Hansard -- Tuesday, October 4, 2005 p.m. -- Vol. 1, No. 18 (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


Introductions by Members		405

Statements (Standing Order 25B)		406
	War veterans
	D. Hayer
	Quadra Island Volunteer Fire Department
	C. Trevena
	Roots of Empathy program
	L. Mayencourt
	Small business
	M. Karagianis
	Prebudget consultation
	B. Lekstrom
	Hartland landfill
	D. Cubberley

Oral Questions		408
	Government advertising on education
	C. James
	Hon. C. Taylor
	J. Kwan
	J. Horgan
	C. Puchmayr
	Hon. S. Bond
	R. Fleming
	M. Karagianis
	B. Simpson
	Hon. M. de Jong
	M. Farnworth
	G. Robertson
	Government support for aboriginal women
	S. Fraser
	Hon. I. Chong

Motions without Notice		412
	Referral of reports to and powers of Public Accounts Committee
	Hon. M. de Jong

Second Reading of Bills		413
	Teachers' Collective Agreement Act (Bill 12) (continued)
	J. Horgan
	C. Puchmayr
	C. James
	N. Macdonald
	R. Fleming
	L. Krog
	C. Evans

	Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		436
	Estimates: Ministry of Economic Development and Minister Responsible for the Asia-Pacific Initiative and the Olympics (continued)
	M. Farnworth
	Hon. C. Hansen
	M. Karagianis
	G. Robertson
	S. Simpson
	C. Evans
	H. Bains

J. Kwan: Visiting us today in the gallery are two very special guests. They're strong advocates for the disability community that has been part of Vancouver–Mount Pleasant for a very, very long time. They are George Lawson and of course his lovely partner, Ghia Aweiba. Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. J. Les: I again have a guest in the gallery today. Francis Zeni is a teacher who lives in my riding of Chilliwack-Sumas and works on call in both Chilliwack and Mission. I would ask the House to please make Francis welcome.

C. Puchmayr: It's an honour to rise here and introduce a guest. Patricia Douglas has been teaching for 35 years at David Thompson. She is a business education teacher representing the business education provincial specialists association. Please give her a big welcome.

Hon. L. Reid: I would like to acknowledge today in the chambers the Salvation Army, particularly Capt. John Murray. He and I had the absolute privilege on Friday to open the Salvation Army Rotary Hospice House in Richmond — the addition of ten beds for the province of British Columbia. It will be a glorious facility. I would ask the House to please make Captain Murray and his colleagues welcome.

S. Hammell: I would like the House to welcome Karen Morley, president of the B.C. Science Teachers Association and one of those teachers who spends many hours out of her regular job working on behalf of the profession and her interests. Would the House please join me in making her welcome.

S. Hawkins: Mr. Speaker, I'm making an introduction on your behalf. I would like to introduce a constituent from Penticton–Okanagan Valley. Her name is Karen Litke, and she teaches grades three and four at Uplands Elementary School in Penticton. I would ask the House to please join me in making her welcome.

C. Trevena: I would like to introduce two guests, Maye Davis and Robbi Ling — two long-term and dedicated teachers at Lake Trail Middle School in the Comox Valley. I would like the House to make them welcome.

J. McIntyre: It is with great pleasure today that I introduce a grade 11 class from Rockridge Secondary School in West Vancouver. They're accompanied by their teachers Ms. Paula Waatainen, Mr. Doug Smith and Mr. Craig Chubb. I have to also tell you that it is with special pride that I do this, because my daughter Leigh Pottinger was in the very first class in the inaugural year at Rockridge when it first opened. I hope the whole House will join me in making them feel very welcome today.

H. Bains: Today in the gallery is Kevin Amboe, a teacher from Surrey. He's a past president of the Computer-Using Educators of B.C. and is currently district elementary ITC coordinator. Please join me to extend a warm welcome to Mr. Amboe.

H. Bloy: It gives me pleasure to introduce a teacher on call, Tanya Dow, who I had a great conversation with over lunch. It bodes well for the graduating teachers. Would the House please make Tanya welcome.

D. Thorne: I'd like the House to welcome Leo Hutchinson. He's a teacher from Coquitlam, and he is the president of the Adult Educators Provincial Specialists Association. Not only that, Mr. Hutchinson has three children in the school district in Coquitlam — well, almost three, and his wife is expecting a fourth. One of his children is severely autistic. Mr. Hutchinson has spent a number of years doing wonderful work in the community with the step-by-step association. I'd like everyone to welcome him and thank him for his work.

J. Horgan: I would like to acknowledge in the gallery, from the republic of Cobble Hill, teacher on call Maggie Hughes. Maggie is here with us today, and I want to ask the House to make her welcome.

Hon. I. Chong: I, too, am pleased to make an introduction to the House: a constituent of mine, Michelle Kilborn, who is a teacher at Lambrick Park Secondary School, a very well-known school for providing excellence in sports. Michelle is president of the PEBC, the provincial specialist association on physical education, as well as chairperson of the Greater Victoria physical educators. I would ask all members of the House to please make her very welcome.

L. Krog: In the gallery today is Ellen Ellis, a social studies teacher from Nanaimo District Secondary. Would the House please make her welcome.

D. Routley: With us today in the House is a teacher from my riding, from Duncan, a member of the provincial Culinary Arts Specialist Association, Al Irving. Could the House please make him welcome?

H. Lali: I, too, would like to join my colleague in recognizing Allen Irving. Allen Irving and I have been best friends from high school and university on. We're lifelong friends. He is a teacher from Duncan. I would like to join my colleague in welcoming Allen Irving. Would the House please make him welcome.

D. Hayer: We often talk in this House about freedoms and the wonderful lifestyle that we all enjoy in this province and in this country. It is unfortunate that those who sacrificed so much are only recognized and remembered on one day of the year, November 11. Therefore, I want to take this opportunity to recognize the veterans who gave body and soul to make this country what it is today. There are few of them left who served this country and fought for our freedom during the First and Second World Wars. We must be ever grateful to those few who carry the memories of fighting for our freedom to vote and our freedom to practise any religion of our choosing, of fighting for equality and against racism.

While the number of World War I and World War II veterans continues, sadly, to decline, there are new veterans — Canadian Armed Forces personnel, who have served us proudly as peacekeepers and personnel in war-torn and conflict-ridden countries overseas.

I'm proud to have been part of a government that created the B.C. veteran's licence plate, which serves as a significant reminder of those who have gone into harm's way to ensure that all of us in this House — all people of this country — can walk free, talk free and live free.

It is an honour to meet one of our veterans, and I recommend that all of us in the House go out of our way to shake a veteran's hand and offer him or her our sincere gratitude. In this way, we can remember their contribution to our freedom not only on Remembrance Day but every day of the year.

C. Trevena: I'm happy to rise and tell the House about some good news that the Quadra Island Volunteer Fire Department recently received. Just over a week ago, the fire chief and members of the board were here in Victoria receiving the Solicitor General's Safety and Crime Prevention Award. The volunteers are extraordinarily proud of the award, and rightly so.

Quadra Island has a permanent population of about 3,000 and a volunteer fire department which is 29 strong. Every week almost all those firefighters turn out for practice and often give up their weekends as well.

But for the community, they're more than just firefighters. These volunteers, our neighbours on the island, are often first responders. When a siren is heard in a small community, you are very aware of it. At times the fire department arrives ahead of the ambulance crew — also volunteers — on a 911 call, and the paramedics among them are put into action.

The RCMP detachment on the island is just four strong, and often the fire department is called to assist when the Mounties are out on a job. It was the Quadra Island Volunteer Fire Department's work which a few years ago prevented Rebecca Spit provincial park being destroyed when a beach fire got out of control and spread into the forest.

The fire department was there to assist in setting up the community centre when the seniors held a provincial conference on the island. They provide a lunch at the elementary school every year and teach fire safety to our kids. They're there at Quadra Island's May Day parade, ready by tradition for the water bombs cast from the hillside, and they're there on July 1, running the concession for the island's Canada Day celebration.

They're there at Halloween, offering safety reflectors for the kids and hot chocolate for all, and keeping an eye on the fireworks. They, like volunteer firefighters across the province, are there for their neighbours.

L. Mayencourt: Recently I learned that Mary Gordon, a friend of mine and a friend of many members of this Legislature as well, received the Order of Canada. Boy, does she ever deserve it. Mary created the Roots of Empathy program in Toronto and started it there, but it has spread to British Columbia. There is no other province in Canada that has more Roots of Empathy programs than B.C. That's because we put over a million dollars into this program to ensure that kids get access to this excellent, excellent program.

Roots of Empathy is a classroom-based program that brings a family with a young infant and some volunteers into an elementary school classroom to promote empathy and understanding. It's a wonderful program for children. It has the same objectives as a safe schools act, which I continue to press for. The program reduces aggression and bullying. It promotes empathy and compassion in children and fits perfectly with the Ministry of Education's mandate, which includes a focus on early learning and giving children the best start in life.

I know that schools that use this program have a stronger, more positive school environment with less bullying and more compassion, but you don't just have to take it from me. UBC is doing a study right now to show that this program actually does benefit kids in our school system. The program is so successful that we're now developing it into the Seeds of Empathy for preschoolers.

I'm proud to say that Roots of Empathy was first introduced to B.C. by my own school board, Vancouver school district. Last year 280 B.C. classrooms were involved, reaching over 7,000 students from kindergarten to grade eight. I would like to commend the hard-working teachers and school districts that are incorporating this valuable program into B.C. schools, but most especially, I want to congratulate Mary for a well-earned Order of Canada.

M. Karagianis: October is Small Business Month. I would like to stand up today in the House to talk about

how we can celebrate the very backbone of the B.C. economy — the bread and butter industries of this province, if you would have it.

In British Columbia 98 percent of the business is small business. It represents one million people that have been employed in small businesses. Fifty-eight percent of them are from the private sector, and they represent private sector jobs. Thirty percent of the GDP in this province is produced by those small businesses. Last year $9.4 billion worth of merchandise was shipped out of British Columbia by small business.

They represent the self-employed, the mom-and-pops and almost all of the high-tech industry. A third of them are run by women. Often in the headlines we hear about big business, the big giants — forestry, oil and gas, mining. Yet small business is the support system around even those, many of them supplying the services and products to those industries.

Small business is a huge player in tourism — in fact, it is the basis of many tourism businesses — in the film industry, in new technologies, the corner store, the winemaker, the salal collector, the tour guide, the farmer and the artisan. In fact, some of these small businesses support communities that have been hit by things like softwood lumber and keep small communities alive. These businesses are very important to this province.

I would ask all members of the House to join in celebrating Small Business Month by avoiding the big multinational corporations. Buy local from your coffee shop, buy local from your business, employ a local service, and celebrate small business in British Columbia.

B. Lekstrom: It's my pleasure to rise today to speak about a very important aspect in which British Columbians can participate in the coming weeks. I rise today to speak about the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, and the tour that we're about to embark on throughout British Columbia. This is an all-party committee consisting of members from both sides of the House. The most important aspect of this — I've been involved with it for a couple of years — is the ability to engage British Columbians in the upcoming 2006 budget.

We are going to tour. We have eight stops scheduled around the province. Certainly, time permitting, we would have liked to have more, but we're going to go out and…. It's not our job to go out and speak to British Columbians. It's our job to go out and listen to British Columbians — to listen to what their views are and what their choices are for the future budget of British Columbia, what our ability will be in British Columbia should we have the opportunity to invest more dollars and where those dollars should go.

We talk about democracy, and I think it's fair to say that both sides are here for that very reason. We want to make sure that we're here to listen to our constituents, to listen to British Columbians. I can't think of a greater opportunity for all British Columbians to become involved in that process than to come out and address the committee through the public consultation process.

Failing that in their busy lives, if they aren't able to make it to one of the eight scheduled meetings, we do accept written submissions. There is an on-line questionnaire that people can go on to let us know what their feelings are. There are 79 elected MLAs in this Legislature here today. We bring the wishes of the people that elected us and our constituents, but we want to hear most importantly from each and every British Columbian who has the opportunity and can take the time.

I want to thank the members that are on the committee. I look forward to the tour coming up. Again, I want to express my thanks to all the people of British Columbia who I know will do everything they can.

In closing, I'm just going to give a number that people can call in British Columbia if they're interested in attending one of these hearings. They can call 1-877-428-8337 — which is the Clerk's office — to participate, or they can go online at www.leg.bc.ca/budgetconsultations. I'm sure they're writing this down eagerly.

I look forward to hearing from them, and again, it's going to be a privilege to report back to this House.

D. Cubberley: It's my pleasure today to share an environmental achievement from my own constituency of Saanich South. I'm referring to the Hartland landfill, which is the final repository for this region's solid waste. But I'm not just talking trash. Once little more than the local tip, today Hartland, which is operated by the capital regional district, is being recognized for innovation and excellence in waste management.

Since the late 1980s a badly run private dump has become an engineered landfill with a strong commitment to waste diversion and impact reduction. Based on aggressive curbside recycling, bans on reusable or compostable materials, and environmental design and monitoring, Hartland recently won a silver award from the Solid Waste Association of North America. Last week at UBCM, Hartland received two community excellence awards — one for an innovative gas-to-electricity conversion project, generating enough energy for 1,600 homes; and another for its groundbreaking household hazardous waste collection program, which is the first of its kind in British Columbia.

Entities like Hartland are working hard to divert waste and reduce impacts in order to achieve sustainability. The stage for success was set by provincial initiatives in the '90s, which set targets and placed responsibility on producers and sellers for B.C.'s unique container deposit refund system and for paint, solvent and other recycling programs. Today we're overdue for new stewardship initiatives, such as the long-promised

I would like to ask the House to join me in celebrating Hartland's achievements, while keeping in mind the need to redouble our own efforts in order to reach provincial goals.

C. James: My question is to the Minister of Finance. I would like the Minister of Finance to tell this House how much B.C. taxpayers are paying for the full-page partisan ad that's running in today's papers.

Hon. C. Taylor: It is essential that government communicate with parents, students and teachers about what we are doing at this particular time in government and what we are seeing looking forward. There are very important serious issues, and it would be a mistake not to communicate our points of view and our actions with parents, teachers and kids.

C. James: I didn't hear an answer, so I'd like to ask the question again. We know that a series of ads isn't cheap. We saw the ads in today's paper. Again I ask the Minister of Finance: how much did the ads cost today? How much will the ad campaign cost in total? How many more ads is the minister expecting to run?

Hon. C. Taylor: Again, I say that it is really an important function of government to communicate with people and to make sure that….

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Order, please. Excuse me for a second. Listen to the answer, please.

Hon. C. Taylor: I do believe it's an important function of government to communicate with the community. That means parents; it means students; it also means teachers. This is a very willful decision on our part to make sure that the conversation is there so that the community does understand what government is trying to do.

This is a very important, very serious situation. We can't rely on others to try and interpret our point of view, and so we will do it. As the Leader of the Opposition does know, when the public accounts are presented at the end of June, as I did this past year, I will produce the list of all the ads that are run throughout the year.

C. James: I heard the Finance Minister, when she stood up to deliver the interim budget — or the budget update, as she called it — talk about the fact that being Finance Minister in government was about choices. I didn't hear from the Finance Minister what kind of a choice she made to spend the money on partisan ads rather than smaller class sizes, rather than support for students with special needs, rather than support for school libraries. I'd like the Minister of Finance to explain to this House how an expensive ad campaign helps the learning conditions for students in our schools.

Hon. C. Taylor: As I did say, I did make a choice — government did make a choice — to communicate with the public. We think it's absolutely essential that the community understands how seriously we take this situation. We are very concerned that since the provincial bargaining started, we have never been able to get a negotiated settlement with teachers. We believe, personally, that the system is dysfunctional. We think that actions are going to have to be taken to improve the situation.

Along the way, of course, we're making sure that the funding is there for the education system as a whole — this year alone, $150 million more into the system and $700 million more in capital for our schools. We're spending more per student than ever in the history of our province. We're making sure that the funding is there, but the system of negotiating is dysfunctional, and we want it fixed.

J. Kwan: We know what happened last time when the government said they would let us know how much the ad campaigns cost. It turns out it was $7 million over budget. The Minister of Finance admitted that only three months ago her government secretly spent over $7 million on an advertising campaign prior to the election. She promised openness; she promised accountability. Why is she already refusing to come clean on how much the government is spending on partisan political advertisements instead of putting that money into the education system?

Hon. C. Taylor: It's interesting to me that the opposition is deciding to talk about our ability to communicate with the public on this very important issue rather than concentrating on the very serious issue before us, which is: how do we get teachers negotiating in a way that works for everyone? That's the important issue.

It really is important that we not use words in this House that suggest things were secret or hidden when the Auditor General himself has given a clean bill of health to all of our public accounts.

J. Kwan: After the fact, the numbers came in, but not at the time when the government was spending tax dollars on an advertising campaign to advance their own political gain. You know what, Mr. Speaker? It is a serious issue. You better believe it.

Students and parents deserve to know how much the government is spending on spin-doctoring instead of putting money in the education system. According to the rate listings for the Vancouver Sun and the Province, these ads cost tens of thousands of dollars. For the cost of one day's ad the government could buy a library book for 4,500 students in the province.

Can the minister justify to parents whose tax dollars just funded this PR campaign that this was a worthy use of their money?

Hon. C. Taylor: Having sat through last night, I think that everyone who watched would understand why it is so essential for government to communicate directly with the public in order to get the facts out in the community. I will simply say that this is the largest education budget ever…

Hon. C. Taylor: …in the history of the province and that, in fact, $10 million extra was put into books specifically to make sure there were enough textbooks there — $150 million this year into the school budget and more funding per student than ever before in the history of the province.

J. Horgan: The deadline for an advertisement in today's Province newspaper was Friday at noon — the same time that the fact-finder reported to the public and to the Minister of Labour on his findings and discussions with the parties in the negotiation in question.

My question is to the Minister of Finance. Did you place those ads before you'd even had the opportunity to consider the fact-finder's report? Is it, in fact, a preconceived agenda on your part to bash teachers?

Hon. C. Taylor: In fact, we prepared for many eventualities. We were hoping right up to the moment that the minister stood up in the House that there would be some last-minute possibility of negotiation, despite the fact-finder's report. I assure this House that the call to place the ad was placed after the minister stood up in the House to speak.

J. Horgan: Again to the Minister of Finance: does it cost more to place an ad when you can pull it at the last minute in a paper as large as the Vancouver Province? A full-page ad is pretty difficult to replace. I'm suggesting to the minister that this is a campaign preconceived well prior to the appointment of the fact-finder.

Will the minister stand in her place today and tell us that she fully considered the report and deliberately ignored the opportunity to sit down and discuss class size and class composition with the B.C. Teachers Federation, as the fact-finder pointed out?

Hon. C. Taylor: It really is extraordinary to me that the opposition does not want to talk about the real issue that we're here for, which is how to fix the system and help teachers negotiate.

Hon. C. Taylor: It is essential that we go forward and make sure this was an extraordinary situation. None of us on this side of the House felt very happy about the fact that we had to bring in this legislation. We're concerned about it. We think that somehow we have to find a way to talk to our teachers, make sure that we can negotiate going forward. So we believe this particular piece of legislation does allow us to buy the time, to hopefully change the system, so that next spring we can do this better. Therefore, it's essential when it's such an extraordinary situation that we communicate with the public.

C. Puchmayr: I will talk about the reason we're here. I want to ask a question to the Finance Minister. Here is a classroom condition facing one teacher in school district 67 in the Okanagan: two students designated as special needs; five students with behavioral problems; one student has a severe speech impediment; three others have hearing difficulties; two more have attention deficit disorder. I can't imagine how the teacher is expected to cope with this.

Can the Minister of Finance tell this House how many special needs assistants this ad would have funded?

Hon. S. Bond: The reason this government committed to adding $150 million, the largest single increase in over a decade, to the public education system is actually to allow school districts to make the kinds of decisions that are in the best interests of their students. There is absolutely no way that a decision made in Victoria about a number of students that should be in a classroom is in the best interests of children in this province. We believe that the people best suited to make that decision are locally elected trustees and parents, and in fact students and administrators, and that's precisely what we believe should happen.

C. Puchmayr: The government has taken away from classrooms for four years, and all the spin they can muster doesn't change the very real situation facing teachers and students. Here is another example. In a

grade two class, two students require individual education plans, nine need learning assistance, and one is diagnosed with behavioral problems. Because of the lack of resources for these special needs students, and the teacher is spread too thin to meet the needs, nine other students are falling behind and failing to meet expectations in reading or writing.

It seems that the Minister of Finance doesn't really understand the reality of the classrooms, but the Minister of Education should. Does the Minister of Education believe that spending thousands of dollars on partisan ads is the best way to help students learn?

Hon. S. Bond: First and foremost, this side of the House believes that what we need to do is assure the parents of British Columbia that education is essential, something that members on the opposite side of the House refused to do during the last…. In fact, we care very much that classes reflect the students, the teachers that are available and the resources that are given to school districts.

Hon. S. Bond: We gave school districts resources so they, within that framework, could make the best decisions about the type of teacher and students and who should be in those classrooms. We're seeing school districts add 1,600 new professionals to the system as a result of the $150 million.

R. Fleming: I don't want to see any ducking and weaving. I have a simple question for the Minister of Finance. You're in charge of the finances of this province. You should know the cost of the ad campaign. Tell this House what it is — very simply.

Hon. C. Taylor: Certainly, we will show all of the costs of all of the ads that we choose to do this year when we release the public accounts and know the final numbers. I will release the list the way I did last year, at the end of June.

R. Fleming: I'm not sure that answer is to wait and see until next year once the political heat has blown off. Surely, there have been meetings about this. This campaign was well planned in advance, as members have said already. To the minister: can you give it to us in dollars and cents?

Hon. C. Taylor: I think that the opposition really doesn't want to deal with the legislation that's before us and doesn't want to put on record what their feelings are about this dispute. So I will say once again that the ad dollars will be released by public accounts and authorized by the Auditor General in June. I will say on this whole issue, where we're pretending that a government shouldn't talk about disputes…. I will simply show an ad that the NDP ran during their dispute with doctors, and they placed the ad in the paper.

M. Karagianis: This morning at a quarter after seven I received a call from one of my constituents, a very dedicated teacher in my community, who talked to me about having 47 students in her class. This teacher is very dedicated and takes her job very seriously, but has actually reached breaking point and is getting ready to give up on the system. So I would like the Minister of Finance to explain to us how a big, fancy ad campaign that ran in every major newspaper in this province helps these teachers dealing with class sizes like that.

Hon. S. Bond: You know, the members opposite may want to make it sound like class size doesn't matter to this side of the House. Let me tell you what we have said we're going to do about class sizes in this province. For the first time we are going to ask school districts to record and be held accountable to the public, class by class. If there is a class like the one just described by the member opposite, we'd be happy to have that discussion and ask why a decision was made about putting that number of students in a class. We're going to have those numbers reported publicly, and we think that's the way that school boards should be held accountable.

M. Karagianis: In fact, that class size is the direct result of decisions made by this government over the last four years. I also have here an e-mail from another dedicated teacher in my community who spends literally "hundreds of hours of volunteer time" in the school system. This teacher now says: "I do it because I enjoy it, but if our government is not going to respect teachers, I think many teachers, including myself, will be forced to withdraw all of our volunteer services."

Again, I would like to know how this big ad campaign satisfies the need of the children that this dedicated teacher is now going to withdraw services from.

Hon. S. Bond: First of all, we know that teachers make a difference in the lives of children every single day in this province. But the issue of class size is a complicated one, and there isn't a magic number. The Leader of the Opposition shares a role that I had, or did in her past — the role of the school trustee charged with making very difficult decisions about class size.

I want to quote from the Leader of the Opposition in terms of the view of class size, and actually we share that view. From the Victoria Times Colonist on October 1, 1999: "Kids don't come in class-size packages, and it is causing some real problems. No one disagrees that smaller classes are good for kids, but putting kids into classes based straight on numbers and not on educational and social reasons…. I don't think that's good for

kids." I agree with the Leader of the Opposition, and we agreed that class size was so essential that we put it in legislation to guarantee that.

B. Simpson: I guess I'm left wondering whether or not the Minister of Finance actually knows how much this ad campaign is costing her. Maybe that's why we're not getting the figures released today.

Does the Minister of Finance know what the plan is for these ads and what the full cost is for these ads? Does the minister know what the cost is and the plan for the ads?

Hon. C. Taylor: I will say once again that, of course, this is an evolving situation. We will know the full numbers at the end of the year. They will all be released in public accounts. The Auditor General will have every opportunity to look at them and question them.

Let me paint a picture here, because even though the opposition doesn't want to talk about what's really going on, the fact is we've got parents at home who are sitting there wondering what's happening to their children at schools. They've heard all of these threats about teachers withdrawing services. They don't know how their kids are going to be taken care of if the teachers pull out. They don't know how this is going to elevate.

They're worried about their kids. They're worried about the education, and that's why we felt it was such a serious situation that we would step in with this legislation. The point of talking directly to parents, to students and to teachers is so that everyone understands where this government is coming from, what we're planning to do and what we're hoping for in the future in terms of trying to fix a system that is clearly dysfunctional.

B. Simpson: The teachers in my community work very hard to deliver quality education to the students. Those teachers are calling my office, and they're telling us how difficult it is for them to keep their own morale up to deliver that quality education. Yet this government, rather than addressing that issue, chooses to spend money on partisan ads.

Will this minister clarify for this House whether or not she had a plan on Friday, as she indicated earlier in this discussion, for a course of action? She's now telling us that she doesn't know what the full plan is. What are the costs of the plan, if she had it on Friday? What will those costs be? Why won't the minister put that money into the education system rather than partisan advertising?

Hon. M. de Jong: The member seems mystified by what is taking place here, so maybe we should take a moment and review. In case he wasn't paying attention, we have just gone through a period of a year and a half of a labour dispute where two parties, which were supposed to be sitting down and negotiating together, haven't been doing that — although apparently they met 35 times. And how many items did they agree on? Not a single one; not a single item.

Mr. Speaker: Members. Minister. Members, let's listen to the answer, please. Go ahead, minister.

Hon. M. de Jong: So, confronted by that reality, we had a choice. We had a choice to allow that drift to continue, to listen to the threats of escalating job activity. Parents are out there wondering: is my child going to be in school tomorrow? Or can we act? Can we act in a way that is minimally intrusive, trying to preserve for these parties some hope for getting down and doing something they've never done before: negotiate a collective agreement without interference from government?

That's the objective. That's why we've got a bill before us. That's why we're appointing an industrial inquiry commission to re-establish a bargaining structure that stands some prospect of negotiating a final agreement without the intrusion of government. That's what this is all about.

M. Farnworth: This isn't about whether or not you're running an advertising campaign. This is about how much it is costing. The public wants to know.

The question to the Finance Minister is: how much is this costing? Do you as Finance Minister know what is going on in your own ministry? Do you know the budget for this campaign? If you don't, say so. If you do, stop hiding the number and tell the public the amount of money you are spending on this advertising campaign.

Hon. C. Taylor: I hope that those who are listening to this question period come away with two very clear ideas. One is that the opposition is refusing to express their opinions about this legislation. The opposition is refusing to talk about what we can do to protect our kids and keep them in schools, and to have it as an essential service. They're refusing to say what they would do if they were in this position where, once again, teachers are unable to negotiate with government.

The second thing is that they are taking a lot of time to criticize the government for doing this and for having communications directly with the public, even though they did the same thing when they were in government — almost as if they don't plan on being in government again, because obviously they wouldn't ever spend any money communicating with the public.

M. Farnworth: The Minister of Finance said she'd paint a picture. Well, I'll paint a picture for her, and

that is of a ministry that overspent its budget on advertising by $7 million, of a government that has failed to fund energy costs in education; that has failed to fund teacher costs, increased salary costs; that has failed to fund MSP premiums and downloaded them onto the education system.

Now the government says it's okay to fund an advertising program. It's a question of priorities, and the public wants to know: how much are you spending on this advertising campaign? Not what you're saying, not how many papers you're running in, not all those things — how much are you spending? Come clean, and stop hiding the numbers.

Hon. C. Taylor: I think there are probably days such as this one, where the opposition regrets that they ever asked for 30 minutes of question period. They clearly are unwilling to talk about the legislation.

Hon. C. Taylor: They are clearly unable or unwilling to talk about what their position is on the very serious legislation that has been brought in. The answer to their question is that the numbers for this campaign will be released with all other communications numbers at the end of June in the public accounts.

G. Robertson: Well, as I add it up over here, we have 18 questions and zero answers right now. I will remind the Minister of Finance that we have lots of time to debate this bill. Don't worry. We will be debating this bill. There are 33 people sitting over here who are going to pour themselves into holding you accountable and debating this bill.

We have been asking a simple question 18 different ways, and we're not getting any answers. What this clearly demonstrates is that this government is not open to the public. This government does not support students and parents and teachers and the quality of our education system. This minister does not know what her own ministry is spending. She spends on ads rather than education.

My final attempt at a clear answer: will the minister please tell us how much she is intending on spending on this advertising campaign, so that we can move on with more questions that the public of British Columbia wants us to pursue?

Hon. C. Taylor: Just because the opposition doesn't like the answer doesn't mean there isn't an answer.

S. Fraser: I, for one, appreciate the 30-minute question period. Today marks the first anniversary of the Amnesty International report entitled Stolen Sisters. The report focused on the horrendous violence experienced by aboriginal women in Canada, especially in western Canada. My question will be to the Premier: can he explain what specific resources his government has brought to bear in response to this report to ensure that aboriginal women's rights and security are protected in B.C.?

Hon. I. Chong: Our government is committed to ensuring the safety of women who are escaping violence and children who are witnessing abuse. Our government has provided the largest increase in over a decade to those direct essential services for those women, for those children. We have increased services for counselling, for outreach. We will continue to provide those services, and we will focus our taxpayers' dollars on those direct essential services.

Hon. M. de Jong: By leave, I have a motion dealing with the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

I'm proposing not to read the entire motion. The motion refers to a number of reports of the Auditor General to the select standing committee. It refers those reports to the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts, which hasn't yet had the opportunity to review them. As well, the practice in the past in this House has been to allow the Public Accounts Committee to sit while the House is in session and to meet elsewhere should they desire to do so, and this is also reflected in the motion. I have tabled a signed copy of that motion.

Hon. M. de Jong: I call in this chamber continued second reading debate on Bill 12, and in Committee A continued debate on the estimates of the Ministry of Economic Development.

J. Horgan: I just want to resume my comments and remarks on Bill 12. I will take the opportunity while the member for Vancouver-Langara is here to highlight that I have been talking about….

J. Horgan: I'll direct my comments towards the Minister of Finance while I have the opportunity and just remind her and the rest of the House that we have every intention of debating the substance of this legislation. That's our purpose and our function here on this side of the House.

What we intended to do in question period today was extract a single number, a dollar figure, and we weren't able to do that. By the count of the member from Fairview: 20 questions, no answers.

Getting back to the legislation, it seems quite clear to me, based on comments we've heard over the past number of hours, that there was never any intention by this government to seriously address the questions of class size and class composition which were put forward by the B.C. Teachers Federation.

I want to summarize my remarks on this bill at this time by saying that the fundamental objective of us in this chamber, and as legislators across this province, is to ensure that our children get the best education possible. It's our view on this side of the House that in order to do that, you have to have some comprehension of what's going on inside that classroom. It's our view, again, that the best way to find out what's going on in that classroom is to talk to teachers.

Yes, talk to parents. Yes, talk to students. But let's talk to the professionals. Let's talk to the people who

went to university, got an education, pursued a career — a profession, a vocation, a passion — to educate our children. Let's talk to those people. Let's hear what they have to say about class size, about class composition, about the importance of teachers' aides, about the importance of teacher-librarians, the importance of counsellors and other teaching assistants in the classroom right across this province.

It's going to be a long week, Mr. Speaker. This is a contentious piece of legislation. We all understand that. It's going to be a long week, Mr. Speaker. This is a contentious piece of legislation. We all understand that. Clearly, the people on the other side of the House are not interested in addressing the issue today.

Mr. Speaker: Members, could you take your conversations outside the House, please.

J. Horgan: It's clear that the members on the other side of the House are not interested in addressing the issue today. In fact, I heard comments from the minister just a few moments ago that their intention is to push this off into the future. "Let's continue to fan the flames. Let's have educators in classrooms demoralized, undervalued, disrespected, and then we'll deal with it again sometime in the future."

That's not why I was elected. That's not why my constituents sent me here. They sent me here to address problems as they emerge. We have a problem now. It's facing us clearly, square in the face. Teachers are unhappy. That's going to have a negative impact on parents and a negative impact on students.

Why don't we do something about it? What is unreasonable about that? What is unreasonable about saying: yeah, we've got a problem? Again, the guy from Malahat–Juan de Fuca is talking sense one more time today. The second time today — talking sense. A glimmer of insight into my psyche: I want to solve problems.

The Minister of Labour — I'm sure he wants to solve problems as well. He's highlighted some statistics about the absence of progress on this file. If I were sitting in his chair, I would have inserted myself in that process. I would have tried to find common ground. I would have tried to bring the parties together.

The fact-finder pointed out an opportunity. He said: "Let's have a parallel process. Let's sit down at a second table, a different forum, a venue — whatever you want to call it, whatever word you want to use to describe it — and let's talk about the fundamental question of what's going on in the classroom."

How are we going to get the best outcome for our kids? How are we going to be the most educated and most literate jurisdiction in North America? I hesitate to say "bar none," because I think that's supposed to be on one of the other phrases — bar none. I think it's an environmental goal to be bar none, and that puts me in mind of slot machines. I'll leave that, because that's not my passion. That's the passion of the people on the other side.

What we need to do during the course of this debate is clearly outline what's important, what are our priorities, what do we want to see in our education system today. Today we need to solve an impasse. What the government chose to do today is push that impasse on into the future and in fact, I would argue, inflame the situation by saying to teachers yet again: "Your views on these important issues that are happening in the classroom don't matter. We don't care. We're going to just press on. In fact, we're going to put together very expensive ad campaigns." I would think, with priority placement in the Vancouver Sun, the Vancouver Province and the Times Colonist, right beside the editorial pages where they're getting praise for their policies on these questions, it's a few bucks for that — a few bucks, indeed.

It was startling, I think, after the Minister of Finance quickly responded, when the public accounts were tabled in the summer…. She quickly responded to media overtures. "What happened here? Where did all this money go, and what did you spend it on?" Within the hour she was back in the press theatre addressing that question.

Yet here where we have a new era of cooperation and consultation and respect from one side of the House to the other, we ask a simple question 18 times, by the count of the member from Fairview — 18 times and zero answers. The zero we're talking about here probably was followed by numerous other zeros when we got into multi-thousands of dollars on a partisan ad campaign designed to push a political agenda that is at its core anti-teacher, anti-union. It's unacceptable to people on this side of the House. We're not going to stand for it. You're going to hear more about that over the next number of days.

I'm smiling at my friend from Nelson-Creston, because I'm reminded that he is my friend, and I'm very pleased to be sitting in this House with him today as well as with all the others that are here and those on the other side whom I've struck up a relationship with over the past number of weeks. I know that the people on the other side, as I said earlier this morning, in their core want to solve problems too, but they're hamstrung. Their hands are tied by the spin doctors of the public affairs bureau, which grows like a fungus.

I look at the list of staff over there, and I say, my goodness. The words "friends and insiders"…. I recall hearing — and perhaps the Minister of Labour could remember saying this on an occasion or two in previous parliaments — that the previous government was overflowing with friends and insiders, hacks, ne'er-do-wells. "We're going to have a merit commissioner," they said. They appointed a merit commissioner, and then I think they fired her not that long ago without cause — sent her on her way. I don't believe they have a merit commissioner now. Maybe they do, but I keep seeing the orders-in-council come through.

I see orders-in-council for the public affairs bureau — more people to monitor the opposition, more people to take every word that's spewing out of my mouth, including my red cardigan, including my homage to Bob Denver. They're going to throw it back at me at some point over the next four years. Well, good on you guys at public affairs. You're doing a great job.

The member from Burrard tells me that my cardigan was blue, and I have no reason to doubt that, because I can't tell one from the other. The fact remains that what I'm saying here today is being eagerly listened to by droves of people in a building across the street for no good reason. I'd send them all home.

The members on the opposite side are all very intelligent, thoughtful people. You don't need hacks holding your hands. Stand up and say what's on your minds. Say: "I don't want to look at the polls." The pollster's not very good, as it turns out, because the people in my neighbourhood think you're profoundly off base on this.

J. Horgan: I won't get into that. This is the problem with this heckling. I just respond to it instinctively, intuitively. Someone opens their mouth, and I'm going down another river. I don't know why that is. The member from Cloverdale and the member from Burrard have got me on a string. I can't help myself.

This is an important bill, and I don't want to be overly glib, but again, as I said, I'm afflicted with this. I went to Europe to see my roots some years ago. I took my kids on a tour, and we went to Blarney, not surprisingly. I had the opportunity to kiss the Blarney stone, and it appears that it works. Also, like a good Irishman, if someone says something to me, I'll either break into a tune or break into tears. I'm not sure which it'll be at this point in time.

I want to say that as I wrap up debate on this question, from my perspective, the issue is about respect. The issue is about an opportunity to seize the day: Carpe diem, as they said. Robin Williams taught me that. I know another little bit of Latin. Semper ubi sub ubi is "Always wear underwear" — another good thing to remember when you're going out in the morning. That's what my mother taught me.

The question we have before us is: do we want to take an opportunity when it presents itself and do good? Or do we want to ignore challenges and say no, no, no? Our historic position is that we don't like teachers. They are suing us; we're suing them. We're calling them this; they're calling us that. It goes back and forth. The historic positions are boring. Our constituents don't want to hear about it anymore. They're tired of it. They say: "Oh, there they go again. The guy from Malahat–Juan de Fuca is talking sense."

It throws everybody else off. I understand that. I know that the spinners at public affairs are going: "How do we deal with this guy, this member? He's talking sense. What we want to talk about is the message box. The polling says: 'Bash the teachers. Porridge down their throats.' That's what it says. That's what we should do."

I appeal, once again, to members on the opposite side: think for yourselves. Say: "How can we have the most literate, most educated jurisdiction in North America with unhappy educators? How does that happen?"

I heard some of the members earlier saying that parents are saying: "Where are my kids going to be tomorrow?" Do you know what parents are saying, truly, in their constituency right now? They are worrying about what they're going to get for dinner tonight. They're worrying about what they're going to do. Are the kids going to be in bed on time? Those are real issues.

They're saying: "Oh gee, I sure hope they solve this. I'm sympathetic to my teachers. I want the government to do the right thing. Why won't they do that? Why won't they grasp common sense, even for a nanosecond?" Just for a moment let's embrace a good idea — the good idea that the fact-finder pointed out: let's sit down and talk. Gosh, what a revelation. Let's sit down and solve a problem.

We sent 79 people to this chamber. One of them — you, sir, an august member sitting in the chair to make sure that we're civil with each other and to ensure that I don't say the name Horgan when I could say Malahat–Juan de Fuca…. I will continue to do that from this point on, wiser for the opportunity this morning.

The challenge we all have is to take an opportunity when it presents itself and do the right thing. The right thing for the Minister of Labour to do right now is to yank this bill off the floor of this chamber and make a phone call, to get together with his cabinet colleagues and sit down with teachers and solve the problem.

Thank you for the opportunity. I look forward to discussing this again before the end of the week.

C. Puchmayr: I rise in opposition to this bill as well. I just wanted to start by backing up a little bit about some comments made earlier by the Labour Minister.

When he introduced this again for second reading today, he spoke about having no satisfaction in introducing this bill. He spoke about the alleged failure of the collective bargaining process, and he went as far as to claim that to say he's disappointed is an understatement.

This process was designed to fail from the outset. There was no ability provided to the parties to come to an agreement when the mandate by the government to the negotiators was to not discuss wages, not discuss classroom conditions or learning conditions. It was designed to fail.

I commend the teachers for going to the table 35 times and trying to convince the government that there was a need to address the serious issues in the classroom that we're seeing today. Thirty-five times they tried to put that message across — to say there are

needs in our classrooms that have to be addressed so that our children are not left behind and so that certain children aren't benefiting while other children fail in an education system that is not adequately funded with learning assistants and class sizes that are reasonable, class sizes where our children are not left behind.

Boy, they tried. Believe me. I've spoken to teachers, and their primary concerns are with the children. They're seeing firsthand the irreparable damage that is being done by the fact that class sizes are too large and that adequate assistance and learning assistants are not being provided.

The government needs to address the working conditions in the classroom and address them for the needs of the children and for the needs of those parents, because those children that are left behind today are going to cost society tomorrow, and they are going to cost society a lot more than the cost of a learning assistant — even a lot more than those big full-page ads, I might add. Society will pay dearly for the lack of education of children with needs in the classroom, and there are a multitude of needs. As I go on, I will read some comments later about what teachers are saying in my community and what the concerns are in my community.

Even the courts have agreed that the issue of class sizes is relevant in this discussion. It's relevant in the collective bargaining process.

In 2002, with the enactment of the Education Services Collective Agreement Act and the Public Education Flexibility and Choice Act…. I like it when the government uses words like "flexibility" and "choice." It's kind of like when they use words like "earth, land and water protection," and then we see a gutting of protection in those fields. Every time I see these types of words in legislation, the antennas rise. You have to start to look between the lines, because surely you will see that the actual term of the legislation is the beginning of the spin that will follow as they go on and on and try to convince you that this is something that's good for you as you're taking your cod liver oil.

The question of class sizes. I'm going to quote from a decision in February 2005 by the Hon. Mr. Justice Lambert in the Court of Appeal, the highest court in this province:

Who can doubt that? Who can say that class size isn't a significant part of the employment relationship, when we see the detrimental effects that we have when we don't address the needs in our classes, the needs of the specific children in our classes?

By refusing to negotiate class sizes, by unilaterally imposing terms and conditions of employment on our teachers, this government is not only going against the principles of common sense and fairness; it is also overriding this province's highest legal authority.

During the struggle by the negotiators for the teachers to communicate the needs of children to the negotiators for the government — while this process of supposedly free collective bargaining was ongoing — we continued to hear on the radio and to see on the television the Premier and the Education Minister doing the damage of the collective bargaining process, doing the spin. We continued to hear it over and over and over again — all part of the method of ensuring that there wasn't a collective agreement, throwing fuel on the fire of collective bargaining.

This is not only a breach of the free collective bargaining process, in my opinion; it is an absolute breach of collective bargaining. It's no different than an individual…. There are individuals on the other side and individuals on this side that have negotiated a contract — maybe for themselves, maybe in business, maybe the Finance Minister in her previous line of work. Surely she's negotiated a contract. Surely you don't work for corporations without going to the table and saying: "I want holidays. I want benefits. I want…." The Finance Minister might have needed an automobile, a fuel allowance, a pension, a clause for retirement. These are all parts of bargaining.

Collective bargaining is when you get your representatives elected to go before the bargainer, the employer, and bargain on your behalf. There's a consensus formed: these are the needs. You send them forward. They negotiate a collective agreement. They come back with a tentative agreement. You vote on it. You either accept it, or you reject it and go back to the bargaining table. At the end of the day, 99.9 percent of the time if not even more, most collective agreements are achieved.

When the executive negotiates a collective agreement and two years later they want more money, what do they do? They go back to the table. They negotiate their own agreement. If they're not satisfied with that agreement, what do they do? They move their services elsewhere. That's the way they strike. They say: "I will go elsewhere where I will get what I deserve."

I fear that is happening in this province. The seeds we're sowing now…. Tearing up collective agreements with the education system is merely creating an exodus of skilled knowledge that is going to leave this province and is going to leave us in a serious situation in the very near future.

Collective bargaining isn't anything new. It's been going on for over 100 years in this province, if you look at the records, at some of the old historic collective agreements. I've been involved in many collective agreements at many different locations. I never negotiated a strike; I pride myself on that. I know that when two parties sit down and they're genuine and they believe there is a deal to be had, there will be a deal. When you have issues of lockouts or strikes, one party

comes to the table with a position that is inflexible and ends in a dispute. Then what it needs is some time for the dispute to take its course during the process of a strike or a lockout, getting together again and negotiating the contract for the best interests of everybody.

The best contracts to negotiate are the ones where the two parties, at the end of the day, shake hands across the table and say: "It was tough slugging, but here we are. We have a collective agreement. Now let's go back and do what we need to do." Those are the best kinds of collective agreements, but those can only be achieved with open mandates. There is not an open mandate by this government to their negotiators to even come close to that type of a collective bargaining environment — not even close.

In this province we've seen collective agreements torn up. We've seen legislation imposed. We see a knowledge base that our young people are bypassing.

Young people that I've spoken to are saying: "Why would I want to be a teacher and be treated like this?" Young people — who used to be proud to go into the profession of nursing, who used to feel motivated to go into a profession of nursing or health care — are saying: "Why would I want to go do this? Why would I want to be exposed to this?" They come out of university with student loans — tens of thousands of dollars, paying them back for years and years — and for what? So they can be exposed to this type of environment created by this government across from me, Madam Speaker?

This is our knowledge for the future. These are the children who are going to look after our parents and ourselves when we're in health care. These are the children who are going to teach our grandchildren. Where are we going to go when people aren't entering those fields because (a) they're not competitive here as in other jurisdictions and (b) they've been stripped of the basic right of free collective bargaining, a right that people fought for in the free world? People fought for that right.

Think of the society that we have today and the standard of living that we have today. Then think of a society prior to collective bargaining. The gains that are made help everyone. They benefit everyone. They benefit our society. They benefit small business. They benefit the car lot down the road, the barber shop.

How many banks do we have on every street corner? How many would we have, had there never been an ability for people to bargain collectively to get a decent wage and benefit, where they would even need a bank to put their money? That wasn't the case before collective bargaining. History shows that. You got your money at the end of the week, if you were lucky. It was required. You carried it in your pocket, you bought groceries, and you tried to put a roof over your head.

Once there was a fair and equitable distribution of that wealth, we started to see society flourish. Societies flourish when there is a fair distribution of wealth. It's good for business. It makes business sense. It's just a logical economic driver to have fair, balanced distribution.

It's also a good economic driver to have educated children — children who can go out and stimulate the economy by having their skills utilized and by having their skills pay them. Reward them for their skills while they're teaching our children and while they're pulling that child with a learning disability from the ranks of the back of the room, bringing that child up and finding that the child actually has skill. That child has knowledge. That child has something that was left behind because a learning assistant wasn't able to find it.

Just think of the value of saving that one child from that back row of the classroom, bringing them up and finding out what that child can produce for society. That child would probably not become homeless, would not need social assistance and could benefit in acquiring a skill that contributes to the great economy that we can build by having everyone with the same abilities treated equally.

That's not happening right now. That absolutely is not happening. We have children that are falling through the cracks.

We heard earlier from one of the speakers about his experiences in school. You know, what I see is some schools…. When I grew up, some schools seemed to have a different socioeconomic standard depending on where the neighbourhood was. I actually grew up in a school that was in a very devalued neighbourhood, a poor neighbourhood. The school is no longer there. The area where I went to school has become an industrial zone. I sometimes would sit there and count the kids — who went to my school and were in my class or in classes around my age group — that never made it, that didn't survive.

We had large classes in those schools, and I finally thought we were getting away from that. I started seeing flickers of hope when I started hearing about learning assistants, the duties and roles that they play and the saving to society by having learning assistants — being able to find that child before the child becomes a drug addict or alcoholic or before that child ends up in prison.

That's a huge saving to society. You can't quantify that. It's almost impossible to fathom. The cost of one learning assistant for one year doesn't equate to the cost of paying the medical costs of one person for one year who has full-blown AIDS. Think about that. Think about the value of investing in our children. And think about the teachers who see this every day and of how frustrated they are when they start to see these children fall through the cracks and they see that they have no ability to reach out and pull them out. You can pull from the gutter, but you can never pull from the grave.

When I hear from the other side, "People are coming back to British Columbia," well, people weren't leaving British Columbia — not any more so than they are now. I know young people that are leaving British Columbia because they can't get a proper apprentice-

ship in this province. They get part of an apprenticeship. They get: "I'm a framer, but I can't be a Red Seal carpenter." They are leaving this province and going to Alberta. I see electricians that are leaving for Alberta because they are getting paid better money in Alberta. I see contracts that are opening up…. We're losing people. We need to do something.

I even heard the health authority talk at one of the first functions I attended with the Health Minister. I think one of the members from the other side brought up a concern about losing skills in the trades in the hospitals. Losing those skills is costing society, because if you lose a boiler engineer in a hospital, you have to contract that duty out. If you lose an elevator mechanic, you have to contract that duty out. It costs way more to contract that out, and there are horror stories with that, with losing skilled workers in our health care system, losing them to other jurisdictions that pay a fair wage. It's no wonder their economies are flourishing. We can't have our youth passing by these very valuable trades, education and health care.

When the minister says that he's disappointed in the collective bargaining process, he should be disappointed, but he shouldn't be disappointed in the process, because he didn't give his side a mandate to bargain. He did a good thing, and I commend the Minister of Labour for getting Mr. Connolly in as a fact-finder. I thought, well there, that's great. You know, we've been saying: "Let's get active. Let's find ways of resolving this."

He gets Mr. Connolly in, and I'm thinking that this is part of the new relationship. We're going to suggest ideas, and maybe the government will actually look at some ideas and maybe entertain some of these.

Mr. Connolly comes back, and when I read his report immediately after it was released…. He says that both teachers and the province agree that educators should be part of any dialogue that sets guidelines on class sizes. Bingo! Mr. Connolly stated that as a fact-finder on behalf of the Labour Minister.

Well, with my collective bargaining experience, if I were deadlocked and the company were deadlocked and we split from the table and I hired a fact-finder that came in and made such a move on such a significant part of a collective agreement, I would feel that the deal was right around the corner. I would be very pleased to go back to the table, because I would understand that the most significant issue in my collective bargaining process had just been addressed in a positive manner, in a manner that upholds the Lambert decision, in a manner that satisfied what the teachers have been telling us and what the parents have been telling us. I would be saying, and I was saying: "Great, we can get a deal here. For once we can show that the new relationship works." And it's not just a relationship with each other. It's a relationship with our employees and with the employers.

What happens with this? Nothing. Legislation. Why? I thought we had a breakthrough, and they imposed legislation. They didn't want a deal. They didn't want a deal, and that's why that ad was sitting there in the mailrooms of all those newspapers. I submit to this House that it was possibly there before Mr. Connolly's assessment came forward, and that saddens me.

It saddens me, that kind of money being spent, when really there was a go-forward position put forward by Mr. Connolly, a go-forward position that could have — maybe with some assistance on this side and some hard work on the other side and some getting down and dirty with the bargainer and with the employees — for once broken this deadlock and said: "You're right. We need to address class sizes. We need to address learning assistance. We need to have an education system that leaves no one behind." That didn't happen. Why? I can only assume that somebody wanted to pick a fight. They did, and they continued to do so, and it's shameful. It's absolutely shameful that we can't bargain because the government is only too pleased to implement legislation.

What does that do to the working conditions in the class? I think about the teachers that you remember in your mind, who were really excited, who were energetic, who really cared about students, and the students sitting there saying: "God, someday I want to be a teacher. You know, that teacher is so great. I wish I could give that energy to future generations, to other children." That's not happening anymore. It's shameful. It's not happening anymore. Young people are leaving that field, and we're going to be in for an education crisis in the very near future.

The International Labour Organization, which is a part of the United Nations, stationed in Geneva, Switzerland…. I'm going to just give you some quotes from them. The International Labour Organization has ruled that back-to-work contract-breaking legislation passed in 2002 by the B.C. Liberal government contravenes ILO convention 87, "freedom of association and protection of the right to organize." This is the United Nations. This is a significant body in this world that sees the detriment of these kinds of actions and that has seen the negative impacts on societies with these types of actions. That's why they're speaking out.

The convention on freedom of association was signed by Canada and all ten provinces many years ago, in 1972. In uncharacteristically blunt language the ILO has ruled that the B.C. Liberal government repeatedly violated the rights of thousands of public sector employees by refusing to negotiate contracts and by using legislation to arbitrarily enforce its will.

The offending legislation includes Bill 2, the Health Care Services Continuation Act; Bill 15, the Health Care Services Collective Agreements Act; the Skills Development and Labour Statutes Amendment Act, which made education an essential service; Bill 27, the Education Services Collective Agreement Act imposed on employers, the last offer of a contract to teachers; Bill 28, Public Education Flexibility and Choice Act, which eliminated rights on class size, and other guarantees, to service students from kindergarten to post-secondary

— which I've been speaking so much about; Bill 29, the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act.

Again, we get these words: "Delivery Improvement Act." How do you improve delivery? Rip up contracts and hire workers at $8 an hour to clean your hospitals when you should be hiring microbiologists.

Education sector recommendations. Bill 18. "Workers in this sector enjoy and exercise the right to strike in accordance with the freedom-of-association principles." That was taken away. They amended Bill 27 to allow employees to negotiate issues that have been imposed unilaterally by legislation. They recommend to establish, with appropriate safeguards of neutrality and independence, a commission as provided for in Bill 27 to review collective bargaining structures and procedures in the education sector. They say to do so "with appropriate safeguards of neutrality and independence." We sure aren't seeing this here in this collective bargaining process. There's no neutrality here.

Other recommendations. "Refrain in future from imposing contract settlements and respect the autonomy of the bargaining partners in reaching negotiated settlements. Ensure in future that appropriate and meaningful consultations are held with unions when freedom of association and collective bargaining is affected. Provide the International Labour Organization with all judicial decisions related to the current core challenges involving the bills cited."

That's the United Nations. That's what the United Nations is saying about this little microcosm here of British Columbia and the big global picture. That says a lot — when the United Nations is commenting on the procedures of this government.

In closing, I'm just going to read a few of the comments from teachers in my community of New Westminster. Here's what some of the teachers are saying. This is a teacher with 26 to 30 years of teaching experience. "I have 24 students. Over half of my class is ESL. There is no ESL support for students and very limited support for students with social and emotional problems." Can you imagine that? Half the class is ESL, and no ESL support. Shame.

I guess if some of these parents are concerned, they can maybe move. That's what I've heard. Who can afford to move? We're trying to build our community from the inside up and onwards, not to move away to try and find better learning environments. We need to create the learning environments that are mandatory and necessary to develop our children.

Another teacher with 20 years of service is saying: "We have over 40 students in some classes. However, in the lower literacy classes there are fewer, fortunately." I guess it's the luck of the draw. My education is now based on how lucky I am, how lucky my child is. Did she get in a small class or a large class?

C. Puchmayr: In closing, I just want to say that it is so important that we allow the free collective bargaining process to take its place. I see that there is an ability and an avenue to do so, and I ask the other side to please reconsider. Let's get back to the table, and let's get a contract so both sides can shake hands and go back and do what they need to do, and that's provide quality education for our children in this province.

C. James: I rise, as well, to discuss and debate second reading on Bill 12. I want to start off by talking a little bit about something the Minister of Labour said in opening debate on this bill. The Minister of Labour said something that, in fact, I agree with. He said that the bill before us represents a failure, and I would agree with that comment, Madam Speaker.

However, what he didn't acknowledge is that the failure here is the government's failure of leadership. The government has a responsibility to show leadership — to show leadership in a labour dispute, to step up to the plate and to try and look for solutions. At every step, instead, this government has chosen to pick a fight with teachers to the detriment of our education system.

I'd like to start by taking a look at this government's record on education. What was one of the first acts of this government when it came to education shortly after the election? One of the first acts was to tear up the teachers' contract. They tore up that contract without discussion, without debate, without negotiations.

The government had choices to make, and they made them. What was the result of these choices made by this government? The choices were larger class sizes, fewer supports for students, libraries opening with no librarians, students with special needs left to fall through the cracks, and a severely damaged relationship between teachers and the government.

I'd like us to ask ourselves a question. If the government truly wanted to demonstrate leadership, to move beyond the set of circumstances that they created, what could they do? Leadership means doing what's necessary to improve the situation. Did we see that? No. Real leadership would have meant rebuilding a scarred relationship. It would have meant sitting down with the teachers — the teachers who were affected by the government's choices.

This government knew that it had damaged its relationship with teachers. Did they spend the next few years trying to improve that relationship? Did they ever once acknowledge the role that they played in damaging the relationship? No. Instead, this government chose to do what it always does. They chose confrontation as their first and only option.

Earlier today, in opening the discussion on the bill, we heard the Minister of Labour say that this wasn't a place that anyone wanted to go. I heard those words from the Labour Minister. But if this government really believed those words, they had years to repair the relationship that they damaged. They had the opportunity to sit down with teachers and to talk about issues that mattered to parents, to school boards, to students and to teachers. They had a chance to show real leadership, and they failed again.

Sadly, this government has consistently viewed education as a political game, instead of viewing teachers and parents and school boards as partners in education. We even saw the Premier's election campaign focused on driving a wedge between parents and teachers. The government didn't need to take this confrontational approach.

Why is it important to have a good relationship between teachers and government? I'd like us to just take a minute to take a look at our education system, because our school system relies on a number of partners. Everyone, all of our partners, has a critical role in our school system.

School trustees are locally elected members of their community who govern our school system on behalf of their community. Locally elected school boards are the key to ensuring that our school system remains the cornerstone of democracy, ensuring we have an informed, educated and engaged citizenry. Another player in the school system, another partner, is administrators — superintendents, school principals and vice-principals, who provide an important leadership component in our schools and in our districts. They are continually learning from educational research and pulling together the educational team to ensure the best possible instructional environment for our students.

One of the other partners in our school system is support staff, the people who provide the support services for our school grounds, maintenance, office and administration support in our schools, libraries and districts. They're also the people who provide critical supports to our students with special needs in classrooms around our province. Parents are a key partner in our education system. We all know that a child's first learning occurs at home, and the subsequent learning that occurs in classrooms could not happen without the support and involvement of parents.

Students. I think that sometimes, in the rhetoric that we hear, students get forgotten. Students are the reason we are here talking about this issue today. Students are the reason that all the adults we've talked about are spending their careers in the education system. Students are the future of our communities — and yes, teachers. Teachers prepare our students, our children, for the future. They're the educators of the next generation. They're the people who spend their time, their careers and their lives with our children. They're the people who spend their summers, holidays, days off and weekends preparing lessons and creating an effective classroom environment.

Teachers are people like my mother, who spent her entire career teaching students with special needs. I grew up in a house with a teacher who did spend her summer vacation fixing up classrooms, who spent her weekends marking lesson plans, making sure that things were in place for every single student in her classroom. That's who teachers are. Yes, teachers are people who teach knowledge, but they are also people who care deeply about their mission and their career. They are people who are there day in and day out, through the tears and the laughter of the children. They're there for the children who didn't get a meal before they came to school. They're there for the kids who just need some support.

I've talked a lot about the partners in our system, and it's important that all the partners in our system deserve respect. But this government has missed an important point and has left teachers out of their agenda for education. To achieve success at the bargaining table requires a critical component. It requires respect for the people you're working with at the table, and I know this from personal experience.

I was an elected school trustee in the Greater Victoria area for 11 years, and I spent time bargaining on the employer's side of the table. I know what it's like to make tough decisions, to talk about issues like ability to pay, to talk about how you can provide support for students and to talk about how you can ensure that you have a fair settlement for your employees. I know that negotiations mean give-and-take. Negotiations, yes, mean making tough decisions, but they also mean respecting the people on the other side of the table.

We're here today, Madam Speaker, because the government has not made an effort to fix what they acknowledge is broken. I just want to share a couple of thoughts from individual teachers in my riding, people who are incredibly committed to the work that they do, who care deeply about the work that they do. Just to read a quote from one of those teachers:I'm presently teaching in a grade four classroom. I have 30 students squished into a room where there's not enough space for my own desk. I have no science textbooks. I have no language arts materials. I have no teaching resources for social and personal planning, no computer program. Where's the additional support in my school? For the entire school, we have 0.6 teacher-librarian time and a part-time learning assistance teacher. What is a caring and dedicated teacher supposed to do, and how can I sleep at night?

Those are the kinds of stories that we're hearing around the province from teachers who care deeply about their work, who simply want an opportunity to sit down across from government and talk about the impact that government had on their classrooms and on the students in their classrooms, and an opportunity to talk about how to improve those situations. Another e-mail from a teacher in my constituency says: "I felt I was forced to retire two years early. I tried moving schools to see if I could provide more support. I was given a classroom of 27 special needs students in grade nine and grade ten. It's a room designated to hold ten students, a mini-resource room. I have children in the hallway. I love kids. I love teaching, but I was really not able to do either."

Those are the stories that we're hearing over and over and over again. The fact-finder that the government brought in provided an opportunity for progress. Both sides in the dispute acknowledged that establishing a process to discuss learning conditions could have

led to progress on other issues at the table without disrupting classrooms. I want to repeat that again — without disrupting classrooms. An opportunity, a solution, was here at the table. The government deliberately ignored that opportunity and went straight to a forced settlement, a confrontational approach that hurts education.

The government also instructed the employers association not to discuss class size and other issues at the table. I talked earlier about bargaining and the fact that bargaining is give-and-take. Negotiations mean sitting down and having some things to give and some things to take, and finding a solution that works for all parties. That's very difficult to do for the employers association when they have nothing to bargain with at the table, when they were not allowed to talk about class size or class composition or supports for students or wages — no discussion at the table. It should be no surprise to anyone in this entire House that issues were not agreed on at that table. It's very tough to agree to issues when you have no opportunity to be able to talk about issues at the table.

We also have to remember who it was that removed those issues from the collective agreement. In fact, it was government who removed those issues from the collective agreement. So it makes sense, certainly to all of us on this side of the House, that it should be government who sits down with teachers to talk about the impact of their decision.

The fact-finder made it very clear that these issues need to be discussed if progress is going to be made. At the end of the day the government had a choice. They had a choice to show leadership. They had a choice to show respect. They had a choice to solve problems and to build bridges. But this government, sadly, is doing what it always does. This government is imposing their views without discussion with those impacted by their actions.

I want to focus on this for a minute because I think it's very important to remember that showing respect to people means making sure you include them in the discussions on issues that are going to impact them directly. It's certainly a lesson that we teach to our children in classrooms.

We teach our children to solve problems. We teach our children to have discussions when they face a challenge. We teach our children to try and talk through those issues. I'm sad to say, standing here today, that we don't see the government learning a very fundamental lesson that we're working hard to encourage in our children, in our education system. I'm disappointed that we've reached this place.

The minister talked about a broken bargaining system, and I would expect that all the partners in the system — and certainly the members on this side of the House — agree that we need to improve the bargaining system. That discussion could have occurred.

That's what is so disappointing in all of this. There was an opportunity to be able to have that discussion about the bargaining process — about what it could have looked like, about improving that system — and to have that discussion with government, school boards and teachers, if this government wanted to solve the problem. That's the key here — if the government had wanted to solve this problem; if the government had respected all partners, including teachers; if the government had sat down with teachers and started rebuilding that relationship. But sadly, that didn't happen, and here we are today.

B.C. parents, B.C. taxpayers, expect the government to work with teachers, not against them, to improve education for our children. When I was a school trustee in Greater Victoria…. As most people in locally elected office know, it doesn't matter where you spend your time…. It doesn't matter whether you're out grocery shopping or you're spending some time with your own children, you get stopped by people in your community. That happened often in the 11 years that I served as an elected school trustee. The issue that I most often was asked about was how to improve supports for students who are falling through the cracks in our school system. Those questions came from teachers, from parents and from students themselves.

I had a letter that came from a constituent in my riding, a grade 12 student who's in high school and who wrote an impassioned plea about improving the education system. He acknowledged that he's moving from the system. He'll graduate this year. He's managed to make it through the system, but this grade 12 student took some time to write a letter to me as his local MLA because he felt concerned for students coming after him.

He felt concerned because he saw in his 13 years of school that the system had deteriorated. He was concerned that in grade 12 he didn't have a textbook for every student in his classroom. He was concerned that he saw students who, if they'd had a little bit of extra support — from a learning-assistance teacher, from a school librarian, from someone who had some time to spend with him — wouldn't have fallen through the cracks.

What's sad about this entire situation is that this is about students. This is about improving the lives of students, making sure that every student has an opportunity to excel, that every student has an opportunity not only to complete high school but to go on to a productive life. That's very difficult to do if we don't support the people who stand in front of those children every single day in classrooms in our province.

This government has let parents and children down. If we take a look at the record of this government over the last four years, we've seen 2,500 teaching positions cut. We've seen 113 schools closed. We saw education funding frozen for three years. We saw downloading of costs onto school boards, and I want to talk just a minute about that issue.

I've often heard the government talking about the increase in education funding and the fact that school boards have made choices to look at closing schools and at reducing programs and services. When the gov-

ernment increased education funding, they also downloaded costs onto school boards. In downloading those costs, they did not include the funding to cover those costs. That's why decisions were made by many school boards around this province.

No one runs for school board to close a school. No one runs for school board to eliminate a teacher-librarian from a school library. At a time when information technology is more and more important, teacher-librarians play a critical role in our education system. At a time when I hear the Premier and others in government talking about the need for literacy, talking about how important literacy is to our province…. At that time, we saw teacher-librarians being cut in school districts; we saw libraries opening without library books and without teacher-librarians. That's no commitment to literacy.

I think it's important to acknowledge the additional costs and pressures that have been put on school boards who have made many of the decisions because of those downloaded costs, so I want to take a minute again just to talk about why we're here, why we're at this place. I started off by talking about leadership, and I want to close off by talking about leadership.

Leadership, as I said earlier, is about facing challenges and looking for solutions. Leadership is about making sure that you do everything you can to resolve the problem you are facing. This government had an opportunity. They had an opportunity to be able to sit down across the table from the teachers to talk about issues that matter to the students in our province — things like class size, support for students with special needs, teacher-librarians. Instead, they gave up on that opportunity. They turned down that offer.

The teachers made it very clear that they, in fact, would put aside their progressive job action if they saw progress occurring at that table. But the government didn't acknowledge that. They wouldn't sit down, they wouldn't have a discussion, and they wouldn't put students first. It's a sad day that we're here today to see a government bringing in a forced agreement on teachers when there was an opportunity to resolve the problem. It's a sad day for the students in our province, Madam Speaker.

N. Macdonald: I join with my colleagues here to speak strongly against this bill.

Before we begin, I'll just give you some background, some context for what I'm going to say. I've come here as a principal. I was the principal of Nicholson Elementary School just south of Golden. I've had 20 years as a teacher and a very short time as a teaching assistant. I share an experience with most people here in that I am a parent with students in the system. I've taught in other provinces; I've taught in other countries. I have a lot of experience in terms of talking about this issue.

Now, I'm not going to tell you that teaching is the toughest job in the world. I want to be clear on that. I've sat in hockey dressing rooms where people were talking about their jobs, and I've never been tempted, on those occasions, to say that I had the most difficult job. There were fallers out in camp all the time. There were people selling real estate that had to sell every single day. It was always a job that was good to me and good to my family.

Having said that, it is a difficult job, and it is a really important job. I think I could look around the chamber, and pretty well everyone has shared this experience. The experience I'll tell you about is one I witnessed last year. I was, like I said, a principal at a small school. I taught in a grade seven class halftime, and across the hall was the kindergarten room.

Sheila Nystruk was the kindergarten teacher who looked after that class. The first day, when you saw parents, grandparents and foster parents bringing kids in to drop them off and leave them with this woman, you had a sense that probably at that moment, for those parents or grandparents, it was the most important job.

Sheila Nystruk remains a brilliant teacher. She had met with the students in the summer. She had spent weeks in the summer getting the classroom perfect. She had memorized the students' names. As the year unfolded, you could just see the amount of care she had put into preparing for the year. She was there to hug them when they had falls or when somebody said something to hurt them. She was there to teach them in a systematic way a very difficult thing, which is how to work within a group, how to share. She would call me in at special moments when a student would make that connection between sounds they were practising and a letter on the piece of paper.

It is an important job. Those of you who have children know you are giving them to people that you want to treat your children in the same way you would treat them, to be careful with what you say and to push them to be their best. As a principal, then, what I saw as my job was to put them in a setting where they could excel. If you give the teachers a proper setting, they will be able to do the job that they need to do. If you do not give them the resources, if you do not give them the right composition of class, it makes it much more difficult. Very clearly, I felt my job was to make sure they were able to do their job.

The first thing I want to talk about — and there are three things I'm going to talk about that relate to this bill — is around learning conditions. That was something the government did not want to speak to teachers about, but learning conditions are a key to effective education. What I can tell you from my own teaching is that when you are in front of a class, you really want to do your best. You wouldn't be there if you did not want that class to be a success.

I can also tell you that with certain situations, this is more possible than with others. The number of students you have in a class has an impact, the composition of the class, the support that you have.

The last class that I taught, I can honestly say…. Maybe Donna Mozell is out there; I had special ed sup-

port. If she had not been there, there are certain students who would have been very poorly served. It would have been just physically impossible for me to deal with them. I tried to keep the standards of the school as high as possible, but it became increasingly difficult.

I just want to talk to you a little bit about the challenges. First off, the $150 million that came with, I guess, the budget in February was most welcome. Before that, our school district was under tremendous strain. We were starting to talk about going from five days of schooling to four. I know that's not uncommon in the province, but most of us in our area thought that would be a very negative step. I feel strongly that it is. So it acted as a buffer, or it slowed down the process that many teachers see, which is a system consistently getting worse.

I'll just talk about a few things related to funding. It's true that the number of students provincewide and in our area are down. That's true. The amount of money that is given per student is up. That is true. But there is a third factor, and that is the cost of education. The cost of education has gone up, and that increase is greater than the amount per student that was put up by the government.

With the contract — that was part of it — imposed on teachers the last time around, but also with MSP costs and fuel costs, pretty well every school district in this province was put in a bind. What we did at a school level and as a district was to try to maintain class-size levels. We tried to keep the support that we needed, but everything else pretty well had to be cut. It meant closing eight schools in the riding that I represent. That is physically what happened: eight schools cut. Then we had cost savings around maintenance. But you can only cut maintenance for so long. You can only cut so far into cleaning before you run into difficulties.

The fact is that when teachers are talking about learning conditions and about the minimum standards that they need, these are important discussions as to the calibre of care that you're going to give to the students — your ability to really teach them and to get the excellent education that we all want. The government created a crisis there.

Now we have a full-page ad in all of the newspapers, and it says this: "The province believes that even one day of class lost is too long." But there are school districts that lose that one day every week. There are school districts that go four instead of five days. In Africa we went five days. For centuries here in Canada, I think, we went for five days. We don't choose to go four days. If you are paying to go to a private school, would you accept that you were going to pay the same amount and go for four days instead of five, or would you be concerned about that? To say that every lost day is crucial…. I agree with that, but it comes back to the funding. It comes back to the learning conditions that you're going to give to students.

Next is around respect. My two daughters went through the school system. The people who they came into contact with, the people who touched their lives were people like Dew Seward. Dew was a kindergarten teacher for my eldest. Dropping her off with Dew was something that was difficult for my wife, but she did an excellent job looking after her. Over the years, Patina Chaluck with my second youngest. Laurie MacDougall. Ben Wiggins. Colette Cottrell. These are people who actually made a difference to my children's lives. They are the ones that allow you to have an excellent school system.

Superintendent Anita Ure has just recently retired. She was a superb administrator — and before that, a superb teacher. I was going out for a jog, and I met a neighbour who last year worked with me as a teaching assistant. We were talking about Anita and the fact that she'd retired. Polly had gone to the dinner, and she was interested in talking about Anita. She said that Anita was a fantastic administrator and a fantastic manager of the school system. Polly said: "The essence of her ability came down to the fact that she always treated everyone with respect. You know, she would come into a building and talk to everyone in the same way that we would talk to her as the superintendent." I always found the same thing. We would have disagreements, but I never had the impression that she didn't listen or that she didn't value my experience.

I was working on a master's degree in educational management recently, and we were required to read books, of course. These books in one course in particular were around educational management, so we read books on educational management and on management technique in general. All of them had much the same theme: how you get the most out of your employees. If you're serious about trying to have an excellent school system, you listen to your employees, you empower them, and above all, you treat them with respect.

I was also talking to the member for Skeena. In his past life he was an executive. Well, he was in management with Four Seasons. Now, Four Seasons is probably the top chain of hotels in the world. I think it's a Canadian chain. I asked him: "What makes Four Seasons the top hotel chain in the world? Why do they have that reputation?" His answer was simple: "It's customer service." So the next question is: "Well, how do you get excellent customer service?" He said: "Treat your employees with respect. Make sure that your actions match up with your words. It's as simple as that."

Now, no educator wants disruption, but this government really has no idea about how to get the best out of the employees that are providing education. You ask the question: "Have they provided the learning conditions that allow them to excel?" I think anybody who is involved in the classroom would say no, and if given the opportunity to talk about it, there would be negotiations that would allow them to set a minimum set of standards so that they could be successful. If you asked them if they'd been treated respectfully, they would very clearly say no.

Teachers do not want disruption. Nobody wants disruption to the school. If they are contemplating that, it has to do with the fact that something is very seriously wrong within the system.

There has been a series of very disrespectful statements from this government. It goes back to Christy Clark. Christy Clark would almost constantly make comments that were dismissive and diminish what teachers do. The standard hasn't hit that low since, but overall, the government is seen as uncaring to educators. This bill will do nothing to change that. It is just seen as one more sign of disrespect, of being unconcerned about what teachers are trying to say about learning conditions, about a lack of respect for the job that they do.

I would put it to you: if I were to ask people in my area what they thought the government's priorities were and to listen to them, they would not put education as one of the priorities they believe this government has. So despite all of the money that is spent on the five-great-goals propaganda, it presumes a tremendous stupidity that is simply not there. People know that this is not the priority of this government.

You know, I think the idea of making B.C. the most literate province is a noble one and one that we should aim to attain. But if we're going to do that, there has to be a change in approach. That approach…. I mean, it is certainly possible. If you took the time as government, as the Minister of Labour or the Minister of Education, to sit down with the BCTF or the teachers' representatives, this is not a difficult one to solve. If you do not, you put us through another year of ill feeling and potential disruption. I think most British Columbians would ask themselves what the barrier is here.

The Minister of Labour talked about 35 meetings, but very clearly, the process is the third problem, and it's a problem because of this. It is a problem because there has not been one of those 35 meetings where there was genuine negotiation. The government set a position at the beginning, having removed learning conditions. The teachers know our problem. You've removed that, and you've made the classroom situation worse, so teachers have an obligation to talk about that. I would be very disappointed if they did not push for those things. They should.

If you're not going to talk about that — if government says that's not on the table — what is left? I guess wages, but that's going to be zero-zero-zero, and that's set. You've had 35 meetings that teachers have come to, but there has been no real discussion. Around that process, the refusal by the government to have real negotiations is a problem — from the beginning, no negotiations.

It is very difficult to not believe that it was the plan from the beginning. There seems to be a pattern, and I hope I haven't become cynical yet, of rewarding friends — we saw that with the budget — and punishing those who were seen as the enemies. How it came to be that teachers would be seen as the enemies to government is a very sad state of affairs. But as government, it should be incumbent upon you to take the first step to repair that. There is plenty of opportunity here. There is an opportunity to meet, to have genuine discussions, to talk about things that are real and very important and to come to a solution that works for everyone.

Full-page news ads ready to go, full of selected facts, twisted facts — I don't think they help the situation. I know they don't. It just makes a workforce see that it's being treated in a cynical and manipulative way.

Further to the process, I think a lot of people are offended by the process that seems to be similar to many others that went on over the last four years. There's arrogance. There is doing something regardless of the public concerns that are raised. There's the use of propaganda and confusing information. You're probably not the first government to do that. I know that you'll jump up and say that, but I don't know that that's a proper excuse.

What we want is to continually improve, and what we want is to make things better. You know, when I look at how seniors in our communities were treated, I look at issues in the environment, the lack of any process that is fair or balanced…. There's no question that people are bound to feel cynical about what's going on.

I would say, over all, people in B.C. want this dispute settled. They don't want it left to stew for another year or more. The Minister of Education should sit down and talk to the people that she depends upon to provide excellent education. They should sit down and find a solution.

Education has been my life. I lived for six years in countries with little in the way of a public education system. The country in Africa I last taught in had 2 percent of females graduate from secondary school. There's a bumper sticker that says: "If you think education's expensive, you should try the cost of ignorance." There's a real dramatic truth to that. I mean, it sounds trite if it's a bumper sticker, but the reality is true. With only 2 percent of females able to get a secondary education, there are issues around empowerment for females. There are issues around how you do public health. What potential have you lost?

This government was given a system that was superb. I think it still is excellent, but it's a system that you cannot be reckless with. There are people that are sincerely trying to tell you what can make the system better. Very often the learning conditions are dismissed as something that is restrictive. There's no question that there is an expense attached to adequate learning conditions. It's true. Education is costly, but if you are serious about having an education system that is superb, then you have to listen to the people that are providing the service. I don't know how else it can work.

The three things. The learning conditions — make sure they're to the standard that is needed. That is something that could be talked about.

Secondly, around respect. I have seen it work in no place where you are not willing to talk and listen respectfully to others. Like I said, in pretty well every book that I've read on it, with pretty well every experience that I've had with people who manage who I feel are excellent, there has been that element of respect and a lack of arrogance, a willingness to listen to what somebody who's actually doing the job says and to garner their experience and make things better.

Finally, have a genuine process. We have not had a genuine process. The move to impose a bill looks very much like something that had been decided long ago. It looks heavy-handed. It looks arrogant to me. I don't see how that is in character for Canadians to do that. It looks to me more reckless than it is bold. Above everything, just realize that it's a precious system that you've been handed.

I would also encourage you to just begin the conversations with teachers to try to renew that relationship. You know, when is the last time a Minister of Education has actually gone and talked to the BCTF? I don't know that answer, but I ask: when is the last time that the Minister of Education went and talked to the BCTF? I'm sure that others…. The minister of mining goes….

Just like the minister of mining would go and meet with them, it's just a natural thing. When is the last time the minister went to the AGM and talked? Those sorts of things. Then begin the conversations, going into classrooms, listening carefully to what they say and having a discussion over this bill, over what makes a school system strong.

In closing, this bill should be pulled. I think a more competent approach would be to involve both sides in the discussion. I feel very confident that that is what the people of British Columbia want and would expect from you. To me, it just seems the reasonable and correct approach.

Deputy Speaker: Could I just remind members, please, to address their remarks through the Chair.

R. Fleming: Today, I think, is truly a sad day for this Legislature, because it reminds us of how inept government has been in "moving us forward to a new era of government-teacher relations."

There's supposed to be a relationship of respect, of productive, cooperative responsibility to advance the achievement and learning of our children. I couldn't help but think about how poor the timing was earlier today when the member for Vancouver-Burrard made a statement about anti-bullying programs in the Vancouver school board. The member remarked on how we must teach a conflict-resolution approach to our children so that we can root out unfair behaviour in our society. How right he is, and how right our school boards are for pursuing those efforts right across the province.

But today we have a lesson from the government to students across British Columbia. While teaching professionals, administrators and the parent volunteers have been working to create lesson plans and to create a culture in our school systems that values dialogue, that places value on reaching compromise and that, most importantly, values respect, we have a group in this House who undermine those very efforts in all of our communities through their very action, through this bill, through the use of legislative hammers.

After a year and a half of unwillingness to even allow discussion on very basic teaching and learning conditions — and yes, on salaries, other than zero and zero…. To talk about salaries like everybody else does, like they do in the private sector and in every industry across British Columbia and across Canada and in every country in the world that believes in free and fair collective bargaining…. They talk about salaries, Madam Speaker.

Teachers should have the right to talk about special resources for libraries or teaching assistants, to talk about additional resources for children with special needs, because they teach them. Those are the working conditions that teachers learn in, and those are the learning conditions that parents place their children in.

The government's actions, in fact, are yet another example of government by imposition and bully tactics, despite the programs that we're trying to teach in our schools across B.C., and they threaten to tear apart what is one of the best public education systems in the world. Apparently, unfortunately, this government would rather dictate than negotiate.

How about teaching our children about the importance of being honest and forthright? We try and teach our children about the importance of being accountable for our actions, about taking responsibility for what we do, for what we say, to live up to those responsibilities that we have to each other. Those are values that we all try to provide to our kids. We teach them that because we want them to grow up to be good people, to be good citizens that fully participate in the life of their society.

I couldn't help but notice again the difference between these values that we put resources into, that we put serious effort into in all of our communities…. I couldn't help but notice the difference between these values that we put resources into teaching and the display that we had in question period today.

You know, it was a great performance by a minister in evasion, in ducking responsibility, about not using clear language or being forthright in disclosure. I wish the minister had actually been candid once in the 20 opportunities that she had to answer questions about how much the government's advertising campaign is costing taxpayers and parents — most importantly parents, parent taxpayers in British Columbia.

School trustees from around the province, including our own greater Victoria school board in my riding,

have urged this government time and time again to sit down with the teachers, to seriously negotiate the matters that are an issue, which we're discussing here today.

When the fact-finder says that the two parties have not been able to agree on a single issue in 35 meetings, this is an indictment of this government's failure to address basic issues that are at the heart of this dispute, basic issues that — I'm sorry, to the other members on the other side of the House — include class size. They do.

Just saying that the bargaining system is broken, hiding behind that, is of no help to this situation. People have been saying this for years. That's not an original line. It's nothing new. What is needed is political will to address issues that at least have the chance of resulting in a fair settlement for teachers and the province, for both parties. Unfortunately, the political will is lacking on that side of the House.

What's at stake here is the morale and the conditions under which our teachers work, and the government's actions, unfortunately, do nothing but undermine this. Imposing an outcome, not negotiating one — imposing, not negotiating — says to our teachers: "We do not respect you." This worries me considerably when I look and see the remarkable things that our teachers do every day in classrooms in my constituency and, I know, in the fellow members' constituencies in the schools which they represent. It happens every day.

In my constituency, I want to give some examples of some of the schools where teachers play an important part in raising good citizens out of our children, in putting in time and energy and going above and beyond, every single day, the call of duty of their profession.

Quadra school. It's an inner-city school. It's an amazing place — it's a low-income school; these students come from very challenged backgrounds — where more than 40 students have been inspired by teachers to play in a strings program. They take up music, develop their talents. The gift of music, something they probably wouldn't be able to do in their own homes, and we know that directly leads to improving student achievement. It's teachers putting it in day in and day out, going above and beyond, that helps students achieve much more than what perhaps life wanted to give them.

I look at the amazing efforts being made to improve success rates for our aboriginal students, and indeed the steps that our school board, working with others, has taken at George Jay school in my constituency where we now have an all-day kindergarten program for first nations kids. They've made it happen through the challenges and the lack of resources. They've made that happen.

I look at the passion and the commitment of our teachers at Cloverdale Elementary school in my constituency — the commitment to early literacy programs. I know that's one of the great goals of the golden decade. Well, here's how it happens on the ground. At Cloverdale Elementary school, teachers on their volunteer time organized one of the best readathon programs in the province. It gets kids excited about literacy. It actually connects teachers with students, and it encourages parents to read at home with their kids after school.

More examples in the schools that I represent. I watched with amazement last year when I was a city councillor that our teachers not only talk the talk but they walk the walk on issues of global social responsibility. They encourage. They worked with students who saw the images from around the world to spearhead a campaign. They raised over $80,000 — these kids who come from very modest backgrounds — for Asian tsunami relief, for people in other parts of the world that had even less than they do in this country.

I also watched students over two years ago — students, parents and, again, teachers — taking the lead in the convening of a number of forums around crystal meth. That was two years ago. They were two years ahead of the Premier and his interest in the issue and the task force. It started at our schools, the places where it's most likely to succeed. It happened because teachers were there working with parents and students to start that dialogue.

Vic High is a wonderful high school. It has an amazing past. It's the oldest school in western Canada, as a matter of fact. It has phenomenal staff working there who are dedicated to helping our students become engaged citizens of this society. Just recently, the teachers of Vic High walked alongside of students all night, around the school grounds and around the school building, to raise hundreds of dollars for cancer research. You know, students at that high school are watching this debacle unravel. They were newly back at school in September. They're looking at their learning environments in their classrooms, and they're not seeing the smaller class sizes that the government said would be there when they stripped class size requirements out of collective agreements. They're not seeing that.

I'll quote one student who was interviewed by a reporter, grade 12 student Lonny MacLarren at Vic High — who said, by the way, that she supports her teachers. She said: "It isn't pretty being in a classroom of 38 students, let me tell you, and I'm glad that teachers are looking out for the size of their classes. I hope they look out for us."

Teachers are and remain dedicated to students. They're passionate in their desire for them to succeed. I've given you examples of how they go above and beyond, how they work extra hours, organize extracurricular activities, work with parents, work with volunteers, work with the community centres and agencies and networks. You know, they actually have three or four jobs, it would seem, in society — not just teaching the skills in the class time but much, much more than that.

Going back to Vic High, I want to read the goals that students there have set out for the 2005-2006

school year. Goal number one was to reduce the dropout rate at Victoria High School. What a fantastic goal for the students to set: to look out for one another, to keep each other in school so that people get through. Goal number two was to continue focusing on improving student achievement, on formal assessments of their learning. I suspect the administrators might have helped form that goal, but there it is. Goal number three was to continue focusing on improving student attendance.

That's the spirit our students have that our teachers work with every day in classrooms, not just in my constituency, but around British Columbia. You know, the reality is that the government has failed in its promise that class sizes will be taken care of through legislation and that we don't need it in collective agreements with our teachers. They have.

I want to read a letter from a teacher that was printed recently in the local paper by Christopher Parker who's a teacher in Victoria. He says:

Our teachers, too, need support. If we, as a province, want to create a culture and an environment that allows and encourages our teachers to work the magic that they do with our children, then we have to treat them fairly and, as importantly, with respect. They need to know they are respected, that the public, through our government, are there to back them for the kinds of things they do every day.

The government seems to have great difficulty in grasping this. You know, they hide behind the disingenuous and really lethargic rhetoric of saying: "Bargaining is broken. There's nothing we can do. It's not our fault. It's been happening for 15 years. It's somebody else's fault. We'll do another report. We'll legislate teachers for two more years and, in the meantime, we'll pretend we're looking for new avenues to change this broken situation."

Well, they've had four years, and they've done very little, actually. People are starting to figure this out — that this is the government's preferred way of dealing with the looming teachers' contracts every time. I don't expect the House to take my word for it entirely, so I brought a letter from a former Liberal campaign manager who also shares the views that teachers are being disrespected and that this government contributes greatly to the broken system of collective bargaining.

Sorry. Why does the Minister of Education…? I'm reading a direct letter here, so I'm sorry, Madam Speaker, to name the member.

You know, the government is, I believe, very insincere in this defensive "blame others" position that it clings to, that it's hiding behind. They've not made a real attempt to fix bargaining here. It's interesting. Other provinces conclude collective agreements voluntarily all the time. Why is B.C. so different? I'd suggest to you, Madam Speaker, that it's because this government actually enjoys confrontation, values it more than compromise.

Let's look at how we got to where we got to today — the 35 meetings that the minister has referred to that didn't resolve a single issue. Well, is it any wonder? There was nothing on the table, no possibility for even the slightest of salary increases, number one, and most importantly, no possibility to address anything to do with teaching and learning conditions at the table — not permitted.

There were even suggestions — and this would have been very innovative had the government bothered to even pursue it — of having a parallel table that looked at teaching and learning conditions, that worked with the ministry on how to change policy there, how to improve both teaching and learning conditions and take it away from the back and forth and the toing and froing and — well, there wasn't much giving; there was plenty of taking — the give and take that normally one has in bargaining on the salary and benefits issues. But that was not pursued. I think we know why, and maybe other members will speak to that later.

This government thrives on conflict in most of its dealings with stakeholders in our province, not just teachers. We know that. I think people are starting to figure out that this government uses conflict in a very political, very cynical way. Perhaps it believes that it polls well, that it will win votes from parents. I think they're wrong, but it must be. That is, I think, part of the thinking that we're encountering here, the intransigence. They think that it's politically smart to have parents and students in a state of anxiety across the province, because they're not talking. They're not making even an effort to compromise. On the government side, the negotiators have their hands tied behind their backs, because they can't put money on the table. They can't put teaching and learning conditions on the table, or benefit improvements — nothing. I'm not even sure that fits the Webster's definition of "negotiation."

I don't think the government understands that by refusing to negotiate with teachers, refusing to give school trustees, bargaining agents the proper authority to do so…. I'm not sure this government understands the message it's sending to our teachers — the message that we do not respect you — but that message is being received loud and clear by tens of thousands of teachers across this province, I can tell you. You know, it says that even though we count on you…. This is a government basically saying that even though we count on you to inspire our kids every day, we're not going to even give you the courtesy of sitting down to discuss issues of importance like class size. That's the message that's being sent.

How can this government possibly think that in treating our teachers in a very cavalier fashion that they can maintain and enhance a positive environment for our teachers and for our kids? How can they think that? It doesn't work that way. That's not how it works in real life.

This proposed legislation is not about the breathing space the Minister of Labour claims that it is. This legislation, just being imposed against the will of teachers far away from the bargaining table, is about destroying trust, about destroying respect between teachers and government.

I'm sure that many of the members, perhaps the hon. Speaker herself, have seen the film A Beautiful Mind, a very interesting film about a mathematician-physicist who explores game theory and the theory of bargaining. He's obsessed with why parties can't seem to resolve differences in life and why, mathematically and otherwise, winning is seen to be at the expense of one of the two parties — why both can't win together. He contemplates that two parties actually can resolve an outcome positively, but the ingredient that must be involved in order to do so is respect. Without it, without respect between the two parties, there's mistrust that the other parties only act in their own self-interest, that they don't hear, they don't listen, and they're not compelled to respond and perhaps compromise so that both parties can go away winners with some satisfaction.

I began by saying that we have one of the best public education systems in the world. But let's not forget that it's a very, very fragile system. It's a system that is built upon a foundation of trust and respect. Most of all — and I wish the government side of the House would acknowledge it through its actions, not just through its words — the foundation for this fragile system is built upon the dedication of our teachers. That's what it's built upon. This legislation undermines this very foundation. It attacks the heart of what is fundamental to a successful public education system, and for that reason the legislation must be withdrawn.

L. Krog: We're assembled here today to debate the second reading of Bill 12, which has the most interesting explanatory note. It says: "This Bill settles the dispute between the British Columbia Teachers' Federation and the British Columbia Public School Employers' Association and provides for the constitution of a collective agreement between the parties." Some dispute and some settlement.

We are here today debating this legislation because four years ago this government started its term with a ridiculous tax break largely directed at corporations that didn't need it and wealthier British Columbians who didn't require it. The seeds of all of that have resulted in this: a government that now boasts a surplus but is refusing to use that surplus to properly fund one of its most fundamental responsibilities to the people of British Columbia, and that is to provide for public education for all of its citizens. That's why we're here today. There is no other reason.

To top it off — to rub salt in the wound of the cuts this government has made to education, to the underfunding of education — in this year's budget we have another corporate tax break so rich that even the business community of Vancouver, which this government seems solely interested in serving, was surprised at its magnitude and beyond speechless in its gratitude.

What's the result of this? I've got a note here today. It's from a teacher, and what she's going to describe is a situation that occurred in a classroom in this province this day. At 11 a.m. a teacher was sent to emergency. A special needs student that did not have an assigned teaching aide for that time period pulled the teacher's chair out from under her as she was about to sit down. That teacher is now in hospital. That incident hap-

We talk about valuing our young people. We talk about valuing our children. We talk about valuing public education. The Minister of Labour introduced this bill with a heavy heart.

What is happening in the classrooms of British Columbia across this province demonstrates most clearly that this government doesn't care. It only cared about giving tax breaks that weren't needed. It only cares about attacking the very people in this province whom we have entrusted our children to on a daily basis, year after year, to ensure that they have some opportunity to participate fully in the public life, the economic life and the social life of this great province.

After a year and half of bargaining, the result is this bill, designed to settle this dispute. The member for Victoria-Hillside said it so well: for four years this government has had an opportunity to solve the problem in bargaining in this province — four long years. And what do we have? Do we have a solution? We have a bill that is an anathema to public bargaining in this province. It is an anathema to collective bargaining in this province.

It is another example of this government's failed labour policies, another example of this government's failure to meet the agenda that it set for itself in 2001 and has now expanded into — what is it again? — the golden decade. Oh, the golden decade. We're going to hear a lot about that in the next four years.

I hear the clapping of the members on the other side of the House, and I'm just delighted to hear that they're actually listening for a change. Perhaps if they'd listened to the electorate in the springtime, we wouldn't be here today debating this bill. They would have understood that the people of British Columbia wanted something better. They wanted a government that actually cared and listened.

L. Krog: One of the members says: "Who won?" I'm not sure who won, in some respects, but I can guarantee you who lost. It was the students of British Columbia, and that's why we're here today.

I'm the son of a teacher. I understand that the member for Powell River–Sunshine Coast is the son of two teachers. When my mother started teaching in the public school system in this province in the 1930s, she got respect. She got respect. What she was doing was important. She was teaching in school district 69.

I want to tell the House a little story. Those of you who have had the benefit of going to beautiful Qualicum Beach to holiday or to visit friends will be familiar with the Old School House Gallery. It's a wonderful building. It has a magnificent façade. It was built in the teens of the last century. It's not a pedestrian-looking public edifice. It's a very attractive public edifice, and why is that so? Because of a singular woman who sat on the school board in those days and insisted, notwithstanding what were regarded as tough economic times, that the school board build a school that looked, as she said, important, so that when children walked through the doors of that building, they would see an important structure, and they would understand that what was occurring in that building was important.

What happens in our classrooms across this province every day is important. What the teachers of this province do for us is important. What the support staff who work with them do is important. What the school trustees of this province do is important. It is not important to give another tax break of $150 million in the next year for the corporations of this province and then turn to the teachers of this province and say: "Zero, zero, zero and back to work with nothing."

Over time in this province, somewhere along the way, we started to disrespect education and the teachers who work in our public school system. Somewhere along the way my mother, who I realize now was a pretty big cheese in a very small place, where I grew up in Coombs…. Suddenly, her position wasn't as important anymore. Over time, teachers became the whipping dog for various governments, particularly former Social Credit governments. I must say that in that horrible grand tradition of the so-called pseudo-Liberal party, they have become and remain the whipping dogs for that party as well.

What good has it achieved for any of us? What good has it achieved? I ask you: are we better off because we send our children to school, because we expect so much of our public school system? Yet the very people who, as I said earlier, we've entrusted our children to on a daily basis — are we better off because our government doesn't respect them, because our government won't bargain with them?

Let's not pretend it's the British Columbia Public School Employers Association that's doing the bargaining. Let's not pretend. In politics, I'm beginning to believe that the first victim is truth. The truth is: it's this government that sets the agenda. It is this government that provides the funding. Quite frankly, if I were a school trustee in this province, I'd probably be pretty frustrated with my position.

Somewhere along the way we lost the sense of the value of public education. You know, when W.A.C. Bennett was the Premier of this province, teachers got decent pay. They built a brand-new instant university on the top of Burnaby Mountain. W.A.C. Bennett understood. He understood the value of public education. I want to say that I suspect there are numerous members in this House today listening to me speak who wouldn't have been here today if there hadn't been public education — high-quality public education — available in British Columbia.

We weren't all born with a silver spoon in our mouths, or in some cases, perhaps, a silver foot. What enabled us to come this far was public education.

When we say to teachers in this province, "You're not worthy of being paid decent wages," when we say to the public education system, "You're not worthy of being a priority. The tax cuts are more important," let us not pretend it is just the teachers who are listening to that message. Let us not pretend it is a narrow segment of the public that's listening to that message. It is our children. It is the future of our society.

William Wordsworth once so eloquently said: "The Child is father of the Man." The child is father of the man: the experiences children have in their youth and in their infancy determine what kind of adults they will become. If they have learned to believe that public education isn't important, imagine what kind of society we're going to create here in British Columbia: dog-eat-dog, every person for themselves, no one caring about their neighbours. Do we want to develop a society that has a sense of community, or don't we?

What we are doing here today is profound, because it is a further example of this government's consistent policy with respect to working people in this province, whether they be professions like teachers, or whether they be nurses, doctors or HEU workers. It is a consistent policy that says that public services are not to be valued, that those who work in the public service are not to be valued and that which the public service provides to all of us is not to be valued. I say that is absolutely shameful.

Those of us on this side of the House respect the people who provide public services in this province. We respect the people who work in our public education system. What troubles me most is that I suspect every member opposite must have had at least one, two, three, four or five teachers in their experience who had a profound impact on their lives — people who they respected, people who inspired them.

I had a teacher who wrote…. I can remember the words to this day. The House will forgive this personal indulgence, I'm sure. In grade four she wrote: "Leonard is showing a marked interest in reading 'good books.'"

Deputy Speaker: Member, just a reminder. Personal, individual names are not to be used, even your own.

L. Krog: Well, she didn't say the member for Nanaimo, hon. Speaker, but I'll take the remark.

The point of this is that I remember those remarks, and I won't say how many decades ago it was.

There were many others. There was Mr. Ellman, who was the table tennis champion of South Africa. Unfortunately, Mr. Ellman lived in an apartheid society. Mr. Ellman's ethnic background was Indian.

There was Ruby Scott, who once so eloquently said that when anyone got out of line in a classroom…. What did they know a thousand years ago? Who were they to be arrogant? Their ancestors could have been gnawing bones in the German high forest. Mrs. Scott knew how to shut down kids in a classroom. There was Mr. McMurray. He and his wife had been missionaries in China for decades. It was Gerald "Pop" Roberts who taught me everything I ever wanted to know about English literature. These were people who had a significant impact on my life, and I know that each and every member in this House can repeat stories in a similar vain.

We had in my high school a future teachers club. I don't think schools have those things anymore. Why don't they have them? Is it because no one wants to be a teacher? Well, that's pretty much what is coming back to us as members on this side of the House from the people we talk to in the teaching profession, from our constituents.

Going into public education is not what it used to be. We know that 40 percent of teachers who start teaching stop in the first five years. What does that tell the government and what should it tell this government about public education in this province and the state of public education?

You cannot continue to demonize those who teach our children. Let us not pretend for a moment in this House that this has anything to do with the public interest. This has to do with payback time to the BCTF for running a campaign against this government in the last election, trying to encourage people to make public education a priority when they were thinking about who they were going to vote for. That's what this is more about.

When the minister in this House, like some lesser Paul of Tarsus, indicates that somehow this government had an epiphany on the road to Damascus the other day and figured out, only as a result of the Connolly report, that the bargaining system had broken down…. I must say that I find it stretches credulity just a little bit, particularly when now, today, we know that the extensive advertising campaign — which has even reached into my pleasant burg, Nanaimo — was all ready to go and in the can and out there in the public eye. So let us not pretend for a moment that the Connolly report somehow influenced this government into making its decisions around this bill that we debate today. It had everything to do with the continuing attack on public education.

The Minister of Education, earlier today, in question period, proudly talked about 1,600 new teachers. She called them professionals, even — not just teachers, professionals. Now, there's a kind term for people you demonized for the last four years. What did this government do in the last four years? They were responsible for cutting no fewer than 2,500 teachers out of the public education system in this province. They closed no fewer than 113 schools, and now, in 2005, they expect us to clap and cheer because they've put a few more million dollars back into public education and turned to the teachers and said: "Aren't we good? We're going to hire a few more of you this year. Oh, but by the way, it'll be zero-zero-and-zero once again." Frankly, it just stretches one's mind.

What have the results of all of this been? In Nanaimo, cleanliness in the schools — basic cleanli-

ness…. I spoke to a teacher today who tells me that the custodian who comes to clean her room has 12 minutes to do so — 12 minutes. Now, I don't know what the quality of cleanliness is in everyone's house back home, but where I come from, 12 minutes to clean a classroom might be seen as somewhat short of the necessary mark. The desks don't get dusted, notwithstanding that we know young children in particular aren't terribly cognizant of cleanliness and germs. We know that the windows are dirty. Mind you, that might suit this government. The last thing we'd want to do is let a little light in on the state of public education in this province. Somebody might actually see that, despite the much-vaunted talk of the golden decade, we're not getting what we're paying for.

When we fail to fund public education, we fail ourselves. We fail our children, and we fail the responsibilities entrusted to us as members of this House. This government, more than any other government in living memory in this province, should realize the mistakes and simply fess up — acknowledge that they shouldn't have given those tax breaks, that they should be funding education properly, that it is not sufficient in British Columbia to have teacher-librarians reduced by 23.4 percent.

How can you talk about literacy in this House with a straight face? How can you talk about it with a straight face when you've cut teacher-librarians by nearly 25 percent? You can't. You can't if you have an ounce of credibility.

In Nanaimo, in the school that Ellen Ellis works at, she's got textbooks that are eight years old. They have been used, of course, if you do the math, by no less than 16 students now. Can you imagine the state of those textbooks? They have a library that I believe they have — what is it? — 0.6 per week, and the rest of the time the library is closed. I don't know if the other side is listening, but I want you to imagine a school where you can't go into the library.

You talk about literacy, and you can't get into the library. Even the members of this House keep the Legislative Library open all through the session, even though many of us never bother to go there, unfortunately. Perhaps if some of the members of this House did go there once in a while, they might appreciate the value of libraries.

In Nanaimo, I've got to tell you, the teachers aren't very happy that the students they are responsible for can't get into the library. Is it too much to ask this government to maybe claw back a little bit of next year's corporate tax break, actually put some books in the libraries and open them up so that every student who attends school in this province can get into the library during normal school hours? Is that too much to ask?

I suspect it is. I suspect that when this debate is finished, this government will jam this bill through. It will force the teachers back. It will take away their rights to bargain collectively, and it will not care. It will not care. This government will do what it wants, because it has a majority, notwithstanding what it should have learned in the last election, notwithstanding that it will continue to run this province for the narrow interests that it has always represented.

I'm surprised, when this government has been given this tremendous opportunity by the state of the world's economy, by the virtue of the prices for natural resources, that instead of not seizing that opportunity for the public good, it has chosen to turn a blind eye to public education, to the teachers of our province, and instead to fund a further corporate tax break.

This government has an opportunity to fulfil its grandiose talk of a golden decade, of building the most literate society in the world. It has that opportunity, and instead what we get is more rhetoric. We get confrontation — constant confrontation.

The member for Victoria-Hillside suggested that perhaps this government likes confrontation. I suspect it does, but it doesn't like a fair fight. This government has a very big hammer. This government has the power to make law. This Legislature has the power to make law. This Legislature has the power to affect people's lives. I was trying to explain to my brother-in-law last night that ultimately, within its constitutional jurisdiction, this Legislature can do anything. I remember the former Minister of Forests being attacked for stating that in a rather casual way. The words came back to haunt him, but it's true. But the last time I checked, we had a system of responsible government. I guess what I sense from this government is that it has all this power, but it doesn't want to exercise it responsibly.

It doesn't really care about teachers and about students. It cares more about rhetoric, and in this House today we witnessed one of the more shameful episodes. When this government had an opportunity simply to explain to British Columbia's taxpayers, to British Columbia's parents, what this ridiculous advertising scheme cost…. Notwithstanding how many times the question was asked in quiet tones and louder tones, in simple language and more complex language, did this House get an answer? Did this government show any respect for the hundreds of thousands of British Columbians whose voice this opposition is? Did this government show any respect? No. It ignored a very simple question, when it could have set some kind of an example for a new level of honesty, for a new level of transparency, for a new level of openness in British Columbia politics. It couldn't even respond to the simple question: so what did your bump cost? Couldn't do it.

There is a new tone in this Legislature. I accept that. We are more civil. We're kinder. We may even be, at the end of the next the four years, a more constructive place. I'm not positive about that, but it's possible. But I want to say to this government: you can't construct very much. If this is the best we can do for legislation, if this is the best we can do in dealing with the collective bargaining process between teachers and their employers across this province…. We're not going to make much progress if the kind of answers that could have been given aren't given in question period, when

the kind of openness that the public expects and demands is in fact not delivered.

You cannot continue to make cynical promises to the people of this province and not deliver, and what is happening here today is a sad commentary on the state of this government's attitude towards teachers. It troubles me greatly that all of those people I know who work in the public education system, from the lowest-paid to the highest-paid, people who have given their professional lives to ensuring that we create critical thinkers, to ensuring that we give every student in this province a full opportunity to participate in British Columbia's life…. It troubles me so much to think that what they do is so absolutely undervalued.

This government views public education as some kind of political game. It's something to be won. We'll get back at those teachers. We'll get back at them. There's a nasty streak here. There was an old streak in the old Social Credit in this province that those of you who were lucky enough to be born here might remember. It was kind of an anti-intellectual streak. W.A.C. Bennett didn't really like those teachers very much. He kind of tolerated them, but after a while, you know, W.A.C. Bennett figured out that public education wasn't such a bad thing, that maybe those universities actually did some good other than creating a bunch of lefty thinkers, that they actually served some useful public purpose.

I'm just wondering if anyone on the other side actually remembers W.A.C. Bennett. I wonder if they might actually want to go back and read some of his speeches or consider some of his government's policies. He never had a problem seeing that people were decently paid. He kind of liked public education. After a while got to love it. Oh, he didn't like unions much in the direct sense, but he never built anything without a project agreement.

I just want to say to this government that it's not too late. You can withdraw this bill. You can sit down with the teachers, the Minister of Education. The Minister of Labour can call a meeting tomorrow. I'm sure the teachers will come.

I know Jinny Sims. She used to be a constituent of mine. She's a tough person, and she's going to do what's right by her membership. But more importantly, she's going to do what's right by the students of British Columbia, if she's given an opportunity.

I guess that's all I'm saying to this government today: give the collective bargaining process an opportunity to work. Sit down with the teachers. Don't make the horrendous mistake you're making of putting people back to work, of destroying further the morale of a profession in this province that is so fundamentally and vitally important to all of us, and especially and most importantly to our children.

C. Evans: It seems like it wasn't very long ago that we were having a conversation in this very room, and you were in the chair and I was on my feet. The conversation was about whether or not it was a really good idea for the government to give $143 million or $148 million or something — 140-some-odd million dollars — to corporate tax cuts. I think that was about 24 hours ago. And this day this debate, I'm sure, to the people at home seems difficult to understand, so I want to make a little bit of a context.

On the surface of it we, the opposition, are objecting to a bill brought in earlier today by the government which essentially said: "No, there won't be any teacher strike or disruption or bargaining, really. We will impose the present collective agreement until the spring, when there is no school. We'll have bargaining in the spring, but the agreement will last for two years."

The Minister of Labour read it out. It's really a short bill, and he sat down, and I'm sure that the people of the province think that this debate is about, essentially, a fait accompli, providing peace in the schools, assuring that teachers can't strike and driving teacher issues off the front page.

Hon. Speaker, you and I know, because we were here 24 hours ago, that that's not all that's going on. The other thing that's going on in the subtext here is that the government has decided in the last 24 hours that they have a budget surplus and they're going to spend it with corporate tax cuts while ordering teachers back to work. This is really a debate about priorities, and government is always about priorities. It's always about choices, and in this 24-hour period they have decided they can afford change because they've got a billion dollars in their pocket. They will make that change by paying off corporations rather than negotiating a collective agreement with teachers.

I also want, for the benefit of people at home, to set a historical context. The Minister of Labour was correct when he read his speech. He said: "Bargaining with teachers hasn't worked without intervention by the Crown for a long time." I can't remember what the Minister of Labour said, but my own thoughts are: "About 12 years."

Actually, I think I might practically be, if not the oldest person in the room, at least the one who has been here the longest off and on. So let me give you a little bit of my understanding of that historical period. More than a decade ago we used to negotiate teachers' collective agreements school board by school board. The province didn't like it very much, because they felt that a school board somewhere would settle early and set a high agreement, and that would ratchet up everybody else's agreement. It was impossible to control.

Sometimes places where it was very expensive to live signed a high agreement, and places where it was cheap to live or vice versa…. Where it was expensive, they got a bad agreement; where it was cheap to live, they got a high agreement, and so teachers would be moving in order to work in places where they got to keep more money. It generally didn't work, so some years ago — I think about 12…. Anybody want to say I'm wrong? I think about 12 years ago the province said: "Well, this doesn't work, so we're going to have provincewide bargaining."

The Speaker elected by this body was at one point on the Osoyoos school board, I think, and we talked about a strike in his area that went on for months. Rural people felt that this wasn't fair because as long as it wasn't in Surrey or Vancouver, sometimes the provincial bargaining would say, "Okay, in a little town, somewhere where nobody is, we'll just let them go on," for some reason of the Crown's, and kids wouldn't go to school for months. However, if the school board that had the dispute happened to be in a big city and there was a bunch of press, lots of students and people could actually demonstrate and get angry, then we'd solve it in a day.

The province went to provincewide bargaining. It didn't work very well. For one thing, we had at that point different collective agreements all over the province, people getting paid different rates, and there had to be a process to bring some people up. Of course, you couldn't bring anybody down, so it took a while to bring some people up.

There were different agreements of working conditions — the size of the class, whether you could teach split classes in different school districts. The first agreement, after we made the provincewide bargaining, had to be imposed by the province. Then the second agreement, too, was unable to come to a provincewide deal. You'll remember those days, hon. Speaker. Those were the days — remember? — when Social Credit appointed a Crown — what do you call it? You know, some guy who runs around and does a study — what do you call that?

C. Evans: A royal commissioner. He went around British Columbia and talked to everybody about education and….

Out of that came a wonderful vision, which people called Year 2000, and it talked about how we would educate kids in the year 2000. While they couldn't come to an agreement provincewide about working conditions and wages, teachers were thrilled, first by Social Credit and then by the New Democrats, that somebody was engaging them in a conversation about kids and education and change with the millennium — what kind of education we were going to have in the future.

Although all the hon. members talking about the broken nature of bargaining are historically correct about collective agreements, they are leaving out half the story, which was that we engaged parents and school boards and teachers in a discussion about education all through that period where collective bargaining wasn't working.

Then, hon. Speaker — you'll remember, because I think it affected our lives — the government I was part of made a decision I didn't agree with and they amalgamated a bunch of school boards. Of course, I made speeches against it, and the government did it anyway. Then we wound up with school boards that had different pay rates and different working agreements being jammed together. In the middle '90s the whole province, or at least the rural part of the province, had to incorporate the different cultures and collective agreements of different regions into one so that school boards could operate with some sense.

While that was happening, hon. members will remember that collective agreement discussions with teachers and school boards always had a component of talking about education — not just the wages and the hours of work, but who will be in the classrooms. Will parents be allowed to be there? Will teachers' assistants be allowed to be there? Will there be people to assist those children that Year 2000: A Framework for Learning said we should bring into the public schools and that were now in the class? Would there be somebody there to see to it that they, too, were learning? Those kinds of almost spiritual but certainly professional discussions that teachers and parents and school board members needed to have, because they care, were happening parallel to collective bargaining.

Again, in the late '90s when collective agreements did not reach a happy conclusion, agreement or consensus at the bargaining table, there was a parallel process that made agreements about how many kids would be in the class, whether the libraries would be open, how much arts and culture there would be, whether there were teachers — a series of agreements which sometimes, rightly or wrongly…. I don't care if hon. members opposite called them deals. Sure they were deals. They were deals for our kids.

They were the government, the Crown, saying to communities: "Okay, so we can't come into an agreement about wages. Let's at least ensure" — as we were trying to do all the way back to Sullivan — "that the teaching profession is an honourable thing to do." Maybe even, on good days, it was a fun thing to do and be, and being a student was a productive experience.

Hon. Speaker, in preparation for this debate…. I'm not dumb; I imagined that someday the Minister of Labour was going to stand up over there and bring in a piece of paper and say: "Okay, the conversation is finished. We're going to tell you what to do." Before we got to this day, I went and met with the five school boards — basically, from where you live to the Alberta border and up to Golden and where I live in southeastern B.C.

I started talking about kinds of philosophical things like ethics and government. They said: "No, we don't want to talk about ethics and government and stuff. We want to talk about teacher bargaining." Essentially, what they said to me was nothing — nothing — about wages. They wanted to talk about the quality of education and class size, and the need to honour their employees, and the need to be able to resolve this question

of the inclusion that we as a society had made, which says that children with learning disabilities would be in the classroom. The school board members wanted us here in the Legislature to respond to the need that there be resources in the classroom so that those kids could learn.

I went and talked to teachers, too, and essentially, they said: "We can't bargain. All the way from the 1980s — starting with Sullivan and then Year 2000 and then the kinds of agreements that happened in the middle — all along, we could always talk, at least, about our work. If we couldn't come to a deal about wages, at least we could talk about education, about how to run these schools. Now we can't even do that."

I heard speeches here. Hon. members stood up and said: "You know, we had 35 meetings, and they didn't agree on anything." Somebody's got to cop to the people at home that they couldn't agree on anything because all the power really comes from here. Folks here in the government said to the negotiators: "You can no longer talk about education." Imagine that.

Imagine if the government said to doctors: "We'll talk to you about your wages, but we're not going to discuss well-being or health care or access to hospitals or how many patients you have to see every day." Imagine if the mandate for government to judges said, "We'll talk to you about how much you get paid but not about whether we supply you with a courthouse or how many cases you've got to see a day or whether we protect you from the criminals," or any of that, just: "We'll pay you, and now you go to work and don't talk to us, because it's not our mandate."

Of course there's no agreement. We're not stupid. Judges wouldn't do it. Doctors wouldn't do it. You wouldn't do it, hon. Speaker, sir.

You've set a mandate that says that the people are in a box that's so tight they can only talk about wages. They can't talk about children, and people who love children are not going to be able to make a deal. This day the Minister of Labour says: "We haven't had a deal for ten years. It's all broken." This is the first day I know of — and I'm really old — where there was no parallel process to talk about kids. There was no vision. There was no conversation.

We made a box and said to the negotiators: "You can go to meetings. In fact, the more meetings you call, the better we'll like it, because when we finally get to the Leg. with our piece of paper to order them back to work, it'll look good if there are 35 instead of nine. Have a lot of meetings. Make it look like you can't make a deal because they're too intransigent. But don't ever talk about educating kids. You can't have any discussions about PE or libraries or arts. You certainly can't talk about learning disabilities. You can't talk about how many people are going to be in the room. You can never discuss whether you've got 27 or 40 kids in the room, because that's not your job."

Doctors wouldn't accept it. We'd have a strike in this province in a second. Judges wouldn't accept it, and you'd have criminals running down the street. But we can do it to teachers, because we have convinced the public that they're greedy and that this is about wages. Well, shame. Shame. You knew when we started down this road that these people care about kids, and to say "you can't talk about kids in the room" is a setup for this day.

If this was all by itself, like, if this just happened, and we just walked in here one day and said, "Oh, the province has an uproar, and we're going to settle it and make a law and tell everybody to go back to work…." If this was in isolation, then the folks at home might say: "Well, you know, the government has done a good thing. They've created calm."

What does everybody want when they wake up in the morning? They want the day to go like yesterday. They want calm. But that's not what's going on — is it? You were sitting there, and I was standing here 24 hours ago, and this building had 143 million bucks to spend. We had an argument. You can call it ideological or something. We had an argument about where we should spend the money. There's the school trustees. There's Penny Tees and thousands of people who care about children. They're out there bargaining — 35 meetings that don't work.

Imagine what would have happened if the government said: "Hey, yesterday we found 143 million bucks. Why don't you go out and use this to see if you can talk about education. We can't pay teachers any more. That's our mandate. But you can use $143 million to talk about kids."

That would have been sort of like Social Credit. It would have been kind of like those parallel things that happened in the 1990s under Premiers who we won't mention for fear somebody will think I'm praising them. It would have been kind of like the way things have been in here for more than ten years.

But it's a brave new world, isn't it? It's a corporate new world. It's no longer about the citizens out there in Osoyoos and Grand Forks and Castlegar and Creston and Nelson and Cranbrook. It isn't about them anymore. It's about multinational capital. We got $143 million 24 hours ago, and we're not giving it to Penny to deal with kids. We're going to give that to corporations, and then tomorrow we're going to come in, hope the people forget and order the teachers back to work.

Okay, folks. If you're as dumb as the government thinks you are, you're going to swallow this. But if you're citizens who understand history, at least in terms of 24 hours, then you know that those people who today say they're broke were yesterday so rich that they gave $143 million to their corporate pals to pay CEOs outrageous and insane amounts of money.

This is not the province as it was 12 years ago when people were struggling. If the hon. members opposite are right and they had a hard time when they ran the biggest budget in the history of the province just a couple of years ago…. It's not those times either.

This is the moment that teachers waited for — zero-and-zero, waiting until finally someday maybe there'd be a surplus, and if there were a surplus, then maybe

C. Evans: It's okay, hon. Speaker. Let him heckle. It shows his true personality, where his heart is at and why he's on that side.

Fly at it, fellows. I'm trying to help the people understand who you are, and the faster and louder you talk, the better they'll get it.

Hon. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about those teachers who the Minister of Labour left out today. A few years ago there was an imposed settlement — you'll remember that; you were working here — on teachers. The settlement said that people would get a certain amount of money, and it said nothing about those people who are on-call teachers, substitute teachers.

You'll remember that when you were kids and the teacher was sick, you would go and oppress this poor substitute teacher and see if you couldn't ruin their life. And hon. Speaker, I know you did it, because I can see the glint in your eye.

Substitute teachers are the people who pick up the slack for the entire system. When we stress out the teachers and they can't go to work, substitutes come in. When we make them sick and they've got to go to the hospital, the substitutes come in. When they have family obligations, the substitutes come in. Those school boards that can't afford a full complement of professional teachers at the higher levels have lots of substitutes. When the good government imposed the last agreement, they didn't give a dime of an increase to the substitute teachers.

We now have, and we have had for the last few years, people teaching our kids, and they went to university. Because some of us are so old, some of these people are our kids. We sent them to university to get to be teachers, and the entry level of being a teacher is basically being a substitute. So they become substitutes, and now they're living at less than the poverty line. The average substitute in British Columbia makes less than $24,000 a year. I talked to a substitute earlier today — a grown person old enough to have kids of his own — who was pumping gas at night with the students he was teaching in the daytime because his wages were so low.

We all know what the school board said to the government in those 35 meetings where the mandate was a box that was oh-so-tight they had to have their arms crossed across their chest just to be in the room. They said: "Could we please have a mandate to deal with the substitute teachers?" "No. We're not going to do that, because we have this zero-zero business. The fact that they didn't get anything last time doesn't matter. We're not going to talk about them, because if we talk about them, we might actually have to increase them above the poverty line."

We all know what happened earlier in the day, of course. The Minister of Labour got up and he made a little talk. He said, "I'm imposing zero-and-zero on these people. They can't bargain until the spring, and they can't have a contract for two years. And everything is going to be okay," because the assumption here, and probably even out there, is that school teachers are members of the middle class, and they're probably okay, and they can probably be all right for the next two years.

Firstly, we didn't let them talk about kids. Secondly, we didn't let them talk about education. Thirdly, we did not let them do a deal to allow the entry-level teachers into the system.

I'm assuming that's just a mistake. I worked over there. I used to make six mistakes by lunchtime just because I got up early. So it could be a mistake. There are people in the province who don't think it's a mistake. They think it's on purpose. They think what we've actually done is to say that we're blocking the entry of younger people into the teaching profession so that they will wise up, stop going to university, stop taking education and we won't have teachers.

The day will come where access to schools is as difficult as access to an operating room. Where we have wait-lists today for health care, we'll have wait-lists someday for education, and then everybody who can afford it will decide to send their kids to private school. There are some pessimistic, maybe even cynical, people — I'm not one of them — who think what the government is actually doing is organizing a world in which their kids get educated and everybody else's kids get trained.

If what I'm saying isn't true…. I'm looking for somebody to make eye contact. Hon. member, if what I'm saying isn't true, prove me wrong by fixing it. Create an opening for teachers and school board members and parents to talk about children. Even if you want to bash the teachers with the big club, come in with the law, it's okay. Create a parallel system to talk about class size. Talk about kids with learning disabilities. Talk about bringing calm. Talk about bringing arts. Talk about bringing culture and theatre and music back into the schools. Create a parallel. Prove me wrong. Make me stand up and say: "I'm a damn fool. My cynicism is so wrong. These are good people." If I'm wrong, open a table for the substitute teachers tomorrow. Say: "Darn. Minister of Labour forgot. We meant to do it two years ago. We forgot again this morning. Okay, tomorrow we'll have a table for substitute…." You won't even have to eat your words. Just say he forgot. Really.

I am a big person. I can stand up and say: "I had it all wrong; they're wonderful people." People will watch. They'll be at home, and I'll say I had it wrong. If

you don't do it, the cynics are going to say you did it on purpose. Then, of course…. I'm going to stop soon.

The real cynics…. No, I don't want to be facetious. Regular people — those people for whom we put the cameras in…. We assume that there are — what, 50,000 or 500 — some citizens out there that care. We speak on the record so that they can put it in the library, and 30 years from now we're going to read what we said. Some people care, and those people think that if you had $143 million yesterday, you could have waited 24 hours and given it to the school boards to solve the education problem, and then you'd have credibility when you say you can't give teachers a raise.

Those people think the fact that you made the other choice yesterday to make millionaire CEOs into billionaire CEOs means your loyalty is not with children but with the ruling class. When they start thinking that, then they think you only want to educate the children of the ruling class, and then they start to get angry, and we can't solve problems when the people are angry. It takes calm.

I would implore — I think I used that word yesterday — the government to wake up tomorrow and say: "You know, we really aren't going to do anything for those teachers, because we can't back down. We'll be seen as weak. But we didn't mean to leave out children and education and schools. We didn't really mean to hurt families. We didn't really mean to hurt communities, and we certainly didn't want substitute teachers working at poverty level, pumping gas at night because we don't pay them to teach our children. We forgot all that, and because we care and we're good people…."

Make eye contact, hon. member. Be in the present room, or I'll think you're ashamed. "Because we didn't mean to smash all that stuff when we brought in our bill, we'll get up tomorrow morning and fix it." You don't do that.

Hon. Speaker, I don't mean you. Of course, you're an independent, wonderful person. Those folks over there don't do that, and we're all going to think you did it on purpose.

Committee of Supply (Section A), having reported resolution, was granted leave to sit again.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until two o'clock tomorrow afternoon.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT AND MINISTER
RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ASIA-PACIFIC
INITIATIVE AND THE OLYMPICS
(continued)

M. Farnworth: There was a figure the minister quoted before that I was a little puzzled by, and I just want to have it confirmed. It was the sum of $2 million to create 1,400 spaces. Was that the correct figure?

M. Farnworth: The provincial contribution to ITA over the past three years has remained the same and is not projected to increase beyond the $77 million. How is it that ITA is planning to train more apprentices and people without an increase in the budget?

Hon. C. Hansen: As a result of some of the redesign of the way that training has been offered, working with post-secondary institutions, we've been able to find efficiencies and cost savings and have been able to free up these additional dollars to put them into creating more opportunity for young British Columbians to go into apprenticeship programs.

M. Farnworth: Okay. I'll say that could be good news, but it also raises some questions about what's the size of the efficiencies and the savings that have been achieved and how they have taken place.

Hon. C. Hansen: One of things that the ITA has been doing is working with post-secondary institutions across the province to standardize, essentially, the curriculum that is used in these programs. Through that approach, they've been able to find considerable cost savings through these negotiations with post-secondary institutions. That's where some of these dollars have been freed up to go into the creation of new seats.

M. Farnworth: Does the minister have a figure on the amount that has been freed up through the redesign of the curriculum?

Hon. C. Hansen: A lot of that work is still being done, and the discussions with post-secondary institutions are ongoing. We do know that those savings will

certainly exceed the $2 million that we have allocated for the 1,400 additional spaces.

M. Farnworth: The current budget has been in place for the last three years, and it has not increased. We've asked the institutions doing the training to absorb the changes over the last three years, the cost pressures in the current budget. Now we're saying that over the next three years the budget is going to stay the same, so they're going to have to absorb cost pressures within that budget.

When I ask the question about the dollar figure that's going to be freed up, we haven't got a figure. Yet we seem to be pretty clear, in terms of the number of people, that we're going to increase the training. So I would like to know when the minister will have an idea of just how much money is going to be freed up and what amount we'll have. That's going to have a big impact on the number of people you can train.

Hon. C. Hansen: We do have a degree of certainty now that allows us to expand the programs for these additional students, and we are very confident that we will be able to cover those increased costs.

The other thing that is happening…. There is a carry-forward of dollars from last year of about $4 million that was underspent in last year's budget that has been carried forward to this year. That also allows the ITA some additional flexibility in this year to meet some of these expanded programs.

M. Karagianis: The savings that you are now talking about here and how you're offering this program…. Are some of these dollars going to be offered to the educational institutions that are taking all of these training positions? I know from discussions with them that they are actually beyond capacity in many cases.

Hon. C. Hansen: This has really been a case of working with each of the post-secondary institutions across the province. For those that do have additional capacity where they can take more students, we're obviously focusing some of the new enrolments on those institutions.

The other thing is that there is some reallocation. There are dollars that in the past had been allocated towards the ELTT program, which I'm going to remember off the top of my head.

Hon. C. Hansen: The Entry-Level Trades Training. That, for some reason, is a program name that I can't get to stick in my head, but the acronym does. There is some reallocation of resources from the Entry-Level Trades Training to apprenticeship programs, which is something we've heard a lot of demand for over the last year or so.

We're trying to reflect some of that increased interest. I think the very fact that there have been wait-lists on apprenticeship programs sort of speaks to the fact that there is that increased demand for apprenticeship programs. So there is some reallocation at some institutions from the ELTT program into the apprenticeship programs.

M. Karagianis: Can I further ask whether or not this planning is being done for a number of years out, three to five years out, rather than on a year-by-year basis?

Hon. C. Hansen: The answer is yes. In the past the arrangements with the colleges used to be done on a year-by-year basis. We are now getting three-year projections from the colleges in terms of what their needs are going to be so that we can ensure that there is stability over a three-year cycle on an ongoing basis.

M. Farnworth: The minister commented a couple of moments ago that part of the savings were coming through standardizing of the curriculum through the different educational institutions. I'm interested in how that standardization was done. Who was involved in deciding what was not necessary and what should be dropped from the curriculum?

Hon. C. Hansen: Across the province at different institutions there were different approaches that were taken to trades training, all towards the same eventual outcome. The outcome in terms of exams that had to be passed, in terms of other measures that had to be met before accreditation could be granted were the same at the end. But getting there was vastly different from institution to institution.

For example, some would have courses that were considerably more classroom hours than another institution, and yet the outcomes were all the same. What we have done is standardize that across the province so that all students in a comparable program would be faced with the same kind of course content, the same number of hours in the classroom, all towards the same eventual outcomes in terms of exams and accreditation.

M. Farnworth: Did any of the changes or the standardization within the curriculum result in changes in terms of the accreditation or the certification that would be received at the end of the program?

Hon. C. Hansen: All of these participants in the program, the registrants, would be working towards a level-one apprenticeship, and that would be consistent across the province.

I'll now ask my colleague…. The member for Vancouver-Fairview has a few questions he'd like to ask on some of the training.

G. Robertson: Just returning to the ministry's goal of eliminating the waiting lists and dedicating new

funding to addressing these waiting lists, which I had taken note was $2 million allocated for 1,400 new seats addressing those waiting lists: can the minister please speak to where those dollars are going? Are they going to colleges, institutes, universities? Where exactly are they being deployed, and when is this happening? Is it this fall, or is it January?

Hon. C. Hansen: I'm informed that the specific effort to reduce wait-lists starts as of October 1. We expect that by April of next year we will have been able to accommodate the 1,400 additional registrants that I talked about earlier. In terms of which institutes, these are spread across the 15 post-secondary institutions in the province that work with us to provide the trades training.

G. Robertson: The standard on these new seats…. The ITA's goal, as I understand it, is that this training and certification is as mobile as possible, with the Red Seal being ultimately the ideal here. What is the standard for these new seats? Are we looking at 1,400 that are destined for Red Seal approval?

Hon. C. Hansen: The vast majority of these 1,400 spaces would be for Red Seal certifications. The three occupational areas that are predominant are electrical, carpentry and piping occupations.

G. Robertson: Something else relevant to the Red Seal program, related to the completion numbers over the last number of years…. I understand that the ITA report states that 4,378 people received credentials from them last year. Can you give details on how many of those are apprentices, how many actually receive Red Seal certification and how many actually completed industry training programs — the breakdown?

Hon. C. Hansen: The 4,000-plus number that the member indicated — they have all completed certification. I don't have exact numbers as to what percentage of those would have been specifically Red Seal certifications, but if the member is interested, we can endeavour to get that information to him in the near future.

Hon. C. Hansen: There are 12 FTEs that are directly connected to the ITA. There are an additional 19 FTEs that would be employed by Service B.C., providing the administrative functions for the ITA, such as registrations and processing and that type of thing

M. Farnworth: Do any of those FTEs include counsellors to assist trainees and apprentices?

Hon. C. Hansen: The short answer is no. There is an information line that is staffed through Service B.C. to provide public information about the various ITA-related programs. Under the new model, we are working with our 15 post-secondary institutions, and we expect that their student counselling services would be available to assist students who are involved in trades training.

M. Farnworth: Are ITA offices located around the province? Are they located in the post-secondary education institutions? How many of them are there, and where are they located?

Hon. C. Hansen: The only ITA office per se is located in Richmond, B.C. But we also have access to the 60 Service B.C. offices throughout the province. They can receive applications and help to process information for applicants.

Hon. C. Hansen: The answer is yes. Most of the applications come in through the Service B.C. offices.

M. Farnworth: I'm asking some of these questions to get a sense of what the current situation is, where it's been in terms of its budget, the number of employees and then looking again at where we're going to be in three to four years down the road. We're seeing the same budget level, and the minister has given an explanation in terms of cost savings and efficiencies — we're always in favour of those — and around some of the issues and some moneys that are carried over. But we're looking at a significant increase in the number of apprenticeships and targets that have been set. Is the minister looking at an increase in staff in his ministry to help meet some of these goals?

Hon. C. Hansen: As we increase the number of apprentices registered in the province, the big pressure needs to be focused on the post-secondary institutions. That's where we need to be able to provide the necessary resources, or free up through cost savings the necessary resources, to meet the expanded number of registrants.

As far as the head office staff or the in-house staff of the ITA, those pressures do not increase proportionate to the number of apprentices that are registered. We will be watching that in terms of workload at the ITA offices and will ensure that we've got appropriate staffing levels to meet the demands as they materialize.

M. Farnworth: As we said earlier, never prejudge Treasury Board. But I expect that the minister probably will be asking for some increased staffing.

One of the things that I'm interested in is the ITA's own report. They report a 62-percent satisfaction rate from apprenticeships and employers. What does the minister think of that figure? Is it good, or is it too low?

Hon. C. Hansen: The satisfaction survey was undertaken by B.C. Stats. If you want to break that down into who they surveyed…. The survey of the actual apprentices that were registered was a satisfaction rate in excess of 80 percent, for employers it was in excess of 70 percent and for associations it was around the 40 percent range. Those numbers compiled apparently generate the overall 62 percent satisfaction rate, which according to Stats Canada, with a relatively new organization that's been going through the transitions that ITA has gone through in its 18 months of existence…. They say that's not a bad number, but obviously our goal is to drive that number up.

M. Farnworth: I would have to agree. I hope that it is our goal to see that number climb high. I would make the following comment: I think that the ministry's program is ambitious, and I think there are some issues around the funding that will probably have to be addressed, but I think in the spring we'll be able to explore that further. So for right now, we can leave this part of the ministry's estimates. I thank the ministry staff for being here and making themselves available, and we'll probably be talking to you before spring.

With that, some of my colleagues have some questions to ask. And then at four we should be switching to the Columbia Basin Trust, then after that to the Olympics, and then finishing up before six o'clock.

S. Simpson: My questions to the minister relate largely to environmental issues as they relate to economic development and to the economic strategy that's laid out in the service plan.

I guess the first question that I have for the minister is: could the minister tell us what his ministry views as the relationship between environmental sustainability questions and the work of the ministry, particularly around the development of the plan, and how he views his ministry relating to the five great goals of the government in relation to environmental sustainability?

Hon. C. Hansen: The Ministry of Economic Development actually works in concert with other ministries, not only of the provincial government but the federal government as well. If we wish to embark on a particular economic development initiative in terms of encouraging a company, for example, to locate in British Columbia, or to expand through the work that's done either by our in-market representatives overseas or through the on-the-ground staff, as we call them, who are located in British Columbia, encouraging and facilitating economic development….

Those individuals, in turn, would be ensuring that those companies or proponents of expansion would be working closely with the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands and the Ministry of Environment, provincially, to ensure that all necessary approvals and standards are met with regard to any particular economic development initiative they may have; likewise with the federal government, in that we also would be trying to facilitate an early engagement with the federal department of environment or the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, for example — whichever may be applicable — and really try, first of all, to make sure that any investor or business leader who would like to engage in economic development in British Columbia understands their responsibilities with regard to sustainability and also their responsibilities to ensure that projects are channelled through appropriate environmental assessments, as may be the case, depending on the nature of the project.

S. Simpson: I would acknowledge that I believe this is your first time in the chair here, Madam Speaker. Welcome.

With regard to that, I read with interest…. When I was reading through the service plan, I read through the vision and the mission and the values, and I did notice there that nowhere does the environment get mentioned in any of those three areas around the strategic context of the ministry. I was hoping that what the minister could do is tell me a little bit more, particularly around the local strategy.

I guess the piece of the environment I'm going to want to talk about the most is the question of climate change and things that we're doing in relation to climate change, in relation to the federal government, to Kyoto — or whatever the next machination of Kyoto may be — and how your ministry, which is driving economic development and economic opportunity in British Columbia, is working to ensure that we do these things in a sustainable fashion.

Maybe the first thing around that is…. Could you tell me: do you have staff in your ministry who, as part of their responsibility, work in liaison with the Ministry of Environment or Ag and Lands on these matters?

Hon. C. Hansen: The short answer is yes. We work closely with officials in those respective ministries. The climate change file is now resident with the Ministry of Environment. Officials in my ministry would be working closely with officials in the Ministry of Environment who would have the technical expertise to help an investor look at those particular issues. So if your question is, do we have expertise within the ministry to do those kinds of sustainability assessments or impact assessments vis-à-vis Kyoto, the answer would be no. We would see that as a duplication of effort. Instead, we work closely with the Ministry of Environment, which is the lead ministry on the issue of climate change.

S. Simpson: With that, could you explain a little bit about how that relationship works? If the Ministry of Environment has issues or concerns that reflect work that is being done by your ministry or people that you're working with to look at bringing investors in, presumably you provide information to the Ministry of

Environment on those investors' business plans or investment plans, and they get to do some degree of assessment of those and then report back to you.

Hon. C. Hansen: When we talk about meeting the obligations under Kyoto, we're talking about greenhouse gases specifically. Those emissions are regulated by the Ministry of Environment, and any emissions that a new industry might be proposing would become part of their environmental assessment and subject to the regulatory regime of the Ministry of Environment.

S. Simpson: When your ministry is out encouraging investors or working with potential investors to come into British Columbia or folks who are already here who are looking at economic development opportunities and talking to your ministry about how they get support to make those successful…. The criteria that you use — or the checklist; I'm not sure how you do this, and I would appreciate knowing…. Does it specifically lay out for those companies what the expectations are in relation to environmental standards or emissions?

Hon. C. Hansen: Our role is, first of all, to identify potential investors and those that have business propositions for British Columbia, and then to work with them to help them navigate through the various approval processes they would need.

Part of our obligation would be to make sure that they are aware of their responsibilities when it comes to getting the necessary approvals. For example, if it was a particular enterprise that was going to result in CO2 emissions, it would be regulated by the federal government, and we would make sure that they understood where they had to go to get appropriate approvals.

In the case of things like methane gas or others, other than CO2 emissions per se, those largely fall under the Ministry of Energy and Mines. Again, we would make sure that, first of all, they understand their obligations, and we would try to steer them in the right direction to get the necessary approvals.

S. Simpson: I'm curious. If you have a proposal in front of you that you want to advance, then would I be correct to assume…? If the Ministry of Environment comes back to you and says: "We don't believe, based on the information we have, that this investor is, in fact, meeting the standards that we expect," then whose responsibility is it to tell that investor that they've got to step up? Is that you, or is it the Ministry of Environment?

Hon. C. Hansen: It is the regulator that would have that responsibility. Who the regulator is depends on what the particular proposal would be. It's not the role of the ministry to try to tell a potential investor whether they will or will not get environmental approvals. They have to make applications. We can assist them in making sure they know which environmental approvals processes they have to go through and whether they need to be talking to the federal government or the provincial government. We can help be the navigator, but we as a ministry do not play a role in determining whether or not a particular proposal is compliant. That is up to the regulators to determine.

S. Simpson: Just stepping over to the question of the provincial economic strategy. I assume from reading the service plan that your ministry and you, the minister, have responsibility for shepherding the overall economic strategy for British Columbia and how that will work.

Could the minister tell me how that strategy is developed in terms of ensuring it's sustainable and meets that goal? When I look at the five great goals…. I'm very appreciative of the fact that environmental sustainability and environmental integrity is one of those goals. I appreciate that. I guess I need to know how in the big picture of the economic strategy you ensure that gets considered, because I believe that you do have the responsibility for being the steward for that plan.

Hon. C. Hansen: The member is right. The Ministry of Economic Development does have that responsibility of developing that larger, longer-term economic strategy for the province. We recognize that we are not an island unto ourselves as a ministry and that in order to have a comprehensive plan that is going to take B.C. forward into the next decades, we have to work closely with other ministries.

In doing so, we'll be working closely with the Ministry of Forests, which obviously is responsible for the stewardship of our forests going forward. We'll be working with the Ministry of Energy and Mines. They themselves will have responsibilities for ensuring that oil and gas and mining operations in this province — those strategies — are developed with a view to achieving the goal of environmental sustainability that we have set out.

It's true across all ministries. Whether it's Environment or Tourism, there are probably very few ministries that don't have a role to play when it comes to economic development strategies moving forward. We will be working closely with those ministries, and we all, as ministries, will be working closely with the Ministry of Environment to make sure that our goal of leading the world in sustainable environmental management is, in fact, met.

S. Simpson: Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe I noticed that strategy is to be completed in the spring of next year. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Hansen: As it's set out in our service plan, we expect to have the overview of that strategic plan developed by next spring. I'm impatient. I would love to see it happen this fall, but I also recognize the complexity of putting in place a strategic plan that is going

Our '06-07 target is to finalize that strategy and begin implementation. It's not an overnight process but one that will evolve over the coming year.

S. Simpson: If the plan is being developed then…. I appreciate that the service plan has its mission and its values statement incorporated here. Is there an equivalent mission and values statement for the economic strategy?

Hon. C. Hansen: That is part of the economic development strategy that is being developed. That will be a fundamental part of it as it rolls out.

S. Simpson: Is it your expectation that in the development of that mission and the values for the economic strategy, a commitment to environmental sustainability and environmental integrity will be a cornerstone of the mission and values?

Hon. C. Hansen: That economic strategy will be in keeping with the five great goals, including the one around environmental sustainability.

S. Simpson: I have just a couple more questions, and then I'll be done. I thank the minister for his time.

I understand that this particular aspect of economic development sits largely with the Energy and Mines Ministry, but I would ask this: does your ministry, in terms of seeking potential opportunities, do any work in the area around offshore oil and gas?

S. Simpson: So to clarify. I appreciate that they're the lead on it. The question, I guess, is: is part of your work, in terms of seeking out investors, to assist Energy and Mines in seeking out investors, or potential investors, depending on the future of the moratorium?

Hon. C. Hansen: If the moratorium were lifted, and there was a time at which we were able to actually go in and start doing the kind of research that we think is necessary to demonstrate environmental mitigation or that it would be environmentally responsible to proceed, then there would potentially be a role for the ministry to play in seeking investors, but we're not at that stage yet. This is not an active part of what the Ministry of Economic Development is doing at this time.

S. Simpson: I think I got the answer clear. I'll just get it…. So the ministry is doing no work in the area of offshore oil and gas at this time?

S. Simpson: Thank you very much. I might have a couple of Olympics-related questions, but I'll leave that for later when you're going to have more people here.

G. Robertson: One follow-up question from my colleague here. Does the ministry have any specific initiatives right now to attract or develop industries that are focused on environmental technologies or an environmentally benign industry?

Hon. C. Hansen: The ministry is actively involved with marketing environmental technologies that have been developed here in British Columbia into other parts of the world — and with considerable success. I think there are some areas where B.C. is considered to be a leader, particularly around technology and also around consulting services. Internationally, the member made me familiar with the Globe Conference series that has happened on a biannual basis in Vancouver, and I think the next Globe Conference is coming up in 2006.

As a result, there is a critical mass of companies in British Columbia who are active in developing environmental technologies, and many of them are in fact exporting to countries around the world. In our ministry we will be helping to facilitate their marketing initiatives. It's actually in Europe, the United States and Asia where we've had some success to date in marketing our environmental technologies.

C. Evans: I'd like to ask questions about the Columbia Basin Trust, and I'll start off by complimenting the minister. Obviously, what happens to the trust matters to me, and I admit right off the bat to sort of a personal interest as opposed to purely intellectual, since I was there for the labour pains. My questions might be more along the lines of trying to see to it that this teenager doesn't get drunk and steal a car than purely a businesslike kind of politics.

I compliment the minister because the folks at home seem to say that the last four years have been hard, and that when the minister became involved, some of the confusion seemed to be lifted. I appreciate that, and I thank the minister for that.

I think some of the difficulty over the last four years has been that the trust is a bit of an anomaly to both sides of the House. That kind of thing didn't used to happen — a resource-sharing agreement with a region. I appreciate that members of all sides of the House, with the exception of one wonderful gentleman who is no longer with us, voted for it and are in support of it. But when the trust went into its core review…. The core business of the trust is somewhat difficult for some people away to comprehend. It created a period of instability and trauma.

I also want to compliment the present board of the trust on the record, because some of that instability and trauma resulted from the fact that for a five-year period — maybe even six, going back into my time — the

board never met with the people of the region in symposium. In the infancy of this institution, in the years leading up and the first years of its life, it spent a lot of money once a year to bring together people from all over the basin — all the way from Golden to the U.S. border, and from the west, from Castlegar to the Alberta border — to get to know one another and to discuss issues in common.

For five or six years the board never met with the people of the region, and this summer they kind of went back to their roots and brought a couple of hundred people together. I was pleased that the hon. Minister of Mines attended on behalf of cabinet and brought a message of the support of the government to the trust. I think that meeting also led to some calm. So, thanks to the minister and thanks to the board for the fact that I can stand up here today without there being incredible worries about the future of this adolescent.

Now I want to talk honestly about the option agreement, because there is…. The minister probably understands and probably most of the members here don't understand that there is an agreement between the trust…. I'll explain it, and then the guys next to you, you say if I said anything wrong, okay?

Here's the drill. The Columbia Basin Trust is a 50 percent partner on the Arrow Lakes power project, the Brilliant dam and power project and the Waneta expansion agreement with a Crown corporation called Columbia Power Corporation. Columbia Power Corporation has about 22 employees in Castlegar and maybe ten here. Columbia Power is in charge of the construction of hydroelectric facilities and the sale of the power that results. The trust primarily exists to spend the dividend that results from the sale of power. So it is a 50-50 deal between the people of the basin and the provincial government. Is that more or less as you understand it?

Hon. C. Hansen: As the member knows, this is one of the more complex files that I think comes across any of our desks. Generally speaking, I would certainly be in agreement with the way the member described it. I think there are a couple of things to underline just for anyone that's trying to follow this debate.

The CBT — the Columbia Basin Trust — is set up by statute, as the member knows. The Columbia Power Corporation is set up under the Companies Act, but both of them are in fact Crown entities. Both of them are creatures of the provincial government, although they're set up in different ways.

In terms of the projects, the Brilliant and the Arrow Lakes dams are going concerns that are producing power, and that power is being sold. I think the point that the member makes about the 50 percent of the revenues that flow from the sale of that power does, in fact, flow to the Columbia Basin Trust for use for economic development initiatives in the Columbia Basin….

I guess the issue of the Waneta project, which the member mentioned…. That is one that is yet to be evaluated. It may or may not become a going concern. I guess there are still some decisions that need to be made in that regard, going forward.

C. Evans: That's right. For the purpose of the background, the Waneta Dam was owned by Cominco, and the expansion rights on the Waneta power project transferred from Cominco to the Crown when the province of British Columbia assisted Cominco to rebuild their smelter. At present I think the Columbia Power Corp. and the trust have spent $40 million on planning to upgrade power production at Waneta, but as yet there has been no work.

Now, what concerns me is to try to understand what is called the option agreement. The option agreement, which I believe has been extended by the minister — which I appreciate, and the people of southeastern B.C. appreciate — has approximately 60 days from today to run. I think it runs until the end of November.

Between now and the end of November of 2005 the Columbia Basin Trust has the right, should they wish, to exercise that right to buy out Columbia Power Corp. and own the province's 50-percent share in all of the projects constructed in the past and the planning and water rights connected with the projects of the future. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Hansen: Just to clarify what the member is saying. The Columbia Basin Trust — which is a creature of the provincial government, part of the provincial government entity, and is a Crown entity itself — has the right under the option agreement to purchase the 50 percent of the Columbia Power Corp., which is also a Crown entity, that they don't already own.

The member is correct. The option agreement is valid up until November 30, so there are some key decisions that will have to be made over the course of these coming eight weeks, I guess.

C. Evans: My first question is historical. To your knowledge, has this subject — the history of the Columbia Power Corp. and the Columbia Basin Trust as it pertains to the option agreement — been the subject of questions in estimates in the past?

Hon. C. Hansen: For the benefit of the member…. He may know this, but the Columbia Basin Trust was actually…. The ministry responsible was the Ministry of Energy and Mines up until this last June, when it was transferred to the Ministry of Economic Development. The responsibility for the Columbia Power Corp. was, and still is, with the Ministry of Energy and Mines. So to the best of our knowledge, the questions regarding CBT have not come up in estimates for the Ministry of Energy and Mines, but I'm not 100-percent certain.

C. Evans: I asked the question because, given that we have 60 days, I wanted to know if this stuff was on the historical record. If not, I think this is great oppor-

tunity to put it on the record so that we understand what the rules are should the trust board decide to exercise their option.

My first question is…. Some of us had the opportunity to have a briefing, a pre-estimates briefing, by Mr. Doney and other folks representing Columbia Power Corp. I asked a series of questions related to what the options agreement meant. Mr. Doney, who I think is the chairperson of Columbia Power Corp., suggested that it was these estimates in which I should ask these questions.

I asked Mr. Doney the position of Columbia Power Corp.'s board on the option agreement, and he was very succinct. He said: "We have no position on whether or not Columbia Basin Trust or the provincial government should own Columbia Power Corp. However, we do have thoughts about the timing."

They believe, according to Mr. Doney, that it is an inappropriate moment in history to exercise the option agreement because Columbia Power Corp., as the entity responsible for construction, is heavily involved in the repair of the Arrow Lakes intake, the construction of the Brilliant power plant and the planning which is expected to come to fruition — go, no go — by this spring of the Waneta dam; and that to take two very sophisticated institutions and cram them together in the middle of essentially three construction projects would destabilize, delay and cause risk to the construction projects themselves. Columbia Power Corp.'s position is that if this moment was ever to be considered, it ought to be at the completion of the projects rather than in the middle.

I have two questions. One is: is what I just said, as the position of Columbia Power Corp., news to the minister, or is it, as the minister understands, their position? Two, is it possible that we could say to the two organizations: "Go finish the construction, and then we'll have this discussion"?

Hon. C. Hansen: We are aware of the management concerns that come from CPC. CPC reports through the Minister of Energy and Mines, so they don't report to or through me. I think there is still information that's going to be needed by all concerned to evaluate the ramifications of the options. That's around devaluation, which is not yet done. That is something that is underway currently. I think once we have more information, it's going to be easier for all of the respective parties to really evaluate some of the ramifications.

With regard to the specific issues that were raised by Mr. Doney, those are certainly issues that we would want to take under advisement and I'm sure the CPC board would want to take under advisement as we determine what the best course of action is from here.

C. Evans: I'm going to belabour the point and try to ask it differently. I'm really glad that the Minister of Mines is here, because we need to ask this question and have a cogent, simple answer in order to tell the people at home.

I accept the minister's position that there is a review of the benefits or costs to the region of exercising the option agreement going on. It won't be through for some weeks, and we shouldn't try to guess what's in there. That isn't Mr. Doney's concern. Mr. Doney, representing the Columbia Power Corp.'s board.... Their concern is that the construction period at the repaired Arrow Lakes, the construction of Brilliant and the beginning of construction at Waneta are too complex to have two institutions come together, even if the data suggests that it is of benefit — a good business deal for them to come together.

His position is that the construction phase, which was always part of the planning right from the inception of the Columbia Power Corp., was to do these three projects. What he is saying is that they have to get done. Then as projects running, it might make sense for the trust to exercise the option agreement.

I'm going to ask again, because this is a timing and a legal question, minister: if the people of southeastern B.C. and your government were to come to the conclusion that we ought to finish the construction before we consider this, would it be possible, then, to consider the option agreement a couple of years hence, once Waneta is begun or finished, Brilliant is in operation and Arrow is repaired?

Hon. C. Hansen: What we have before us right now is an option agreement that expires on November 30. What we are working towards is to try to make sure that we have all of the information necessary to make decisions, whether they're decisions by the CBT board or any of the other players. There is, I think, a lot of analysis that still has to be done, based on an evaluation that we still don't have. The member mentions that it could be weeks away. My hope is that it will be faster than that. We still don't know precisely when we would get that final evaluation.

I think that we have to take this issue one step at a time. Where we're at right now is working towards the November 30 deadline. I think that is a doable time frame. I think we have to take this one step at a time and cross bridges as we come to them.

C. Evans: I appreciate your answer and the delicacy of the question. I'm going to rephrase your answer, just for the benefit of the record.

I take it that your answer is essentially no. We cannot, at this moment, in this venue, consider putting off the determination of the option agreement until the construction phase is over, regardless of the advice of the leadership of Columbia Power. I understand that in your answer you did not foreclose the chance that there might be a reconsideration some time in the future, but you encouraged me and, through me, everybody else in the province to get this job done by November 30, because those are the terms of the option agreement.

Hon. C. Hansen: It's not fair for the member to state that we are closed to possibilities. I think what's impor-

tant is that we need to take it one step at a time. The next step is the finalization of the evaluation so we can actually have a fact base from which to make decisions as to what's in everybody's best interest. We don't have that fact base yet. I think that once we have that, we'll be able to cross the appropriate bridges.

Hon. C. Hansen: I think that we will take all of those ideas and inputs into consideration. I'm sure the CBT board would also welcome the advice and input from the CPC board and senior management.

C. Evans: Part of the rationale for the exercise of the option agreement right from Cranbrook to Nakusp comes from the general attitude of the citizenry that they would like to be separate from Victoria. Sometimes people like me a lot, and then I tell them I work in Victoria, and they don't like me so much after that. It's a funny kind of relationship that the hinterland has with the capital.

The board of the trust has said to the population that they find on occasion the reporting relationship required by their relationship with the province, as partners, to be onerous. I would like to investigate what the reporting relationship of the trust would be to the province should they exercise the option agreement in 60 days. If the Columbia Basin Trust was to buy out Columbia Power Corp., would they become a Crown corporation themselves?

Hon. C. Hansen: First of all, I think it's important to recognize that CBT today is technically a Crown corporation and the CPC is a commercial Crown. There would be requirements for different skill sets among board members if the option were to be exercised and CBT were to own 100 percent of the Columbia Power Corp. and have responsibility for those power-generating assets. There would be a different makeup of the board that we would have to consider. We would have to ensure that there would be certain skill sets that would be part of that new board. Nobody should assume that the board of the CBT would remain the same. We would have obligations to make sure there was in fact a governance model in place that reflected the very substantial obligations that a major power producer such as Columbia Power Corp. would have.

C. Evans: Would Columbia Basin Trust be called a company, or a Crown or a co-op? What would it be?

Hon. C. Hansen: Columbia Basin Trust, as I mentioned, is a Crown corporation today. If they were to exercise the option, they would be considered in our definitions of Crown agencies a full commercial Crown. So yes, they would continue to be a commercial Crown corporation in the same way as other commercial Crowns are today.

C. Evans: I want to ask a whole series of questions, then, about the board — I'm glad you introduced it: who would be on the board, the relationship with the municipal government, the tax structure, whether or not they would be taxed in the same way as they presently are. What is their reporting relationship, both with the ministry and with the Auditor General?

If they exercise this agreement…. Because it's 60 days from now, we can never have this debate again. And because I took the earlier question to suggest that we're not going to have this conversation a year from now — it will be a done deal or not, in 60 days — I feel that I really have to ask a whole bunch of questions. That's complicated by the fact that there's a debate going on in the next House, and I have to participate in that, and there are other hon. members here who would like to participate in this debate. So what I'd like to do is put this off and talk with your staff about when I can just have an hour, and we'll just do this. I'll let other members ask questions now, if that's okay with the minister.

Hon. C. Hansen: I'd be pleased to arrange whatever meetings and briefings the member would like to have on this subject. It is a complicated one, and I certainly respect the knowledge that the member for Nelson-Creston has on this file. I would welcome that opportunity for dialogue.

C. Evans: I've got to go out in the next hall and chat with the people about running the next room. In the meantime, I'm going to ask another hon. member to ask questions, but I don't want a briefing. I mean, I appreciate that. I'd like 19 briefings. I would like to be intelligent on this subject, but mostly what I need to do is get a bunch of this stuff on the record to assist my constituents at home to make a really complex decision. I would like it to be in this room, in this process, in the next 24 hours. That's what I was trying to say.

H. Bains: My question will be around the area of the 2010 Olympics and Paralympics. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I'll start from the beginning, and I request your patience, because I'm new and I may not understand some of the acronyms and some of the other names that are associated with the manner of questioning that I may have. I may ask for explanation when it's expected that I should know.

First of all, can the minister tell us: what was the total provincial government's commitment in the beginning for the Olympics and Paralympics?

Hon. C. Hansen: I'd like to introduce some of the staff who have just joined me, who work with the Olympic secretariat. The CEO of the Olympic secre-

tariat is Annette Antoniak, who is here, and also Jeff Garrad, who is the chief financial officer.

H. Bains: What was the commitment from the federal government on this project?

Hon. C. Hansen: The commitment from the federal government at this time is $25 million towards venues, $87.5 million towards security, $20 million towards the Paralympic Games, $55 million towards the Legacy Endowment Fund for the venues after 2010. There are other commitments that we anticipate the federal government will be making as well.

My apologies. I gather I misspoke. The federal government commitment to venues is $255 million.

H. Bains: How much of that federal commitment has been forwarded to the province to date?

Hon. C. Hansen: None of the federal dollars flow through the provincial government. The federal commitment would go directly to VANOC with regard to the venue construction, with regard to the Paralympics. In the case of security, for example, that is the estimated value of what their contribution would be toward security costs. But none of these dollars actually flows through the provincial government.

H. Bains: Do we know how much of that money has actually been transferred to VANOC to date?

Hon. C. Hansen: As we were discussing that here, there was some guessing at what the numbers were. Because that is a relationship between VANOC specifically and the federal government, it's not something that we're directly involved with, so it's not something that I have specific knowledge of.

H. Bains: My concern would be that the ministry is not on top of how the funds are flowing from the federal government over to VANOC. Did we put any provisions in the original agreement as to keeping the ministry updated, as part of that agreement? As the B.C. government is part of that agreement, aren't we kept updated as to what different parties are participating and what their commitments are? Are they actually coming and complying with the commitment they have?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think we have to recognize what the scope of our discussion is here with regard to the provincial budget, and that is the commitment the province has made around the $600 million, which I'm pleased to go into in whatever detail the member wants.

VANOC is not a creature of the provincial government. VANOC is, in fact, a creature of the Olympic committee. We have three provincial-designated individuals who sit on the board of VANOC to ensure that the province's interests are overseen.

I can tell the member that, certainly, if there was any concern that the federal government would not materialize in their commitments, that those would not be realized, it would certainly be brought to our attention. I have no reason to believe, at this time, that the federal government would in any way not live up to the commitments that they have made.

I'll move over to the $600 million commitment that the provincial government has. My understanding is that the federal part of the venue commitment is $255 million, as was stated here earlier, and the B.C. government commitment is $235 million. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Hansen: The commitment from the provincial government to venue construction for the actual Olympic venues is $235 million, which is the same as the federal government commitment, plus $20 million towards the Olympic Live program. They are community capital projects around the province that would enable communities to participate in some way with the Olympic broadcast or with Olympic planning so that communities around the province can feel like they're very much a part of this as well.

It's the same on both the federal and provincial side of the ledger. It is the $235 million towards venues themselves, plus the $20 million to our Olympic Live. In the case of the federal number, they lumped that all under their venue construction.

H. Bains: Out of this $235 million from the provincial commitment, how much has there been forwarded to the venue construction so far, to date?

Hon. C. Hansen: To date there has been $81 million of that $235 million transferred; $30 million of that has gone to Richmond for the speed-skating oval, and the remaining $51 million has gone directly to VANOC.

H. Bains: Now, coming down to the contingency fund, can you tell us what it is? Is it $139.5 million?

H. Bains: I'm looking at a page here with aboriginal legacy, sports development, Whistler legacy and Paralympic Games also lumped under the contingency fund. So the total number shown here is $189 million. Can you explain why those four items are under the contingency fund?

Hon. C. Hansen: When the proposal was first put together for the allocation of the $600 million, the amount that was looked at as the notional contingency at that time was $189.5 million. Subsequent to that, specific commitments were made against that contingency, which are the four items listed: the $10 million

for Aboriginal Legacy, $10 million for sports development, $10 million for Whistler Legacy and $20 million for the Paralympic operating budget. That leaves a remaining contingency of $139.5 million.

This is a standard approach that's used by the Ministry of Finance in this province. For example, if you look at the budget reports that were tabled on the date of the budget update, it will show you the contingency budget for the province for this current fiscal year that we're in, but it will also show you the specific commitments that have been made against that budget. So this is totally in keeping with that approach.

H. Bains: Let me ask you this about the security part of it — $87.5 million. Can you explain what that is made up of? What does that include in security?

Hon. C. Hansen: This security plan that is coming together is under the direction of the RCMP. We have been working, and VANOC has been working, very closely with the RCMP as that evolves. The $87 million — I guess if you had to look at the biggest component of that, it would in fact be for labour costs during the time frame of the actual games. It is focused on making sure that the venues themselves are secure, that transfer points for athletes are secure and that the transportation of athletes from the Olympic village to venues is secure, as well as security at the airports.

H. Bains: Let me ask this one question about the total commitment. I heard two numbers: $600 million and $610 million. Can you explain where the $610 million came from?

Hon. C. Hansen: The total commitment that we have for the Olympic Games is $600 million. There are no decisions that have been made to increase it beyond $600 million. There have been allocations made from within the $600 million, and we talked about some of those earlier.

I don't know whether somebody thinks that one of the announcements about the allocation of a contingency, for example, may have been…. Some people may have speculated that was over and above the $600 million, but that's the best I could offer.

H. Bains: Let's move on to the revenue and the cost side. The original cost that was estimated — can you tell us what that was? Total cost?

Hon. C. Hansen: The number that was put forward at the time of the bid was $1.5 billion. We do know that they are projecting additional revenues from things such as corporate sponsorship, and undoubtedly, VANOC will be revising their budget projections based on what they are now experiencing as they go out for things such as corporate sponsorship. The number that stands, as of today, would be $1.5 billion.

H. Bains: We just heard earlier that there was a $600 million provincial commitment and a $600 million federal commitment. That comes to $1.2 billion. Can you explain where the difference comes from?

Hon. C. Hansen: Of the $600 million that's committed by the province, not all goes into the VANOC operating budget. When I talk about the $1.5 billion that was put forward at the time of the bid, that was for the operations of VANOC and the operations of the Olympic Games.

Just as an example, the $20 million contribution to the live sites. That money does not flow through VANOC in any way, shape or form and does not become part of their operating budget. With the venues, as well, the example I mentioned earlier of $30 million flows directly to Richmond for the construction of the speed-skating oval. Again, that doesn't flow through VANOC and does not become part of their operating or their capital budget.

The member has to be careful to be comparing apples and apples on this one. I'll be pleased to walk through where the $600 million of the province goes, if he wishes that kind of detail.

H. Bains: No, I'd just like to find out where this $300 million comes from. There's a commitment of $600 million from the provincial government. Then there's $600 million from the federal government. That comes to $1.2 billion. There is a difference of $300 million.

I'm just trying to figure out where that money comes from. Maybe you could give us a breakdown on that.

Hon. C. Hansen: Of the $1.5 billion budget that was in the bid book, the components of that that would flow from the province's $600 million would amount to about $255 million, because the majority of the provincial government's commitment to enabling the Olympic Games does not actually flow through the VANOC operating budget.

I'll give you some examples. The Olympic live sites that we mentioned — the $20 million — are outside of the Olympic operating budget. The endowment of $55 million, which is matched by the federal government for the future legacy operations of venues, is outside. The security budget of $87.5 million is outside. Essential services, which are primarily in the area of providing medical services to the Olympic Games…. That $13 million is also outside of the actual games budget.

If the member's question is about where the balance of the Olympic revenues comes from, other than the federal and provincial governments, then there are a couple of sources. One is sponsorship. As I mentioned earlier, they are anticipating that their sponsorship revenues will exceed what they had originally projected. There are also significant dollars that flow to VANOC as a result of broadcast revenues. Finally, ticket sales themselves are a key component of the revenues that VANOC itself will receive.

H. Bains: I am looking at the chart here that we just went through, and there is a breakdown of the $600 million provincial commitment: $235 million for the venues, $20 million for Olympic live sites, $55 million for the endowment fund, $87.5 million for security, $13 million for essential services. That comes to $410 million. That is the total direct cost. Then there is a contingency, as we talked about earlier: aboriginal legacy, $10 million; sports development, $10 million; Whistler legacy, $10 million; Paralympics, $20 million; and a contingency fund of $139.5 million. That total comes to $600 million.

You are telling me that these are not part of the $600 million. On the other hand, you're saying they are. I'm just confused, so maybe you could explain it to me.

Your commitment is $600 million, you told us, and there is a breakdown. There is $600 million from the federal government, and there is a breakdown there. That totals $1.2 billion. You are saying that the total cost is $1.5 billion. There is a $300 million difference, so all I'm trying to figure out is: who comes up with that $300 million, and what is the breakdown of that $300 million?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think the key thing the member has to understand is that the province's $600 million does not all flow through the VANOC operating budget. When I talk about the $1.5 million VANOC budget that was presented in the bid book, that does not include things such as the security costs, which are paid for directly by the province and the federal government. It does not include issues such as the Olympic live sites program, which again is administered directly by the provincial government, in the case of the province's share.

None of those dollars are, in fact, included in the $1.5 billion that was in the bid book as VANOC'S operating budget. Those are over and above VANOC's operating budget. The difference between the federal government's commitment to VANOC and the province's commitment to VANOC is much greater than $300 million. Those costs are covered by other revenue sources such as sponsorship, broadcast rights and ticket sales.

H. Bains: Can the minister tell us: what are the cost estimates today? Have they gone up, remained the same?

Hon. C. Hansen: VANOC is working on that now. They're refining their costs on an ongoing basis. They are looking at areas where they may have additional cost pressures. They're also looking at areas where they have additional revenues, such as sponsorship, for example. I expect that when they are able to finalize those numbers, we will see an increase from the $1.5 billion in the bid book. But I have every reason to expect that they will be able to meet those increased cost pressures with the additional revenues they're getting from non-government sources.

H. Bains: So to date we don't know if those costs have remained the same. I've heard from Mr. Furlong, actually, that those costs have gone up. We haven't seen any numbers on it, but Mr. Furlong has put numbers on the revenue side. I heard that from $1.5 billion revenue the estimation has gone up to $1.7 billion. Can you explain: if we know that the revenue expectations have gone up, why don't we know about the cost overruns?

Hon. C. Hansen: As the member said, VANOC today does know that they are able to anticipate additional revenues in some areas. They are also working, for example, with regard to international sponsors, with the Olympic organizing committee to determine what portion of that would flow to VANOC for VANOC's operating budget. There are still some unknowns that VANOC is trying to work through.

On the other hand, in terms of costs, we're now more than four years away from the opening day of the games. VANOC is working diligently to refine their cost side as well. I have every expectation that they will be presenting a full budget on both the revenue side and the cost side. I think what's key to the province at this stage is that we are very confident, and VANOC is very confident, that they are going to be able to deliver the games without additional revenues from the province beyond the $600 million we have committed.

H. Bains: It's my understanding that they're still working on their business plan, which isn't finalized yet. Do we know the time line around when that business plan will be finalized?

Hon. C. Hansen: With regard to some of the unknowns that they still have, they can't put a time line on it, because they don't know when they're going to get certainty around their share of revenues from the IOC, for example. I know they're working diligently on that. We have every expectation that they will be coming out with their revised budget. It is also our expectation that they will design their programming to ensure that it lives within the revenues they have been able to confirm and are certain of.

H. Bains: We're at October 2005 here. The Olympics are in 2010. Between now and 2010 is there any expectation about when that business plan will be available for us to look at? Is it six months down the road? Is it a year down the road? Is it three years down the road? Or is it just before 2010?

Hon. C. Hansen: I'm certain that VANOC will finalize a latest business plan as soon as they have certainty around some of the numbers they have to work with. I do not know whether VANOC is planning to release their business plan publicly. That's a decision that's up to them. But I am confident that once VANOC has more certainty around the revenue and cost numbers, they will be pleased to share them with the pub-

H. Bains: So we don't know when the business plan will be finalized. We just, I guess, wait and see when they tell us.

My understanding, also, is that the B.C. government signed an indemnity agreement that put the B.C. government on the hook for cost overruns. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Hansen: The indemnity the member refers to was actually signed during the bid process, and it does commit the province to indemnify the IOC itself for their costs. It's not a blanket indemnification. It is fairly specific in its scope. We are tracking that very carefully to make sure there are not unnecessary risks that would flow to the province as a result of that. The officials in the Ministry of Finance who are experts at risk management are very much tracking that. We believe that is very much on track and that the commitments being made by VANOC and the IOC are within the budget restraints that are there.

H. Bains: Because that indemnity agreement is in place, I think the taxpayers, and the B.C. government on their behalf, will be concerned. Up until now, to date, do you know if the Finance Ministry has been given some numbers and whether they're on track right now? Considering the costs escalating and labour and commodity prices, have they given you an update on where we are at this particular point?

Hon. C. Hansen: We are still at the early stages of this cycle leading up to the 2010 Olympics, and the Ministry of Finance has been increasingly involved. As we get more numbers from VANOC around what they anticipate, Finance is certainly active in reviewing those. While, as I say, we have no reason for concern at this stage, we as well as the Finance Ministry will be keeping a very careful watching brief on this to ensure that the interests of the taxpayers via the provincial government are protected.

H. Bains: I just want to reconfirm, because I think there were some concerns about $1.2 billion versus $1.5 billion. The B.C. government's commitment is $600 million, and if there's going to be any overrun…. We don't know right now — or do we know at this particular time? — if there is any area that has a potential that we, as the B.C. government, should be worried about.

Hon. C. Hansen: We recognize that there are cost pressures. There are inflation pressures. A lot of the initial costing that was done was in fact done in 2002 dollars, so we know there are inflationary pressures. We know there are other cost pressures that VANOC is facing, but we also know that they are projecting increased revenues from some of their non-government sources. We are very confident at this stage that the commitment of the province, the $600 million, is manageable and that any unforeseen pressure or pressures that have yet to materialize with regard to the province's commitment could be managed within the contingency allowance that's within that $600 million.

H. Bains: At this particular time the hon. member for Nelson-Creston would like to ask a few questions to continue on with his earlier questioning.

C. Evans: Minister, I'll try to do this as fast as I can. I apologize for the fact that you're having to shift gears in your mind, as well as your staff. I have to go to speak in the other House. If this has to carry over into the morning, I apologize in advance.

We were talking a few minutes ago about the reporting relationship of the Columbia Basin Trust and Columbia Power Corporation to the province of B.C. I believe the minister pointed out that both Columbia Power Corporation and the Columbia Basin Trust are forms of Crown corporations.

My next question to the minister is: is it true that there is one share of Columbia Power Corporation and that that share is held by the Minister of Finance and one share of the Columbia Basin Trust and that that share is also held by the Minister of Finance?

Hon. C. Hansen: The member is correct. There is, in fact, one share of the Columbia Basin Trust, and that is held by the Minister of Finance. There are multiple shares of Columbia Power Corporation. There's not just one share of Columbia Power Corporation, but all of those shares are held by the Minister of Finance.

C. Evans: Should the Columbia Basin Trust activate the option agreement, will the shares of Columbia Power Corporation transfer to the Columbia Basin Trust? Since the Columbia Basin Trust share is held by the Minister of Finance, will they actually go nowhere?

Hon. C. Hansen: Currently, the Minister of Finance owns 100 percent of the shares of the Columbia Basin Trust, which is one share. Columbia Basin Trust, in turn, owns 100 percent of an entity known as the Columbia Basin Trust Energy corporation, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Columbia Basin Trust.

The Minister of Finance also currently holds 100 percent of the shares of Columbia Power Corp. The option agreement is actually held by Columbia Basin Trust Energy. What would happen if the option agreement is exercised is that 100 percent of the ownership of Columbia Power Corp. would transfer from the Minister of Finance to Columbia Basin Trust Energy corporation which, in turn, is 100 percent owned by the Columbia Basin Trust which, in turn, is 100 percent held by the Minister of Finance.

C. Evans: Good on the minister for being succinct. That is, in fact, I think what is really going on. So now, minister, we have to give advice to 250,000 people who

live in southeastern B.C. and who think that by exercising the option agreement they will become independent of government. But what you just said is that a bunch of shares will transfer from an arm of government over to the trust and back to precisely that same arm of government. So, please give a bit of a subjective answer understood by ordinary people. Is there any possibility that by exercising the option agreement they would become independent of any oversight by the Minister of Finance or the provincial government?

Hon. C. Hansen: If the option is exercised, then the ownership of the Columbia Power Corp. does transfer in a technical sense, but it still remains part of the provincial government entity which it is today.

C. Evans: Okay, let's move to what happens if the trust buys these shares and then the shares are sort of repatriated with the Minister of Finance. Should the power company that belongs to the trust buy Columbia Power Corp., do they have then the right of resale?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think I'm learning a level of detail on this file that is even beyond the incredible — intricate detail that I thought I knew previously. This was something that the member may be aware of because he is probably more familiar with the actual wording of the option agreement. Although I have read it, I didn't embed it in memory, but in the option agreement there is actually a restriction against the future sale or disposal of Columbia Power Corp. assets without the specific approval of the province.

C. Evans: I'm going to rephrase the minister's answer and then give you a chance to say I'm wrong. I think you just said: "Yes, they have the right to resale." They could sell to Cominco, West Kootenay Power, Enron, B.C. Hydro or anybody else so long as the province agreed to the sale.

Hon. C. Hansen: I guess the best thing I can do is repeat how I phrased it before. That is that the option agreement would result in the assets being sold to Columbia Basin Trust Energy, but because of the wording of the option agreement that was signed on April 12, 2001, the CBT Energy would not be able to sell or dispose of those shares without the explicit agreement of the province.

C. Evans: Let's move on to the price. If the trust was to exercise the option agreement, is it the expectation of the province that they would be offering their assets for sale at asset value or at market value?

Hon. C. Hansen: The option agreement provides for the sale of the assets at the greater of the book value or the market value of those assets.

C. Evans: Does the province have any estimate of the market value of the assets?

Hon. C. Hansen: There is provision in the option agreement for an independent valuation to be done, and that valuation is actually cost-shared between the province and the Columbia Basin Trust. The independent evaluation is currently being done by Dominion Securities, and they have not yet finalized that.

C. Evans: When the market value of the assets was determined by Dominion Securities, does that price — unnegotiated holus-bolus on paper — become the agreed upon price of CPC? Or is it followed by a period of negotiation?

Hon. C. Hansen: In the option agreement there is a process that is set out to determine valuation by an independent body. If parties disagree with that third-party valuation, there is written right into the agreement that was signed in April 2001 an arbitration process they can pursue.

C. Evans: Minister, with regret, I think that my questions are too many and your answers are too slow. I would like to carry on my part of this discussion in the morning when we can fit it all in without stopping.

I'm going to, if I get a chance, ask you about your comments about the board. I'm really interested in…. When it was the Columbia Basin Trust, we could have a garage mechanic, a liquor store clerk, a bulldozer driver or a school teacher on the board. I took from your comments that maybe the board would be made up of different people than historically had been true, should they purchase CPC. I need to understand that.

Secondly, I need to understand the taxation relationship. If the trust is no longer a partner with the province, do they pay the same amount of money for water tax? Does the physical plant at Brilliant or Keenleyside become taxable as a private entity or does it remain a Crown?

I need to understand. If we actually purchase at the market value as opposed to the asset value, does Columbia Power and the trust then have borrowing capacity to finish the Waneta project, or does it become redundant?

I get it that we're not going to fit that in by six o'clock. Therefore, I give you all that information just so you know the kinds of things I'd like to ask in the morning, should the minister have time to come back to join us. I'll turn it over to my colleague.

If you don't have time to rejoin us tomorrow, I will have to figure out some other way of having this dialogue on the record.

Hon. C. Hansen: I don't get to determine the House business or manage the House business. That is up to our respective House Leaders.

But certainly, I'm pleased to work with the member to try to get him answers for the issues that he's raising.

I am pleased to work with him to find the most appropriate way to do that, but I don't have control over the House business and must defer to our respective House Leaders.

C. Evans: Thanks, minister. Me neither. Otherwise, we wouldn't be having this silly thing here. Thanks for your help.

H. Bains: A couple more questions on the cost side, and then we'll move to some of the other areas. We were told that an indemnity agreement was signed with the Olympic committee. Has the government signed any other indemnity agreement with any other party?

Hon. C. Hansen: There are, in fact, two other indemnity agreements that were signed during the bid process. I believe they were actually signed in the year 2000. I know for a fact they were signed prior to the election in 2001, so we inherited these particular indemnity agreements when we formed government. Those two agreements are with the city of Vancouver and also with the resort municipality of Whistler.

H. Bains: The other side I want to go back to is that the Italian Olympic team, I understand, recommended that there should be planning for 15 percent in unexpected costs and 20 percent for cost overruns. That makes the $139 million contingency fund that we have in our budget proportionally very small. Did we look at that recommendation, and were we aware of that? If the answer is yes, then why didn't we adopt those recommendations?

Hon. C. Hansen: The contingency fund that we talked about earlier, the $139.5 million contingency, is not the contingency for the Olympic Games. It is the contingency only for the provincial government's commitment to the Olympic Games, which totals $600 million including the remaining $139.5 million contingency. So that, in fact, works out to about 23 percent.

H. Bains: That still makes it much smaller than what the Italian team has recommended. When you add 15 percent in unexpected costs and 20 percent for cost overruns, that's almost 35 percent when you total that. But if you look at the total budget of the Olympics, $1.5 billion, $139 million comes in under 10 percent. But I understand our portion, $139 million, is only to deal with the $600 million. Do you know what the total contingency plan for the overall cost is?

Hon. C. Hansen: The member is correct. A $139 million contingency is specific to the province's commitment. When it comes to the $1.5 billion that was anticipated as VANOC's budget at the time of the bid, I'm sure a significant portion of that would have been for contingency. I don't have that information at my fingertips. I could endeavour to get it for the member, if he is interested.

H. Bains: Squamish and Lil'Wat nations, I understand, have been promised funding outside of $600 million. My understanding is $3 million for the cultural centre. So if that's outside of the $600 million envelope, what other commitments have been made to any other parties?

Hon. C. Hansen: If the member is referring to the Squamish-Lil'Wat cultural centre, which is currently under construction in Whistler, that is not tied to the Olympic Games. So that is not an Olympic venue. It is totally separate and out of a separate funding stream than the funding for the Olympic Games is coming from.

H. Bains: I'd like to move on to the area of economic benefits to different regions of the province. Can the minister clarify what initiatives the government is pursuing to spread these benefits all across the region?

Hon. C. Hansen: There are several initiatives underway to ensure that British Columbians in all parts of the province can benefit and be part of the Olympic Games.

For example, there is the $20 million we talked about earlier for the Olympic live sites. To be eligible to apply for Olympic live moneys, the community has to be outside of the GVRD and the Vancouver-Whistler corridor. So all of the other communities in the province are eligible for that, and we've had dozens of just excellent applications come in to funding from literally every corner of the province. To date, of the $20 million, we have committed about $10 million, and we will be receiving applications from communities with regard to the remaining $10 million.

In addition, there is LegaciesNow. LegaciesNow is independent of government. They are an independent organization, but we have provided funding to them. They in turn are working with communities around the province to facilitate the engagement of those communities with the Olympic Games.

The third area, which is one that is directly a responsibility of my ministry and specifically the Olympic secretariat, is the 2010 Commerce Centre. What the Commerce Centre does is facilitate procurement and bids that pertain to Olympic procurement. So any of the RFPs that go out, whether they are from the Olympics or whether they are from any of the Olympic partners, will in fact be posted on the 2010 Commerce Centre, and companies of all sizes in every corner of the province will be able to be part of becoming a supplier to the Olympic Games.

We have underway now procurement workshops that are travelling the province. I think they've been into probably a dozen to two dozen communities. I'm not sure of the exact number. I know there are several dozen more communities that will be visited in the

coming months to conduct workshops with local companies so that they can be very much part of providing the estimated $4 billion to $6 billion worth of goods and services that will be procured for the Olympic Games.

H. Bains: If you look at the lower mainland, they are not qualified to apply for that program. If I look at the South Fraser, Surrey in particular, what benefit does that region have coming out of the Olympics?

Hon. C. Hansen: The program the member refers to that communities in the lower mainland and Vancouver-Whistler are not eligible for is only one program. That's the $20 million Olympic live sites program.

All of the other programs that are underway…. Communities in every part of the province, including Surrey, would be eligible for LegaciesNow, for example, which has a variety of programs underway that are reaching out to every community. I'm sure that Surrey has an active committee that's working with LegaciesNow.

The 2010 Commerce Centre that I mentioned gives ready access to companies based in Surrey to participate in terms of providing goods and services to either the direct or indirect opportunities from the Olympics. We anticipate that there will be literally thousands of jobs that will be generated directly by the Olympics and certainly indirectly, and I know that many residents of Surrey will benefit from that.

I guess the final part is just the whole profile that will come to British Columbia as a result of the 2010 Olympics. We anticipate that somewhere around 8,000 to 10,000 journalists will be here in British Columbia, not just looking for stories about the bobsled race; they'll be looking for stories about British Columbia, about Surrey. I think it's a great opportunity for communities to start planning now for how they can actually take advantage of being in the world spotlight in 2010.

H. Bains: It is, you know, an exciting time coming up. There is no question, and I agree with the minister. There's a huge potential for benefits all across the province if you do it right.

You talk about thousands of jobs that would be created. Now, is there any plan to include the demographics of the population makeup of the province, especially the lower mainland? Are there any provisions to make sure that the diversity of our population is recognized? Is there any set program to include those communities so that they can benefit from the job creation?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think it's fair to say that Vancouver is going to be the most culturally diverse city ever to host an Olympic Games. I think it's a real opportunity for us to showcase and celebrate the diversity that we have in British Columbia.

There will certainly be a need on the part of the organizing committee to utilize people who have language skills from around the world because we will be inviting the world to British Columbia. There will be lots of roles for volunteers from all cultural backgrounds to be part of hosting the various Olympic teams that come to British Columbia.

I think the other side of it is that we really have an opportunity to use the Olympic Games to launch new initiatives, particularly, into the Asia-Pacific region. You know, as we develop our Asia-Pacific Initiative, as we develop the new Asia-Pacific trade council, we are very much looking at the Olympic Games as an opportunity to engage in additional trade, economic and cultural relationships across the Pacific Ocean. This is a real opportunity for us to showcase what we can do.

Just to give an example of some of the international spinoffs that would come from the Olympic Games, we are now working with the organizing committee in Beijing, who will be hosting the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. There are great opportunities for cooperation between Beijing and Vancouver. We expect that cooperation will lead…. It's already leading to great international opportunities today, and we expect that will be increasingly so as we go forward.

We've already had expressions of interest from other countries, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, which we're trying to reach out to — interest in becoming more involved with the Games, as they happen in Vancouver. I think that's going to be a real springboard to capitalizing on future opportunities post-2010.

H. Bains: I was, actually, more focused on the population in the lower mainland and in the rest of B.C., rather than looking at outside — which is a good thing. I agree with you.

Is there a policy directive from the government to VANOC to make sure that we include these communities that make up our region, to make sure that they benefit from the job creation, to make sure that they participate in every aspect of the Olympics and the opportunities that are available there? Is there is any directive, or is it left up to VANOC?

Hon. C. Hansen: If the member goes back to the original bid book, you will see that VANOC, right from the start of this whole process, was looking at the Olympics as an opportunity to celebrate Vancouver and B.C.'s cultural diversity. So I don't think they need any kind of a directive from us. They are well on track to celebrating the exact kind of diversity that the member is talking about.

In addition, if you look at the work that's being done around LegaciesNow, with their program called VolunteerNow where they're trying to get volunteers from all different communities in the province to get involved today, to become active as volunteers in 2010, that's going to involve communities of all different cultural backgrounds in British Columbia.

I think the reality is that the Olympic Games is an opportunity for us to celebrate who we are and to

showcase to the world who we are. We are very much a diverse, cosmopolitan population, and we need to celebrate all of the cultures that make up Vancouver and British Columbia.

H. Bains: I'm all for celebration and showcasing our diversity to the world. There's no question that I'm thrilled about that, and I'm glad that VANOC has included that in their original bid. I'm more specific on the jobs that are available during this Olympic era between now and 2010 and beyond.

There are communities that normally don't participate unless we aggressively pursue and send some information packages to those communities to bring them along and show them that there are opportunities here. Does the government feel there is any need to give that directive to VANOC to include those communities and to make sure they do participate in this job creation that we are talking about?

Hon. C. Hansen: VANOC itself, when it does its recruitment, is doing it in a very open way. They're making sure that those positions are advertised for anybody in British Columbia to apply for. It certainly is not restricted in any way at all.

A lot of the human resources that are actually going to be engaged for the duration of the games will, in fact, be volunteer labour. We anticipate that the Olympic Games will be oversubscribed with volunteers — that there are going to be more British Columbians who will want to volunteer than there will be volunteer positions. That certainly has been the experience at other games, and it has certainly been the experience at other major international events that we have hosted here in British Columbia of a comparable nature, or at least down that same line of international stature.

What we are trying to do now through LegaciesNow and VANOC itself is ensure that all communities have an opportunity to become part of the games. There is very much an active outreach program to make sure that community organizations of all types are encouraged to become part of those programs.

H. Bains: I'll move on to another area of the Olympics. We heard in earlier discussions that there is a huge shortage of skilled labour in the province. As we heard, the mining industry, on top of that, is talking about hiring 80,000 new employees in the next ten years, and — talking to them the other day — 60 percent of them would be skilled labour. It is coming at a time when we are already having a shortage. My question is: do we have any plan to use the Olympic construction sites — whether they are road building or venue construction — to include apprenticeships in the construction?

Hon. C. Hansen: The member made the comment that we're facing huge shortages of skilled labour in British Columbia today. When we had the discussion earlier around the Industry Training Authority, the critic and I had a discussion about how much of it is real and how much of it is perceived. If you look at what we often read in the news media about so-called huge skill shortages — in fact, when you start digging a little bit deeper — you find out that there is some anxiety in certain industries about future skill shortages, and therefore we need to make sure that we increase training levels today for industry training.

When you start looking at the actual and real shortages today, there are some, and they are real, but I certainly think it would be an overstatement to say that there are huge skill shortages today. I think we are, by and large, meeting some of those challenges.

The question with regard to Olympic construction as an opportunity for apprenticeships…. By all means. If you look at some of these companies that are actually building venues around the province, I can't speak for all of them, but I certainly anecdotally know of some of them that have very active apprenticeship programs within their companies. I would bet that most, if not all, of the major construction companies involved in venue construction would — in some way, shape or form — be involved with skills training.

I also want to put in perspective how the Olympic construction fits into the broader picture of construction in British Columbia. We actually have an inventory that is done of major projects in British Columbia. It's a major projects review that we post numbers on every three months, and the latest stats that came out as of the end of June showed that there are $74 billion of major projects that are either in the planning stage or conceptual stage or in the construction stage. In fact, the actual venue construction for the Olympic Games would amount to less than 1 percent of that total.

The member is right. There are some great opportunities for training as a result of Olympic construction. I also wanted to add the fact that Olympic construction in itself is significant, but at 1 percent it certainly is not a huge part of the overall construction that is either conceived or being undertaken today in the province.

H. Bains: I agree there are always those two issues, whether they're perceived or real. I come from a forest industry background, and I know that the sawmill operators are having one heck of a time finding millwrights, welders and electricians. Our minister identified earlier today that those are some of the areas where there is a real shortage, and those are some of the areas that the construction companies can train.

My question is: why doesn't this government feel that we must put some requirements so that the construction companies bidding for these projects must hire certain numbers as apprentices?

Hon. C. Hansen: It is not a case of government needing to go in and provide directives. These companies are already coming to the table to provide apprenticeship and other skills training, because it is in their best interest to do just that. I had a discussion with a representative of one of the major construction compa-

nies that's involved in Olympic construction, and they are expanding their apprenticeship programs as fast as they can because they realize it is in their best interest to do exactly that.

I don't have numbers for exactly how many apprentices may be working on Olympic construction sites, but I can tell the member that in the province generally — going back to when the Industry Training Authority was first established 18 months ago — there were 14,676 registered apprentices in British Columbia. Today we are up to about 23,000, so there's been a significant increase, and our goal is to continue to increase that even more. I know that companies doing the Olympic construction in British Columbia are certainly doing their share of providing apprenticeship and other skills training on their jobsites.

H. Bains: The other part, I think, as we talked about earlier…. Coming back to the cost and cost overruns, there is uncertainty, as the minister put it earlier. Because of those uncertainties the business plan is not ready yet, as was expected in, I believe, April 2005. So they're taking their time. Taxpayers are nervous, and so should the government be, because we signed those agreements to indemnify certain parts of it.

Why don't we agree to give our responsibility to the Auditor General as an independent watchdog to watch what's being spent and what the real revenue forecasts are, and to report back to the Legislature?

Hon. C. Hansen: First of all, I don't want to leave the member with the impression that there has not been work done on a business plan. VANOC, clearly, will develop business plans that will evolve over time.

The province will have the opportunity to review that, through the Ministry of Finance officials, but the Auditor General also has the opportunity to review business plans that come forward from VANOC. The Auditor General has the full authority today to review all of the provincial government's commitments to the Olympic Games. He does so on a regular basis, and we anticipate there will be a review done by the Auditor General this fall. I believe it is in the period of December, January and February that he would undertake that review. He has unfettered powers to investigate whatever aspects of the province's commitment he feels inclined to investigate.

H. Bains: Some time ago it was put to the government to appoint the Auditor General as the auditor of record. At that particular time the members on the government side voted against it. One of the reasons used was that they didn't have enough information. Now that we are sitting a few months later, there would be that information available to them. So why don't we appoint the Auditor General as the auditor of record now?

Hon. C. Hansen: VANOC, it's important to understand, is an independent organization, independent of the province. We have made obligations by the province with regard to the Olympic Games, but the actual operations of VANOC are not within the provincial government entity, as we refer to them. VANOC, as a private, federally chartered, not-for-profit organization, went out with a request for proposal for independent audit services. I understand that those were done in June of 2004. The Auditor General was invited by VANOC to provide a proposal in response to that RFP, and it is my understanding that the Auditor General at the time chose not to submit a proposal to VANOC with regard to the provision of audit services.

H. Bains: The B.C. government, on behalf of the taxpayers, is committing $600 million. Certainly, we can ask VANOC — in order to assure the taxpayers on whose behalf we are committing $600 million — to ensure that our money and other money that we have signed indemnity agreements for, which we will be on the hook for in case there are overruns…. In order to assure the government, in order to assure the public, we can demand as a government that the Auditor General be appointed as the auditor of record. Why not?

Hon. C. Hansen: The choice of an auditor by VANOC, which is an independent, federally chartered, not-for-profit organization…. VANOC has the power to choose its own auditor. It is not up to the province.

What the province has responsibility for with regard to the Olympic Games…. Our Auditor General has unfettered power to investigate any aspect of that that he so chooses. So when it comes to the $600 million, when it comes to the indemnity that we have provided specifically to the IOC and their costs, the Auditor General today has the ability to investigate any aspect of that that he so pleases.

H. Bains: We have signed indemnity agreements with the city of Vancouver and the resort municipality of Whistler, and there was one other.

H. Bains: IOC. Now, we are on the hook if there is overrun of costs. VANOC can satisfy its shareholders, whoever they report to, but on behalf of the public, we as government are on the hook if there are cost overruns. So we certainly can demand that our Auditor General be appointed to monitor spending and revenue and report back to the government.

Hon. C. Hansen: The Auditor General currently has that power to monitor the commitments of the province, including the indemnity agreement which is specific to the city of Vancouver and including the indemnity agreement that is specific to the resort municipality of Whistler and including the indemnity agreement that is specific to the IOC itself. So the provincial Auditor General has all of the powers required.

He doesn't have to be appointed by us or by anybody else in order to exercise those powers.

H. Bains: One last question. The Olympics were kept out of the Auditor General Act and freedom of information. Can the minister explain why?

Hon. C. Hansen: As far as the provincial government's commitment to the Olympic Games, that is very much covered by the Auditor General, and it is very much covered by freedom of information. As far as the powers that the province has, we have exercised them to the extent possible to make sure that there is opportunity for all of the oversight of the provincial obligations by independent officers of the Legislature. That's already in place.

H. Bains: I realize the time, but one last, last question. If it's not covered by freedom of information, then how can an ordinary citizen find out the costs and the revenues of the Olympics? What avenue is available to ordinary citizens?

Hon. C. Hansen: I think, Mr. Chair, it's important that the member recognizes where the power of the province and the obligations of the province start and stop. When it comes to the province's involvement, all of that is subject to FOI and is available for inspection by the freedom-of-information officer, as an independent officer of the Legislature, as well as the Auditor General, who is an independent officer of the Legislature.

The province's involvement in the Olympic Games is over…. The oversight for that is through the Olympic secretariat, which is part of my ministry. It is as much subject to freedom of information and inspection by the Auditor General as any other aspect of my ministry.

H. Bains: I want to take this opportunity to thank the minister for the answers to some of the questions and to thank his staff that were helping provide some of the information. Thank you very much.

Hon. C. Hansen: Mr. Chair, I move that the committee rise, report resolution and ask leave to sit again.

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