Hansard -- Monday, May 5, 2003 a.m. -- Vol. 15, No. 1 (HTML)

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

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY



CONTENTS

	Routine Proceedings
		Page

Private Members' Statements		6449
	SAFER home and certification program V. Anderson Hon. G. Abbott Forestry education in our public schools T. Christensen Hon. C. Clark Global community V. Roddick R. Masi Small-scale salvage J. Wilson Hon. M. de Jong

Motions on Notice		6456
	Parental involvement in education system (Motion 58) (continued) Hon. C. Clark B. Locke T. Christensen R. Nijjar P. Bell J. Bray Role of high-technology sector in B.C. economy (Motion 65) S. Brice M. Hunter

V. Anderson: I recently visited a new home under construction in my riding of Vancouver-Langara in Vancouver on West 63rd Avenue. The home is being built to a new SAFER set of standards. This house is being built by the Vancouver Resource Society, which provides opportunities for people with disabilities to integrate their living into the community. For 30 years the society has worked hard to make improvements in housing.

The SAFER home model criteria is an acronym that stands for sustainable, automated, friendly, environmental and recycled. The SAFER house program was introduced to the public at the 1996 PNE as their prize home for that year. The cost of upgrading the prize home to SAFER standards was approximately $500, and that's all. Most of the changes were invisible, ensuring that the ambience of the home's design was maintained. An exit survey of over 14,000 people who walked through the home found that 85 percent would request that their next home be made to the SAFER standards.

The concept is that in a home of this nature, the community can house a family through its entire life cycle by addressing issues of access for seniors and children as well as the placement of outlets for new and emerging technologies. Making homes sustainable and friendly is not difficult, and it is the easiest and least expensive upgrade to complete. What has been lacking in the past is a set of standards that can be implemented to provide the results that consumers are looking for.

The home I visited on West 63rd Avenue has these basic design elements that are making the home more accessible to all people, and especially those with disabilities. One example is the change in the width of the doors. A standard door is 32 inches wide. The doors in this home are 36 inches wide. This is an additional cost of $7.50 per door. However, this will ensure that the home can be used by the persons with disabilities or, in the future, could be used as a retirement home without making any physical changes to the building. Additionally, the main bathroom has been designed so it could easily be changed to make the home into a normal basement suite.

To meet the SAFER home criteria, there are 19 basic and inexpensive design features that need to be incorporated into the building. These would include changes to thresholds, bath and shower controls, removable cabinets under the sinks, doors a minimum of 34 inches wide, hallways and stairways a minimum of 40 inches wide, light switches to be 42 inches off the ground, guides around the placement of electrical receptacles and allowance for an elevator in the stacked closet.

There are other detailed recommendations, all 19 of them. For our discussion here, let me say that these are inexpensive and simple to accomplish during the construction process and will significantly increase the livability of the home for our young as well as aging populations. The Vancouver Resource Society stresses the importance of these criteria because of the great number of risks that appear in any home. They point out that 90 percent of all accidents happen in the home, and they happen to those in the families who are most vulnerable, such as kids and seniors.

Statistics from the B.C. Children's Hospital's Safe Start program reveal that 80 percent of all children in their facility are there due to preventable accidents in the home.

This residence should be finished in June of this year. I'm glad to say the Vancouver Resource Society will have it open for demonstration for two weeks prior to the five young people moving in. It will be available for developers to visit as well. Patrick Simpson is the one who developed this model home and previously displayed it in other projects in Vancouver.

The society is planning to develop a certificate program so homes following these criteria could be recognized as SAFER homes. What is needed are specific design changes in these buildings so that they can have a certificate program and be recognized as a SAFER home.

As it relates to this house, it will go into making this a sustainable residence that will reduce and eliminate everyday hazards, making the home a fine, safe place for five young people to live. It will be their home. It will be a place to bring their family and friends, a place where society can meet comfortably in their senior years, and it will also be one of the world's first sustainable homes.

Hon. G. Abbott: It's a pleasure to rise and respond to the excellent statement from the member for Vancouver-Langara.

I want to depart from form a little bit here today in saluting not only the message that's been presented here but the messenger as well. I've had the pleasure of knowing the member for Vancouver-Langara since 1996 when I was first elected to this chamber. I want to salute him this morning for his outstanding and lifelong advocacy for a number of areas that are a part of my ministry. I'm sure, being the humble man that he is, he will probably not appreciate me saluting him in this way, but I want to do it anyway because he has been a great advocate for important areas in the Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services.

He has been, I must say, a very forceful advocate for housing for the most vulnerable in our society, and

I enormously appreciate the support he has offered to me and continuously offers to me in that area. I'm also appreciative, particularly in the context of the message he presented here today, of his support for stronger safety engineering services in the province. That's appreciated, and so are a host of other areas: immigration, multiculturalism, aboriginal services, seniors issues, volunteer issues. The member is a persistent and forceful advocate for all those very important areas of government, and I salute him for that.

It's often said that the member for Vancouver-Langara is the conscience of the party. That may be so. I can tell you that he's certainly the conscience of Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services, as he never fails to keep me honest by his very frequent and forceful advocacy on behalf of people who he believes need the support of my ministry. He has done a remarkable job in support and in advocacy on behalf of his very broad constituency, both in Vancouver-Langara and indeed across the province. He has been a great leader for our province.

In terms of the message itself, I do want to acknowledge the Vancouver Resource Society for their work in providing the form of enhanced housing which the member for Vancouver-Langara very effectively summarized. As the member mentioned, the SAFER Home certification program is a new and interesting concept, and I am excited about seeing the building when the construction is completed.

The B.C. Building Code is the minimum standard for new construction of public buildings and includes requirements for accessibility in public buildings. Some local governments have developed policy and requirements for accessibility in housing that builds on the minimum requirements in the building code. For example, North Vancouver, Saanich and Sidney are three such jurisdictions.

On behalf of the Ministry of Children and Family Development, B.C. Housing is managing the redevelopment of the existing home owned by the society. Community Living Services staff look forward to the completion of the project, because it will provide much-needed beds. Clients, I'm told, are also thrilled and are anticipating the completion of the project. Funding for this project is mainly by donation. This is a perfect example of the community coming together to promote an environment where adults with developmental disabilities can participate in and contribute to their communities and live a full and valued life.

I think the member for Vancouver-Langara has set out very effectively the advantages of what's being undertaken by the Vancouver Resource Society. I salute them.

Once again I want to salute my friend, my colleague — a man who has been a great advocate for his constituency and for the vulnerable in this province. I thank him very much for his statement and for his lifelong advocacy.

V. Anderson: I thank my colleague the minister for his kind words and his encouragement in the development of this particular program, which can have a great significance in the lives of many of the people in British Columbia as new homes are built with these kinds of SAFER features attached.

This particular home has been endorsed and supported by the B.C. Real Estate Foundation and by the Vancouver Resource Society and the Vancouver Foundation. Indeed, there have been 40 different supply groups that have contributed to this particular home to give advantage and opportunity for this new approach.

I had the opportunity of visiting the new extension of the Louise Briar home for senior care in Vancouver in my riding also and was pleased as I went about to see that they had put many of the ideas of the SAFER program into effect in that particular building. You could see it — just one of the illustrations being that the floor plugs were not 12 inches off the floor but 18 inches off the floor. They have told me that the reason they used to be 12 inches off the floor was because that was the height of the carpenter's hammer. It was easy to put it there for measurement.

I'd like to thank the minister for his support and encourage the community to become involved.

T. Christensen: Vernon was home to the Interior Logging Association's annual convention at the beginning of April. The theme for this year's convention was Education: Forestry's Future.

The Premier and I toured the ILA's exhibition venue on April 11. From what we saw there, it is clear that the theme of forestry and education hit a nerve. There were 18 separate universities, colleges, schools and other education providers represented there.

The ILA's convention was able to highlight some of the many efforts being made to ensure that the next generation has a broad education in the values of the forest and that young people today are exposed to the many possibilities the future holds for those who want to work in our forests and with our forest products.

I'm happy to report that in my constituency, the integration of forestry and education is something that has been strongly embraced. In school district 22 our schools are looking to the future of forestry and offering locally developed forestry programs and, equally important, are often finding ways to bring some of the provincial curriculum into the forest to give that curriculum hands-on, real-life application and meaning.

As you can imagine, or perhaps know, the learning that goes on in the classroom will come to life and really make a difference and an impact on students if those students can see the theories from the classroom and the words from a textbook come to life in the real world outside the classroom walls.

Charles Bloom Secondary School in Lumby, in my riding, has a real-world laboratory to apply the principles of the classroom out where they have greater

meaning — in the forest. The students and teaching staff at Charles Bloom will be showcasing their laboratory tomorrow when they host the first-ever open house at their woodlot just outside Lumby. As far as I've been able to determine, Charles Bloom Secondary is the only school in British Columbia to have access to and responsibility for the management of a woodlot. From what I've seen so far, they are committed to making the most of that opportunity.

Students who have attended Charles Bloom Secondary over the past 20 or so years have been fortunate to have access to a forestry program. I'm told that for most of that time, the program has focused on providing a small group of students with the training, experience and skills necessary to work in the logging industry once they graduate. As many members of the House will know, Mr. Speaker, and certainly you yourself will know, Lumby has long been a forestry town, and the forestry program at Charles Bloom has provided many students with the skills that were readily transferable to the world of employment.

The program has been guided by teacher Jack Hockey since the late 1980s. Over time the forestry program has evolved to include a broader spectrum of forestry skills. For the last eight years Eric Foster, who is a forestry technician, has worked for the program as an education assistant. In the past, prior to having the woodlot, it was a consistent challenge for Mr. Hockey and Mr. Foster to ensure that the students in the forestry program had access to appropriate stands of trees. They previously relied on the small business program to gain access to fibre, and notwithstanding a good deal of cooperation and assistance they received from the local district forest office, there was always some uncertainty as to whether the program would have the forest access necessary to provide the appropriate experience for the students.

That uncertainty has been erased by the school obtaining a 450-hectare woodlot within a 15-minute drive from the school. This is the first school year that the forestry program at Charles Bloom has had full access to their woodlot. That has opened up considerably greater opportunities for the school, the forestry program and teachers in other subject areas to look at the comprehensive management of the forest and to integrate the forest with the school-based curriculum in a broad range of subject areas.

Tomorrow on the woodlot, educators and their students will be demonstrating how the forest and forestry have become part of their curriculum. Alan Gee's social studies 11 class will be running a town hall meeting in their outdoor classroom to pose the question: whose forest is it? Students will represent nine different interest groups and present their case for why they deserve to use a part of the forest. Over the next few weeks those students will follow up by developing a land use management plan based on their woodlot, with a focus on maximizing the economic value of the woodlot while minimizing environmental impact. Al Gee also tells me that he and others at the school are considering other opportunities to integrate parts of other grades' social studies classes with the use of the woodlot, whether for mapping or for pioneer-living opportunities.

As an aside, Mr. Gee and a group of students have recently returned from Guatemala where they were providing help at an orphanage. While there, they noticed a great need for housing that they are looking at meeting through the export of shelter kits manufactured from waste wood from the woodlot and based on a design that's actually in development by teacher Jack Hockey from the forestry program. There's a good deal of work still to be done, but it's got students thinking about how they can help children from Guatemala through what they're doing through their own woodlot in Lumby.

Another teacher, Chris Torrie, teaches forest science 11 and biology. When I visited the woodlot a couple of weeks ago, his class was on the woodlot planting trees and following up on what they had learned in the classroom about silviculture. Chris is also designing a unit around bug infestations, where students will be able to study the life cycle of various forest pests and apply that knowledge on the woodlot.

Ralph Stevens teaches physical education and will be incorporating use of the woodlot into recreation leadership. There may also be an opportunity there for some orienteering courses, and perhaps he can practise with Mr. Torrie, because Mr. Torrie and his class — when I was up there — actually got a little lost in the woods for an hour or so. Thankfully, we found them.

Tomorrow some of teacher Thor Nenzen's mathematics class will be out on the woodlot scaling timber cut by the forestry program. I'm sure I'm not the only guy who sat through many classes in high school mathematics wondering why I had to learn certain things in the classroom and what practical application that knowledge was ever going to have. Well, Thor Nenzen's class gets to experience how math relates to the real world by going out and applying their learning to the scaling of timber.

Finally, students from Ralph Gering's shop class will also be at the open house showcasing school district 22's portable sawmill in milling some of the fibre harvested by students in the forestry program. As I said earlier, this is the first year that the teachers and students at Charles Bloom Secondary have had access to their woodlot. Already they're making very good use of it, and I'm told that in the coming weeks and certainly in the next school year, students and teachers from other schools in the district will have an opportunity to visit the woodlot and gain some hands-on educational experience.

I very much want to commend the administration and teaching staff at Charles Bloom for grasping the opportunity of having a woodlot and for embracing the challenge of finding how to integrate the use of the woodlot into their classes.

Hon. C. Clark: I would like to join the member for Okanagan-Vernon in offering my congratulations for

the inspiration that teachers at Charles Bloom offer to everyone in education: Thor Nenzen, Ralph Gering, Ralph Stevens, Chris Torrie, Alan Gee and, of course, Eric Foster and Jack Hockey, who have made this program one of a kind in British Columbia. It's been through their dedication — and, frankly, their tenaciousness sometimes — in putting together a program that's never been done before. It takes tremendous imagination and passion for the kids you're teaching to do what they've done.

What we need to do across education now is look at the model they've built at Charles Bloom and copy that across the province, because forestry is the lifeblood of British Columbia. Twenty percent of our economy is based on forests. So many small communities depend on our forestry industry functioning and providing a living, putting food on the table and paying their mortgages. Our province was founded on forestry. It is a sunrise industry, not a sunset industry, and in our education system we need to make sure we are training kids to go into that industry so that they can carry on and continue to make B.C. the best producer of the highest-quality fibre anywhere in the world.

I really believe that people who grow up in small towns, particularly in forest-dependent communities, have a right to know that they can live there when they have their own children and that their children can grow up and be educated there and can ultimately get jobs and raise their own kids there. That's what B.C. is all about. This is a province founded on rural communities and the values of rural communities. The forest industry — making it healthy, making it grow, keeping it strong — is an absolutely critical part of making sure that our small rural communities continue to be part of our future in British Columbia.

This is one example of the kind of choices that school districts offer, which integrate the needs of the community and the employment possibilities of a community with what's going on at school and make those experiences they're taking in the classroom relevant to their future.

Project Heavy Duty is another one, up in the Peace River. They involve the senior secondary school in a week-long training program that exposes them to the heavy construction industry. There are 62 businesses and employers involved in it. It creates authentic jobsites for kids to learn about operations and using different kinds of heavy equipment. Kids drive graders and dump trucks and backhoes. When they graduate, they have real, marketable skills that give them a jump into the workforce — and, by the way, into high-paying jobs.

Career Technical Centre out in Abbotsford, which I visited recently, is doing a tremendous job teaching kids mathematics in the context of a classroom where they are working on electronics. They're learning to do something with their hands, they're learning something that will be valuable when they graduate, but they're also learning mathematics at the same time. They're teaching physics on the shop floor, where kids are fixing cars. Again, they're learning their basic curriculum, but at the same time they're learning it in a way that's relevant to them and that's going to be relevant to employers.

The Riverside Centre out in Mission is doing similar things. B.C. Homebuilders Association is part of that. It's teaching kids who are now students the training that will help them in the homebuilding industry. When they graduate, they'll have a jump on other kids and be able to go out and start earning some of those high wages right away.

If we are going to be facing a skills crunch in British Columbia, the answer to that is to make sure that employers and training and relevant education are available for kids before they graduate from high school. Charles Bloom, the dedicated teachers and the tenacious promotion, by the way, of the MLA from Vernon are all helping to make that a reality.

T. Christensen: Thank you to the Minister of Education for her comments in respect of what they're doing at Charles Bloom, because certainly any encouragement we can give them for the good work they're doing is very welcome.

I also want to talk just briefly about another project I've actually just become aware of in the last month or so, which, again, integrates students and forestry. It is a poplar plantation to the north of Vernon, which was initiated by Riverside Forest Products. They were looking for a means of better involving local students in the Armstrong area with the forest. Since 1996 they have established a five-acre poplar plantation. I'm going to be fortunate enough to go and visit the plantation later this week and see what they're doing out there.

Essentially, every aspect of the project has been undertaken by students. In the winter months they visit the Ministry of Forests research station in Vernon to collect whips for the new crop. In the spring you find the students laying the grid work and planting the whips, which I take is how a poplar tree grows. I don't actually know anything about poplar trees, so I'm quite looking forward to Thursday and finding out about how this works.

Certainly, local forestry teacher Ron Brinnen, who I understand is out at Pleasant Valley Secondary School in Armstrong, is quoted as saying: "Getting involved with the plantation means we are taking a high school course and plugging it into the real world, and it gives students a direct connection from school to the workplace to a potential job."

This Thursday I'm going to have, and others in the community are going to have, the opportunity to see exactly what is happening on the plantation. I understand there will be four science students from Clarence Fulton Secondary in Vernon who will be demonstrating some forest management activities involving tree measurement.

There are also going to be four science students from Charles Bloom in Lumby who will be making presentations on silviculture, following up on what they've learned on the woodlot, as well as speaking

about the nursery process and undertaking tree-planting demonstrations. Also, students from the forestry program at Charles Bloom will demonstrate the harvesting of some of the poplar trees, and those will then be transported to Pleasant Valley Secondary School in Armstrong, where the WoodLINKS program from Vernon Secondary School will mill the hybrid poplar on the school district's portable sawmill.

Following up on that, at the school site we'll also see woodworking teachers from Lumby and Armstrong show some of the products they've been able to make from this wood. I know, as well, that at the Vernon Secondary School, where there is a WoodLINKS program, they do have access to the portable sawmill. They have an arrangement with some of the local tree-cutting companies to actually get wood donated, which the students are then taking — an oak tree or chestnut tree that's been removed from somebody's yard — and making an end product. They're doing very good work in forestry and education in school district 22, and I simply wish them well as their program expands.

V. Roddick: I am delighted to be able to follow the last four colleagues on the integration of communities and economics, because in today's tumultuous world we are facing enormous challenges, not the least of which are our communities. We are living through the technological revolution just as generations before us had to progress through the industrial revolution. The Enclosures Act in Britain, the corn laws and potato famine in Ireland forced people into cities or to emigrate, thus tearing apart their communities as they knew them and subsequently supplying, at the time, a seemingly unending workforce.

Over the generations, communities were rebuilt around the different industries that blossomed throughout the world. Village life still was maintained, but their vision now progressed beyond their original narrow boundaries. Transportation and communication brought people closer together. Trade and travel exploded. The world was our oyster. The sun never set on the British Empire. Then came World War I and World War II — and, again, huge community, cultural and communication changes. Not only were women allowed to vote, they actually became a recognized entity in the workforce. Now the world was everyone's oyster.

Our communities regrouped around thriving industries, and businesses progressed by leaps and bounds. Commercial air travel arrived. People's horizons were now unlimited. Tourism, as we know it today, became the new career. Again, communities were in for another culture shock. Some were drained because of world travel. Others were inundated by this new persona — the tourist.

Our world is shrinking even faster due to technological expansion. The computer started a vast change in our lifestyle, which is continuing to advance at breakneck speed. This revolution, if you will, is affecting everything we do — our jobs, our day-to-day details and our global outlook. We now live globally, and the enormity of this concept is again challenging our communities as we know and see them.

How do we maintain a living, breathing neighbourhood when everything and everybody comes from somewhere else? We are starting to meet that challenge. People are demanding to have their say, and they're determined to have their say. They are becoming more and more involved in their local issues, whether it be hospitals, school boards, sports parks — their overall environment.

Our continued personal involvement, however, is facing a serious challenge: lack of numbers, as so graphically described by the Minister of State for Intermediate, Long Term and Home Care at a Delta Chamber Of Commerce presentation earlier this spring. In 1970 — and our daughter was born in 1971, so it just seems like yesterday — a senior was supported by eight wage earners. Today, a mere 30 years later, that senior is supported by only three wage earners. Just think of what that means to our society today.

The resilience of the human individual is incredible, as viewed on our televisions today — people carrying out everyday activities in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad. So we will find solutions. The question is: how can we build the capacity to cocoon with a global outlook? Democracy is a choice, one that demands constant vigilance, renewal and, as my predecessor Fred Gingell always said, cash. How do we balance the influence of such organizations as the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization with our own back yard? President Bush argues that people who operate in open economies eventually demand more open societies. But what about when citizens make democratic choices that aren't popular with, for instance, foreign investors?

The most powerful movements are always deeply rooted in community and are accountable to those communities. A perfect example is Delta South's community effort to save Delta Hospital. We are not rootless, and we do know our neighbours. Despite many challenges, our community is not fraying. How do we maintain this wonderful spirit without cutting ourselves off from the urgent daily concerns facing our province and our country?

My colleague from Delta North has a passionate interest in government reform, and I look forward to his comments.

R. Masi: Thank you very much to my colleague from Delta South for those remarks.

There's no doubt that the interaction of world society and the organizational structure of these world societies undergo constant and evolutionary change. The current buzzword today is globalization, which is probably the inevitable outcome for our world.

Historically, man's first attempt at societal organization was essentially tribal in nature, followed by city states, feudalist states and empires, both Western and Asian. With the disintegration of the classical form of empires, nationalism and nation-states became the predominant form of social organization.

Of course, nation-states generated different and unique methods of governance within their own borders. We've witnessed democracy, totalitarianism, socialism, communism and variations of each. We've witnessed nation-states involved in bitter territorial wars, largely to the detriment of individual citizens.

One of the first major initiatives towards international awareness came with the formation of the League of Nations in 1919 following World War I and the collapse, interestingly enough, of the last Continental empire — the Austro-Hungarian. Ethnic pressures became the order of the day, and numerous nation-states such as Yugoslavia, Poland, Turkey and so forth became viable entities.

Following World War II, internationalism became more prevalent with the establishment of the United Nations, NATO, the Warsaw Pact and SEATO, and in general, the world then witnessed the evolution of two competing systems — capitalism and communism. While capitalism eventually prevailed, new terms such as multinationals, new technology, Internet, space stations and globalization came into play.

The world and nation-states began the process of ceding some previously held national rights. While today the United Nations represents the formal move towards international government, it has been largely ineffective in dealing with major national interests. However, much more progress has been made towards international governance by more informal and voluntary international agreements such as the landmine agreement, the Kyoto accord, the European Union and the hundreds of organizations and legal regimes that manage trade, telecommunications, civil aviation, health, environment, meteorology and other issues of this kind. Nations have found that unilateral action cannot produce the right results in what are essentially multilateral issues.

Then, what of the state of the individual citizen in this world of globalization? We have observed that ethnic activism is again a driving force in the re-makeup of the political and social structures throughout the world. We witnessed the breakup of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, the turmoil in Africa, the Scottish Parliament, the Irish question, the northern Italian independence movement, the Basque situation in Spain and the many Mideast problems. It is no wonder there is a sense of confusion, unease and growing cynicism with existing social and government institutions. Even in democratic North America we observe a sense of the loss of individualism and a disconnect with the citizens and the formal governing system.

However, it should be noted that minorities and individuals generally will acquiesce to the majority when they feel that they participate in a larger community, which brings us right back to home. The present provincial government has moved boldly into the forefront of democratic reform by involving the citizenry in a direct democratic exercise designed to reform the electoral process of the province. The goal of this initiative is essentially to reconnect the citizen with its government.

It is expected that this initiative will be observed and monitored not only across Canada but throughout the democratic world. So it is with great hope that I applaud the decision and the boldness of the government to proceed with the citizens assembly in a move to reassert citizens' rights and, more importantly, to bring about a reconnection with government and its citizens, at least in this part of our global society.

V. Roddick: Thanks to my colleague from Delta North, who has always supplied practical, genuine ideas and possible solutions as to how we might deal with future development. I, on the other hand, am the gadfly. To encourage people to think, plan and participate in our communities, we must stop screaming about what we are against and start articulating what we are for. We must confront the weakness of our own internal democracy and ask difficult questions about how decisions are made. Democracy and accountability need to be worked out, first, on more manageable scales within local communities and coalitions and within individual organizations. Mr. Speaker, that is what this current government is all about.

J. Wilson: It's a pleasure this morning to rise and speak on a subject that is near and dear to my heart, the small-scale salvage issue.

Does it have a value? I believe it does, and so do a great many other people that live in this province. First of all, it addresses the issue of forest health. When we get wind-thrown trees, it creates a reservoir for insects to breed in and multiply, which then can spread into the surrounding area, surrounding healthy forest, and destroy that. This is one of the basic tools we have to promote good forest health.

Another thing it will do is create jobs. Now, these jobs are not high-production jobs. They're more labour intensive and lower volume, but they do create jobs. The people that are in the salvage programs are not out to make a million dollars a year. They simply want an opportunity to have a decent income or to have a supplement to another income that may already exist. This creates an opportunity for community stability in some of our rural and smaller communities out there.

Another thing salvage does is that it not only supplies an important source of fibre to our major mills in the province, but it allows or creates a source of fibre for valued-added. That value-added can be anything from shingles to panelling to post and rail. There are all kinds of things you can do with the fibre that's left out there.

There are several types of salvage. Now, depending on the region or district you're in, when you mention salvage logging, it will bring something to mind. If you were in the Kootenays and you said, "We're into salvage logging," it would mean you are going through some of the piles that are left after harvesting to salvage anything there that you can find a use for. If you're in the central interior or the northern areas of the province, salvage logging could refer to residual dead-and-down, which is fibre that is basically lost to the industry because it's going to rot and have no value.

On the coast there is a different set of salvage factors. We have wood that is lost through barging. We have old growth that has been down for many, many years, but it is still sound and is extremely high-quality wood — especially in cedar, where they can break it out for shakes. Then we have stands where I have had people tell me they would love the opportunity to go in and do some salvage work, actually, before the harvest occurs. What they're looking for is smaller stems. When the conventional harvest takes place, all of those are destroyed when that timber comes down.

If you go into the interior, salvage takes on a different meaning. We have, as I said, the residual dead-and-down. We have an opportunity to fight pine beetle through sanitation, through harvesting green attack trees. Then we have fibre that's left out there after the harvest takes place, whether it's butts that are no good — some with red rot…. Because of the relaxation on the specs through harvesting with the pine beetle regs, the top size increased, now we have more wood that is left for things like value-added panelling or post and rail.

There is another opportunity we should really look at, and that is in the area of what we call today decadent stands. They come up for sale, but no one bids on them. The volume there is not great enough and the quality not good enough, so people aren't interested in it. These could create a really unique set of circumstances for salvage loggers if they take out the mature, dying timber. What would happen there is they would create a mixed species and age stand of timber, because the understorey in these areas has already developed. Some of it is 50, 60 feet tall.

If you do that, you have a sustainable forest that could be harvested down the road on a yearly basis, all the while maintaining a forest cover that protects all the other values out there we would like to see. As I've laid out, there are many, many forms of salvage. These are a few of them, and it's something we really do need to address at this time.

Hon. M. de Jong: Thanks to the member for Cariboo North for raising an issue that is not just important, but one I know he is intimately familiar with at a personal level. I and many members of this chamber have actually been the beneficiary of some personalized tours the member has led through his part of the Cariboo, where you gain a real appreciation of where some of the challenges are and where some of the opportunities lie.

Let me say this. In the time I have had in my present job, I have observed that there are two things about forestry that basically drive British Columbians nuts. One is the notion that logs are exported from our province unprocessed — and that's why we're maintaining the restrictions on raw log exports — but the other thing is waste. The notion that so much of the fibre basket lies in our forests unused and ultimately wasted is something that British Columbians believe in their hearts we need to address and can do a better job at. I, like the member for Cariboo North, agree with them.

That's why we made the salvage issue a fundamental part of the forest revitalization program we unveiled just over a month ago. There are a couple of different features to that, but it is based on the recognition that there are, as the member for Cariboo North has said, a variety of techniques that can be utilized to eliminate much of the waste that presently exists within our forests respecting fibre that could be utilized but isn't.

There are two aspects to that. One is operationally on the ground. How do you do it in ways that will promote forest health? As the member says, there are different techniques available. People are familiar with some of them. Horse logging is a mechanism that comes to mind and has some real application when you're considering low-impact, low-volume salvage techniques.

The other vexing issue relates to how you award the tenures that will provide people with access to the land base. In that respect, I am happy to say that the government has taken the advice of this member, the member for Okanagan-Vernon and other members of the House and is in the process of developing a new community-based salvage tenure for awarding at the local level. It's predicated on nothing much more complicated than the realization that decisions can be made at the local level that better respond to local conditions.

We've got a committee of MLAs in place that this member is a member of and that the member for Prince George North is helping direct, and they are going to help us at the implementation stage in a way that will ensure we minimize the waste and maximize the value of the fibre that exists within our forest land base.

I am very appreciative of the member for Cariboo North for raising this all-important issue, and I'm sure he'll point out some more of the challenges we face in moving forward.

J. Wilson: It's indeed a pleasure to work with the Minister of Forests, because he is very knowledgable about what we really need to do in this province to make this industry viable and rejuvenated again, to put it back on a sound footing. All the work we've done in the last little while is going to do that. In the future we will see the forest industry revitalized.

With salvage logging, I had an entrepreneur come to me the other day, and he presented me with a situation. He said: "I'm in the shingle business. I need two-foot pine blocks that I can saw into shingles. I have a market developed. I can sell all the shingles I can produce, but I can't get the wood."

What he's looking for is large-diameter pine, and he can even use red rot. It's quite suitable. It's treated, fireproofed and water-resistant. It lasts for years and makes a beautiful job. He needs a load and a half of wood a day to operate his load mill, and now he's operating in Alberta because he can't get the wood here. I thought about all the wood that is left on our logging sites when we're done logging. We have butts that are cut off for whatever reason, whether it's a cat face or whether it's rot or whatever. All of these would be suitable, and it's exactly what this individual's looking for.

So why doesn't he just go pick them up? There are several reasons. Those are the things that we as government need to address. Number one is that liability on that site rests with the licensee who harvested it, and it's not transferable. We need to address that, because they can't just let anyone go in there and work and do something without supervision. All of that liability is placed squarely on their shoulders from the time it's harvested until it's planted and back to free to grow.

There is another very interesting scenario that arises out of this. If they were to say to this fellow, "Okay, you can have all this waste wood that we're going to burn," the volume that he used would then be added up and come off their annual allowable cut. It's a really good incentive for them to support a value-added operation like this, when they're going to lose that cut. They need good-quality sawlogs for the operation. They don't need stuff with rot in it or that kind of thing.

These are some of the things that we've identified as getting in the way of salvaging this wood, whether it be off a sale or whether it be residual dead-and-down. In my mind, what we need to look at, and one of the possible solutions out of this, would be to create a new class of wood — call it incremental — and take it outside the AAC. It is fibre that we have no place for, and we're losing it. We have to stop burning jobs in this province.

Deputy Speaker: Unanimous consent of the House is required to proceed with Motion 58 without disturbing the priorities of motions preceding it on the order paper. Shall leave be granted?

Hon. C. Clark: I'm delighted to be able to speak to this motion that has been brought forward by the member for Victoria–Beacon Hill. I read through the Hansard of some of the other comments that have been made by my colleagues, because I wasn't able to be here to see the debate.

I was so impressed by the number of people in this House who got up and said that they are here partly because they started out being involved in their own children's schools. That is why they entered public life — because they cared about what went on in their children's schools. They got involved in their parent advisory councils, they got involved in their kids' classrooms, and they got involved at the school board level — the member from Saanich joined and became her school board's chair ultimately — all because they cared about their children's education.

I went to speak to the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils on Friday in Kamloops. I always, whenever I speak to that group, walk away thinking to myself: what if all those people ran for office? What if we had a Legislature that was composed of people who got involved because they cared about their children's education? One, it would be more than 50 percent women. Two, it would be people who cared deeply about their children and about education. Education is the single greatest investment that any government could make in anything. It is the best way to spend taxpayers' dollars that we have invented anywhere in the world. Think about a House composed of people like that.

Then, as I was coming back on the plane, I reflected on the fact that we do have a House that is filled with people who got involved in public life because they cared about their children. We are blessed with people like that. Now, 50 percent of this House isn't made up of women; it's true. We're getting there. We'll work on that, but we do have a House full of people who care about their children, and so the centrepiece of our reforms as a government has been to say that we want more parents involved in the education system.

Why? It's because the single biggest determinant of childhood success in education is parental involvement. It's not teacher quality, although that is very important. It's not safety in schools, although that is also critically important. It's not the number of resources that are available, although that is important. It's not the curriculum, although that counts too. It's the amount that parents are involved in their kids' education.

When I go and talk to any group anywhere in British Columbia, whether that is an Elks Club or a chamber of commerce, I tell them: "If you care about education, get involved. Go to your parent advisory council meeting, or if you can't find time to do that, just ask your kids how they liked school that day. Ask them if

they need help with their mathematics. Ask them if they need help with their reading, even if you don't know how to read yourself. You can make a difference in your kids' education. You can make a tremendous difference just by being involved."

Every child only needs one adult to be involved in their lives to make a difference in the success for their entire lifetime — one adult. I tell people everywhere I go that they could be that one adult in a child's life. In your child's life or in your niece's, your nephew's, your grandchildren's, you neighbour's lives, you could be that one adult that gives them the elements and the recipe for success for the rest of their lives, because if they graduate from high school, they will be on track for success. If they don't graduate from high school, they are so much more likely to end up on social assistance, in a cycle of dependency on welfare, or in jail in the corrections system. It's hard to change those kinds of habits.

So think of the difference that each of us can make. Maybe we don't want to have time to go to a PAC meeting or sell hot dogs at the fundraiser or knock door-to-door trying to pitch people on how you need money to send the soccer team to France, to Alberta or to wherever it is they're going. Maybe it's just asking them what they thought of school that day and whether they need help with their math. It's as simple as that.

That's what we're trying to do with parental involvement. When we say we think parents should have the right to volunteer in their children's schools, we made it the law that they have the right to do that. We made it the law, for the first time in B.C., that parents have the legislated, guaranteed right in the School Act to be able to go into schools and help kids with their reading. They don't just help their own kids; they help every other kid too. All of the evidence and all of the research tell us that parental involvement helps that person's child, but it helps the child at the next desk too. It helps the child at the desk on the other side too, who may not be lucky enough to have parents who have the time or the inclination to be involved in their education.

It's not just about us and our families. It's about our society and the kind of society we want to create — one that's a civil society, where people participate in democracy and care about keeping their community and their neighbourhood safe; one where people read newspapers and don't believe everything they read in them, I hope; one where people decide they want to be a part of a larger democratic society.

That's what we are trying to build with public education, not just a literate society, not just a society where people have the skills to go out and work, but a society that cares — a society that's connected in a sense of community, where people want to take part in this democratic process we've created to build a future that's healthy and caring and a society where we work together, where we speak with good purpose, where we support each other, where we think of every child as a part of our own family. That's the kind of society we want to create. That is the miracle of public education.

We often hear from people — from the critics out there today — that our public education system is doing worse. Our critics will often say that our public education system is running down, that every day it's worse than it was before. All they want to do is undermine public confidence in our public education system. Well, I want to say this: our public education today is better than it was last year, and it was better last year than it was the year before. Our results are better. Kids are doing better on exams than they ever have been in British Columbia's history. We have some of the best schools. We have some of the most qualified, dedicated teachers. We have passionate administrators. We have caring parents who want to be involved. We have some of the brightest students you will find anywhere on the globe.

We have a great public education system, and our public education system can go toe-to-toe with any other education system anywhere in the world. That includes independent schools. Independent schools make a tremendous contribution. They are part of providing the vast array of choice that we have. I will say every opportunity that I can: our public education system is just as good. Our public education system deserves the confidence of parents.

To those critics who are trying to run it down, I say: stand back, because it is time we started to work together. It is time we worked on this project that we call public education — this miracle we've created of universal public access, where every child has the same opportunities. It is time we worked together, rather than ran it down. It is time we talked about the tremendous success we have.

We have that success today because, as I said, we have so many dedicated participants. We have bright students. We have dedicated teachers. We have tremendously passionate administrators. We have passionate school trustees. Most importantly, we have a province filled with parents who care, parents who know that a school is just four walls with a future in it, and it's their future we are creating. It is the future of a new generation.

We often talk about what kids mean to us. Well, in public education we get our chance to show it. We get our chance to prove we really care about what the next generation has to offer, about creating a world for them where every door is open. That is the miracle of public education.

B. Locke: Clearly, as important as parental involvement is, a very enthusiastic minister is just as critical to the success of our education system.

This job has offered me the privilege of travelling throughout the province on the Select Standing Committee on Education and the safe schools task force. There is no doubt in the conviction that parents have as advocates not only for their own children's education

As the parent of an elementary school child, I know all too well the difficult time it can be for any child who is not happy at school and how hard it is for the parents in getting them to attend. Children of all age groups, including teenagers, often can't or don't articulate the problems they're having at school, often because they're intimidated by their teachers or their principals. Parents feel and see the difficulty their children are having and are always their best advocates.

As a member of the safe schools task force, I met with many parents that were marginalized by a system that didn't address their child's needs or their concerns. If we are to effectively address bullying issues in our schools and make schools safe for our children with programs like EBS, or effective behaviour support, real and active participation by parents is a must. EBS in its fullest implementation is a holistic program that requires the support and involvement of teachers, principals, staff and parents both at home and at school. Parental involvement is integral to the success of that program.

Parental involvement in schools adds a new dimension to children's education. Parents add positive opportunities in so many areas with their own personal interests. Not only do they make the difference in meeting the needs as chaperons during field trips, they can assist in the development of arts, sports and other educational programs. They can bring real life into the school with programs like Roots of Empathy or other mentoring programs, and they are always willing to share the rich and wide diversity of the cultural mosaic within our communities to break down cultural barriers and to encourage understanding.

I have met with many parents, parent advisory committees and district PACs in my school district and in others. Parents hear and see the school from a much different perspective than teachers. Their agenda in the school is clear; it's all about the children. I am always impressed by their unselfish advocacy for all children and their understanding and caring for the children who may not have equal opportunities, perhaps because of parenting skills or socioeconomic background.

I thank — and I support the motion by — the member for Victoria–Beacon Hill and commend him for bringing it to this House.

T. Christensen: It's indeed a privilege and my pleasure to rise in support of the motion that the House support greater parental involvement in the education system. I too, like the member for Surrey–Green Timbers, have had the privilege of serving on the Select Standing Committee on Education, going to various places in the province and hearing from all sorts of folks who have a particular interest in our public education system.

Consistently, among the many passionate voices that we heard at a number of public hearings, parents stood out for the comments they made in terms of their concern about the public education system, the input they wanted to have in terms of how our public education system operates and their dedication to ensuring that our public education system is as successful as possible.

I also want to comment on the Minister of Education's speech in support of public education. Quite frankly, it's surprising that in this day and age we find that public education is perhaps under attack from time to time in various commentaries in the media. I'm glad to see that the minister is standing up and very forcefully supporting public education and stating the facts: that year over year, our public education system in this province is getting better and better.

A number of speakers have referred to the research around parental involvement in the classroom. Certainly, that research is very clear that greater parental involvement only has positive effects. It increases attendance at school. It increases student dedication to school. It increases student performance.

If we stand back from the research and just think about it for a moment, it all makes sense. We don't need a number of studies to support greater parental involvement in school; we simply need to look at what our gut says. That is, if a parent takes a great interest in his or her child's education, that child is going to be influenced by the parent's view of the importance of education. Children in the classroom who aren't necessarily children of that particular parent are also going to see that people who aren't there because it's their job to be there take a keen interest in public education because of the value it brings to our society as a whole.

My children are still too young. I don't have any direct involvement, in terms of having a child in public school. Actually, I'm very much looking forward to next fall when my son will start kindergarten, and I, too, can become, hopefully, a parent who has an involvement with the public education system as a parent — not as an MLA, but as a parent.

Both my wife and I have, quite frankly, looked back fondly on our upbringing in the public education system in British Columbia — myself in Vernon and my wife down the road in Kelowna. What stands out when I think back about parental involvement is that my mom and, in speaking with my wife, her mom were the moms that were on the field trips. They were the moms that were volunteering to try and make that public education beneficial to me but also to the other students in the classroom. You never think much about it at the time. In fact, in many cases, particularly as you get older, you wish: "Jeez, I wish my mom wasn't always along on the field trip. I could have more fun if she wasn't here."

It's important that as a grown-up student now, we look back and thank our parents for taking that keen interest in our education, because it does make a difference. There was, certainly in my upbringing, never any question in my mind of the importance of education — that education was simply something you continued to pursue and tried to do well at through high school but then pursued it once you were out of high school.

That's something you can't simply be told; it's something that's ingrained by virtue of the attitude that the people around you bring to the issue. I'll have to talk to the Whip in terms of my own ability to get involved with my children's public education, but that's a conversation for another day.

This government has recognized the importance of parental involvement in public education — in all education. We've reinforced the need to recognize the importance of parents being able to volunteer through one of the earliest pieces of legislation we introduced. That was Bill 8 back in the summer of 2001 — I guess that was — which put some legislation in place.

We need to continue to listen to parents in our own constituency and reflect on what they're telling us about their ability to volunteer. Certainly, in speaking with all of the stakeholders in schools in my own constituency — whether they be teachers, principals, vice-principals, school trustees or the union leadership in my own district — they all very quickly comment that they recognize the importance of parental involvement. Really, whenever there's a problem, it's just a case of getting back to the fundamental principle that having parents in schools is a good thing, and then we can work through the rest.

We've also introduced school councils, which provide parents with a little more formal opportunity to be involved. I very much look forward over the next number of months and years to seeing how those school councils really make a difference in terms of our children's experience in our public schools.

Just for a moment I also want to comment on an issue a little bit beyond parental involvement, and that's community involvement in our public schools. Again, we see that where the community embraces our public schools and provides that additional attitude that reflects the importance of education, our schools benefit and our students benefit.

I was fortunate this morning to have the opportunity to talk about a couple of programs in my own school district around forestry that certainly benefit from community involvement, whether by companies such as Riverside helping in establishing the poplar plantation up near Armstrong or the great support the forestry program at Charles Bloom gets from a number of businesses in the community, as well as from the Ministry of Forests district office and the personnel there. All of that goes to show students how fundamentally important the community around them considers their education to be and how supportive the community around them wants to be in terms of promoting their education.

I don't really have anything further to add. As I said, I very much look forward to becoming a parent that is involved in public education in the years ahead, and I very much commend the member for Victoria–Beacon Hill for bringing the motion forward.

R. Nijjar: I was just in my office when I heard the debate going on, and I rushed down because I want to participate in it. It is a very important point that I've always felt we often don't make in public, but one we're well aware of as legislators and throughout the communities in British Columbia.

This motion came forward — and the debate about parental involvement continues in B.C. — because parents weren't allowed to be involved before. The whole issue and the whole notion of parents being involved in schools is here in British Columbia because, essentially, we have unions who feel threatened by parental involvement.

That's really the crux of it all. Unions in schools feel that if parents get involved, their jobs are threatened, they might lose some positions, and so forth. We have to change that climate in British Columbia. We have to change the climate where it says that parental involvement is a threat to anybody. We have to create the situation collectively so union members feel that parents don't threaten but can enhance and ensure the security of their jobs.

There are other jurisdictions around the world and even in Canada where we don't have that divisiveness, that mentality where parental involvement is a threat to jobs. Part of it is our responsibility as legislators, as MLAs. However, we alone cannot change that sentiment. A large part of that responsibility is for the unions and union executives. They have to show some leadership here. Collectively — and I mean collectively — we have to work to ensure, maybe in a very practical sense, that the unions can play their role in the schools, that they can have their jobs the way they are doing it right now and that parental involvement is there to complement. I know the legislation brought in last year refers to that and refers to the fact that parental involvement cannot displace a job. Sure, that's in legislation. However, we have to change the culture. I think that's very, very important.

I was a member of the HEU. My father was a member of the IWA. There are many people here who have family members who were part of unions. Unions are a positive thing in British Columbia. Unions have a lot to contribute. They have for over a hundred years. They'll continue to do so in this century.

We have to understand that unions are a complement to the workforce. They have to start acting that way instead of acting like victims, instead of acting like outsiders. They are part of production. They are part of the profits that increase more production that increases more jobs. In the schools they have to play the role where they want to see schools grow, they want to see parents involved, and they want to see teachers communicate amongst themselves and with administrators and with parents. That's what will make healthy schools. That's what will make schools grow. That's what will make fewer parents move their children to private schools.

I think the motion put forward is very important, and I think we have to get right to the point. The point is that some people feel threatened about parental involvement, and we have to allow parents to partici-

pate. That, of course, leads to an example. The example is the parental right of having or choosing a dress code or school uniforms in the schools. What a novel idea. Isn't that great? I think this just follows in the line of parental choice. I'm working on that with the Minister of Education to ensure there will be that choice school by school and that no provincial government, no school board, no PAC executive can get in the way of the parents' voice for having a dress code or school uniform in their school.

P. Bell: Thank you to the member for Victoria–Beacon Hill for bringing this motion forward. It certainly strikes a chord with myself. I think parental involvement is something that's absolutely critical to the success not only of public schools but of private schools as well. I'd like to just touch on that for a few minutes, if I may.

You know, when I think back to my time in school, one of the things that always struck me was the amount of involvement and participation that parents and teachers had in not just the core components of education but all of the extracurricular activities that took place as well. I just thought that was so significantly important. I recall us all piling into parents' station wagons and vehicles to travel to various sporting events around the community. That was part of what we grew up with, and it was part of, certainly, the involvement of the parents at that point in time, but it also was really part of the whole education process.

A lot of that, up until this last year, was gone because parents were simply not allowed, in many instances, to actually be involved in their children's education. I think that's a real shame. You know, people that do get involved in their children's education really do care, and I think that's extremely important. These are individuals who are passionate about education, but they also want to be significant contributors to the education system. That's what this is all about: getting people who care involved. They're happy to donate their time; they're happy to step forward. It not only improves the quality of education for their kids but improves on the entire education system, certainly within that specific school and the classrooms they're involved with.

We've got some wonderful teachers in our province. We've got a bunch of folks that are truly committed to providing the best quality of education they possibly can. You know, by and large, most of those teachers are actually parents as well. I think that when you actually go to the root of this thing, you'll find that most teachers do support the involvement of parents in the education system.

My wife was certainly very involved in our kids' education, particularly through their elementary years. She was trained as a teacher although not one that actually ever taught. She was very involved. She would go in and read books to the kids when they were small. She'd take kids that were perhaps somewhat disruptive in the class and work with them and take that duty or that responsibility away from the teacher. Then that was all negated. It was negated, as the previous member spoke of, for perhaps some of the wrong reasons — not reasons that benefited kids and actually built on the quality of education but perhaps were more directly related to job protection. I don't think that was a terribly good thing.

This government is very committed in terms of providing opportunities for parent education, and I think that's absolutely the right thing to do. The development of the school planning councils was, I think, a very productive thing. To have parents actually have controlling interest in that school planning council is very, very productive. It gives them a direct tool to impact the quality of education for their kids and the direction of that school.

Certainly, the entire notion around PACs and how we've developed that process…. I think the Solicitor General, in terms of his redirection of how PACs are funded, has done absolutely the right thing. He has taken schools that previously did not receive funding — typically those were schools that perhaps didn't have some of the performance indicators the better schools have; I think statistically that's verifiable — and he has redistributed the funding so that it is, in fact, put out to all the various PAC associations.

I think one of the things you're going to see as a result of the redirection of funding…. It should be noted, of course, that he's increased funding substantially by about a third. More money is going into PACs this year than in previous years. I think the way we are now funding PACs will provide for much greater parent involvement, because now some of the parents in some of these schools that have not received funding in the past will be looking at this and thinking, "What can we actually do to help improve the quality of education in our particular school?" and we actually have a source of funding to develop that.

I think the Solicitor General has done some wonderful things. I think the Minister of Education is right on the money in her comments earlier this morning in terms of getting parents and people involved. I know that the Minister of Education, as a relatively new mother, will look forward to that at some point in her career.

Just to close, I want to make two comments. I have always felt passionately about the need to be involved in your children's education. Certainly, my involvement over the years…. My youngest son graduates from high school this year, so perhaps my opportunity to be involved as a parent will be somewhat more limited in the future. But I've been very involved over the years, perhaps, more on the athletic side than some of the other components of education. I know I very much enjoyed the coaching opportunities I had in the school system and certainly cherish those as moments that allowed me to contribute to the quality of education not only for my kids but also for a bunch of other people's kids as well.

In closing, I wanted to make the comment that I'm very, very pleased that I have been appointed to the

Select Standing Committee on Education. This is an appointment I had specifically requested, because I do think there is a significant opportunity to continue to rebuild the education system and move forward and build consensus. Consensus is not just about consensus amongst teachers and administrators, but it's also consensus amongst parents. I think that's absolutely key as we move forward. We need to move forward as a team, and we need to do it collectively with the involvement of teachers, administrators and parents.

J. Bray: First of all, I would like to thank all my colleagues who have come forth and debated this motion. You can see the passion around education and parental involvement in that we've debated this motion over a couple of days because so many people wanted to be involved in it. I'm always encouraged when I hear the passion of all our members who come forward to support issues like education, public education and parental involvement.

Certainly, there's very little I can add to what my colleagues have said, but it's also fundamental in the debate we've heard that sometimes the most obvious things…. I mean, parental involvement in schools seems like such an obvious thing. Of course parents should be involved. Of course children benefit when their parents are involved. Of course the school is stronger when they have active parent advisory councils. Yet, it is one of the things that has, over the last decade or so, been such a struggle. It is sometimes those simple things, those most obvious things, that we must remind ourselves to do as a society. We must remind ourselves as individuals of the importance of participation.

The Minister of Education made very passionate comments about how parental involvement not only helps the child or the parent but actually helps the entire school. We have spent the last two years creating more avenues for parents to become involved — through legislation, through policy and by talking about how we so strongly support parental involvement. We've heard many members during the debate talk about their own personal reflections of their school days and how having their parents involved completely enriched that process and made it so much more than just academics or just sports or just socialization. Having their parents involved showed how much they were loved by their parents and how much they were cared for.

A school needs students. A school needs parents. A school needs teachers. It needs support staff. It needs coaches. It needs books. It needs bricks and mortar, the building itself. But if those are not working together, then you don't get the full package. You don't get the full benefit.

This motion and the support that so many members have provided remind us all of our individual duty within society to be involved. If you can't go to your child's school on that day, when your child comes home, ask them about their day. How was their day? How did it go? What did they learn? What do they need help with? For children, school is their universe. As adults, we become involved in international affairs and business and work and all sorts of things, but for children, school is their universe. When parents are involved, they're involved in their child's universe, and that is so enriching.

I am proud to be a member of a government that has made so many moves forward to enhance the ability for parents to become involved. I'm proud to work with so many colleagues who have come forth to speak passionately about the need for that involvement. I will certainly continue to work within my community to foster involvement so that every parent feels welcome in the school, every parent is encouraged to be involved, every child has that encouragement from a parent, and we move forward, building a brighter future of hope and prosperity for all our students. Again, I thank all my colleagues for coming forward to support this motion.

Deputy Speaker: The motion is Motion 58: be it resolved that this House supports greater parental involvement in the education system.

Deputy Speaker: Hon. members, unanimous consent of the House is required to proceed with Motion 65 without disturbing the priorities of motions preceding it on the order paper. Shall leave be granted?

S. Brice: I am pleased to rise this morning to speak on Motion 65 placed under my name on the order paper.

It is a statement that in and of itself seems self-evident, and obviously, it's a statement that in and of itself doesn't move us forward. Certainly, the economy of British Columbia is predicated upon supporting a strong high-tech industry in this growing and emerging field, but how do we get from here to there? What is B.C.'s strategy to attract high-tech to our province?

First of all, we have to know what it is. Obviously, it is an extremely competitive field. Around the world, globally, countries are trying to attract high-tech industry for very obvious reasons, and we need to set up a strategy that will make British Columbia the destination of choice for investment and for companies in the high-tech field. People use the term "high-tech" in a very generic sense, and it involves a number of industries. It's interesting that this discussion this morning

flows from the discussion on education earlier, because a strong education system and a strong high-tech sector are totally intertwined.

Within this generic term, high-tech industry, we've got high-tech services. Those are industries such as computer and engineering services — information services which do not make tangible goods but instead provide expertise such as software creation, information technology, systems management, and planning and design. Analysis of blood samples, medical diagnoses and those types of services…. Also, the high-tech sector involves manufacturing industries that take the raw materials of the products and, through the manufacturing industries, make new products.

High-technology firms within this country include, of course, aerospace, manufacturing, computer and related products, pharmaceuticals and other types of manufacturing. So high-tech is not one industry; it is many, each with different requirements and locational patterns. For example, biotech is different from pre-packaged software, which is itself different from telecommunications equipment. B.C. 's high-tech strategy must encompass regional strategies that grow out of the region's unique industrial structures, economic assets and limitations, and the business culture.

Well, where does high-tech place at this point in the B.C. economy? It's still relatively small. It has expanded more than twice as fast as the economy as a whole over the past decade. However, the sector remains a small part of our whole economy, which only says that there is even more potential for growth. In 2001 high-technology industries generated 3 percent of the provincial GDP and employment and accounted for 4 percent of wages and salaries.

The evolution of our economy…. Once again, it's sort of ironic that in this House this morning the two members from Delta were talking about the evolution of technology and how it has come from an industrial revolution up to today, 2003. We use the term "high-tech" to describe the particular stage which technology has reached at this point.

Over 2001 our overall employment in this province grew by 1.4 percent, but tech employment grew by 5.2 percent, so even within this still relatively small sector of our economy, high-tech is emerging. Many of the companies are not the huge companies — the name brand– type companies that are household names. In fact, 64 percent of the companies have one to four employees, 8 percent have 20 to 49 employees, and only 5 percent have 50 or more employees. This is definitely a field in this province that has great potential for growth and a lot of still relatively small companies out there that need a strong provincial strategy to grow them — to move them up from an emerging company to a sustainable company.

It has been said that research and development is actually the lifeblood of innovation and the high-tech sector. We must encourage the federal government to put research and development dollars into the high-tech sector so that British Columbia's high-tech sector can grow and British Columbia can be top of mind when people are considering investment and when companies are considering expansion.

We see that there are trends out there that help to attract high-tech industry. High-tech industry is growing quickly relative to other parts of the economy, and I have touched on that.

High-tech companies tend to cluster. While every community would love to attract high-tech because of its high-paying jobs and its relationship to the educational system, the reality is that when you look around the world, high-tech companies tend to cluster for a number of reasons. They cluster because they can benefit from the synergy of other people in the industry, and they can attract investment dollars and encourage relationships with the advanced education components within the community.

Within British Columbia, the greater Vancouver area, the southern tip of Vancouver Island and the Okanagan are the areas where high-tech is clustering at this point. I think if we compare this with what has happened worldwide, we see this as not unique. This is exactly how it works. In my community of Saanich South there is some very intense clustering happening, particularly with biotech and medical technology companies, and I'll talk about that in a moment.

Attracting and retaining talent is a critical factor. That's another trend. Research and development dollars, also the education system…. You know, this is a field to be nurtured particularly for young women — to direct our young women into taking maths and science and going into engineering. These are the types of tools and skills that will help them assume leadership roles in the emerging high-tech world which we are moving into and in which British Columbia is becoming a leader.

High-tech products and services are transforming the rest of the economy. They're not replacing our other economies. Our other economies are dependent on a strong high-tech community. Ocean sciences, silviculture and the health care system have all got high-tech components. We have the ability in this province to be leaders, and it's important that we continue to work on a provincial strategy to make B.C. a leader.

When the Premier spoke last year to the technology council, advising government on how to make B.C. a global magnet for high-tech investment growth and job creation, he said he wanted B.C. to be top of mind for investors and for individuals moving into the high-tech field. This is our government's goal. These are the strategies that need to be put in place.

On the balance of trade, certainly from an economic point of view, B.C.'s economy grows as our trade grows. B.C. imports of high-technology commodities are still far greater than the value of goods. As a result, the province runs a trade deficit; we're still importing more than we're exporting. The more we can grow this sector of our economy, the more potential we have for exports. Although high-tech exports have generally grown at a faster rate than imports over the last dec-

ade, the absolute growth in imports has exceeded that of exports, which means the trade deficit has persisted.

For B.C.'s economy to see high-tech as a net growth, there are strategies that we need to put in place. Some of these I have touched on already, of course, and our government has addressed a major one. We have to have a taxation structure in this province that is attractive to the high-tech sector. The high-tech sector is very mobile. They can attract talent, they can attract investment, and they can locate in parts of the world where the regime setting up the taxation makes it favourable. Since we have been in office, our government has worked hard at making our taxation structure competitive, and this has been very attractive to the high-tech sector.

Human resources. I touched on the fact that this particular sector does not rely on strength and brawn. This type of sector relies on brains. It is open to every British Columbian. It is open to women as well as men. It is open to all ethnic backgrounds. It is a very diverse workforce. The human resources component of the high-tech industry is hugely important to a diverse province like British Columbia.

Regulations need to be attractive to the high-tech sector. They cannot be burdened and brought down with regulations that are more replicate of a time and era where things moved slowly, where layers of regulation kept companies sort of on a certain path. The high-tech sector requires freedom — freedom to be innovative, freedom to use its personnel, freedom to use its resources — in order to grow and to meet global niches.

Employment laws need to reflect the type of person attracted to work in the high-tech industry. The worker who typically goes into high-tech is creative and needs to be unburdened by some of the constraints of a previous time. Many of the companies, in fact, that are in the high-tech sector have within their mission statement types of social justice requirements, because they know they are attracting a particular type of worker — a worker that puts some issues at a higher plane than perhaps workers did at a previous time, issues such as quality of life. Every community has certain things they do in order to attract and maintain a workforce. A lot of the people who are attracted to going into the high-tech field…. Certainly, they want the good health care system and the strong and safe communities other workers have, but they also have a certain expectation about outdoor life — trails, opportunities for kayaking, opportunities for being in the outdoors. A very, very creative workforce is attracted to this particular field.

Obviously, there will be much more said about the high-tech industry and its value for British Columbia. I'm looking forward to hearing other members talk on this, particularly how we can move these companies…. They start as a concept and a prototype, and they move through to some mainstream market.

I would be remiss if I didn't conclude by drawing attention to Vancouver Island Technology Park in my riding, which encompasses all of these components I have raised here today. On one site the tech park shares the space with Camosun College and a group of students who work very closely with the tech park as well as the Horticulture Centre of the Pacific. This tech park has set a standard of environmental awareness and has achieved a LEED's gold designation. They know that a lot of the companies that are coming to work in the tech park have a requirement way beyond just square footage. They want to be working in an environment with others who share with them a lot of the social and environmental values that move these tech companies right to the front edge of the new economy in British Columbia.

With that, I will be concluding my remarks. I look forward to hearing from other members, particularly as they can draw attention to how British Columbia's strategy for building a strong high-tech economy is good for our future.

M. Hunter: Good morning. I'm pleased to rise in support of Motion 65, placed on the order paper by the member for Saanich South.

I guess if you look at high-tech, it's not that long ago that we were all probably shareholders in companies that were doing very well. Then the NASDAQ meltdown happened, and high-tech got a little bit of a bad name. It's unfortunate, because high-tech wasn't all about Nortel shares. It isn't all about Nortel shares and their price. It's about a community of businesses and people who are enormously important to the future economic development of this province.

I must say I noticed that the member for Saanich South talked about the clusters of high-tech industry in, I think she said, the Okanagan, the lower mainland and then the southern tip of Vancouver Island. Well, consider Nanaimo part of the southern tip of Vancouver Island then, because we have in my community a very active and productive high-tech sector. I will talk about that in a moment.

To go back to my point about NASDAQ and Nortel, high-tech is a huge opportunity as well as a challenge for us. The numbers speak for themselves. The high-technology industry has grown in British Columbia by over 5 percent in the last couple of years. We are more than double the national rate of growth in this same sector. Computer and engineering services dominate high-tech job creation. There are well over 5,500 high-tech establishments in B.C. The contribution of this sector is estimated to be well over $3 billion, or more than 3 percent of the provincial GDP. There is no doubting the current importance of this sector overall to our province.

More importantly, I think we as a government have taken note of this. We did so prior to the last election, and we have done so since. In our election promises we talked about how we wanted this province to have the fastest-growing technology industry in Canada and to make British Columbia a magnet for high-tech investment, for growth and for job creation. We knew then,

as we know now, that this sector of our economy has huge potential for job creation.

We have made serious advances in terms of moving towards our goal of getting everybody on broadband Internet access. This province is today the most connected province in Canada. More than six out of ten of us have access to the Internet, and I know that the investments that we're making and various ministries are making are improving that number daily.

We have made a significant commitment, fulfilled two years ahead of schedule, to a leading-edge endowment fund. In April of last year the government launched a $45 million leading-edge endowment fund to establish 20 permanent B.C. leadership chairs as part of the new-era agenda.

Where is all this leading us? I think it's important that we know and recognize that high-technology, perhaps more than any other industry that we have known about in our lifetimes or in recent economic history, is defined by continuous change. It's true that industry production is defined by change as well, but I don't think conventional wisdom would suggest that this is a sector where things are moving so fast that, if you sit down or blink, something's changed. Some of us are actually old enough to remember telexes chattering away in offices. That's not very long ago, but today those machines, I guess, are in landfills or have been recycled. We're now dealing with e-mails and BlackBerries, and who knows what's coming next.

Just before I wrap up, I want to talk a little bit about what I started to talk about. The high-tech community in my community is extremely important and extremely successful. We have a very active community called the Mid-Island Science, Technology and Innovation Council. We have a very active university community at Malaspina University College. We have world-class companies in high-tech. I would note for the House and for the record the achievements of Inuktun Services, a Nanaimo high-tech computer company that produces robotics. They managed to get some of their products into the World Trade Center in New York, investigating the remains of that building after September 11. That kind of exposure for a Nanaimo company is pretty special.

It's also about services. We have lots of young people working in companies that are providing services to companies like Microsoft in my community.

I'd like to thank the Minister of Competition, Science and Enterprise for taking an interest in that business community in Nanaimo. Also, given that we talked about education earlier, I would draw this House's attention to the excellent computer science program at Nanaimo District Secondary School. We have a well-educated, well-motivated workforce. We're well connected in this province. We have future opportunities — for example, offshore oil and gas — that are going to require and are going to encourage more high-tech investment in our province. I look forward to being part of this province as these new dollars and new people come and create new wealth for us.

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