find that the emergency nature is specified in one particular case; but it extends the authority of the cabinet for some time to deal with a number of other issues that are not at this time of an emergency nature — whereas if the bill handled only the difficulty of the emergency that is imminent, it would probably be appropriate under section 81. But the way the bill is worded, it's another piece of legislation that gives the cabinet extended powers in anticipation of emergencies…."

In fact, that was the nub of the argument put to the Speaker, and the Speaker absorbed that argument and actually used that as the point to suggest that the legislation was not of an extraordinary or emergency nature. In fact, the now Minister of Finance, then Opposition House Leader, went on to say: "The point of order has been raised by the member for Okanagan-Vernon that in his opinion section 81 doesn't apply, given the nature of the bill in itself. I guess the next step is a ruling from yourself on whether or not that is the case. To make this a little easier, because there are concerns, now that we have the bill, as to what the contents are and its application under standing order 81…." My apologies — it was just the Opposition House Leader asking for a recess, which he got.

Anyway, then we recessed and came back, and the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast made an argument to say that the bargaining had gone on, and the House hadn't sat during any of that time — had not been recalled — and that there was absolutely nothing that had changed that would make it of an emergency nature. In fact, he said: "This government, if it had concern over this issue, has had ample opportunity to recall this Legislature, put in place this piece of legislation and have adequate notice and debate on this matter. It is an absolute outrage to the process of democ-

racy," said the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast, "that we would recall this Legislative Assembly on a Friday morning and, without prior notice — certainly to this member and our party — introduce this bill and expect to ram it through in one day, with the ramifications it may have. It is an absolute outrage to our democratic process."

The government then goes on to make its argument that it wasn't of an urgent nature. In fact, I entered the debate at the time to suggest that Surrey was on strike at the time, that that was of an urgent nature and also that the union had received no indication from the employer that there was any settlement whatsoever. Finally, halfway through the debate, the Opposition House Leader said: "I'm a little shocked, quite frankly. If we want to talk about urgent, hon. Speaker — and I think that's the matter for discussion right now — the last time this House legislated somebody back to work was in 1993, and it was by this government."

At that time in the discussion about urgency, after we had gone through some 12 hours of debate in this House, after six weeks of strikes around this province and two million student-days lost in this province, I remember that this government finally started to care about students just slightly a bit more than they did about the unions. The member for Vancouver–Little Mountain stood up in this House at midnight — it was a different Vancouver–Little Mountain member — and said how terrible it was that the opposition didn't realize the urgency of getting this bill through.

He then goes on to talk about how there was ample opportunity for legislation to come forward for them to make their point. Then he goes on to say: "I'm making a point. We have an urgent crisis in Surrey. We had it last week; we had it two weeks ago. But it's come back again because they haven't dealt with it, so we've got another crisis in Surrey. But with this bill, once it goes through and looks at it, one realizes it's not just for Surrey." The Speaker then absorbed all those arguments and ruled that the bill was wide-ranging and not specific in its nature.

In fact, I would argue that Bill 21, while trying to be downplayed by the Minister of Labour both in his talk with the news media after him tabling the legislation and in this House, failed to point out that in the way the definition exists of who this bill applies to, it's not just dealing with people who are on strike. It's not even just dealing with people who have served strike notice. Let me give the definition of the act.

The definition is of trade unions, and it means…. In section 1, "Definitions," the definition of trade unions is: "(a), the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 2278" — which is the administrative section, who have served strike notice; "(b) the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 2950" — the teaching assistants who are on strike, and this is the key part, Mr. Speaker; "(c) any other trade union representing employees of the employer that is designated by regulation."

We have a situation now where this bill is going beyond application to anyone who is on campus, so it much extends beyond the emergency — whatever the government might define as emergency or extraordinary situation. The act is wide-ranging in that it applies to people who may not even be at the bargaining table, who may not even have served any strike notice, who may be doing nothing other than simply working.

My first point is that this legislation is of the same nature in terms of its broad application, beyond any argument the government could make of there being an urgent or extraordinary application, and that the Speaker in 1996, examining the same such language, ruled that indeed the legislation did not qualify for being considered urgent or extraordinary because of its application beyond anything that was occurring at the moment in terms of job action. That's the first point.

The second point I would make is that, just as the Opposition House Leader said back in 1996, this situation has been going on for not weeks but months. The collective bargaining breakdown has occurred for months. Bargaining itself was attempted to be started even before the collective agreement expired. The collective agreement expired August 30, 2002. The teaching assistants of one local actually invited the employer to the bargaining table before the collective agreement expired, and the employer refused to do that. Eventually the union had to go to the Labour Relations Board and bring forward a charge of bargaining in bad faith. If this government of the day had been the least bit interested in the welfare of students, it would have been at that point to intervene — when this matter was before the Labour Relations Board — about a breakdown in bargaining.

Yesterday the Labour Relations Board examined the effects of job action at UBC, and they came to the conclusion…. This is an independent administrative tribunal that examined an application brought forward by the employer about the ill effects on students of job action, and the Labour Relations Board said they're not going to interfere. The Labour Relations Board has full authority to judge and make a ruling on the ill effects of collective bargaining on education, on student outcome. In fact, the Labour Relations Board in the past has ruled that job action in the education sector that affects student outcome cannot continue. The Labour Relations Board has made a ruling that where grade 12 students facing examinations are affected in a negative way by job action, the LRB has the right — and has exercised that right — to order people back to work or declare them an essential service.

Yesterday the LRB…. I'm sorry. I think it was yesterday. It could have been Monday or Tuesday. It was one of those two days that the Labour Relations Board heard this matter and came to the conclusion that they would not interfere with the job action at UBC. Again, at no time did this Liberal government interfere in the Labour Relations Board matter.

I also note that the basis upon which the Minister of Labour made his case — that this was an extraordinary urgent matter, that 23,000 students are negatively affected and that their education outcomes would be negatively affected by this job action…. In fact, there's

no evidence whatsoever that 23,000 students are affected by it. In fact, the employer — UBC — when asked to present that evidence at the LRB earlier this week, could not in any way demonstrate the ill effects on any given number of students. The reason for this was that the job action is of such a nature that, in fact, there's only been a very short period of time — less than a day — in which more than one building at the campus is affected at one time. After that one action where more than one building was affected, the teaching assistants reverted to, at most, affecting one building for a specific period of time.

I also want to make one remark in my opening comments about how extraordinary and how urgent this is. Did the government wake up this morning and say: "Oh my God. How could this have happened? We had no idea this could have happened"? How could the government not have known the difficulties of collective bargaining at universities? How could they not have understood there was going to be difficult bargaining occurring at the universities?

I'm going to choose my words carefully here, because this issue is so important. I don't want to get into an argument with anybody on the government side about whether funding was increased or decreased. Let me just say this. Every single university and college itself has acknowledged that its funding is frozen and that there are implications for frozen funding with the requirement to increase access and with increased costs. There isn't one institution that has not put forward that statement itself. At a minimum, the House will acknowledge that. I, of course, would like to go much further in suggesting that's the best spin anyone could put on funding. Nevertheless, I will leave it at that — at what the post-secondary institutions themselves have described.

How could the government not have known there was going to be a bargaining crunch? Clearly, by tacit approval they accepted that. By tacit approval of the funding levels, they also tacitly accepted that bargaining was going to be difficult and challenging. Yet until now the right to strike, under most circumstances, prevails. The government also — I heard it over and over from the Minister of Advanced Education — said it's up to the individual institutions to raise tuitions or to set their tuitions. So how could the government not have known tuition rises would become a bargaining issue with teaching assistants?

It's of their own creation that this matter is here today. It's not urgent; it's not extraordinary. It is troubling — the collective bargaining that's occurring at UBC. It's very troubling. We have a situation now…. Well, whenever we debate second reading, I'll get into those details about the circumstances that exist in terms of the troubling nature of collective bargaining — how this government has pitted administration against students in a way that is not of the administration's making but of this government's making.

I will conclude my second argument in my initial comments by saying that instead of arguing that this is urgent and extraordinary, I would say exactly the opposite. This kind of collective bargaining situation and strike action that is happening at UBC is exactly what the government has had in mind. It is exactly the strategy of this government to have a confrontation at UBC, and perhaps at other universities, of this nature. When they froze funding and allowed tuition to increase, in fact, the government was well aware that this is the kind of struggle that would happen.

So, far from it being urgent or extraordinary, it is by design. It would be a terrible miscarriage of parliamentary procedure to suggest in any way that these circumstances are extraordinary or urgent.

Hon. G. Collins: I wish to address some of the comments made by the member opposite with regard to the request of government to have this bill move through all three stages today under standing order 81. I'll try and deal with them perhaps not in the same chronological order as the member opposite but in a different order.

First of all, this isn't just about the unions and the employer. That will be contained within the legislation itself. The reason for the urgency is the impact on students. It is the impact on the public and the public interest that drives the urgency of this matter. There are some 3,500 students across the campus at UBC, where the teaching assistants normally actually teach the courses. They have not been taught now for two and a half or almost three weeks. There are over 20,000 students who would normally have the services of the teaching assistants in their labs and seminars, etc., and they have been unable to have access to those classes as well. That is part of it.

There is also the fact that the administrative union, the clerical union, has gone on strike as well, and that is impacting the students' access to the libraries. All of that is important for this reason. It's final exams for these students for their year's worth of investment in time, energy and finances in this education year. It comes down to a process that starts on April 1, which is the exam period. The exams start April 1. There will be term papers that are probably currently due, which will certainly continue to be due. Students are unable to receive the course instruction they require and to do the labs they require. They are unable to access the library and the documents they need in an effort to complete their courses. This has become very urgent, and in fact, each day it is becoming more urgent.

Today we are nearing a point where we are advised by the university that the students' whole school year is now becoming at risk. That is the urgency. The bargaining that's happened before and whether it's worked or not, the bargaining mandate of government, the process of bargaining, who's right and who's wrong, who's got a good offer on the table, who doesn't have a good offer on the table…. That is a process for debate perhaps in legislation but probably more appropriately at the bargaining table.

What we're here today to try to deal with is a piece of legislation that will order those parties back to the

table where they can now, with the assistance of a mediator, try to engage in constructive bargaining and complete a collective agreement. In the intervening period they would also return to work, and students would return to class and therefore not forfeit an entire year's worth of work, energy and financial investment in their university education. That's what drives the urgency. It is the impact on the students and the need now for government, having been advised that those students' education is at risk, to step in and deal with that.

If I can deal with a couple of the items that the member opposite raised about the impact on students. She mentioned the Labour Relations Board hearings that happened last week. That was with regard to the location of pickets, and the location of pickets being in one building or another. Should they be at the entrance of the campus so that there's some predictability, and students would have to cross one picket line if that's what they chose to do? The issue that the Labour Relations Board dealt with did not deal with whether or not they were getting access to their classes or whether TAs were actually teaching them, or whether or not there was a picket in front. The issue was where the location of the picketing was. I think that's an important distinction.

I want to focus, if I can for a moment, on the comments of the member opposite with regard to the debate that took place in this House on April 26, 1996. I remember that debate very well, because the legislation that was introduced to the House had two components, really. There was, at that time, a longstanding strike that was taking place in Surrey. Certainly, this was on a Friday that this debate took place, so the House was being asked to deal with legislation on Friday in order to ensure that Surrey was resolved — and I'll deal with that part of the act first — so that the students in Surrey could get back to school. Well, they weren't going to be going to school on Saturday. They weren't going to be going to school on Sunday. They were going to be going to school, hopefully, on the Monday.

There was more to that act than what was presented at the time. The Speaker can certainly go back and look at the content of the legislation that was introduced at that time. Certainly, the decision of Speaker Barnes at the time leads one to go and actually look at the legislation, because the decision on April 26, 1996, from Emery Barnes goes as follows:

Mr. Speaker, that's important, because if you go and look at the debate and you look at the bill that was presented to the House, not only did it deal with Surrey students, but it dealt…. It was called, if I remember correctly, the Education and Health Collective Bargaining Assistance Act. Not only was it not just Surrey, it was not just education, but it was also health care.

Perhaps I can remind members of this House of the significance of the day, April 26, 1996, because it was the intent of the government at that time to drop the writ and go to the polls on the Monday. They wanted this legislation through the House and passed — all three stages — on the Friday so they could start their campaign on the Saturday and Sunday and draw up the writ on Monday.

What happened at the time, with the rejection of the request of the government for standing order 81, was that the House sat on the Friday. It then did second reading on Saturday and committee stage on Sunday. On Monday morning the writ was dropped, and we were into an election. The motivation by government to pass that legislation and do it in an urgent way was suspect at the time. Subsequently, I think, it was proven to have other motives — if I can put it that way. Mr. Speaker, that is an important issue.

It is important also to go back and look at the words of Speaker Barnes at the time, because he makes reference to the broad-ranging nature of the bill. There was another part of that bill, aside from Surrey, that allowed for the government, by that legislation — I think it was by regulation by the order of the Minister of Labour — to order the cessation of any job action in the education or the health care sectors for a period of time, which would have allowed the government to get through the election period. That act was very broad-ranging. It was collective bargaining across the education sector, across the health care sector, and I think Speaker Barnes appropriately rejected the request for an exemption under standing order 81.

If I can look at another example, if I may. On April 2, 2000, Speaker Hartley made a decision with regard to an attempt by the government at that time to pass a bill to deal with collective bargaining in Surrey again. The legislation that the government brought forward at that time…. Sorry, I think I have the wrong location. There was a piece of legislation which was brought to the House in April 2000, which was narrowly focused to one area, and the Speaker actually made a ruling that, in fact, it should proceed through all three stages in one day. That was because of the impact on those students. It was not a broad-ranging piece of legislation. It was a relatively narrow piece of legislation dealing with the situation at hand.

Now the question arises as to whether or not the piece of legislation before us is a narrow piece of legislation or a broad piece of legislation. I use the example quoted by the member opposite, Speaker Barnes's ruling in 1996, and compare it to the piece of legislation that we have before us. The legislation in 1996, as I mentioned, dealt not only with the school strike in Surrey but with any school strike anywhere in the province and any health care strike anywhere in the province — real or perceived or possible in the future.

Bill 21 that's before us has a couple of provisions. The one point I want to make, and the one section of

the bill that I want to point out to the members and to the Speaker, is in the definitions section. It is the definition of "employer." The employer is not any university or any college or any school district or any health authority or any hospital. It is restricted to the University of British Columbia. The reason for that is that the students who are being impacted by this strike are the students at the University of British Columbia. This legislation, and indeed the call for standing order 81 exemption for this legislation, is driven by the needs of those students at the University of British Columbia and the impacts on them.

In another section, section 2 following, the bill talks about not only those unions and bargaining units that are currently striking but also those that might strike or those that have been on a strike but may not have the direct impact that perhaps the TAs have. The legislation and the call for the urgency are determined by the urgent need of the students and the public interest. It's not directly to do with the process or the stages of process for other negotiations that may be taking place. That is a matter of debate for the bill itself. The issue of the urgency is the impact on those students.

For example, if the legislation were to be passed through the House today — or even, for that matter, in three days' time — and the students were back in class and the teachers or the TAs and the clerical workers were back at work, there would be nothing stopping another labour dispute, at that very narrowly defined employer of the University of British Columbia, from occurring, which might have exactly the same or worse impacts upon those very same students. The issue isn't the unions; the issue is the impact on the students. That is the public interest that's driving the urgency that requires this legislation to pass through all three stages today.

With the narrow parameters that are around the definitions in the act, I think one can compare this legislation with the previous Bill 21 from 1996 that the member refers to, which was the Education and Health Collective Bargaining Assistance Act. One can compare those two pieces of legislation, note the broad scope of the legislation in 1996 and the reference of Speaker Barnes to the nature of that bill and the reasons the standing order 81 exemption request failed, and then look at the narrow provisions of this Bill 21 to that workplace and those students who are impacted and see that in fact this legislation does qualify under standing order 81, as has been done on previous occasions. The one I mentioned, which I think is a good example, is the decision by Speaker Hartley on April 2, 2000.

With that, I think one can look at the rulings, the legislation and the debate and can determine quite clearly that this bill is in the interests of the students who are affected by it. As well, the urgency impacts those students directly. It's time we got them back into their classrooms so they can complete their school year. They have about two and a bit weeks left, and it's very urgent that they get back, conclude their studies, finish their exams and put this school year behind them, because it's very much at risk.

J. MacPhail: My comments in reply will be brief. The Government House Leader makes, as I can tell, three arguments: that public interest is served by this; that exams are approaching; and that the university, being the employer, has stated that the school year is at risk.

To address the issue of public interest, it is a bit galling to hear that this government has the public interest in mind, when it comes to advanced education or the interests of students. Far be it from us to be fooled by that headline in the Vancouver Sun this morning, which says how well British Columbia is doing in graduating people from college. All of that was in the 1990s, due to good, excellent education policy then — all of which has ground to a halt in 2001 with the election of this government. There's lack of appropriate funding. There are increases in tuition. There's increase in debt load, so it's a bit galling…

J. MacPhail: …to hear that this government has the public interest in mind at all in relation to this bill.

The Minister of Finance, the Government House Leader, suggests that somehow the LRB matter — the decision of earlier this week — is irrelevant. In fact, when the LRB was listening to the effects of picketing, they made exactly the arguments about the ill effects of building-by-building picketing. They made the arguments about the ill effects that they claimed building-by-building picketing would have on campus. They judged at the time…. They ruled in their silence that they could not determine ill effects, because as I said earlier, it is absolutely within the purview of the LRB to the determine ill effects of picketing on student outcome. They've made that ruling before. They did it in terms of grade 12 examinations in the K-to-12 system. It was exactly on point that the Labour Relations Board examined that issue and came to the conclusion not to interfere.

My comments about the university. Let's be clear. It's not the university; it's the employer making this argument, which the government has bought completely. The employer says the school year is at risk, and therefore the situation is urgent or extraordinary. In fact, this bill exacerbates the impending exam schedule for this reason and puts it at risk. The bill expires March 31. Classes continue until April 9, and the examination schedule starts the week after that.

If anything, this legislation puts the whole…. The fact that it expires, that there's no mediation order, that there's no return to bargaining ordered, that exactly all there is, is an IIC…. There's an IIC.

J. MacPhail: I heard the Minister of Labour say: "Yes, there is." There's an industrial inquiry commis-

sioner that has no settlement powers. There's no ability to make a determination or impose a determination. This bill, if anything, moves the time line, in fact, to put the examination schedule more at risk, which goes back to my point in my argument. It is by design that this government has set up the bargaining structure and brought in this legislation to indeed, I would say, actually make the situation at the beginning of April urgent and extraordinary in a sense that the public would be pushed to such a determination to say: "Oh yes. This cannot continue if strikes resume at that point or job action resumes."

I know, Mr. Speaker, you have your work cut out for you. Regardless of what the…. Not regardless — I don't mean that. My apologies. In response to the Government House Leader's argument about how you must differentiate this Bill 21 from the 1996 Bill 21, the principle is the same. An application of legislation broader than the circumstances that exist as we speak makes the bill not of an urgent or extraordinary nature.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, because of the importance of this decision and this motion, I will hear further arguments, but I would ask speakers to keep their comments brief and try not to repeat everything that has been said here.

Just to point out a little bit more in respect to the urgency, the teaching assistants — that's the CUPE Local 2278 — are actually responsible for approximately 40 percent of the teaching load at UBC. That means for this last…. I think it was February 12 when, in fact, they went onto the picket lines. That's had a substantive impact on the students that have not been receiving the tutorials, marking of exams, laboratories, grade assignments and essays. These education services to this point for that period of time have been withdrawn.

We've mentioned the aspect that we are very close to the end of the year in regard to the teaching. The other aspect that the Leader of the Opposition had brought out was that there is, in fact…. She didn't mention this. I'd like to clarify that. There is within this bill a determination that the parties will return to the table within 72 hours of this bill being passed. We are working to assist in the facilitation of a negotiated settlement. We've put that time limit of sunset of March 31. I've required that my Assistant Deputy Minister of Labour will be the one who will be facilitating these discussions, and we are hopeful that these discussions will, of course, result in a resolution.

With those two points, the matter itself is one of an urgent nature, and it is, as the House Leader has mentioned, very focused and specific to the resolution of this dispute.

Hon. G. Collins: I have one other late-breaking piece of information which I wish to make you aware of in your deliberations, Mr. Speaker There's an e-mail from CUPE 2950 to its membership. The subject is: "Urgent. Please read and pass to CUPE 2950 members." Importance: high. "Effective immediately, we are on full strike. Please collect your personal belongings and leave your office immediately. All members are to go to gate 1 at Westbrook, the University Boulevard, for a protest rally."

Mr. Speaker, I just think that gives an indication of the kind of escalation that not only has been happening but is currently happening. That was sent at 2:42 p.m. today.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, I would like to thank everyone for their contributions to the debate. It is a complex issue. I will retire forthwith to peruse all of the arguments and consider everything that's been said. I want to make members aware that I am very much aware of previous rulings by Speaker Barnes and Speaker Hartley and others, and I will take those into consideration.

Is it the wish of the House to continue business, or shall we recess until we come back with a ruling? Government House Leader?

Hon. G. Collins: I would prefer at this point that we recess. I will check with the Minister of Education, whose estimates are next on the agenda, to see if she has staff available; and if so, perhaps we could reconvene when she's available.

Mr. Speaker: We will recess now for a short time. I can't put an exact time on it, but it's while we consider all arguments and deliberate over this important ruling.

Thank you. We're in recess for a short period. We'll ring the division bells to call the members back.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, the question before me is whether, under standing order 81, an urgent or extraordinary occasion exists wherein Bill 21, intituled University of British Columbia Services Continuation Act, may be advanced through more than one stage in one day. I have examined the bill and listened to the arguments which were ably presented by both sides of the House.

The bill deals with the labour situation at one institution only — namely, the University of British Columbia. It is limited in effect to the period from the present to the end of the month — namely, 19 days — at which time it expires.

The Government House Leader states that students' exams are scheduled to commence in 20 days and that

a strike will have a direct impact on the academic year of a large number of students. In their arguments, both House Leaders dealt with Speaker Barnes's ruling of April 26, 1996, wherein he ruled that standing order 81 would not be applied where a bill was too broad in scope. The bill in that case, Education and Health Collective Bargaining Assistance Act, extended beyond the scope of a labour dispute involving the Surrey school district. The Opposition House Leader argued that this bill is too broad and, in particular, that the definition of "trade union" in section 1 allows the government to designate a union by regulation.

It is my view that the definition of trade union must be read in the light of the definition of "employer" in section 1, which is limited to the University of British Columbia. It is my view that the limitation of the scope and duration of the bill at hand distinguishes it from the bill considered by Speaker Barnes. I am also of the view that the actions with which the bill is concerned will have an immediate and detrimental effect on the academic year of a large number of students.

Accordingly, I am of the view that the case has been made out for application of standing order 81 so that Bill 21 may advance through all stages.

As I stated in first reading, it is out of concern for the UBC students that I've introduced Bill 21. Negotiations at UBC began more than one year ago. As Minister of Labour, I want to see free collective bargaining work. However, when negotiations break down and an impasse results, it is my responsibility to step in, and I have a responsibility to do so in a measured and reasonable manner that encourages the parties to also respond reasonably.

To that end, before I took these steps, I in fact met with both parties for approximately three hours on Monday to try and ascertain where these negotiations were at and how one could best help in bringing the parties together and reach a negotiated settlement. The legislation will ensure that during any cooling-off period or periods prescribed under this act, every employee must resume his or her duties and work schedule of employment with the employer.

Any strike, declaration of a strike, authorization of a strike or direction to go on strike given before or during the cooling-off period is a breach of this legislation. Officers or representatives of trade unions must not in any way impede, prevent or attempt to impede or prevent any persons from returning to his or her duties. Likewise, an employer must not seek to prevent any person from continuing or resuming his or her duties. An employer must also not discharge or discipline a person because they were locked out or on strike before this act came into force.

I've directed that within 72 hours of this act coming into force, the trade unions and the employer, UBC, must recommence good-faith collective bargaining and must make every reasonable effort to conclude a collective agreement. To assist the parties, I will be appointing my assistant deputy minister, Richard Longpre, as an industrial inquiry commissioner under the Labour Code. His job will be to facilitate discussions and to report to me on the progress of these negotiations.

The act calls for an extension of the last collective agreements to remain in force between UBC and its striking teaching assistants and support and library staff until such time as collective agreements are concluded or until the act is no longer in force. This bill will expire on March 31. As I said in my first reading, I hope the parties will use this time wisely. With good faith by both parties and with the good offices of my assistant deputy minister, I am hopeful we can reach a negotiated settlement during the time that has been allotted.

I move that the bill be referred to the Committee of the Whole House to be considered…. Actually, I'll leave that.

J. MacPhail: I eagerly await the comments of every single Liberal MLA to see whether or not they actually care about what's going on here. We are debating in one day…. This government is ramming through legislation to once again take away the right of workers to strike. There's no other way to read this legislation.

This Liberal government, first of all, sets up circumstances that pits a public sector administration against its workers because the government has so hamstrung the administration through funding cuts. I'll be anxious to see how every Liberal MLA in this House stands up and defends the actions of their government. I can hardly wait to hear the arguments they can make in defence of this legislation.

I think this is the fourth time — I could be wrong; it could be the fifth time — in 21 months that this Liberal government has used its overwhelming majority to take away collective bargaining rights from working people. It's the fourth or fifth time. It is with unprecedented frequency that this government has used this kind of legislation.

I did a quick search in preparation for this to see what other Canadian jurisdiction at any time in history has legislated workers back four times. I just did a search for four times, not five times, across Canada in a period of 21 months, and you can't find a jurisdiction that in one parliamentary term has ever legislated back workers that frequently — ever.

We're only halfway through this government's mandate, and they — this Liberal government — have set a record for imposing draconian legislation on working people. That's if you take into account Mike

Harris. That's if you take into account the Thatcher days in Saskatchewan. That's if you take into account the Tory days in Manitoba. It's if you take into account the Duplessis days of Quebec. Never before has a government used this draconian legislation as frequently as this government. My gosh, I guess we're on the way into a Guinness Book of World Records by the time this term is finished.

Let's examine exactly what this legislation is about. In fact, I fully understand the embarrassment of this government that they somehow have to accuse anybody who is against this legislation that they somehow don't care about the university. Well, we'll get to what university presidents have said about this government.

J. MacPhail: I think they had better just stop their heckling, because we will be reading into the record what university presidents think about this government.

The government likes to think it takes an approach that actually helps the employer all the time. Well, we'll get to what this employer thinks about this government and their commitment to advanced education. I take great pride in standing up here on behalf of working people as probably — I'm not going to say for sure, but probably — the only MLA at this point, in the absence of my colleague from Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, who cares about working people and their rights to collective bargaining.

J. MacPhail: …I don't mind heckling, but the kind of heckling from the Minister of Energy is just downright rude when he suggests that I should go home. Maybe the public should hear this. I'm the only person here to stand up to the draconian legislation of this government, and the Minister of Energy and Mines suggests I should go home. I guess that would clear the path. I guess that would clear the path for everything this government would like to do on its own, without scrutiny, in secrecy. I'm sure that would make the Minister of Energy and Mines as happy as anything. He could then privatize B.C. Hydro without any scrutiny.

J. MacPhail: I'm happy to be the only person to hold this government to account, but it is outrageous. I say this to every member of the B.C. public. They are represented by a government that suggests that the only person who will hold this government to account should go home. That's exactly what he just said — exactly.

But we will get to the debate about how the universities actually think about this government. I stand with pride to defend working people in this province who are under attack each and every day by this government. Let's go through how they're under attack. We have a piece of legislation that the Minister of Labour tries to very quietly present, but he is extremely cynical in his presentation to say: "Gosh, we tried everything. We just tried everything, and now we have to intervene."

I had a three-hour meeting with the parties. It will be interesting to have put on the record the contents of what that three-hour meeting was actually about, and we will do that at committee stage. But why has this dilemma, this bargaining situation, come as a surprise to this government? It is of their very own making that the employer and the unions find themselves with irreconcilable differences.

It was this government that deregulated tuition. It was this government that said to the universities: "If you want any extra money, you've got to raise it yourself. You can increase tuition." It was this government that said: "Universities, you're on your own in terms of getting any more money." In fact, I will go through right now about how this Liberal government has completely cut any adequate funding to any post-secondary institutions. That cut in funding has given rise to this labour dispute.

Let me just go through some of those figures. The Ministry of Advanced Education's budget was frozen at $1.899 billion in the year '02-03. That was the funding that they received in '01-02. Then this government came in and froze it at that level. It will stay at that level until right through the year '04-05. Then, in the year '05-06, the funding will increase to $1.929 billion — an increase of $30 million. It's such an insignificant increase. It's got a whole bunch of zeroes to the right of the decimal point to even determine what that increase is, and that's an increase after the budget has been frozen from '01-02. That's '01-02, '02-03, '03-04 and '04-05 — four years of exactly the same funding. Then they get a bit of a little reprieve in the fifth year, getting $30 million across a budget of almost $2 billion.

We have institutions that have all sorts of pressures on them — pressures that come from collective bargaining…. But I know this government doesn't care about working people's wages, so that's just one pressure. This government couldn't care a whit about compensation for working people. It's only the very wealthy that they care about and the corporations, and that's demonstrated in their budget. But there are other pressures on post-secondary institutions, and let's look at those pressures.

Although the budget for the entire ministry is frozen for five years, the funding provided to the educa-

tional institutions themselves will actually decline. That funding to the institutions declines for the next two years. In the '02-03 budget year the funding was $1.4 billion — $1.407 billion. I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker. When you're dealing with these large numbers, it's important to go to those decimal points. In the year '03-04 that funding will be $1.401 billion. In '04-05 that funding will be $1.379 billion. That's a decline in funding. While all of the other cost pressures are going up, this government is cutting the funding to the post-secondary institutions. In the context of cutting that funding, they're imposing, by their own actions, huge cost pressures.

Let's not even deal with wage negotiations. Let's talk about MSP premium cost increases and gas tax cost increases. Let's talk about ICBC premium increases and sales tax increases brought on by this government, which affect institutions. Those are direct costs brought on by this government's actions at the same time that they're cutting the funding to institutions.

Of course, we also have to think about the fact that these institutions operate in the real world, where inflation in this province is increasing at 3.3 percent. We don't even have to go to wage negotiations to figure out that this Liberal government has put institutions in an unbelievable squeeze play — cut their funding and then cut them loose in terms of how they're going to survive.

Over the next two years funding to post-secondary education institutes will be cut by $28.3 million. That's less money, I'd say. I know the government doesn't actually like to talk about "worse off" — for instance, when they make Pharmacare recipients worse off. But the institutions are worse off. The little pittance that the institutions are promised three years down the road, after four years of funding decreases, is an increase in the institutions of $10 million in the year '05-06. Even then, educational institutions and organizations will receive $18.9 million less in '05-06 than they did in '02-03. Oh, there's a government that cares about students, isn't it? There's a government that wants to put the students' best interests first. Balderdash. By their own actions, they are the ones that have made students worse off and the institutions themselves as well.

In the next four years B.C. is expected to experience a 5 percent increase in the amount of post-secondary-age British Columbians. That's defined as the group of 18-to-29-year-olds. Our demographics show that population group will increase by 5 percent. The number of British Columbians in this age group is expected to increase at least until the year 2014. Post-secondary schools will be expected to serve an additional 9,652 full-time-equivalent students by the year '05-06. So, at the same time that they're having their funding cut, these same institutions will have to serve almost 10,000 more students.

The Ministry of Advanced Education has set a baseline of total credentials awarded — that's the number of full-time students who graduate from post-secondary institutions — at 54,052 for '01-02. That's right out of the service plan. That's expected to increase to 56,484 by the year '05-06, by the ministry's own service plan. That means that universities and colleges are being asked to hand out an extra 2,432 degrees, diplomas and certificates by the year '05-06. Well, what does anybody care about that? This government is imposing those quotas on the institutions at the same time that it's actually reducing real funding as it stood in '02-03. It's more degrees that the universities and colleges have to award and with less funding.

In addition, the government wants to increase student spaces in computer science, electrical and computer engineering, social and child protection, nursing, residential care workers and medical students, for a combined total of 16,596 extra student spaces in those areas — all with the reduced funding. Even within their own service plan, the bare minimum that universities and colleges must do…. They'll do it with reduced funding, and then this government sets an additional almost 17,000 degrees and certificates that they want the universities and colleges to deliver with less money than they had in '02-03.

Funding is down, and demands, expectations and accountability measures are up. Universities and colleges are being asked to do so much more with so much less. The government is surprised that collective bargaining broke down. The statistics I've given you here haven't even begun to approach the situation of paying working people who work at the universities and colleges a fair wage.

The Minister of Energy and Mines heckles and shows disdain for working people. The member for Kamloops–North Thompson shows absolute disdain for working people. The Minister for Deregulation takes great pride in having absolute disdain for working people in this province. He suggests that he's for students. The Minister of Labour himself gave the statistic that teaching assistants provide 40 percent of the teaching to students, and that member, the Minister for Deregulation, says he's for students. How can he possibly be for students when he attacks the people who teach those students? Absolutely.

He's typical of his government. He's absolutely typical of his government. He thinks students learn on their own. He thinks students can show up in crowded classrooms with less funding and just learn on their own. That's what he thinks. I'll tell you something: his view is shared, if not by every member — and I'm unwilling to go that far…. His view of absolute disdain for those people who teach students is shared by the vast majority of this Liberal government.

Well, let's see what the universities think of this government and the terrible situation they've been put in. Let's just see. Let's hear the catcalls when we read from the University Presidents Council news release. Now, these are the university presidents, a conservative bunch of people who know…. These are the very top people in the universities, who know how important it is to have a working relationship with the provincial government. Here's what they said on February

18, 2003, after this government introduced its last budget. The University Presidents Council…. By the way, this didn't get reported in the media. It's a news release, though. It wasn't a secret document. Every Liberal got it. The Minister for Deregulation got this: "Universities disappointed in provincial advanced education budget." I quote:

Mr. Speaker, never before have I seen such a damning commentary from the University Presidents Council, but I welcome…

J. MacPhail: …any Liberal MLA to stand up and demonstrate that there was such a damning news release from the University Presidents Council. In fact, I think they'll see exactly the opposite — exactly the opposite. But I'm willing to be challenged. Let the member for Kamloops–North Thompson put his foghorn where his mouth is. Let him do that. Let him stand up and show how his record is not the worst — his government.

Let's go to those other people that the Minister for Deregulation condemns, maybe because they're faculty. Maybe that's a level that that minister respects, being into class war every time he speaks. Let me read from the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of British Columbia. These are the faculty that teach at our universities. Let's read what they have to say.

This, again, was released on February 18, 2003, the day of this Liberal government's last budget: "'Funding down for universities and colleges; further tuition increases inevitable,' say profs." I pause for a moment because one of the major issues in the dispute between the teaching assistants and UBC, on which this government is now siding with the employer, is the fact that teaching assistants have to pay the massive tuition increases out of their own pockets where before they did not have to do that, nor do they have to in other jurisdictions. So tuition increases being inevitable is absolutely key to understanding how absolutely expected this bargaining dispute was and how this bargaining dispute is absolutely the creation of this Liberal government.

Here's what the Confederation of University Faculty Associations said after this government's budget of February 18:

Oh, where's the member for Kamloops–North Thompson now? "Funding will be near an all-time low." That's exactly what it says here. Then the concluding paragraph:

Okay, here's a group that I know hardly anybody…. Well, no. Actually, this is a group that represents students, but I know that many members in this chamber say this organization has no right to exist. The member for Burquitlam actually spends, as far as I can tell, his entire political career trying to put the boots to the Canadian Federation of Students. He's contributed absolutely nothing else to the well-being of the province, but he spends his entire time putting the boots to here. But they do represent students, they have democratic elections, and they absolutely have a voice.

This might come as a surprise to the members in the chamber. Here's what the Canadian Federation of Students said, and it's important that I say "I quote" because they actually use Liberalspeak that I just find reprehensible. They mimic Liberalspeak, so I am quoting: "Rural College Funding Cuts Undermine Heart-

land Strategy; Students to Pay More for Lower Quality Post-Secondary Education."

Funding cuts for rural colleges and rural universities — wow. Let me see. How is that good news for this government's so-called heartland strategy?

I pause for a moment to refer to the articles that appeared in the newspaper in recent days, showing that there was an explosion of college graduates and university graduates throughout the 1990s in British Columbia. In fact, the increase in post-secondary graduates in the 1990s in British Columbia led the country. That's because in that so-called decade of decline that the Liberal government likes to talk about all the time, there was a tuition fee freeze. Student financial aid increased. Funding to universities and colleges increased. Programs expanded. Single parents got child care so that they could attend university and college. People on social assistance got extra assistance to attend college and university. Gosh, even kids in foster care were mandated that they had a right to go to university and college after 19. All of that's gone. All of that has been legislated out of existence by this government.

One last comment on why this bargaining dispute should come as no surprise to this government and why this draconian legislation is not in any way in the public interest or in the interest of students. In fact, this government's attack on students is exactly what's given rise to this bargaining dispute. The College Institute Educators Association — more people who teach students and had that wonderful success record throughout the 1990s…. Here's what they said on February 18.

There's pretty much everybody who is at the university condemning this government — university presidents, faculties, instructors, students condemning this government for making funding cuts in post-secondary education.

What's the result of this? What's the result of this government deregulating tuition, telling universities that they're on their own for getting money, and then making funding cuts? Well, we see it here today. This Liberal government, because of those actions, is pitting workers, staff, students and administrators against each other. That's exactly what they're doing here today. The reality is that this government has passed the buck to universities to pass their agenda of cutbacks. The government makes the cuts, and then they say — to the University of B.C. in this particular case: "Hey, University of B.C. Make sure you pass those funding cuts through to everybody you deal with, including the people who teach your students."

Not only do they have to deal with funding cuts, but the institutions have to deal with the inflationary cost pressures, staffing cost pressures and government-imposed cost pressures at virtually every turn.

I think UBC is, if I'm not mistaken, an institution with an operating budget in excess of $400 million. In fact, it may be closer to $500 million now — larger than many, many, many private corporations in the province. They have to deal with the increased taxes that this government has imposed on them, like everybody else. They've got increased benefit costs, not because a big, bad union went in and went on strike and said, "We want more benefits" — not because of that. They've got increased benefit costs because this government has downloaded those benefit costs onto the employer.

Hiking Pharmacare, hiking MSP premiums. They're getting out of the business of allowing ordinary British Columbians to have eye physician care and out of the business of providing any sort of supplementary physician care. All those costs now are downloaded onto the employer.

The gasoline tax increase — a 3.5-cent-per-litre increase. The Minister of Finance stood up and said: "I have no idea what those cost pressures will be on public institutions." Well, isn't that interesting? He knows exactly how much he's going to collect, but I guess he doesn't know who he's going to collect it from. Gee, that's a bit of a stretch. He knows full well what the cost pressures are on public institutions because of their tax increases.

ICBC premium increases. UBC has a fleet of vehicles in the hundreds to serve their students and do the work of the university, and their insurance premiums have skyrocketed. UBC, in their operating of almost

$500 million per year, has to pay — I bet you — millions in increased sales tax charges because this government jacked up the sales tax. This is only the beginning. This government's off-loading of costs onto universities will increase and increase.

In that context, I think one could say if somehow…. In fact, let me make this challenge. Let the Minister of Labour stand up and prove that these cuts in funding are not about union-busting. Let him stand up and prove that, because he and his government entered this chamber with yet another draconian piece of legislation knowing exactly the effect of his government's funding cuts. Yet he comes in here today and says: "Oh gosh, this is at an impasse." It's at an impasse that his government created, so how is this not about union-busting? How is it not?

As usual, they all run and hide behind the skirts of someone else. That's what they do. These Liberal MLAs don't actually go directly and say: "Well, you know what? We don't value your institution, we've cut funding for it, we're going to face you dead-on, you're not getting any money, and we're going to legislate you back to work." No, they don't do that. They force the administrators of these institutions and the administrators of UBC to bear the brunt of passing on these funding cuts. They hide behind the skirts of UBC. That's exactly what they're doing.

This is not a beef between university administrators and the teaching assistants. It's a dispute about government underfunding. That's exactly what it's about. Teaching assistants are angry about tuition increases and the need to pay a larger percentage of their income on tuition. They are absolutely dismayed that tuition increases brought about by this government have had the effect of translating into a wage cut for teaching assistants. Let's see this government stand up and say how they value students, when the very people who are teaching these students are actually getting a wage cut.

I couldn't believe that the Minister of Labour had the gall to stand up, when he was trying to describe this as an emergency situation, and say: "Well, these teaching assistants do 40 percent of the teaching." Exactly. That's exactly right. They do 40 percent of the teaching, and this government is imposing a wage cut on them. If it's an emergency, it's entirely of this government's own making — nobody else. Not the UBC administration and not the teaching assistants. This government created this dispute.

Now, I must say that the university employer has exacerbated the situation. Nobody likes to talk about this because, of course, this government is so anti-worker that they'll never, ever chastise the employer if they can just legislate on behalf of the employer. But here's what this employer did right in the middle of bargaining with their teaching assistants. The University of British Columbia employer said to PhD candidates: "Oh, you get your tuition free. Yes, we're going to give you your tuition free. By the way, your children can have free tuition as well." Right in the middle of this bargaining the employer creates winners with free tuition for PhD candidates, but if you're an MA your tuition costs skyrocket. How's that for good bargaining? How's that? Somehow the university employer thought that was good bargaining strategy.

Let's just be very clear. Yes, it's coming as a surprise to some Liberal MLAs, I see. It's coming as a shock that perhaps this dispute is entirely of the employer's own creation. If you're a teaching assistant that's a PhD candidate, not only are all your tuition costs, including the risen tuition costs, taken care of, but your children get free tuition. Yet if you're an MA TA — a master's candidate, and you're a teaching assistant — you've got to take a wage cut. But gee, this is all coming as an emergency situation, is it? Well, when did the university employer make that great decision? Right in the middle of bargaining with the teaching assistants — right in the middle of it. They didn't create an emergency. They created a disaster, a disaster that's been in the making for weeks. There's nothing extraordinary about this at all.

When the government, after making their funding cuts, hid behind the skirts of the employer and said, "Oh, make sure you pass this on to those teaching assistants," they also knew that the employer had made a huge, huge negative impact on the whole bargaining climate with their giving of free tuition — picking winners and therefore making losers.

Now, I'm happy that PhD candidates are getting free tuition. That's the way it should be. That's the way universities do it around this country and attract the excellent, skilled, best talent. Yet why is it now that teaching assistants who are not PhD candidates have to go on strike just to prevent their wages from being cut? How does that occur? There is absolutely nothing extraordinary about this. In fact, this government knew exactly what was going to happen when all of these events came together. In fact, I submit that this is the government's strategy.

This is exactly the government's strategy. It's exactly their plan: to be able to come in here and legislate an end to the workers' rights. I bet you the Minister of Labour will get up and say: "Oh, we're not taking away workers' rights — absolutely not. We've got an IIC here. We've got an IIC that's going to go in and do business." Is it an IIC that either party had input into? I'd be happy to know. Perhaps the Minister of Labour could make clear that the IIC, who is an assistant deputy minister reporting directly to this government, was mutually agreed upon. Perhaps he can make it clear.

I expect the answer is that no, he can't make it clear, because the IIC of this government's choosing was not mutually agreed upon. I expect the minister will have to admit that the parties who objected to the person who's supposed to get bargaining on track were the TAs. So we have a third party, who is not mutually agreed upon, going in. The working people lose their right to job action, and then it all comes to a grinding halt on March 31. It all comes to a grinding halt. The bill expires. The IIC is not mutually agreed upon. There

are no third-party binding recommendations, and the government isn't going to restore their funding cuts.

The University of B.C. employer isn't going to treat TAs in a fair manner in the way they did some TAs — PhD candidates — so there's nothing in this bill that works in the public interest — absolutely nothing. What does happen, though, is that it will stall the workers' rights until March 31. Exams start the second week of April. Then nothing will happen except that working people's rights will have been taken away for 20 days.

The government will come back into this Legislature and bring in its fifth — I think it might be sixth, but let's say its fifth — piece of draconian legislation imposing a settlement on these working people. Why? Because of the public interest. Exams are nine days away, they'll say. It's a grand strategy, and of course none of the Liberal MLAs…. Well, maybe they do see through it, and maybe they support this. So this is about union-busting, and this is about taking away working people's rights to free collective bargaining. Make no mistake about it, because there is nothing in this bill that leads to a fair and balanced settlement — absolutely nothing.

Now, let's just see for a few minutes who these big, bad TAs are, who these awful teaching assistants are that are wreaking havoc on the university. Well, they're students themselves. They are some of the best and the brightest at the university. They're students who have a huge commitment to the university. Actually, while they're learning themselves and making a commitment to the future of our province, they're also teaching undergraduate students. These are the big, bad people from whom this government is taking away the right to strike.

Let me just read some of the reports on these students. This is from today, in the Province:

I'll tell you, it's very interesting that the teaching assistants go to the LRB and win the right to continue to picket as they did before, but they actually listened to the employer's complaint. They stopped the drumming. They stopped banging on garbage cans. They stopped the whistles, and they only handed out leaflets and talked to people. Even though they won at the LRB, they completely accommodated the administrators' concerns. These are the big, bad people we're legislating today, taking away their right to free collective bargaining.

Let me actually describe what it was. There's another article in the Vancouver Sun on March 11, which was yesterday, about what the LRB ruling actually was about. I quote from the article, page B3 of that paper: "UBC pickets can remain inside campus, LRB rules. Striking University of B.C. workers can continue picketing buildings on campus, the Labour Relations Board ruled Monday."

I pause just for a second here. The Labour Relations Board — whoa, there's a socialist, commie, pinko organization, isn't it? There we have an independent tribunal that's had its funding cut drastically by this government, but its job is to hear the complaints in terms of collective bargaining matters and job action matters, and then to rule. It was the LRB who made the ruling that the teaching assistants can continue to picket as they have been.

I also, for a moment, will advise the House that the LRB has every right and a legislated responsibility to examine picketing in the context of the public interest. The Government House Leader tried to say: "Oh, the LRB yesterday was just ruling on the location of pickets." Well, it actually…. Oh, I'm going to try and take a new approach of not personally attacking any MLA, so I will only say this. It perhaps is through inexperience that the Government House Leader somehow suggests that location of pickets is decided in isolation from the public interest. The location of pickets and rulings by the LRB have everything to do with the public interest — completely.

The LRB determines whether picketing is interfering with the education of students in a way that is harmful to the public interest. The LRB in previous rulings in years past has made exactly that determination — that job action and picketing and withdrawal of services by teachers have adversely affected the public interest by undermining the ability of grade 12 students to graduate. They've stopped the job action. They've ordered teachers to stop the job action. The LRB ruling has everything to do with the public interest.

I continue on that…. Well, anyway, I don't have to continue here on this particular article.

J. MacPhail: I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I take complete offence to any Liberal member in this House who objects to me speaking — absolutely. I don't mind the heckling and the fair comment. I can give as good as I get. But there are members, particularly on the executive council side, who absolutely abhor anyone having a democratic right to speak against their government in this chamber, and the Minister for Deregulation epitomizes that.

Yesterday we had a ruling from the LRB that says that the teaching assistants have every right to carry on picketing as they were. In fact, the teaching assistants then, after they won the ruling, accommodated the University of B.C.'s interests. The employer is now appealing that ruling. The article in the Vancouver Sun on March 11, page B3, says:

So there we are. The employer, by seeking an injunction against the TAs' right to picket, exacerbated the situation. We see from an article — again in the Vancouver Sun, page B1, March 10 — that the University of B.C., the employer seeking the injunction against the teaching assistant pickets, may have made the situation worse.

Now, what kind of job action have the teaching assistants been doing? The government stood up today — the Minister of Labour — and said that 23,000 students are adversely affected by that. They have absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever — absolutely no evidence. In fact, the teaching assistants were allowed to continue their picketing on campus because of the nature of their picketing. They picket one building a day. There was one time when the teaching assistants shut down more than one building, but that was for one day, and they then immediately reverted to their picketing of one building per day.

A fortnight ago this article from the Vancouver Sun said: "The teaching assistants withdrew all marking and teaching services and began a series of daily pickets in front of different buildings on campus." It was very interesting, though, that the injunction brought forward by the university shifted ground. First, the university said that teaching assistants had no right to picket the administration building, as they did not work there, and began seeking the injunction on those grounds. The next day, though, the employer — UBC — had to shift its argument because Local 2950, representing the library and clerical workers, was in a legal strike position. They hadn't gone on strike, and even then the employer was in, trying to take away job action rights from that local. Of course, the other argument the employer made which exacerbated the situation was that the campus is private property. Is that new — that our publicly funded institutions are now private property? Anyway, that didn't wash either.

I have about 15 minutes more of comment. Of course, I am the designated speaker on this, so perhaps I will move adjournment of debate now. No. I'm sorry. I move that the House — I want to make sure about this — recess until 6:35. I assume I hold my place in second reading debate by doing that.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, we are at second reading stage of Bill 21. The Leader of the Opposition adjourned the debate.

J. MacPhail: Just for the information of the Labour minister and his staff, I'll be about ten more minutes, and that's it on this matter right here.

Before we recessed, I was talking about what kind of jobs the teaching assistants do, and perhaps in a bit of a sarcastic way, I tried to determine why the government felt so threatened by the teaching assistants.

Let me read this letter into the record from a person who knows very well what teaching assistants are. It's a letter to the editor by James Doheny. I'll just read his letter to the editor. It's March 6, 2003, in the Vancouver Sun.

I've already referred to the fact that in addition to all of this, the administration at UBC then gave — in the middle of TA bargaining — PhD candidates who are TAs free tuition.

I want to read one other thing into the record. It was sent to me…. I know that the Minister of State for Community Charter said he fell asleep while listening to my speech, and I know he was just joshing. This was sent in….

J. MacPhail: Well, I assume he was, because that would be to ridicule the people who are actually

watching the debate, who sent this in to me over the supper hour. These are people, actually, that live in the North Island. I have no idea — I can never tell — whether Vancouver Island is part of the heartland according to the Liberals or not. My heartland, of course, is in Waco, Texas, where the term was invented, but this government….

I don't know whether the Liberal members think that the heartland is Vancouver Island, but here's what an article in the Courtenay–Comox Valley Record had to say about tuition fees. It's dated…. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't have the date here, but I'll get it for Hansard. The title is "North Island College Tuition Fees Jump by a Third."

"Tuition for courses at North Island College will rise 35 percent next year, the post-secondary institution announced Thursday. Earlier in the week in a split decision, the North Island College board of governors approved a 35.6 percent increase in tuition fees, claiming that the North Island College's tuition is still the lowest on Vancouver Island." The circle gets ever, ever smaller about the comparison as these institutions jack their fees.

I won't read the whole article, but we go on down here: "'Tuition fee increases are hurting people in the North Island,' said North Island Students Association spokesperson Pat Barbosa. 'People have been thrown out of work by the crisis in the softwood industry, and now they're being told to pay tuition fees that are twice as high as they were two years ago. Some heartland strategy.'"

Clearly, this article is dealing with the second tuition increase that happened in '03. Nobody even knew — not a Liberal, not a British Columbian — to use the word "heartland" until this government embraced it with a passion that has never been seen before.

I welcome those members who represent constituents who go to North Island College to stand up and show how their great strategy around funding universities and colleges — increasing tuitions — is actually helping their own constituents, because clearly their own constituents don't believe it's anything but misery.

I believe that British Columbians will reject this government's claim, very cynical claim, that all of this draconian back-to-work legislation is in the public interest. The fact is that the government's policies haven't had the best interest of students in mind at any time. The lack of appropriate funding, the increase in tuition fees, the demand for adding full-time-equivalent students while at the same time cutting funding — all of this, in fact, points in exactly the opposite direction. On the list of people to attack, students are right up there with seniors, so it's galling to hear the minister say that this legislation is in the public interest.

I've already outlined for you what I think the motivation is around this very ineffectual bill. This bill does absolutely nothing to get to a collective agreement. It's a cynical ploy to stall, to bring in another piece of legislation that will actually impose wages and working conditions, I predict, on the working people at the University of British Columbia. It's a sad day, but we're growing used to sad days in this Legislature because of actions by this government.

Hon. S. Bond: I'm sure it's no surprise that you would expect me to stand in this House today and speak about the role of advanced education and the priority it plays for the government of British Columbia.

I want to make it absolutely clear that advanced education has been and will continue to be a priority for this government. In fact, every single institution will receive the same amount of money or a slight increase this budget year than they received last year. In fact, the increase for the five universities will be over $11 million, and as a sector, colleges will receive $9.7 million more in 2003-04 than was indicated in their previous budget letter. We did that because we worked extremely hard, recognizing first and foremost that our priority in this province is students. That's where we're going to spend our dollars, and that's what we're going to concentrate on.

Hon. S. Bond: Actually, it's interesting to note that the member opposite actually referred to the University Presidents Council. Just now I received a letter, in fact, from the University Presidents Council, and I'd be happy to read it into the record this evening.

Hon. S. Bond: The letter is signed by Don Avison, president of the University Presidents Council.

It is clear that the situation that currently exists at the University of British Columbia is urgent. It is important that we focus on what's best for students in this province. As the Minister of Advanced Education and as the person responsible for bringing students to the forefront of this debate, that is exactly what we are going to continue to do.

I stand in this House with a proud record of adding thousands of seats over the last year. We intend to add over 3,000 seats in the coming year. We are doubling the number of physicians that will be trained in this province. This is a government that will continue to put students first. We will make the difficult decisions necessary to do that. Having said that, we need to get on with getting students back into classrooms at UBC.

Second reading debate on Bill 21 continues. The Minister of Skills Development and Labour closes debate.

Hon. G. Bruce: In fact, what are we doing here today, and what's this bill all about? It's been an interesting discussion to this point in respect to debate issues around budgetary amounts to colleges and universities and advanced education, and it was good to have the Minister of Advanced Education shed a bit more light on that during this discussion. In fact, what we're talking about is trying to find a way to get two parties back to the table to be able to negotiate a settlement and encourage free collective bargaining to succeed in British Columbia.

This is a cooling-off piece of legislation with a sunset clause that will go into effect when this bill is passed and will cease to be in existence on March 31 of this year. I've asked my assistant deputy minister, who is experienced in labour negotiations, to facilitate the discussions between the two parties.

I want to make it clear again that I met with both parties on Monday for about three hours in discussions, in separate meetings, in an effort to ascertain what I could do to help expedite and bring the parties to a collective negotiated resolution. It was apparent from those discussions that something other than just allowing it to carry on needed to be done if we were going to protect the students' year at UBC. This is not something that government likes to do, be it this government or the former administration, in respect to trying to resolve issues at the bargaining table.

Hon. G. Bruce: There certainly are challenges in the public sector negotiations that take place in this province, but you also need to know that these discussions have been taking place for some time. CUPE 2278 has been at this, rough and ready, for just over half a year. CUPE 2950 has been at it for about 13 months with UBC. The parties themselves have got to a point where they're finding difficulty resolving the issue. The timing is such that we are at a point where we are going to greatly impact the success of our students in the province of coming to resolution, of getting their year.

There are about 23,000 students, as I've mentioned before, that have been impacted by this particular strike situation that's taking place. What we're attempting to do here is, in the quiet, try and find a way to bring the parties together to actually resolve the issue. I don't intend to go along the road of negotiating the settlement here in the House amongst ourselves. That's not what it is about. In fact, there are issues on the table that both parties are able to go back and forth with. There are actual, real issues of negotiation that need to take place.

I found in the discussion with both parties that the negotiations were actually quite dysfunctional.

Hon. G. Bruce: I'm not about to cast one side or the other. That's not my role. My role is to try to find a way to bring….

Hon. G. Bruce: No. In fact, my role is to try to find a way to bring the parties together so that collective bargaining, when it is all clogged up….

Mr. Speaker: How about having some order in this place, please. Will the Leader of the Opposition please come to order.

Hon. G. Bruce: …to find a way to have the parties reach a resolution. One shouldn't lose sight that the cooling-off period is a very short period. I understand the impetus of leverage that one side of the negotiation would have at this point.

At the same time, by putting the two parties together — knowing that there is a pressure of time, and with a facilitator to try to bring it about — I'm hopeful that we can get a negotiated settlement.

This is not about breaking unions. This is not about the issues of working people and the union movement in British Columbia. I'll remind the Leader of the Opposition in a most respectful way that if I look at union membership in British Columbia today, it is at one of the lowest points it's ever been following the previous ten years. The IWA, in fact, a union that was virtually born in my constituency, is now shy some 10,000 members from its heyday back in the eighties.

Hon. G. Bruce: The mining industry. In the past ten years good, union mining jobs…. We saw the mining industry — some $4 billion worth of contribution to the economy — down to $2 billion. We haven't had a new mine open in British Columbia.

Hon. G. Bruce: The point is this: this isn't class warfare. This isn't about working people and business interests. This is about everybody in British Columbia working together to bring this province back to what it used to be, quite rightfully so — one of the leaders in Canada. It's going to take some effort to get there.

But I have seen, when I look at the private sector negotiations, great strides by the PPWC in the pulp sector, by the CEP in the pulp and paper sector — huge strides. They were able to complete and reach their agreement five months before the expiration of their agreement. The pulp and paper industry, a huge component of our entire economy in British Columbia…. Not only will it not be shut down because the parties weren't able to reach an agreement — they were able to reach a free, collective, negotiated agreement — but better than that, it's a five-year agreement that gives stability to the economy of the province.

What we're attempting to do here, in the quiet of this chamber and in the quiet of a negotiation, is to encourage the parties, through a cooling-off period of time between now and March 31, to sit down in a respectful way, in a true collective process, and to try to come about reaching a resolution. As I've said, I'm hopeful that we can achieve that.

L. Mayencourt: We are very honoured today to have in the chamber the former mayor of the city of Vancouver, Philip Owen. Philip is one of the most decent human beings I have ever met. He has contributed so much to the city of Vancouver and, I believe, to our province and to Canada, and it is a great honour to have him here. I ask that the House please make him welcome.

R. Sultan: We are honoured this evening to have in the galleries the director and producer of a documentary film titled Fix: The Story of an Addicted City. Before I make the introduction, I would just like to read what two people have to say on this documentary: "As a political act, Fix is an urgent and just and heartbreaking film. As a work of art, it expands the known limits of human nature with remarkable portraits." That's Michael Ondaatje.

Maclean's magazine: "A quest to open North America's first safe injection site evolves into a love story and a revolution. This unblinking and beautifully rendered portrait about Vancouver's drug plague altered a civic election."

Hon. G. Bruce: I move that Bill 21 be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered forthwith.

Bill 21, University of British Columbia Services Continuation Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration forthwith.

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 21; J. Weisbeck in the chair.

J. MacPhail: The minister referred to a meeting he had with the parties. Could he refresh my memory of when that meeting took place?

J. MacPhail: Like, for instance, two days ago? Maybe the minister could just nod his head. When was the bill drafted?

J. MacPhail: Well, isn't that interesting? Through all the procedures that it takes to draft a piece of legislation, etc., and yet the minister says that it just took place within, I guess, a very short time ago.

Let's see. Let's just calculate. I would assume that the meeting with the parties was, maybe at a maximum, 48 hours ago, and now we have a piece of legislation here where, miraculously, the minister met and decided things were so awful that he had to draft a piece of legislation and ram it through the Legislature. Who did he meet with? The reason I'm asking these questions is that I want to know why the trade union is defined in the fashion that it is. That's why I'm asking these questions under section 1.

Hon. G. Bruce: I'm sorry. I didn't get the specifics of the question. Were you still on how it is that we got the bill drafted?

J. MacPhail: I was trying to make the debate in order and to suggest that I'm asking these questions, because I'll be determining how the definition of "trade union" came about under section 1. My question was: who did the minister meet with?

Hon. G. Bruce: I met with both the negotiating teams from the two locals of CUPE, and I met with the negotiating team from UBC.

Hon. G. Bruce: No, the trades weren't. They're not currently on strike. It's the same bargaining group that works on their behalf as well, but they weren't at the table. They're not on strike.

J. MacPhail: What was the discussion? Did the minister raise the matter of appointing an IIC and discuss who that might be?

Hon. G. Bruce: I'm going to go gingerly on this. I can understand where you would like to go with this, but I'm not going to get into a full discussion as to what took place in the room. They were confidential discussions, but there were a number of things discussed. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that there are limited options that one can undertake — three, four, five options — where you're trying to encourage parties to come back together to speak again or to negotiate.

I'm not trying to be cute in any of this. When I have those meetings, my comments to those people who are there with me is that it is a four-wall discussion. I'm sitting there as a neutral, and I'm trying to find ways to assist in the resolution of it. At this point, I'm not going to go about the regurgitation of everything that individuals had to say.

J. MacPhail: Well, I haven't talked to anyone about this meeting. In fact, until the minister raised it, I didn't know the meeting had occurred. I don't think the minister has to be nervous about me having some inside track that I'm going to catch him out on his own words.

The reason I'm raising this issue is because this bill has an expiry date of March 31, and the minister is once again trying to say that draconian legislation is really there for the good of the parties. If indeed this has an expiry date of March 31 and it's the IIC's, the industrial inquiry commissioner's, job to get a resolution, then it's been my experience — God knows, maybe my experience doesn't count for anything — that things go a lot more smoothly when parties can actually agree on who it is that's going to help them out. As the minister likes to say, it ain't rocket science to see whether both parties agreed to the IIC. It's just common…. It would help to know whether things are going to go smoothly or not.

Hon. G. Bruce: I'll fully acknowledge your experience. You've had many years at this and, as well, would know the sensitivity of how negotiations take place. Quite frankly, I'm trying to find a way to get these two parties to actually talk about things and negotiate in a constructive fashion.

I think the gentleman I've suggested as our IIC, Mr. Richard Longpre, my assistant deputy minister, has a good track record of understanding the issues in labour negotiations, and his role is more to facilitate the parties in bringing them along in discussion. There has

been a mediator in the negotiation that has been taking place right now, but I felt that with a change of scene and perhaps a change of personnel at the same time, this would help to facilitate the two parties to actually sit down and negotiate in a constructive way. That's what we're attempting to achieve here.

J. MacPhail: Mr. Chair, perhaps I could ask, through you, the minister where he would like me to discuss the terms of the industrial inquiry commission. Under what section?

Hon. G. Bruce: It's not relevant in the specific to this legislation. It's not mentioned. It's under the code that I have the authority to be able to appoint such a person, so I'm not going to go into a long protracted debate about that. You know and I know that under the code, the Minister of Labour has that authority, and that's where I'm taking that authority from.

J. MacPhail: I sense some sort of nervousness that I'm trying to trap the minister by asking these questions. I'm not. I just wanted to know what section he would like to discuss that. I'll determine that myself then, I guess.

Hon. G. Bruce: There's no nervousness here on my part. I understand what you're attempting to deal with in respect of this legislation, and that's absolutely correct. I'm just trying to be clear on what it is and how I'm going about this.

In respect of the trade union, as the Leader of the Opposition would know — and so should others that are following this issue — there is another trade union that is not on strike. That's the trades component. They, too, have the same negotiating group of people. We alluded to this before. This is CUPE Local 116. Although they're not on strike, what I'm attempting to do is be very clear here that if notice were issued and they were to go down that road, they would then be caught in this particular piece of legislation from the standpoint of the cooling off. I see no reason that they would do that. I think that as past negotiations have gone in this particular instance, although they are three separate locals, usually in the end all of the negotiations come together amongst all three of them when resolution is reached. I would be hopeful that that might happen in this instance too.

Hon. G. Bruce: In the reference here we're talking about the three: 2278, 2950 and CUPE 116.

J. MacPhail: Sorry. We're not, Mr. Chair. In the definitions "trade unions" sub (c) says: "any other trade union representing employees of the employer that is designated by regulation." That doesn't narrow it down at all, so my question stands: how many bargaining units are there at UBC?

Hon. G. Bruce: I don't have that number on the top of my head. I'm sorry. I misunderstood you in the first question. They are not in a bargaining situation at this point. These are the three that we're dealing with here.

J. MacPhail: So it's the minister's information that every other bargain unit has a collective agreement that's alive?

Hon. G. Bruce: As far as the information I have, that would be correct. If you have other information…. But I'm pretty sure that's where we're at.

J. MacPhail: Mr. Chair, I got this bill four hours ago. It came right out of the blue. It's not up to me to provide the answers, but it is up to me to decide about how to support this bill, depending on the answers.

I argued earlier this day that this legislation has the potential for broader application than anybody who is now striking. In fact, one of the locals here — and my apologies, Mr. Chair, I get the numbers mixed up, but the administrative local isn't even on strike — has merely served strike notice, and they're having to have a cooling-off period. I guess it's a cooling-off period from writing that letter, saying they might go on strike.

Without information…. It's my understanding that there are up to ten bargaining units at UBC, and I have no idea where they're at in terms of collective bargaining. There's every potential that this definition could apply beyond the locals that the minister has mentioned, so I can't support that definition.

Hon. G. Bruce: What we're talking about is the three, and I'll just get them correct. Local 116, which is the trades, is currently not on strike. The other two locals, which are commonly known as the administration group and the teachers assistants, are the ones that are on strike. This bill speaks to 19 days virtually — or 18, as the day is past — and the fact that these parties are to get to the table within 72 hours.

Although there are other units, there are none in active bargaining right at the moment. With the fact that this has a sunset as of March 31, where we are attempting to encourage these two parties — primarily — to reach resolution, I don't think one should be too alarmed by that fact.

I appreciate the concern that's been expressed. It's not the intention here to go and gather everybody up. It is very clearly the intention that we have those who are currently on strike back to work and that we have, more importantly, the two negotiating bodies — the employer and the union — back to the table undertaking serious collective bargaining.

J. MacPhail: I really can't take the minister at his word because of past experience. He made that same commitment in the past, where he said: "Oh no, it's not

our government's intention to impose a collective agreement." Those are exactly the same words: "We want to get people back to the bargaining table, and we just want it to carry on." And bam! Then we have another piece of legislation imposing a collective agreement — same commitment he made before, same commitment he broke before.

The reason why this is very important is — because there are no teeth in this bill, nothing other than taking away the right to strike or to freely collective-bargain from the people who are working there now in Local 2278 and Local 2950 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees — because this is just step one. This piece of legislation — I guarantee it — is step one. And the next piece of legislation that this government may bring in — I predict they will, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt; let's make it permissive rather than a given — will apply to the trade unions as defined here. I'm supposed to take the minister at his word that this language — "any other trade union representing employees of the employer that is designated by regulation" — means some CUPE local. Well, sorry. I can't do that, because the second shoe to drop will probably apply to the same definition.

Hon. G. Bruce: In actual fact, the Leader of the Opposition should take some comfort just by her own words, in that there aren't a great number of teeth in there. There aren't, by design. I am actually trying to find a way that we would get those two parties, the two bargaining units and UBC, back to the table to have some serious negotiation. I'm really not trying to prejudge. Certainly, as the Leader of the Opposition would know too — in the past having to bring in cooling-off legislation in their former administration — there are a number of ways one can go about this.

This is a very soft process in that in my estimation, there is a way these parties can reach a negotiated settlement, but that means they need to negotiate at the table in a serious manner. It is actually a very soft bill. There are not a lot of teeth — the member is quite correct in that — and we're really directing the parties that they remove themselves from the picket line, that the university take seriously the comments and concerns that have been expressed by the union bargaining unit and the concerns they've put on the table and now seriously get down to the table and wrap this up. That's exactly what we're attempting to achieve here.

J. MacPhail: I think this is the section under which I will discuss the IIC, Mr. Chair. Section 2 deals with services continued, and this is where it says: "…the minister, by order, may impose a cooling-off period…." Perhaps the minister could tell us what his time line is for that, given the fact that they're ramming the bill through today.

Hon. G. Bruce: The cooling-off will come into effect on the passage of this bill and the signing of the order.

J. MacPhail: Now, why did the minister have to say in this legislation, section 2(1): "Despite the Labour Relations Code, the minister, by order, may impose a cooling-off period…"? Why is the "despite the Labour Relations Code" exemption there?

Hon. G. Bruce: This is — in fact, the entire act is — just straight boilerplate cooling-off legislation.

J. MacPhail: Well, fair enough, but could I have my question answered? Why does the boilerplate, then, exempt the Labour Relations Code?

Hon. G. Bruce: There's nothing in the Labour Relations Code that speaks to a cooling-off. We are putting the cooling-off in, and we are instructing the Labour Relations Board that this piece of legislation will take precedence.

J. MacPhail: I guess I have to take the minister at his word that this bill was drafted in haste — had a meeting, drafted a bill. But these matters become important if the minister is true to his word that he's actually trying to help things along. There has not been one occasion where the minister has said he's just trying to help things along and where he's had any success. He's always had to bring in legislation to impose wages and working conditions to break collective agreements.

Part of the debate allows for those who are going to be subject to this legislation to understand it. Despite the Labour Relations Code…. There's another way of saying it: pursuant to the Labour Relations Code. Then that means the Labour Relations Code applies, but this isn't pursuant to the Labour Relations Code.

When these working people are put in a cooling-off period, how is this Bill 21 cooling-off period different than a Labour Relations Code cooling-off period? Oh, I'm sorry. In fact, there is no cooling-off period in the Labour Relations Code. Well, exactly. So it must be other aspects of the Labour Relations Code that don't apply then, because there is no cooling off-period.

Hon. G. Bruce: You're absolutely correct. There is no cooling-off section in the code. You'll also remember, if I can just gently remind you, that I believe your administration took that out of the code. So that's okay. What we're doing is bringing in cooling-off legislation, and despite the Labour Relations Code, this particular piece of legislation will take precedence over and above the code for the cooling-off. That's what we're doing.

J. MacPhail: Will people subject to this cooling-off have full and unfettered access to their rights and responsibilities under the Labour Relations Code?

Hon. G. Bruce: Yes, with the exception of the cooling-off period, which takes precedence.

J. MacPhail: In the cooling-off period there will be the appointment of an industrial inquiry commissioner, pursuant to the Labour Relations Code. What are his terms of reference?

Hon. G. Bruce: Even though this isn't in the legislation, I can understand your obvious interest and concern about it. The IIC's terms are clearly to facilitate the negotiations, to assist the parties in coming to resolution and to report progress to me within the period of time that we've allotted, which is the 14 days — well, 14 days, 19 days…. He's to report to me within 14 days. The instruction is to bring the parties, and the parties to be there within 72 hours of the passage of this, to sit down at the table and begin negotiations.

J. MacPhail: The reason I'm asking these questions is because the appointment of the industrial inquiry commissioner is an integral part of the achieving the goal that the minister says he wants to achieve. While section 4 says collective bargaining is restored, without an IIC, I think the minister himself has suggested that he's viewed the collective bargaining relationship as dysfunctional. It's by his own words that I'm asking questions about how collective bargaining is supposed to work, and that's the appointment of an industrial inquiry commissioner. Does the industrial inquiry commissioner have powers to impose terms?

J. MacPhail: The people in bargaining, the employer and the trade unions, have to start bargaining within 72 hours. Then the industrial inquiry commissioner has to report out within 14 days from when? Sorry.

Hon. G. Bruce: That's 14 days after the 72 hours. What I'm looking for is progress. I mean, I want to be very clear on the whole concept of the bill. As you mentioned earlier on, there's not a lot of teeth in this.

I'm really attempting to utilize the skills of the assistant deputy minister, who has long service with respect to negotiations, as an IIC to bring a negotiated resolution. When I listened to the parties and saw what was there, I think — at least, I'm hopeful — they can take that and, working together…. Sometimes another party that has a different skill can help bring people to negotiate that. I'm looking for it to be a negotiated agreement between the parties themselves.

J. MacPhail: I'm just trying to determine the effectiveness of the plan. Section 2(2) says: "The minister may impose one or more cooling-off periods under subsection (1) and may impose cooling-off periods with respect to any or all of the disputes between the employer and the trade unions."

I tried to figure out a flow chart on how this is going to work because, of course, one of the unions here — the administrative local of the employer, UBC — hasn't even gone on strike yet. Perhaps the minister could tell how this game plan is going to apply local by local.

Hon. G. Bruce: It is my intention to treat both of the locals identically. As this bill is passed and the order is signed, this is a cooling-off that will be for the full period of time that's stated in the act — to March 31.

Hon. G. Bruce: No. The issues are not the same, but they are still in the same situation of what I consider to be kind of the dysfunctional aspect of negotiation.

But there are two locals. You asked me how I intended to proceed, and I clearly intend to proceed with both of them in the identical time frame of this cooling-off legislation that has a sunset of March 31 of this year.

J. MacPhail: I agree that it's dysfunctional, despite the flip-flop of Mr. Avison as the executive director of the University Presidents Council. I merely read his own words into the record, his own public words — "the issue, the dysfunctional…." Then he somehow decided to challenge me on reading his own words into the record.

The issue here is underfunding. It's not a dysfunctional collective bargaining relationship; it's a dysfunctional underfunding relationship. It will be interesting to see how, without restoring the funding cuts to UBC, this dysfunctional relationship has any hope of succeeding.

Hence my questions about how one actually resolves these matters. We have an industrial inquiry

commissioner that hasn't been mutually agreed upon. We have a cooling-off period that expires March 31. We have two locals with completely different issues needing to be resolved, but all of them to do with underfunding of the university by this government. We have one IIC, and we have no dispute resolution mechanism because that right has been taken away. There's no right to make mandatory recommendations; there's no arbitration process. The right to strike has been taken away.

What's the plan if nothing is resolved by March 31? And if the minister stands up and tells me he has every hope of resolving matters…. Really. I mean, we're not fools in British Columbia. This government has never reached…in its term, where it has brought in legislation taking away the right to strike, and then had a resolution that it didn't impose itself.

Hon. G. Bruce: I'm not going to get into what's on the table and what's not on the table with the parties, but clearly there are parts and pieces there that one could negotiate a deal with. It's not an issue about funding; it's an issue about both parties seriously attempting to resolve, through collective negotiating, an agreement. That's what we are attempting to achieve here.

Now, the Leader of the Opposition would know, having been a minister of…. I believe you were Minister of Labour at one time but certainly in the executive council; I think you were the Minister of Labour. When you get into the sensitivity of the situation that faces me at this moment, as you may have been in the past, the last thing you want to do is start dealing with the hypothetical. In fact, what you're attempting to do is get the parties to come down, sit down and earnestly try and negotiate a settlement.

So it's not about what tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow brings. For me, it's: here's the context of what we're trying to set out, and here's the purpose of the cooling-off — to bring the parties together to negotiate a settlement, to protect the students' year and to assist the parties to reach that freely negotiated collective agreement.

J. MacPhail: Well, it's not a hypothetical I'm dealing with. I'm dealing with past experience — the odds of past experience — which under this government have always failed to conclude a freely negotiated collective agreement, where they've interfered or where the Minister of Labour has interfered.

Secondly, I'm talking about the minister's own time line. It's not that the bill actually, at March 31, gets extended by regulation or by Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. It expires. So there must be a game plan. There must be a reason why March 31 was chosen, and there must be a game plan. But I guess the public is going to be kept in the dark on that. Is that right?

Hon. G. Bruce: Well, a couple of things. Let's be clear. We have had negotiations going on. BCBC reached a negotiated settlement; the WCB reached a negotiated settlement; B.C. Hydro has reached a negotiated settlement.

In this particular instance here, what we're trying to do is encourage these parties to reach a negotiated settlement. The structure I've put in place seems to me, at any rate, to be the best way of going about trying to encourage those parties to sit down and reach that settlement.

J. MacPhail: Let me put it this way then. Does the minister guarantee that on March 31, when this expires and there's still no collective agreement, there will be no further legislation, other than the Labour Relations Code, applied to these trade unions and employer?

Hon. G. Bruce: I've been really clear that from what I'm attempting to do here…. You know, the member opposite has mentioned a number of times government interference, and you get into these situations where you have to deal with them. But the less said of what I on behalf of government may or may not do, or what my ministry may or may not do in an effort to reach resolution if they haven't achieved that by March 31…. The less said, the better.

So I'll say it again. By virtue of, first of all, a cooling-off and, secondly, employing the skills of my assistant deputy minister and, thirdly, issuing the time frame of when I want them to get to the table and when the sunset clause is, I am actually saying to these parties: "Listen, you are responsible individuals on both sides of the table. There's enough there that you can reach a negotiated settlement. Now sit down and negotiate in a responsible fashion."

J. MacPhail: Well, I would love to belabour this point. Clearly, it's getting us nowhere, because the minister is not being transparent on this at all. There is a sunset provision in here that this legislation expires March 31. The minister won't make a commitment that there will be no further legislation. He claims the bargaining relationship is dysfunctional, so he must have a plan of action. I guess the minister thinks it's fine to impose one piece of draconian legislation on the parties but that they'd be outraged if there were two. I don't think it's going to come as a surprise to the parties that this government may impose a collective agreement on them, given this government's past history. Nevertheless, once again this chamber is not about being transparent, not about giving answers to the public. It's about just obfuscating, hiding and spinning its way out of any responsibility for any action.

Why does section 2 allow for one or more cooling-off periods? How would two cooling-off periods operate?

Hon. G. Bruce: There won't be two; there will only be one. It's boilerplate. There could have been, as I was working this thing through, but I've been very clear what's going to happen. There is only one cooling-off period, and it ends on March 31. I'll come back to the

fact that this is a very gentle piece of legislation, if one can term cooling off and having to put themselves into this position….

Leader of the Opposition, you've been here. I mean, you've had to bring in cooling-offs. You brought in cooling-off legislation with arbitration. I'm not doing that. I'm hopeful that the two parties can resolve the issue.

Hon. G. Bruce: Well, the Leader of the Opposition may very well be right, but I think I've got to push a bit on both of the parties in the effort of trying to get a negotiated settlement. Now, we've had negotiated settlements: BCBC; WCB, as I mentioned; Hydro; BCGEU in highways. There are and can be negotiated settlements, and there have been within the mandate of this administration.

You said it. It is a very soft piece of legislation without a lot of teeth. As I listened to the parties and where they were at, it was my estimation that there was a way that they could craft a negotiation. I think you've been around the negotiating process and you know it's an art form. I mean, if you don't have a negotiation when I walk in and put down my piece of paper and you walk in and put down your piece of paper, and we both leave…. It takes a certain characteristic of individuals that can bring parties together when there hasn't been movement, and I'm hopeful that my assistant deputy minister can do that.

Clearly, there have been other instances where that has already happened under this administration. Perhaps with a little cajoling here…. All we're really attempting to do is cajole this along, at the same time with the express concern that students are in jeopardy of losing their year.

J. MacPhail: My point about this government interfering in collective bargaining is that when they interfere…. They have never, ever interfered where a successful, freely negotiated collective agreement is arrived at. Yes, when this government has just let the parties negotiate to a conclusion, there have been settlements. However, every time this government has interfered, with the minister standing up and saying exactly the same thing, "I'm interfering with my big, heavy hand of legislation, but I really want the parties to negotiate a settlement," he's always imposed a settlement.

It's awful that I have to stand up here and talk about degrees of draconian legislation, but it would be preferable to anybody if there was a mutually agreed-upon neutral third party, who could resolve the dispute with binding recommendations or binding arbitration, rather than this piece of legislation, which holds out no hope for fairness at all and holds out the prospect, I say, of this government, on March 31, saying: "Oh well, they can't do it. We're going to impose a settlement."

Hon. G. Bruce: You mention the other pieces of legislation. Yeah, we have had to impose settlements. We were left in a situation on these other pieces of legislation that at the end of the day, it was very, very clear — all of them being public sector bodies; none of them being able to reach collective agreement…. I don't need to quote them chapter and verse. I can.

You know, there was an imposition of about a 21 percent contract for the nursing community in British Columbia, making them some of the most highly paid in North America — and quite rightly so. There was a 7 percent imposed contract with the teachers, a good increase compared to what was happening in the economy and deservedly so in that instance.

When you look at that particular situation, there were, if my memory stands correct, 48 issues. They had been able to resolve two over the course, I believe, of ten months. In the other particular issues we dealt with, the HSA…. That one, as well, was a settlement that was part of that whole issue with health care, with the nurses. That ranged between a 5 percent and a 14 percent imposed settlement.

It actually speaks to a bigger question. I make no inference to the process, or lack of it, in the past ten years, but it was clear — and perhaps there's still a bit of an aftershock from that — that there weren't really true negotiations taking place between government and within the public sector. We as a government have a different view to that.

I don't like doing this, quite frankly. I take much greater pride when I see that there are others that have been able to negotiate a settlement both in the private and in the public sectors. But some people still are of the mind that the public purse is never-ending, on the one hand.

You know, probably more than that is the fact that perhaps the whole model of how public sector negotiations take place has to be looked at differently. I don't have that answer, but if I were to look across Canada and in other jurisdictions, when you talk about the bodies that I just spoke to, you'll find that virtually the same problem is repeating itself everywhere regardless of the government in power, regardless of the political philosophy that may be there.

In this modern day, perhaps for all of our sakes, of all the bodies…. We ought to be taking a closer look at how it is. Does the industrial model work in the public sector model? Certainly, with the creativity that's there today and the brainpower that's there, we ought to be able to devise a system that works for everybody. This part or the other ones you just mentioned aren't working.

It isn't, quite frankly, a question of ideology of government. I mean, it doesn't matter whether you talk about Labour governments, Conservative governments, Liberal governments, NDP governments, Republican governments or Democratic governments. Around the world you'll find a pretty consistent track

record of difficulty in coming to negotiated settlements in the public sector using the industrial negotiating model. Man, if I had the answer to all of that, I could be off around the world helping everybody to solve those issues. I don't, but I would think, as you've mentioned it here today, it's pretty clear from the past experiences going right through the last ten or 15 years not only in British Columbia but in other jurisdictions in North America and others that probably one needs to pay a little bit of attention to that.

J. MacPhail: Maybe the minister could actually start thinking about that rather than just taking a ham-fisted, draconian approach to free collective bargaining. Even if I am to take the minister as being accurate — that these are problems that are faced across whatever world he's talking about — this Liberal government has set the record for intervening with heavy-handed, draconian, one-sided legislation in the collective bargaining process. It's always been to hammer the working people, not the employer.

This government has set a record for interfering. It was pointed out to me by a person who was listening to the debate, which I forgot to include, that even Ralph Klein's Alberta hasn't intervened and interfered to the same extent that this government has. In 21 months they've intervened…. I guess this is the fifth time, and it sets an absolutely unprecedented record.

The minister actually did set up an investigation into the bargaining structure. I think it was in K-to-12.

J. MacPhail: The minister set up an inquiry into a bargaining structure. I think it was K-to-12. What's happening with that, if the minister is so concerned? I haven't heard a thing about it.

Hon. G. Bruce: No, that's fine. I'm happy to tell people that I'm quietly working away on that, talking to groups. I'm also working away quietly and talking with groups about the bigger public sector position. I've spoken to B.C. Fed in times past. I've spoken to different union leaders in times past and to business leaders. It is a concern I have and would like to be able to find a way to work our way through.

Specifically on the educational front, I am working through a process and trying to find a way I can set up an organization that would be seen to be a group that could help in resolving the issue. It's not being left, but it's not something that needs to be trotted out and flown all over the province.

I'm actually having some quiet discussions with all the groups. I've met with the BCTF to talk with them. I've met with the BCSTA. I've met with the principals and vice-principals. I'm meeting with CUPE representatives and IWA representatives, just as a couple of other bodies that are in and about the K-to-12 system. I am working on it. You, too, well know that this particular aspect of things has been difficult for all governments.

J. MacPhail: "Quietly working away." The announcement was made to restructure bargaining in the K-to-12 sector as it relates to teachers 14 months ago. Within the next year that bargaining regime comes up again. Boy, the minister stands up and makes great speeches about how the bargaining structure may not be working — the industrial model — yet his own promise to change that has met with absolutely nothing.

J. MacPhail: This asserts employer rights. There was a section here, I think, that says that the last collective agreement is in force. The reason I'm saying "Other rights not affected" under section 3…. Does the collective agreement that's back in force have any rights to a tuition rebate?

Hon. G. Bruce: No, they don't. This particular section, of course, just flows right off of the fact that the collective agreement is in effect, so everything is basically staying the same.

J. MacPhail: It actually says that the last collective agreement…. These employer rights flow from the collective agreement — i.e., they are employer rights that are not listed in the collective agreement but are

deemed to be there. So the collective agreement is extended. So are the concessions that are on the table removed, then, for this period of time — like the benefit rollback?

Hon. G. Bruce: Just to be clear, anything that's in the existing collective agreement is extended. Basically, we're just taking that collective agreement, extending it, taking people from the picket line, getting the negotiating teams back to the table and trying through that cooling-off period to reach a collective resolution.

J. MacPhail: In section 4, bargaining has to start within 72 hours, and collective bargaining has to be done in good faith. I asked what the employer's reaction has been to this. Have the parties contacted the minister to — knowing that this bill was going to be rammed through in one day…? Have arrangements commenced on this? Has the minister heard from the unions, for instance?

Hon. G. Bruce: As the Leader of the Opposition knows, we try to keep all the parties informed. I think our track record even of making sure that you're well briefed is there. Our effort here is to reach conclusions in a successful manner, so all of the parties were notified ahead of time with what's been intended and where we're attempting to go.

J. MacPhail: Will the industrial inquiry commissioner be committed to these negotiations full time until March 31 or until the 17 days?

J. MacPhail: I guess my question is: is this the first and only priority until the matter is resolved or March 31 arrives?

Hon. G. Bruce: That's correct. The shortness of time, the urgency to get right at the table and the tight time frame of this cooling-off really speak to how serious we are about this issue. That is why the assistant deputy minister as the IIC is totally focused on trying to resolve this, where he needs to be as a player in helping the parties to resolve this issue.

Hon. G. Bruce: In an effort, again, to keep the period short. There has been a length of time now that's gone on, as I mentioned, between the parties — half a year with one, 13 months with another. It's clear that the parties have to know we're really serious that we want a negotiated settlement here. In the length of time that's been laid out, I think they can do that. That's why there's the March 31 deadline.

Hon. G. Bruce: I'd like to be very clear on this. Regardless of what you may think about me, I take my role as a neutral very seriously. I take those discussions I have with the parties very seriously. This isn't a matter of my talking to the employer or the union about what they think is best for each of them independently. It's my role to speak with them in a forthright manner, in an attempt to ascertain where they're each at, and then make a decision on how I think we can best reach that collective settlement. With what's on the table and focused with the skill of our ADM, I thought that, hopefully, they could reach that negotiated settlement. Certainly, we should be able to see some resolution within the time frame of March 31.

J. MacPhail: I don't have any feelings for the actions or views of the minister, except in the context of his being part of the executive council in the government of British Columbia. What I do note, though, is that this government is extremely quick to act when there are employees — working people — exercising their right to job action, and the reverse is not true when it's the employer. That was merely the basis for my question.

I think the minister may want to think about the Transit dispute. There has never been a group of working people who have asked for their collective bargaining rights to be taken away.

Hon. G. Bruce: I appreciate this, and so do some 300 other people who are friends of mine.

Bill 21, University of British Columbia Services Continuation Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. members, I've been advised that Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor is in the building, so if members would please just remain in their seats for a very few minutes.

Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor entered the chamber and took her place in the chair.

In Her Majesty's name, Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor doth assent to these acts.

In addition to providing transcripts on the Internet, Hansard Services publishes transcripts in print and broadcasts Chamber debates on television.


	YEAS — 26

Coell	Hogg	Halsey-Brandt
Whittred	Cheema	Bruce
Masi	Clark	Bond
de Jong	Nebbeling	Coleman
Penner	Jarvis	Nuraney
Mayencourt	Johnston	Locke
Nijjar	Suffredine	K. Stewart
Visser	Sultan	Sahota
Hawes		Manhas

	NAYS — 1

	MacPhail


	YEAS — 26

Hogg	Halsey-Brandt	Whittred
Cheema	Hansen	Bruce
Masi	Bond	de Jong
Nebbeling	Coleman	Penner
Jarvis	Nuraney	Bell
Mayencourt	Johnston	Locke
Nijjar	Suffredine	K. Stewart
Visser	Sultan	Sahota
Hawes		Manhas

	NAYS — 1

	MacPhail


	YEAS — 39

Hogg	Halsey-Brandt	Whittred
Cheema	Hansen	Bruce
Barisoff	Masi	Lee
Thorpe	Murray	Bond
Nebbeling	Coleman	Chong
Penner	Jarvis	Anderson
Nuraney	Brenzinger	Belsey
Bell	Mayencourt	Johnston
Christensen	Bray	Locke
Nijjar	Wong	Bloy
Suffredine	Cobb	K. Stewart
Visser	Lekstrom	Sultan
Sahota	Hawes	Manhas

	NAYS — 1

	MacPhail

	YEAS — 39

Hogg	Halsey-Brandt	Whittred
Cheema	Hansen	Barisoff
Masi	Thorpe	Murray
Nebbeling	Coleman	Penner
Jarvis	Anderson	Nuraney
Brenzinger	Belsey	Bell
Mayencourt	Trumper	Johnston
Christensen	Krueger	Bray
Locke	Nijjar	Wong
Bloy	Suffredine	MacKay
Cobb	K. Stewart	Visser
Lekstrom	Sultan	Hamilton
Sahota	Hawes	Manhas

	NAYS — 1

	MacPhail

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY