Hansard — Thursday, March 29, 2007 a.m.

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


Second Reading of Bills		6589
	Coroners Act (Bill 8)
	Hon. J. Les
	M. Farnworth
	M. Karagianis
	L. Krog
	Hon. J. Les
	Public Safety Statutes Amendment Act, 2007 (Bill 16)
	Hon. J. Les
	M. Farnworth
	L. Krog
	Hon. J. Les

Tabling Documents		6600
	Office of the Auditor General, report No. 12, 2006-2007, Switching Tracks: A Review of the B.C. Rail Investment Partnership

Committee of the Whole House		6600
	Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 2007 (Bill 14)
	B. Ralston
	Hon. C. Taylor

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		6603
	Estimates: Ministry of Education and Minister Responsible for Early Learning and Literacy
	Hon. S. Bond
	D. Cubberley

Hon. C. Richmond: I call second reading of Bill 8. For the information of the House, in Committee A will be the estimates of the Minister of Education.

I recently introduced the new Coroners Act, which responds to recommendations in the Hughes report relating to the B.C. Coroners Service. This new legislation will replace a statute that was drafted in 1974 and brought into force in 1979.

Both the B.C. Coroners Service and the larger public policy framework in which it operates have obviously evolved substantially since the current act was brought into force in 1979. For example, the coroner now plays a prominent role in the enhancement of public safety through its function of public reporting of the facts and circumstances of a death and any recommendations that can be made to prevent a death in similar circumstances.

Legislation and policy concerning protection and use of personal information have been developed to guide the manner in which public bodies collect, use and disclose information necessary to carry out their function. Consistent policy on administrative justice bodies and their powers and processes has been researched and developed.

For these reasons, we are updating the Coroners Act. In so doing, we will expand the coroner's role in enhancing public safety. We will give additional powers to coroners to effectively carry out their investigative and adjudicative duties in order to make meaningful recommendations. We will provide specific direction on the procedures to be followed by coroners in carrying out those duties. And we will update the legislation to be consistent with government policy on administrative tribunals and protection of personal information.

This new act represents a significant improvement to the format and structure of the current legislation. It is now separated into parts and ordered logically according to the order in which events take place upon the report of a death to the coroner. It also incorporates a part dedicated to definitions, which aids in accessibility to an interpretation of the act.

We have expanded the coroner's role in the prevention of future deaths and the enhancement of public safety by giving the coroner the discretion to investigate a death that occurred outside of British Columbia, but the events that caused the death occurred inside the province. This removes the restriction under the current act allowing a coroner to investigate only where the death occurs in or the body is present in the province.

This power will be invaluable where, for example, a person is seriously injured at or near the provincial border in eastern British Columbia and is flown to the nearest hospital, which can often be located in Alberta, where the person dies. Under the current act, no investigation could be undertaken nor any recommendations made in respect of the circumstances of the accident.

The new act will allow recommendations to be made to prevent similar deaths, thereby enhancing the safety of British Columbians. Coroners will continue to have powers necessary to investigate fully the facts and circumstances of a person's death. However, we have added the power to compel a witness to appear before the coroner during the investigation to give evidence under oath in a process similar to a discovery in the civil litigation process.

Any witness compelled to give information during the investigation will have the same rights, protections and obligations as a witness who appears before a coroner at an inquest. This includes the right to advice from counsel, the obligation to respond to all questions and the protection against further use of that evidence in other proceedings, except in a prosecution for perjury.

Under the current act, the coroner's only power to compel testimony from a reluctant witness is to convene an inquest. Having the authority to compel witnesses during the investigation is anticipated to result in significant improvements to the effectiveness of investigations and the efficiency of the inquest process, and it will reduce the number of inquests that are called for the express purpose of compelling evidence from a reluctant witness.

The new act enhances the transparency and the accountability of the coronial process by setting out clearly the course of action that must be followed once a death is reported to a coroner. The coroner must begin an investigation and, upon the conclusion of the investigation, must send one of four written reports to the chief coroner.

That report will indicate, first, that the death occurred in circumstances that were natural or expected and need no further investigation; or second, that where a death occurred outside the province but the circumstances occurred inside the province, the coroner has declined to investigate; or third, that the coroner's investigation has resulted in sufficient information to enable the determination of who the deceased was and how, when, where and by what means that person died — this report is referred to as the coroner's judgment; or fourth, that in the public interest or as required by the act, an inquest should be held to determine the facts and circumstances of death.

The act has updated the circumstances under which a death must result in a coroner's inquest. Under the

current act, all correctional facility deaths are mandated to go to inquest. The new act has been amended to reflect that inquests are mandatory for only those deaths that occur while a person is in police custody.

All deaths that occur in a correctional facility will continue to be reported to a coroner so that an autopsy is performed in respect of all of those deaths. However, where that death was the result of a natural or expected cause, the decision to hold an inquest will be discretionary.

The chief coroner will also have the power to order that an inquest be held into more than one death at a time where the deaths occurred from identical or similar causes but occurred in separate circumstances.

Where an inquest is held, either because it is required in the public interest or where it is mandated by the act, coroners will have explicit powers to control an inquest and to maintain the order and decorum of the process. These powers that we have given to coroners under the new act are consistent with the kinds of powers given to tribunals and commissions of inquiry.

The new act also achieves the very important goal of enacting the recommendations in the Hughes report relating to the continuation of the child death review unit with the B.C. Coroners Service.

The Coroners Service has always had the explicit mandate to investigate all sudden, unexpected deaths of both children and adults. In 2003 it was given additional responsibilities to undertake the review of all child deaths, including those that were the result of natural causes. Although the existing act allows the chief coroner to take on these responsibilities as directed by the minister, the new act makes the powers of the child death review unit explicit and transparent.

The new act also authorizes the chief coroner to convene a panel of experts to provide advice on legal, medical and other technical matters related to the deaths of children as well as adults. The focus of these panels will be to evaluate the cause of deaths. A compelling example of this function is illustrated in a recent review by the B.C. Coroners Service that examined a subset of sudden and unexpected child deaths. The review revealed that although most of these deaths were classified as natural, the majority had an immediate cause of death of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS.

Further, many of the deaths that were identified as SIDS deaths were found to have been confused with deaths resulting from unsafe sleeping practices, which caused asphyxiation. As a result of this review, the B.C. Coroners Service was able to release a report on safe infant sleep guidelines to prevent child deaths in these situations. This is evidence that British Columbia will benefit significantly from the work of the child death review unit.

The goals and objectives of the unit include the collection of consistent, relevant data on all child deaths in British Columbia; the evaluation of that data to identify trends; evidence-based and subject-specific aggregate reviews of the factors behind child deaths, using a multidisciplinary team of legal, medical and technical experts; and the publication of reports relating to child deaths annually, and special subject-specific reports from time to time where necessary and appropriate.

Finally, three aspects of the act relating to the use, protection and disclosure of information have been updated to be in line with current government policy. First, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act will continue to apply to the information and records of the coroner with some clarification, including the express provision that the notes, communications and draft reports of a coroner made while exercising the quasi-judicial function will be exempt from disclosure.

Second, additional protection has been added to exempt from access those records relating to confidential information received by a member of the child death review unit during the review of a child death, and information revealing the subject matter of deliberations of a multidisciplinary panel. Ultimately, the way to provide meaningful recommendations to prevent child deaths and other deaths is to have the ability to discuss the facts and circumstances of each case candidly. These protections give the unit and the multidisciplinary panel the ability to do so.

Third, the current act does not set out a clear code for the sharing of appropriate information between agencies. The new act will address this inefficiency by allowing the chief coroner to enter into information-sharing agreements with other agencies on terms that provide for the same protection of information that the Coroners Act provides.

My final point is that the new Coroners Act streamlines the process by which coroners are hired by removing the requirement for an order-in-council appointment. This process is administratively burdensome and results in a delay in the appointment process for coroners. Instead, the chief coroner and the deputy chief coroner will continue to be appointed by OIC and will be responsible for hiring coroners into the service after a merit-based process, as provided for in the Public Service Act. Practically speaking, this will result in no change to the hiring protocol within the service, as coroners have been hired after a merit-based process for some time.

In summary, these amendments are long overdue. This new act will provide the legislative framework for the B.C. Coroners Service to carry out its important mandate. This updated, transparent and organized statute encodes the processes used by the Coroners Service to determine the circumstances of unexplained deaths and makes recommendations for the enhancement of public safety. Finally, it utilizes the expertise of the Coroners Service in undertaking the critical responsibility of reviewing all child deaths.

M. Farnworth: Thank you, hon. Speaker. It's Port Coquitlam–Burke Mountain.

M. Farnworth: Some people may say: "Is there a difference?" There most certainly is, and my colleague from Coquitlam-Maillardville would be the first to say that.

Anyway, it's my pleasure to take my place in this debate on Bill 8, the Coroners Act, an important piece of legislation, as the Solicitor General has just outlined. It's important for a number of reasons.

First, the changes that flow out of the Hughes recommendations were significant. It has not undergone significant change or improvement for many, many years.

What is equally important is that this piece of legislation came here because of a tragedy. It came here because of government's denial that there was a problem. It came here because of the questioning, the probing of the opposition in holding the government to account for its actions. That's how this system of ours should work. So this legislation is very much a product of an opposition doing its job and exposing the weaknesses, the flaws and the failings of government in a very important area of public policy.

Hon. Speaker, I'd like to just refresh your mind for a moment as to exactly how this came about. The government transferred the child death review process from the B.C. Children's Commission to the Coroners Service in 2003. They didn't give it the appropriate legislative authority or budget, and the result was that 955 files were lost in this transition process. That meant that investigations and all the things that should have happened didn't happen. That was a tragedy that could have been avoided had those authorities and that budget been in place, but they weren't. Day after day of questioning resulted in the government finally being forced to admit, dragged kicking and screaming, to the Hughes commission….

In September 2005 the coroner's own staff wrote that legislative amendments to permit child death reviews were urgently required. Despite this evidence, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, the government insisted that no, no, the tools were in place, the legislative framework was in place and that all the things that were necessary for the coroner to do his job were there. Well, they weren't.

The legislation before us today proves that, because this spells out definitively what needs to happen and what needs to take place. That's important.

I know the minister's made his opening remarks about what's in the bill. I hope in his closing remarks he can address some of those issues as to the discrepancy between those statements at the time, that the powers and regulations and the authority were there, and the reality of the fact that it's only in this bill that it is truly there and actually shown to be there. I think that's an important question that the minister needs to answer.

This bill has many, many good points. We will be exploring this bill on a very comprehensive basis in committee stage, because the different recommendations and the different sections and different clauses require that debate.

I think one of the positive aspects about this bill is the fact that the coroner can compel witnesses to testify. I agree with the Solicitor General's comments that this will lead to better coroner reviews, better coroner investigations and better coroner processes — absolutely.

When dealing with how and the circumstances under which an individual, whether an adult or a child, has died — particularly when there's been a child die, and we've seen the history of that over the years — it's important that the coroner have the ability to compel witnesses to testify.

Not only will we have answers for cause of death that can satisfy the legal requirements that need to be there, but also families will know exactly what took place and will have answers — which too often in the past they have not had, because in the legislation it was not specified. For years there has been, as we saw, a denial by the government that there was even a problem. It's important that this particular change, for example, is in there. We're very pleased to see this particular change.

Having said this, there are also some areas that we're concerned about. I mean, one of the actions that resulted in this particular bill coming before us was the fact that the government did stonewall. They did hide behind; they were not upfront. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming. It took a tragedy exposed publicly before something finally happened.

What people were looking for was openness and transparency. The minister says that there is openness, that this is a more transparent process, and that this legislation will make for a more open and transparent process. Well, there are some important questions that we have about that.

I can tell the minister, for example, that we're concerned. Right now, in terms of making results public or to approve an inquest, under the old legislation…. I'm not going to damn the old legislation completely, because there are always good points and bad points, and we always seek to improve legislation.

Under the old legislation, one of the things that was important was that local coroners shared in the power of when an inquest could be called. They had that ability. In this particular piece of legislation, this appears not to be the case. I want to explore later in committee stage why that is or is not the case, because local coroners have had that before. I think there are some advantages for them to do that.

Under this bill, it will only be the chief coroner or the Solicitor General who can approve an inquest. That's something that needs explanation and examination because I think there are circumstances and opportunities where the role of the local coroner is important. We should ensure that this is taken into account and that they have that ability to call an inquiry.

The issue of mandatory public reporting. It's left to the chief coroner. One of the issues that constantly comes up and a question that I want the government to be able to answer is: why is that? Why is there no mandatory public reporting? What is wrong with having public reporting? It instils confidence in the public at large. It allows for greater transparency and openness, and I think that if there are to be restrictions on public

reporting, they need to be either spelled out or a very good case needs to be made as to why it's the case.

I haven't heard that from the minister, and that would be one of the issues that I would like him to address — either at the closure of second reading debate or, if not then, certainly at committee stage. It will be an issue that we intend to pursue and follow-up on.

Again, if the idea is to bring in a Coroners Act that not only deals with all the legal and technical issues that need to be raised, addresses the issues that were raised in the Hughes report — all the recommendations that were in the Hughes report — and enables us to avoid the tragedies that happened under the old act and to move forward so that we have something that the public has confidence in, then clearly openness and transparency and public information are key on that.

The other issue that concerns us is public access to inquests. In going through the bill, one of the things that strikes me is that there's a greater ability in this piece of legislation than before to bring in expert witnesses and other individuals that the coroner feels are important in terms of doing the inquest. That's a good thing. That's something that we think definitely should be there. But we're also concerned about the ability of the families to attend an inquest because, as we've seen in the past few years, often these inquests have involved children, they have involved people in very difficult economic circumstances who don't have the resources to attend a hearing, who don't have the ability to ensure their presence at a hearing.

That's something that I think needs to be addressed, and if it is addressed in this bill, I'd like the minister to be able to say that it is. If it's not, then we need to make sure it is. The legislation's got to not only work from the context of being able to meet the requirements and all the tools that the coroner needs and what the public needs, but it also has to be able to meet the needs of victims — the families of those individuals — particularly when it's involving children and a coroner's inquest is taking place.

This piece of legislation is long overdue. It flows from a set of very unfortunate tragedies. It has come about because of actions of the government, the work of the opposition and the work of Mr. Ted Hughes, who I think has done this province a terrific service in his report and recommendations. To see those recommendations flow into this legislation is crucial. It's a bill that we will be supporting, but we also want to make sure in the committee stage that this particular piece of legislation will do what the minister says it will do.

There are some key questions. There are some important questions that need to be addressed, and we hope that the minister will have the answers for those questions in committee stage. We will do a thorough examination in committee stage on a clause-by-clause basis.

With that, I will let other colleagues of mine enter the second reading debate and will now take my place.

M. Karagianis: I have actually been watching for some time for some legislative changes to come forward, so it's good to have an opportunity to stand here and speak to this bill today. As always when we examine legislation, we look for the things that drove the process and whether or not they have been served by legislative changes. Also, we look for the things that are missing from the bill that the community desires.

I did go through the bill with an eye to that. Certainly, at committee stage I will have a great number of questions on specific aspects of the bill, but I would like to just speak generally about a couple of aspects of what I see here today.

We know that the process of re-examining the Coroners Act and amending it has been driven very much by events that took place here in this province that were tragic in nature and that demonstrated significant flaws in the Coroners Act. In fact, there have been several different events that have helped highlight the fact that the Coroners Service, as it currently exists, needed some new legislation, some new tools, in order to meet the new requirements that had been given to them.

The opposition has voiced concerns for some time about whether or not the Coroners Service had adequate resources, adequate legislative tools to address the mandate that was given to them when the Children's Commission was shut down. I think everyone's fairly familiar with some of the events and some of the questions that have arisen out of that process.

Also, I looked through this Coroners Act to see whether or not Jane Morley's investigation into the Port Alberni situation and, as a consequence, a number of the findings she disclosed there around the Coroners Services — some of the lack of services, some of the gaps in actions and services around that Port Alberni case — had been addressed. I know that Ms. Morley did not make a list of direct recommendations, although there were some oblique recommendations, I think, within the words of her report.

I would have to say that seeing this now, we look back on the assurances that we received from government that the Coroners Service had all of the mandate, all the resources, all the tools — everything that they needed — to address the children's death reviews. Clearly, that was not actually true and full in the sense of what we believed to be the assurances of government when that occurred.

That said, obviously these amendments are going to move forward to fill those gaps. Again, it's unfortunate that so much of this has been driven by gaping holes in our ability to ensure that children's deaths were reviewed appropriately and that those families had the information and the assurances that due diligence was being done at the time of the deaths after the children's commissioner was closed down.

In moving through this, at the back of my mind is always whether or not we have moved to fulfil all of those gaps in the legislation — all of those assurances that families need and that the opposition would like to see — and that subsequent reports, including Hughes and Morley, need to be included in the coroner's legislation and toolbox.

I am concerned that the legislation has remained unclear in some aspects of child death reviews. It's unclear to me whether all children's deaths will in fact be referred to the Coroners Service and will be given that due diligence. I'll certainly be looking, as we proceed through the committee stage, for some assurances from government that they will — that 100 percent of children's deaths will be given the same respect and the same consideration, whether they occur in tragedy or whether they do not. I'll be looking for that assurance.

I think it's also a tool that goes hand in hand with what we expect from our new children's representative. What she expects in the way of a relationship with the Coroners Service is that there will always be an assurance that no one will ever again fall through the gaps. There may need to be some consideration on making sure that the language gives us confidence that 100 percent of children's deaths will be reported and will receive the kind of focus and consideration from the coroner that they deserve.

I also think the legislation is a bit unclear here on who will be required to report children's deaths. Another question on this that I'll be asking at the committee stage is to tighten up the language on that so that there's no ambiguity whatsoever. It is always in these ambiguous and vague bills and legislative clauses that mistakes happen. Things get overlooked. We find shortcomings later, often after tragedy, and that is always really unfortunate.

There will be some questions asked of government on that as we move through the bill here — on tightening up the language. I would hope that government will give serious consideration to that on a voluntary basis.

I will say that there are some aspects of this bill that I think are excellent: the new tightened language, the details around how investigations will be done, the powers of investigation and the powers that the coroner will have now in compelling individuals to provide information and to testify. I think those are all very good things and will certainly lead, in the end, to a little bit more clarity early on in a process around what events have occurred, who is responsible and what considerations the coroner needs to take in doing an inquest. In the investigative piece of this legislation, there are definitely some very good things.

I am concerned, though, around another ambiguous part of the legislation here, which is around timeliness. In fact, I think it appears throughout this legislation that a number of these clauses do not give me a sense of confidence that investigations and inquests will be carried out in a timely manner.

We've seen, through the events that have taken place over the last number of years, that the lack of timeliness has often led to individuals living either with uncertainty or, in some cases, in jeopardy. Investigations and inquests take such an enormous amount of time — often three and four years or longer. In some cases we've seen inquests and investigations coming forward five and six years after a death. In that time frame, many things can occur.

I don't understand why we can't try and work towards a more succinct time frame and compel the Coroners Service and provide the resources to the Coroners Service that allow them to get on with investigations in a timely way. So often these investigations and police investigations stretch out over such long time frames that by the time you get the information, so many years have passed.

Families' lives are tied up in this. Finding a way to include time frames that are more relevant and actually give families some understanding of what to expect…. I think that is the totally appropriate expectation of government to do that.

It will be one of the things I would ask for government to think about: including some time frames. It asks for efficiency out of the Coroners Service. It's an expectation that the Coroners Service could be just as efficient and effective as other levels of government and other bodies of government as well.

As we move through some of the sections into the inquest part of the Coroners Act, there are a couple of things that again give me concern. It's part of the flow throughout this legislation that there seems to be some language here that restricts public access to an inquiry and to information. This is a theme that we have seen elsewhere. We've had great discourse in this place over the Public Inquiry Act and the fact that there are all kinds of perceptions and abilities for a restriction of information there.

I see the same kind of language again here. This bill adds more restrictions to public access. The first thing that comes to mind is the families' rights to know. Often, in this case, what it comes down to is the individual lives that have been affected here by a death or tragedy, and their right and the public's right to know exactly what the circumstances were around that.

I understand the Privacy Act. I understand it thoroughly and fully, and I know that there is always that balance between protecting private and confidential information and the public's right to know and understand. But there are lots of ways to achieve that that do not constrain public access to information.

It gives me a lot of concern here that there are some sections of this bill that show there are some restrictions being imposed here or in other ways. The families' ability to understand what happened in a death, to get some closure, to get some understanding and perhaps some clarity within their own circumstances for the future — not every effort is being made here to provide them with that. I think in some ways we are actually restricting their rights by, first of all, restricting access to information.

Secondly, there's the issue around how we treat witnesses and family members within the inquiry and inquest framework. In many cases family members cannot afford to attend the inquest and investigations because of financial constraints. I see here that again family members are not being compensated in the same way as we would expect they should be. I think it could impose a financial hardship.

I know of a recent inquest that took place where there was actually some special intervention on the part

of the family. The inquest was five or six years after the death of the child, and there was some intervention done to ensure that the mother of the child had an opportunity to go and participate in that.

I actually think that government needs to go further in ensuring that families are not restricted by financial hardship from participating fully in that process and in their right to do that. I don't want government to shut the door on that. This is something that families do not get closure to, that they don't have an opportunity to participate in, because, in the ensuing years they have moved, and their financial situations may in fact be very difficult.

Often in the case of a child's death where tragedy is involved, families' lives are changed irrevocably. Frequently hardship is one aspect of what happens there. So I'm not happy with the fact that there is no opportunity here for families to be eligible for some expenses to be recovered or to allow them to participate in that. I'll be looking to government to actually assure us that, in the case of financial hardship, families are not going to be restricted because they can't afford to travel back to an old hometown in order to participate in the investigation.

The investigation on Texada Island — the death on Texada Island — incurred expenses for the family to go and participate in that. They waited a long time for that investigation, and I don't believe in any way that government should be disallowing their participation in that by prohibiting any kind of financial compensation there. I'll be looking for a voluntary effort on government's part to assure us that that has been seriously considered, that those hardships are being respected and that families will be treated fairly.

As we move through into further sections — the death reviews — it comes to my mind that the coroner has an enormous amount of discretion in the time frame in which death reviews and investigations can be conducted. I want some satisfaction from government that we will not again see such enormously long times go by that people's lives are imposed upon for years at a time waiting for some answer from government into the death of a child.

I'm not entirely happy with the fact of no time frames here on death reviews. So I'll be looking to government to assure us that there will be some expectations of a bit more efficiency out of the Coroner's Service in that respect.

As I move through to the last — administrative and general matters — part of the bill…. The bill clearly increases restrictions on disclosure of information. I want us to take a long hard look at that and make sure that we are balancing the freedom of information, which we all recognize, and the protection of privacy against this real or apparent constraint of information.

If, in fact, the coroner is not compelled to release information or may refuse to disclose information, it creates greater restrictions for us understanding situations that have occurred and learning from them. Throughout this, I'll be questioning at each step of the way why we are not including time frames that are realistic and expeditious, and why we are continually trying to close down the flow of information, restrict access to information and actually use the language of the law to keep families — and the public in general — from understanding and knowing and freely accessing the information that they're entitled to.

At the end of this bill I ask myself: have we learned anything from the experience we've been through in the last few years? Have we have learned anything from circumstances and situations and tragedies like the death of the child in Port Alberni?

One really important aspect of what occurred there…. Aside from all the lessons we learned from that death and all the subsequent events that have been compelled by that event — the Hughes report, the reinstatement of the children's representative — there is one whole other aspect of this story which has been a little bit forgotten.

I don't have any comfort, in what I see here today, that we didn't learn from the ongoing aspect of this story that didn't result in a death. The fact that a young child was left in the home of his sibling's murderer for months and months and months while an investigation was going on, while an inquest was taking place, while a coroner already had some interest and some involvement in the case….

It's very evident to me, from all the information that we saw coming out of the Morley report on this topic, that the coroner's involvement here fell far short of a duty to report. Again, I haven't read anything yet in this bill that says we've learned our lesson on that particular aspect.

When we think about the enormous amount of time that goes by without tight time frames here to guide us and give us some assurance…. Many years can go by before an inquest or an investigation or review takes place. In that time frame — in the case of young Jamie Charlie, who was left in the home of a murderer for six months — conceivably a much longer time could go on before the facts are revealed within a tragic situation that could prevent other tragedies or children's lives from being affected forever.

As human beings, none of us can look at the situation of Jamie being left in the home of his sister's murderer for that many months…. It cannot touch us and not make us think that is not correct. That is inappropriate, and if government has an opportunity to prevent it, that should be one of the really big lessons we learned.

Often we look at the child death reviews and we learn from the death, from the inquest. We learn lots of lessons from the end of a person's life, but it's this other aspect of safety in that environment that I think clearly has been overlooked. I think it's been ignored consistently. I don't think enough attention has been paid to that.

I'd like to really focus on that as one of the outcomes here that I'd like some assurance of. I just don't get any sense here that we have seen that as one other aspect of the mandate of the Coroner's Service — the duty to report.

Frankly, it was touched on only lightly in the Morley report. She stopped just short of making a very strong recommendation on that, although it's definitely inferred. It is definitely written in that report how the coroner views, in a very strict sense, his or her mandate on death reviews and how they extend that to the circumstances around the family and the other circumstances that exist around a death.

I'd like to see that scope included there. I think it's really important for that to be a part of this. As for the coroner, as long as the coroner is now going to be involved in and be the sole initial review for children's deaths — outside of and prior to the children's representative's involvement — I think that duty to report and that duty for the coroner to look at the family circumstances and other members in the home after a child's death are critical to this.

I want assurance that that will be a consideration within this. In fact, if it's not, I expect to be moving an amendment here to that so that the government can actually do the right thing and come out of this, at the end of the day, having learned that other piece of the lesson which I see missing here.

That's my initial response to this. As we move through committee stage, I'll be looking forward to some answers. I hope that the government will voluntarily meet us in the middle with this and say: "Yes, we see that there are some weaknesses here, and perhaps we can tighten this up and give all of us assurances on some of these aspects of the bill."

L. Krog: I want to say to the Solicitor General that I compliment him for bringing this bill forward. I think it is important. I have noted on many occasions, also, that the Solicitor General listens with close interest to the remarks of the opposition. I think that deserves noting in this House; it doesn't always happen.

Having said that, however, I am conscious of the fact that this bill is, in some respects, the closest we're going to get for an apology from this government — an apology for the cuts they made that we on this side of the House believe contributed, in no small way, to some tragedies in this province that led to the appointment of Ted Hughes, who performed, as he has always done in his public capacity in this province, a wonderful job on behalf of the citizens of British Columbia. This bill represents, if you will, the implementation of many of his recommendations, which are so important.

It wouldn't have hurt to hear this morning in the introductory remarks of the Solicitor General for the government to say simply: "We're sorry. We made a mistake." I don't expect that we're going to hear that. We don't hear much from this government by way of apology. As the chickens come home to roost six years after their election and a number of changes are having to be made — budgetary changes being made; money put back into programs that were cut; institutions that were decimated being refurbished, so to speak, with funding — it's apparent to me that this government should be apologizing. It should be saying to the people of British Columbia: "We made some dreadful mistakes."

Notwithstanding the advice that was given so vigorously by the then leader of the NDP, Joy MacPhail, and the sitting member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, they didn't heed those warnings. It's too bad. Frankly, I think the public would be delighted to hear that kind of apology, but they're clearly not going to get it.

The coroner's position goes back, as I understand it, to something like 1194 — some 813 years ago. The position of the coroner in our society, the office of the coroner, is an important one. It is, if you will, the independent voice of the people to determine the cause of death in our communities. It is a revered office. It is not seen as a politicized office. It is seen as a position of importance in the community, a position of great trust. So it is with great concern that I note that the bill before the House now allows only the chief coroner or the Solicitor General to approve an inquest, whereas under the existing legislation local coroners also shared this power.

There have been numerous successful, able, well-respected coroners throughout the province of British Columbia during its history who have stepped up to the plate when public interest, public duty and a sense of outrage or concern arose and have taken on the task, conducted inquests and improved in immeasurable ways the lives of British Columbians. Out of the tragic deaths of many they've drawn improvements to the way we conduct ourselves, manage our businesses, move our goods and perform our occupations in our workplaces.

It is an extremely important function in our society. I cannot for the life of me understand why the government, through this bill, would wish to place all of the burden that comes with that on the chief coroner only, instead of leaving it up to coroners who live and work in their own communities, who have the on-ground connections to the community to make the very important decision around the holding of inquests.

Ultimately — and with some experience in the courtroom I can say — we are supposed to be looking for truth in courts. I'm not always convinced that we find the truth, but there is no question that we expect from coroner's inquests the finding of the truth. What happened? What was the cause? What led to this death? It is important.

I would have thought that the government, looking at all of the evidence of the very important work done by hundreds of coroners throughout this province's history, would have presented legislation that left to local coroners the power to commence and run inquests on their own. I am hopeful that the Solicitor General — who, as I said earlier, I note to be a person who listens carefully to the debate in this House — will consider the government's position in this matter and will consider amending the bill so that it gives that power back to local coroners, gives that ability to do what they have done for decades in this province with great success — satisfying the public's right to know what occasioned the deaths that inquests investigate.

I am very concerned about the fact that, just like the Public Inquiry Act, this bill provides no time limit on

when the commencement and completion of a child death review or other death review panels have to provide information to conclude. In the real world outside there are time limits. Employees are given tasks. They're told have the thing done by Friday.

I acknowledge fully that sometimes it's very difficult to place time frames on what governments require of positions like the chief coroner or coroners in general. But it seems to me that the public, because of the very ancient nature of this office, is entitled to know that there will be an end, that there will be a report and that the public will know. Because ultimately, as I said earlier, what the coroner does is seek the truth, and the public has the right to know.

I am concerned that this represents more of a concern around finances and that somehow we will be making decisions about inquests in the office of one person only based on budgetary requirements, as opposed to what the public has always expected, which is the seeking of justice and truth at whatever cost that may mean.

It is, if you will, a very corporate attitude to this that somehow we have a person at the top who gets to make all the decisions, as opposed to relying on the intelligence and abilities and wisdom of those at the bottom. I would suggest, with great respect, that given the independent nature of the coroner's office, the subtle influences of government on the position are going to be felt more readily by one individual than they would be by a series of local coroners who would feel that kind of independence.

I would suggest that it would be in the public interest, indeed, to ensure that local coroners felt comfortable in proceeding on their own, based on their own skills and local knowledge because as it is, the way the bill is worded, it's going to be only the chief coroner and the Solicitor General. Now, I have no doubt the Solicitor General will reply and say: "The chief coroner will take advice from the local coroners. The chief coroner will listen to the public service working under him." And that's true.

But surely there is no suggestion that the existing system of local coroners having that ability is suspect, is not working and has not proved successful in protecting the public interest and seeking the truth. If there were evidence of it, then I would perhaps be not so critical of the bill as it stands. But there is no evidence in the suggestion that local coroners have been doing a bad job or not doing their job or doing their job negligently or not in a timely fashion.

With the greatest respect to the Solicitor General, it is my suggestion that the government reconsider its position around allowing only the Solicitor General — who is ultimately, first and foremost, a politician — and only the chief coroner to be the parties to approve an inquest. I think it is a narrowing of the powers and authority of this office — an office that, as I indicated earlier, is ancient. It is over 800 years old in our system, and I would strongly suggest that if the system ain't bust, don't fix it. And if local coroners have operated successfully, there is no reason now to change that process.

I want to compliment the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin and our Opposition House Leader for their remarks earlier this morning. I think they were absolutely appropriate in terms of the criticism of this bill but also appropriate in indicating, as I said in my opening remarks, that we are glad the government has introduced this. We are proud of the work of Ted Hughes.

We are not, obviously, entirely satisfied by this bill, but it does represent some progress. And I suppose, given this government's attitude about apologies and progress, every little bit counts. We're delighted to see it move forward, and I look forward to second reading debate.

Hon. J. Les: I appreciate the comments from the members opposite on this bill. Clearly, in committee stage we are going to have some, I think, interesting and illuminating discussion with respect to this bill.

In the comments this morning I have on several occasions heard some attempts at some restating, perhaps, of history. I should say quite clearly that this bill has been in gestation for a number of years — three or four years, as a matter of fact. And while that is true, there is also no question that this bill has been informed by events that have transpired in the interim period.

What I think we have here is a bill that represents a great step forward in our ongoing quest to have the Coroners Service speak for the dead — which is, in fact, very specifically their mandate.

I'm not going to engage in a discussion of remarks from the members opposite at this point. I think there will be full opportunity to do that at committee stage, and I look forward to that.

Hon. J. Les: I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 8, Coroners Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. C. Richmond: I call second reading of Bill 16, Public Safety Statutes Amendment Act, 2007, the hon. Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General.

Bill 16 introduces amendments to several statutes under the administration of my ministry. The purpose of these amendments is to make our legislation more effective in protecting the interests of British Columbians.

The amendment to the Correction Act will enhance public safety by protecting the public from unwelcome

and inappropriate communications from incarcerated offenders. With this legislation, the ministry will have clear authority to inform people about any inmate communication that they are about to receive so that they can make their own decision about whether they wish to receive that communication.

In many cases inmate communications are in fact welcomed by recipients. The purpose of this legislation is to assist the ministry in protecting those members of the public — minors, witnesses to and victims of crime, including victims of family violence — who complain that they receive unsolicited and inappropriate correspondence from inmates, contact from offenders, including sexual offenders, contrary to the best interests of a child or a parent's wishes, or harassing and threatening phone calls or letters from jailed offenders.

The recipient can bring such matters to the attention of the ministry in order that restrictions may be imposed on inmate communications, thus protecting them from criminal behaviour and harassment.

The amendments to the Criminal Records Review Act are intended to better protect our children. British Columbia is the only province that legislates criminal-record checks on all individuals who work with children. The Criminal Records Review Act requires that anyone in British Columbia who is employed, licensed or funded by the government and who works with children or who has unsupervised access to children through their work must obtain a criminal-record check.

The first significant change made by these amendments is to require record checks to be submitted every five years. Currently the checks are done once, when the person is hired. This change will ensure that any risk assessments are current. These amendments will also bring other individuals under the act to enhance the protection of children. These include post-secondary students whose education program includes a practicum involving work with children and teachers applying for certification under the Independent School Act.

Further amendments deal with expanding the number and type of offences that are covered in a record check. Six new offences will be added, such as Internet luring and cruelty to animals. At the present time, there is no authority to request criminal information from other countries. The amendments will include analogous offences committed outside of Canada as part of the criminal record.

Individuals discharged to an alternative measures program for a relevant offence are currently not subject to the act. These amendments will change that and allow alternative measures to be subject to the act. The amendments will also include specific authority for the registrar to consider relevant offences that have been pardoned.

The last amendment I would like to mention today speaks to the issue of compliance. Amendments in this bill will allow the registrar to request records from an employer or governing body to ensure compliance with the requirements of this act. The changes in this bill will provide for increased protection of children from physical and sexual abuse.

Bill 16 will amend two sections of the Liquor Control and Licensing Act. The first amendment will clarify and strengthen the authority of liquor inspectors and police to enter licensed premises after normal business hours by providing an explicit requirement for licensees to promptly produce records and immediately permit inspection. This change clarifies the authority of enforcement officials to investigate public safety issues such as service to minors, overservice and other illegal activities that may take place after closing time.

The second amendment will make it an offence for minors to use false ID to access alcohol. Minors caught doing this will be subject to a violation ticket in the $100 range that must be paid before a driver or vehicle licence can be renewed or issued. Our objective is to deter minors from using false identification to access alcohol and to provide a consequence should they do so. A consequence for the minor helps achieve balance in accountability between the business and the minor by having consequences for both parties. This change supports our efforts to reduce the harm caused by under-age drinking.

The changes to the Motion Picture Act will allow government to delegate the administration of the act to the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Authority. Since 2004 the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Authority has been delegated responsibility for ensuring consumer protection legislation in the province. The changes support further consolidation of consumer protection and enhance the film classification regulatory framework.

For consumers, the authority has the versatility to conduct broader outreach and education programs on film classification and piracy as well as an expanded ability to investigate illegal or unrated videos. For the industry, the authority has the flexibility to respond to changing technology and the needs of film distributors.

Government will continue to be responsible for the public policy and the legislation of the film classification regime, including the definition of adult material. Government will continue to be responsible for reflecting public tolerance standards for film and video through careful oversight of the delegated authority.

The purpose of the amendment to the Motor Vehicle Act is to bring B.C.'s driver licensing requirements for accredited foreign representatives into line with those of other provinces and with international practice. Currently B.C. provides consular officers and their spouses with an exemption card, allowing them to drive on their out-of-province licence without holding a B.C. driver's licence. All other accredited foreign representatives and their accredited dependents are required to obtain a B.C. licence, including taking the tests and paying fees.

The amendment will replace that process with one that will exempt all accredited foreign representatives and their dependents from some licensing requirements. Instead of retaining their home licences while in British Columbia, ICBC may issue them a B.C. driver's licence free of charge and, in most cases, without testing.

This amendment also allows for circumstances to be defined where the exemption does not apply, such as not waiving testing requirements for dependents who have limited or no driving experience. These drivers will enter the graduated licensing program. Any person receiving these benefits will continue to be subject to all B.C.'s traffic laws.

These are the amendments that are being proposed in this bill. With these amendments, our ability to protect the interests of British Columbia is enhanced.

G. Gentner: I ask the House to make leave so that I can make a quick introduction.

G. Gentner: It is with a great deal of pleasure that we see in the gallery today teachers, parents and the grade 11 students of Delview high school, which really is a stone's throw away from my house. They've come all the way over here to see how government works. I know we're dealing with public safety issues, and it may not be the juiciest tidbits for students — with all due respect to the minister, of course. Perhaps question period today will be far more fun, but nevertheless, they're here in this….

G. Gentner: They've come over here to enjoy the beautiful blossoms of Victoria. Will the House please make them welcome.

M. Farnworth: It's my pleasure to take my place in debates on Bill 16, Public Safety Statutes Amendment Act, 2007, and provide some comments and some criticism on this particular piece of legislation. It is important because I think it does deal with a number of issues that are at the front of public attention and public discussion.

I just want to briefly touch on one of the sort of little-known aspects of this particular bill before I go into the main body of my remarks, and that's what the Solicitor General commented on a moment ago, which is the issue of driver's licences for the foreign consular diplomatic corps that are here in British Columbia. This is something that really bugs people.

They have to obey the laws, they have to have a British Columbia driver's licence, and it's only right that individuals who are representing other countries here in B.C. should have a B.C. driver's licence and should abide by the same laws, rules and responsibilities as the rest of us. That includes the paying of traffic ticket fines and not being able to complain or to say, "Oh, I have diplomatic immunity, and so I don't have to pay the fine," and they don't pay the fine.

I would make that point in this particular piece of legislation. That's a sore point for many people. I know that it's a different level of government that deals with that and there are all kinds of protocols, but I do want to put it on the record that it galls people to no end that just because you have a consular licence plate on there, you can avoid the fines and the rules that the rest of us who are Canadians and British Columbians have to live by. So I just want to get that on the record. At the very least, on that basis of having to have a British Columbia driver's licence, I think that is important.

On the rest of the bill, I think the key area on this bill of course is the criminal background checks that are in it. We support that, but I will also say to the Solicitor General that I don't think it goes far enough — that I think he could have been a little tougher in some areas. He could have expanded it, particularly in the area of dealing with volunteers and children. I think there could have been a broader scope in this bill, but having said that, I do think that this is an important step, and it will deal with a number of public concerns. So I think in that particular case, the bill is worthy of our support.

But there are going to be a number of questions, I think, that we will explore at the committee stage around how the record checks will take place and, in fact, some important questions around this type of legislation and the increasing need in many areas to have criminal background records checks taking place — what that does. There have been concerns raised in the case of teachers, for example. Currently they have to have it at the start of employment. With this particular piece of legislation that will happen on a regular basis every five years, and I don't think that's an inappropriate time frame.

I think we also need to recognize that again, while $20 may not appear to be much to an individual over a five-year period — $4 a year — I think that is not the issue, and I think that is something that some critics outside have missed. The point is that it will create a lot of work on the system, and I do think that we need to be conscious that with this increased requirement and this better due diligence in terms of background checks, we are going to be creating a lot more work at the local level in our police departments in terms of doing background checks, particularly if we were to expand even further to all volunteers that work with children.

This is going to create work, so the question becomes twofold. One is the cost of that work and whether or not the $20 fee, for example…. Some might say, "Well, that will cover it." The question is: does it, or is it just arbitrarily set? The other issue that it raises is, if it's not covering the costs or the cost has to increase, who's paying it? Is this also going on to local government, and are they going to be picking up the costs?

What that raises with me is that should not be a reason not to do the checks, that should not be a reason not to do the background checks, but rather it should

serve as a message and a potential issue that government needs to be looking at.

Is it time to look at taking the criminal-records check, centralizing it and having a dedicated group or agency or body within government that does that? We are going to be doing a lot more of them on a more regular basis than we have in the past. That way you're taking the burden away from individual police officers — and it's an administrative burden — allowing police officers to be doing what they do, which is policing, and having a more centralized approach to deal with the background checks that are clearly going to be needed to be done on a more regular basis.

Not only are we talking about teachers as they come into the workforce or volunteers who are working with children as they come into the workforce. We're not talking just about public schools, but also private schools and independent schools. Now by going to every five years…. There are, I think, 50,000 teachers alone. That's a lot of checking that needs to be done.

As we know, the overwhelming majority of it will come back fine, but it still takes time to do that. I really think that the government needs to give serious consideration now to how we deal with what will be, I think, some administrative challenges on this particular issue as we go forward over the years. It is going to become, I think, a challenge.

Having said that, the other issue that I hope the minister is able to deal with — again, it's one that I think we need to have an explanation around — is the issue of the National Parole Board, the pardon and the question of the definition of the expansion in this particular piece of legislation of the term "conviction" to include something for which a pardon has been given at the National Parole Board level. I've got some questions around that.

I heard the minister make some statements. I think it was around relevant offences. I took from that that it was not necessarily definitive, but that there was some discretion as to whether or not those convictions would have to be reported and how they apply in terms of the issue around parole.

I think on two questions I have some issues that that need to be explored, particularly at committee stage. First is what appears to be a conflict between provincial legislation and existing federal legislation, how the authority works for that to happen and whether or not the government has looked into the possibility or the potential problems with either a court review or a Charter challenge. I'm going to be seeking clarification on that at the committee stage.

The other is that we've just dealt with legislation that takes the functions of parole for many offences from the British Columbia Parole Board and transfers them to the National Parole Board. There is a sort of incongruity there between what we've just done in one piece of legislation and what we're doing in this particular piece of legislation. I think that is an issue that the minister needs to address, and it's one that we will be asking questions on.

On the main body of the bill, while we'll be supporting it and think that this is a good way to deal with things, we do have some concerns that we need to have addressed at committee stage. As I said, in some ways I would have gone further in some sections.

Now, there are some other sections in this bill that are also worth commenting on. One of those is around the issue the minister has talked about: fake ID. He's talked about a penalty not only for a minor using fake identification, as well as for the bar or the licensed premise that accepts the false identity….

I'm just wondering whether or not it also covers the person, particularly if it's a minor — actually, it doesn't matter if it's a minor or an adult — who either provided or manufactured that false identification. If that's not already included in existing legislation, why is it not included in this particular piece of legislation? If it's not, I'd be more than happy to move an amendment that that in fact should be included. My advice to the minister is that if he wants to move that amendment, I'm more than happy to do it. That's another issue that I think needs to be looked at.

I think this legislation is something that many in the public have been asking for, and it is a piece of legislation that we will be supporting. With that, I will take my seat in second reading debate and see if my colleagues have anything further to say.

L. Krog: As the critic for Public Safety and Solicitor General has outlined, the opposition supports this bill. I wish, however, to raise a couple of small concerns. I do note that the proposed definition of "conviction" includes a sentence under the Youth Criminal Justice Act of Canada. I can understand the reasoning for that, but the whole point of the Youth Criminal Justice Act is to hopefully rehabilitate and save young people from getting into further trouble with the law. I think that this bears some reflection, as it may in fact not give them that opportunity, if you will, to move on.

One can certainly understand that if someone has obtained a pardon — and pardons are difficult to obtain, I might add — for a serious criminal offence such as one of those enumerated, including perhaps assault, assault with a weapon causing bodily harm, one can understand why one would want the definition to include something for which one has been pardoned by the National Parole Board. But the youth criminal justice issue, I think, is one of some concern that has to be looked at carefully.

The other thing — and this arises out of my experience as an MLA — is the form of criminal-records checks that are provided through the RCMP. It may astonish members of this House to know that if you report a criminal matter to the RCMP — in other words, you're the victim of a crime — that information is recorded and kept and in circumstances, depending on how it's reported and the nature of the incident, will in fact show up on a criminal-records check.

Now, one can argue that this is all to the good, but it does give me concern. If we are going to be relying

on criminal-records checks, it would behoove the Solicitor General in his capacity to, I think, work with the RCMP and his counterparts across the country to ensure that the kind of information that is recorded and kept and that will be noted in criminal-records checks — the response that comes back when one makes that inquiry — does in fact deal with relevant information and does not infringe upon matters which are frankly either of no consequence or completely unimportant to the purpose of the check in the first place, which is to ensure the safety of our children.

This is a very worthy cause, if you will, a very worthy intention, to pursue this to ensure that only those who have been carefully scrutinized work with our children. But I think there are some very practical technical issues around this that I trust and hope the Solicitor General will consider. Certainly I intend to raise a few of these issues, if I have that opportunity, during the course of committee stage of this bill. As much as I support what is being done — and I think the public will be indeed very pleased with what's being done — there are some niggling little matters that I think need to be dealt with.

Having said that, I want to second the remarks of my colleague the Opposition House Leader around consular officials. This is one of those nasty little issues that gets under the skin of most British Columbians, including this speaker. It is frankly outrageous to me that those who enjoy that kind of office anywhere in the world somehow get to avoid the basic laws of the countries in which they operate.

It strikes me that it is not unreasonable, and I appreciate that there are foreign affairs issues and perhaps laws that govern beyond this. It still bothers me, as it does the Opposition House Leader. I'm not very happy about it. I suspect that if the Solicitor General walked out on the streets today and talked to ten ordinary British Columbians, he'd find that they concurred with us as opposed to the government's position on this.

Having said that, I look forward to committee stage of this bill and appreciate the government bringing this forward.

Mr. Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the Solicitor General closes debate.

Hon. J. Les: I appreciate very much the comments from members opposite on this bill. I am sure we will have some spirited discussion during committee stage, perhaps involving consular officials and other issues of that nature.

Hon. J. Les: I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 16, Public Safety Statutes Amendment Act, 2007, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, I have the honour to present report 12 of the Auditor General, 2006-2007, Switching Tracks: A Review of the B.C. Rail Investment Partnership.

Hon. C. Richmond: I call committee stage of Bill 14, Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 2007, the hon. Minister of Finance.

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 14; S. Hammell in the chair.

B. Ralston: This particular section deals with amendments to the Business Corporations Act. The news release attached to the information bulletin says that it's designed to, in part, reduce the regulatory burden on business corporations.

The time that we have in the Legislature is relatively limited. Last fall there wasn't a fall session. Other representatives in the business community — for example, the Insurance Council — have before the government a request for major amendments to the Insurance Act. There were several Supreme Court of Canada decisions that pointed out some serious flaws in the Insurance Act. Those have been requested for some time and I understand are not slated for legislation until at least sometime in 2008.

In the Canada Steps Up document of the Task Force to Modernize Securities Legislation in Canada, which has a goal to modernize securities legislation in Canada, they talk about the enhancement of the competitiveness of Canada's capital markets. What they do speak of is the discount that's assigned to Canada's capital markets because of the widely recognized weak enforcement of Canada's security laws.

They seek to remedy that, and they speak here — I'm going to read a passage from their report, because it speaks to the progress or lack of progress of this particular piece of legislation, the new British Columbia Securities Act — to the process of reaching a new act which would be put before the Legislature.

Those are two pieces of important legislation that appear to be far down the government's priority list. Given that time in the Legislature is limited and that legislative priorities are set by cabinet, can the minister advise why these revisions to the Business Corporations Act have bubbled up to the top of the agenda — as opposed to these other, I would submit, equally important if not more important pieces of legislation from substantive communities within the financial services industry?

Hon. C. Taylor: The answer is very straightforward and simple: it's because these pieces are uncomplicated, straightforward and easy to do, and therefore have come up quickly.

I will not comment on the securities regulations. As I said yesterday, that's not my portfolio. That is the Attorney General's.

On the Insurance Act. That has required a lot of consultation process that we went through this fall. We have within the ministry been working with Alberta as well to see if there are ways that we can coordinate the changes that everyone is making. There are a number of provinces looking at their insurance acts. That, again, is now prepared on a White Paper that's going back out into the community to make sure that we're going in a direction that is well understood, well supported.

We're doing it properly, and it takes time when you take a big act that hasn't been touched for some time. These are here today because they are needs that are more straightforward and easier to bring forward quickly.

S. Hawkins: Today in the gallery we have a distinguished delegation from the Czech Republic. The official visit of the committee on economy, agriculture and transport of the Senate of the Czech Republic is led by the hon. Jirí Šneberger, deputy speaker of the Senate of the parliament of the Czech Republic. Accompanying him are Mr. Pavel Vošalík, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Canada; Mr. Ivan Adamec, chair of the Senate committee on economy, agriculture and transport; Mr. Josef Vaculík, deputy chair of the committee; Mrs. Sona Paukrtová, member of the committee; and Mrs. Ivana Vecerová, secretary of the committee. I ask that all members of this group be given a warm welcome to British Columbia and to this House.

B. Ralston: Well, it seems to me that five years is an inordinate delay in bringing forward a new securities act, particularly when issues of consumer protection are very high on the public agenda and there has been a woeful inaction on the part of the government.

Dealing with the issue of the insurance revisions, I'm advised that the process has been requested to speed up and is near conclusion. But the suggestion it will find its way onto the legislative agenda has fallen somewhat on deaf ears, and it has been deferred yet again, to 2008. So I don't accept what the minister says in terms of doing it right. If the minister's goal is only to do the easy things, then it seems to me that work of government might grind to a halt.

Returning to what the information bulletin says about reducing regulatory burden, the Finance Committee in its 2005 report suggested that one of the ways to reduce the regulatory burden on business corporations might be to remove the tax on legal services. Indeed, the Finance Committee of 2005 made that recommendation. The Attorney General of the day, Mr. Plant, made repeated promises in opposition and never followed through on them during the years of government.

It would seem to me that if the government sought to reduce the regulatory burden on business…. Part of what we're going to deal with in this amendment is creating what are called unlimited liability companies. I expect that they will be incorporated here in British Columbia and that the attendant fees for establishing the company will flow to the province, and presumably some of the legal work and spinoff economic benefits will flow to the province as well. It would seem to me that one of the ways to encourage that would be to consider the recommendation of the Finance Committee in 2005.

Can the minister explain why she's chosen the easy stuff here rather than, perhaps slightly more difficult, the option of considering a change to the provincial sales tax on legal services?

As she may know, that tax is now before the Supreme Court of Canada, being challenged. Sections of the act have been struck down. It's increasingly difficult to comply with, and the regulatory burden to comply with it has been substantially increased. If the government is really interested in reducing regulatory burden — again, I'm reading from their press release — why hasn't the government considered those initiatives as opposed to doing the easy stuff here?

Hon. C. Taylor: I know that the member opposite is a lawyer, and I know that he knows we can't comment on cases such as legal services that are before the courts.

I understand that he wishes to make a point, but I'm not able to comment on that. I will not, either, comment on the securities regulations, which belong to another minister. I will only comment on what the committee is here to talk about today.

Our Business Corporations Act, which is regarded as one of the most modern in Canada, was brought in just two and a half years ago. It is a living document, and every year we will bring up changes that we see that will benefit and improve the act. This is ongoing good governance. We will continue to do it, and therefore we have before us today a number of issues that we think will improve the act. That's why it's here.

I would be shocked, in terms of our insurance reviews, if the member opposite or if the opposition as a whole is suggesting that we don't do this proper consultation. I would guarantee that very quickly there would be a very vocal response if we just came forward with legislation, having not completed our proper consultation. So from now on, I will answer questions about this particular act.

B. Ralston: Well, the insurance amendments are necessitated by a Supreme Court of Canada decision that is now of some years standing. So I don't accept…. Obviously, some consultation is necessary, but the initiative comes from the Supreme Court of Canada saying that parts of the act just don't work. There are major holes. The industry is very concerned about business practice and their ongoing business and writing policies that attempt to conform to an act that can't be enforced.

It seems to me to be a major issue for the insurance industry in the province. It has been some years standing. It was certainly open to the government to bring it forward if there were a fall session, or this session. They've been told it's been repeatedly deferred, despite previous promises that it would be brought forward at least by 2007.

B. Ralston: Dealing first with section 1, what this section proposes to do is in the definition of "charter" in the Business Corporations Act. I'm reading from article (a). The definition of charter, "in relation to a corporation, includes the corporation's articles, notice of articles or memorandum, regulations, bylaws or agreement or deed of settlement."

The amendment proposes to strike the phrase "…and every alteration to them." That's the first amendment. Can the minister explain how this lifts the regulatory burden and why one would want to remove this section from that definition?

Hon. C. Taylor: The phrase is unnecessary, since interpretive rules already contain a presumption that subsequent alterations are included. It could raise issues regarding the interpretation of other provisions that do not refer to such alterations.

B. Ralston: Has there been a specific court decision commenting upon this definition?

B. Ralston: I suppose the question arises, given that this is a very new act and a very thorough review was conducted…. If those principles of interpretation are well known, why was it written in the way it was written, thus necessitating an amendment so quickly after the initial act came into force?

Hon. C. Taylor: Yes, this phrase comes from the old Company Act. Drafting requirements and words have changed, and we're constantly updating. We get advice from our lawyers and from the legal community when they see ways that it could be improved and clarified.

B. Ralston: I have a question on 1(b), so perhaps we can…. I'll deal with that now, then. In this section, 1(b) proposes a change which would strike out the words "that record and every alteration to it applying to the corporation" and substituting "that record."

The words before that are "(b) if the corporation was incorporated, continued or converted by or under, or if the corporation resulted from an amalgamation under an Act, statute, ordinance, letters patent, certificate, declaration or other equivalent instrument or provision of law, that record…."

B. Ralston: This section is amending the definition of a limited company and adding the unlimited liability company. There's a more expansive definition of an unlimited liability company in section 51.11.

Can the minister advise: what is the reason for adding an unlimited liability company to the definitions in the Business Corporations Act, aside from the fact that it's desired to create this entity legally?

Hon. C. Taylor: The introduction of the ULCs in this bill creates a new category of companies that are characterized by unlimited shareholder liability. Therefore, prior to the introduction of ULCs, there was no definition of limited company because all companies formed under the BCA were characterized by limited shareholder liability.

With the introduction of ULCs it's necessary to differentiate between the two and have two definitions.

B. Ralston: What are the policy reasons for creating this? I understand that under similar legislation in Nova Scotia, due to some archaic provisions in the Nova Scotia

act, unlimited liability companies continued to exist beyond, I would say, what the legal changes of the 19th century were in creating limited liability corporations, which became the norm.

Alberta has recently created some legislation, but Canadian lawyers are able to utilize those statutes by continuing a B.C. company into Nova Scotia or into Alberta and achieve the desired effect. So why is it necessary to add this type of corporate structure to the Business Corporations Act here in British Columbia?

Hon. C. Taylor: I'm very glad the member opposite asked this question because we could indeed use Nova Scotia and we could use Alberta, but then business is going to those provinces that we would rather have here. By doing the ULCs in British Columbia, we believe that it will have more business for the people of British Columbia.

B. Ralston: Now, I understand from my review of this type of corporate structure that it receives a very unusual or somewhat anomalous tax treatment. It's taxed in British Columbia or in Canada — depending on the province in which it's incorporated — as a Canadian company. Yet in the United States it's taxed as a flow-through entity for U.S. tax purposes, and the Canadian tax paid by the U.S. entity is deductible against income tax paid in the United States. So it's designed, I understand, largely as a vehicle for American companies to acquire Canadian assets and receive preferential tax treatment in their home jurisdiction of the United States.

Is that the principal purpose? According to this paper composed by Lawson Lundell…. They didn't provide it to me personally. It came up in my research on the Internet. It's a public document in that sense. It appeared to suggest that the sole advantage of creating such an entity was to minimize tax paid by the unit holders or shareholders in the United States. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Taylor: These ULCs are designed, certainly, as financial planning tools for the United States. They are being used through Nova Scotia currently. They are being used in Alberta. And while it does not make any difference to Canadian companies, it is a financial planning tool. If we do this in British Columbia, it will mean that more business is done, particularly for the legal community in British Columbia.

B. Ralston: Well, then perhaps I'll note parenthetically that I'm not sure Alberta has a tax on legal services of 7 percent, which would appear to pose a considerable competitive disadvantage if one is choosing to incorporate the company either in Alberta or in British Columbia. If that's the reason this legislation is being introduced, it would seem to me that much of what we're doing here is academic because the economic disadvantage would be apparent, particularly given the price of legal services and the kind of legal complexity that these entities require in order to create….

Yesterday in the National Post, in the business section, an article advised that legislation is being introduced in the American Congress which would double the tax that Americans pay on distributions from Canadian income trusts, real estate investment trusts and other partnership forms. This would suggest to me — and I have not had a chance to consider this at any length — that many of the tax advantages that this arrangement of assets seeks to benefit from are about to be eliminated.

Again, does the minister have any advice on this? Does that make this legislation more or less academic and a waste of valuable legislative time, which we might use to other purposes?

Hon. C. Taylor: ULCs are being used in Nova Scotia and Alberta. They are quite successful financial planning tools. We are bringing this in to British Columbia because we believe it will bring business to British Columbia.

B. Ralston: I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Committee of the Whole (Section B), having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
AND MINISTER RESPONSIBLE FOR
EARLY LEARNING AND LITERACY

Hon. S. Bond: I am pleased today to present the 2007-2008 budget estimates for the Ministry of Education.

First of all, I would like to introduce the members of our team who are here. There are a number of others who will be participating, I am sure, throughout the process. I want to begin by saying thank you to a team of people that work very hard every single day to ensure that British Columbia's students have the best possible opportunities that they can. They're just a pleasure to work with. They work very hard, and I'm delighted to be part of that team.

The team is co-chaired, in essence, with me by my deputy minister Emery Dosdall, who is here with me today. Neil Matheson is assistant deputy minister of management services, and Keith Miller is assistant deputy minister of resource management. Rick Davis is also with us here today. We have a number of other staff people in the gallery. Obviously, we will be asking them to participate as the topics demand.

Last month in the Speech from the Throne government asked a very simple question: what can we do today to secure the future for our children and our grandchildren? The question lies at the heart of this government's agenda. Education is a fundamental part of that agenda.

I've had the privilege of meeting thousands of young people as I've travelled across British Columbia, fulfilling this government's pledge to visit every school district in the province. To date we've visited hundreds of classrooms across B.C., from Ucluelet Secondary School in the Alberni district to Charlie Lake Elementary in Peace River North and from Sullivan Heights Secondary in the Surrey school district to Smithers Secondary in the Bulkley Valley.

In each and every one of those schools and communities I am amazed at the incredible enthusiasm and energy of our young people. They want the best for British Columbia, and we want the best for them. They are B.C.'s future. They will be our computer programmers, our electricians, our nurses, our educators and our leaders. We have a duty to make sure that we are doing everything we can to secure their future. That's why we will be improving quality, choice and accountability across the education system as we work to increase student achievement in the year ahead.

B.C. does have one of the best education systems in the world. In fact, on the most recent international tests of 15-year-olds — 41 countries in all — no one outperformed B.C. students in math and reading. Similarly in the student achievement indicators program science tests for 13- and 16-year-old Canadian students, only Alberta scored higher than British Columbia.

Since we have become government, the provincial completion rate has climbed to a record 79 percent. But the reality is that we have more work to do. In fact, more than 11,000 students a year are not graduating from our schools. If this continues, between now and 2010 the number of students who do not graduate would be equal to a city the size of Penticton. One in four students started kindergarten this year without the developmental skills needed to succeed. That's nearly 9,000 students every year.

That's why this year we are taking new steps to lift our students to higher levels of achievement. We will increase achievement so that more students can graduate from our schools. We want to provide students and parents with more choice, provide preschool children with the skills they need to succeed in school and ensure students graduate from high school. We also need to improve student health. We will accomplish this by continuing to fund education at record levels.

Next year the education budget will increase by nearly $123 million to almost $5.5 billion. That makes this the largest education budget ever in the history of British Columbia. The 2007-2008 budget has increased by $890 million, almost a billion dollars, since 2000-2001, or more than 19 percent. This comes at a time when there are fewer students in our schools.

Enrolment in public schools has declined by a projected 50,000 students since 2000-2001. In fact, over the next five years enrolment is expected to decline by another 25,000 students, dropping by almost 5,000 students every year. This means that by 2012 we will have more than 75,000 students in our schools, or a population somewhat comparable to the city I live in, Prince George, or our neighbour Kamloops.

We're not alone. Declining enrolment is a worldwide phenomenon. Enrolment is shrinking across Canada, most notably in Ontario and Quebec; across much of the United States; and in Europe, especially Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The result of increasing funding to record levels while student enrolment declines is that the average per-pupil grant will increase for the seventh year in a row to over $7,900. That is an increase of about $300 from last year's 2006-2007 average per-pupil grant. Budget 2007 will build on what we've done this school year in which B.C. school districts received their single largest funding increase ever.

One of the biggest victories of the past year was the great strides we made in increasing communication with our education partners. This was also the year, of course, of the settlement with the B.C. Teachers Federation — a first. But there were a lot of other important firsts.

We held our first-ever parent congress, teachers congress, rural educators conference, Interactive Innovations. We agreed with the federal government and our first nations leadership to a tripartite education agreement that is historic and that has been sought after by first nations across British Columbia for more than a decade.

We continue to host a series of smaller webcasts, including ones to support school planning councils, or SPCs, which give parents a voice in major school decisions and have this government's full support.

On April 2 I'm delighted to say that we will hold another first — the first-ever student congress, which will bring together more than a hundred young people randomly selected from across British Columbia.

Aboriginal education is also a critical component of this government's agenda. Aboriginal enhancement agreements set specific academic goals and bring aboriginal culture into the classroom. We've signed 31 aboriginal enhancement agreements to date. That's over half of all our school districts.

The province has also invested $500,000 to develop a first nations English 12 course and exam equal to English 12, in which students will learn about aboriginal history, culture, literature and language.

In January the Premier also announced a major step forward in achieving our goal of making British Columbia the best-educated, most literate jurisdiction in North America — the $27 million first phase of the ReadNow B.C. government literacy plan. ReadNow B.C. includes a toll free reading hotline, 1-888-READ-234, so that people can hear about the plans, programs and services offered across our province. ReadNow B.C. will increase the number of children who enter school with prereading skills they need to succeed. It will also improve reading skills among school-aged children, aboriginal people and adults.

ReadNow B.C. complements the throne speech, which said that school boards will have a broader mandate and that districts will take a leading role in delivering early learning services and in improving community literacy. It complements Budget 2007, which reaffirms government's commitment to education. In fact, ReadNow B.C. brings this government's investment in new literacy initiatives since 2001 to over $106 million. Let me tell you that literacy initiatives, especially targeted programs like those for aboriginal students, are having an impact in communities across this province.

I mentioned earlier that there are 9,000 children starting kindergarten every year without the skills they need to be successful. If we can reduce that number and reduce the comparable number of secondary students — the 11,000 students every year that struggle and still don't complete high school — that number will shrink as well, and perhaps so will the number of adult British Columbians struggling with literacy.

Here's what we're doing. We have a kindergarten readiness program called Ready, Set, Learn. This year we brought our investment in the program to $9.5 million, thanks to a new $3.5 million contribution. Ready, Set, Learn is making a difference. Last year the program was offered in 1,071 schools and served more than 17,000 preschoolers.

StrongStart centres, a new initiative in British Columbia, offer a free drop-in program for parents or caregivers and their children. These centres will conveniently be located in schools with unused and underutilized spaces, turning the challenge of declining enrolment into an unbelievable opportunity. We have recently announced a total $5 million investment to open up 80 StrongStart centres throughout British Columbia, fulfilling an election promise to use the underutilized spaces to deliver early learning services.

Add to Ready, Set, Learn and StrongStart centres the ActNow literacy education activity and play, fondly known as the LEAP B.C. program. This is a $2.7 million program we announced earlier this year that encourages literacy, physical activity and healthy eating in preschool-aged children.

Over the last five years, as well, our ministry has contributed operating funds for Green Buildings B.C. to develop high-performance standards for our schools. In one-third of British Columbia's school districts, the retrofit program projects have reduced energy consumption and resulted in annual savings of more than $6.2 million. Similarly, last year our ministry partnered with Green Buildings B.C., B.C. Hydro and select school boards to run a voltage optimizer pilot project to reduce energy consumption, extend the life of electrical equipment and reduce operating costs in six test schools throughout the province.

No wonder the Ministries of Education, Advanced Education and Health, along with Green Buildings B.C., B.C. Hydro and BCBC were recognized by Natural Resources Canada in 2004 for our outstanding commitment to energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

At the same time, government will continue with recent innovations that have been benefiting students, parents and teachers, like putting technology to work in education. Our central high-tech success story today would have to be B.C.'s new virtual school, LearnNow B.C.

Similarly, the province's virtual reference service called AskAway is open to both students and teachers. In fact, it's open to all British Columbians. AskAway uses special software to connect 160 librarians from 46 public libraries and 100 librarians from 20 post-secondary institutions to residents across the province. This let's British Columbians, no matter where they live, get the information they need from a real librarian in real time using a simple live-chat format.

This government has increased communication with our education partners. We've made strides in literacy and early learning, and we are meeting the needs of students with choice and technology. B.C. students continue to perform well. Completion rates are at a record 79 percent, and that's great. But at the same time, we know we can do even better.

Over one million adults spend their lives struggling to order from restaurant menus, read bus schedules and fill out job applications. I think we owe it to all of our British Columbians to do even better. That's why this government is making changes to the role of school boards and superintendents. That's why we are dreaming big dreams and have great plans for B.C.'s education system. That's why we believe in innovation.

The recent throne speech provided the vision. Budget 2007 provided the proof that we mean to make these changes happen for the benefit of our students and our province. I am very excited about the year that we've had and about the year that lies ahead. School districts and independent schools will be able to use the funding in the classrooms to improve student achievement. After all, that's exactly what we should be doing — doing what we can today to secure the future for our children and our grandchildren.

D. Cubberley: Thanks to the minister for the opening remarks to set a context for what I hope will be an engaging discussion and illuminating for all of us in the room.

This is my first set of Education estimates. It's interesting for me to come to these estimates and be in this position, representing Saanich South — which in this community is sometimes characterized as a bedroom community, although its internal economy is growing dramatically through high-tech and other businesses. A very large number of schools are in my community. They are there because it's where people choose to live and where they choose to raise kids. Therefore there are plenty of schools.

All of the issues that affect the school system across British Columbia are present in my own community. Long before I became Education critic and as soon as I became an MLA, I began to hear from people about the issues. I'm under no illusions about the difficulty of dealing with the issues that we face in a democratic society with a universal public education system.

At the same time, I'm mindful of the fact that communities feel a very strong sense of attachment to both the schools in their neighbourhood and the education system as a whole. There is a very long and proud record of achievement in the B.C. education system that spans many different governments over many decades of the province's history. In many respects it's a cumulative achievement, and it's handed on from one administration to another.

The role of stewardship is very important. I think governments proceed with the best of intentions. The system has to go through an amazing amount of change, and every administration has to try and pilot through those changes. Some of them we see coming. Others start happening around us, and we find ourselves reacting to them and trying to integrate societal changes into the way the school does its business.

It's interesting, actually, and it's only serendipitous that we were dealing just yesterday with the issue of anaphylactic shock. I had the ability to speak to that issue. It came to me again through a constituent facing it as an individual with an anaphylactic child. Of course, as with all issues, it raises the question of how we can move our school system to better respond to emerging trends in society. There are many, many challenges there.

There are a lot of challenges, as well, for an individual hoping to find a way to understand the way in which a large amount of resources are shared amongst school districts that have vastly different challenges in trying to come to a common level of educational service that's made available to all British Columbians. I don't in any sense underestimate the challenges there. The diversity in British Columbia of situation and circumstance is vast — perhaps vaster here than anywhere else in the country.

I think the system, and all of those who work in it and attempt to steward it, is to be congratulated for how well it has done historically. That said, there are major challenges. I hope that in the next little while we'll be able to get at some of those and try to create a better understanding of what the challenges are and how well we're doing in facing them.

I'd like to begin simply by trying to get a better grasp of the budget, the way that the budget for Education is generated and how much new money there actually is in the budget. The minister made some comments in her opening remarks on that, and I apologize if we're going to go over that ground a little bit. Because it is new to me and because I've read so many different things in press releases over the last while — numbers keep changing, usually getting larger with all kinds of claims around them — I feel the need to probe that a little bit.

I'm looking for a way of doing that. One of the questions that I thought I would ask…. Perhaps we can begin by working backwards from what I believe the minister said, which was that the per-pupil grant was at $7,900, and that it was up $300 over last year. What I would like to grasp, then, if that's correct, is: what is the $300 buying? How much of the $300 is for elements of wage increases that have to be factored into budgets for inflation and costs for other kinds of things? What part of it is actually new money — if any of it is new money — in the sense of new money to buy new programs and do different things?

Hon. S. Bond: In fact, all of it is new money. The vast majority of the money is to honour the teachers' contract and employee contracts, but there is an additional $20 million that's been added to the budget as well.

D. Cubberley: Perhaps you could tell me: what would the $20 million represent as a portion of the $300? What I heard the minister say was that it was all new money, but the majority of that new money would be for wages and benefits for employees within the school system.

There is $20 million in new money. What would that be, based on the per-pupil grant? What portion of the $300 would $20 million represent, and what is it for?

Hon. S. Bond: This year there are 116 million new dollars in public education. Last year there was in excess of $450 million. Those dollars are broken down in a number of ways. The majority of those dollars are to cover and meet the commitment that we made to school boards to fully fund the teachers' contract. In the year ahead the dollars will also fund teacher pension issues, which was an issue that was made known to us.

We need to be clear, though, that these are all new dollars in the system, and the per-pupil funding is always calculated looking at the entire package of dollars that is added to public education.

D. Cubberley: I thank the minister for that, but what I'm interested in is new dollars for new programs. Let's come back to the $20 million that I asked about, which I believe the minister was suggesting was new money for new programs. I'm interested in the amount of the money — and you can do it as the per-pupil amount of the money, if you would like — that is for new undertakings not currently done — additions to programs.

Hon. S. Bond: The numbers are, as I have already suggested…. The vast majority of those dollars is to meet the commitment that we made to fully fund the teachers' contract and other staffing contracts. If we look at the history of funding in public education, two years ago we added $150 million, last year $20 million and this year $20 million — a total of 190 million additional dollars over the three-year period — in addition to all of the funding for our contracts, pension benefits, etc.

D. Cubberley: I'm having some difficulty grasping it, and I would ask that the minister focus on the $20 million that she indicated to me initially was for new programming. Would she please tell me if that is correct — if that is the increment for previously unfunded programming? And what is the $20 million for?

Hon. S. Bond: The $20 million is part of block funding that is sent out to school districts as part of a package that totals $116 million. School districts have discretion to use the $20 million. There have also been significant numbers of one-time grants in the system over the last number of years — $150 million two years ago, $20 million last year, $20 million going forward. The cumulative total of that is over $800 million.

D. Cubberley: Is any of the $20 million this year earmarked in any way for Bill 33 requirements? Was any of last year's $20 million earmarked for Bill 33?

Hon. S. Bond: The dollars are sent to school districts to actually deal with their budgets as they see fit. They hire the staff that they feel are appropriate. We certainly did make the point to school districts that class size and composition are significant, but it is up to the discretion of school boards as to how they spend their dollars.

D. Cubberley: Is any of that money held back in any sense from school districts, or is all of that money in their hands? Once the allocation is approved, would it be given to them immediately — all of the $20 million — or would some portion of it be withheld? Was any of it withheld last year? Is it still being withheld?

Hon. S. Bond: Well, there are and have historically been some dollars that are kept simply to deal with adjustments in numbers. We do recounts. We do rechecks. There are additional funds provided for special education students. In fact, there is a second count done now. There is a small number of dollars that are kept. Adjustments are made to those based on adjustments with students, and that is a common practice.

D. Cubberley: Last year — I believe in August, when school districts were anticipating that they would be receiving moneys which typically come, I think, from minor capital improvements on an annual basis — the moneys were withheld. It isn't clear to me whether it was for a period of time, and they have subsequently all been paid, or not. I'm interested in knowing that, but I'm also interested in knowing why those moneys were withheld — what part of the theory of withholding that was.

Hon. S. Bond: Those funds are called the annual facilities grant. A letter was sent out from me or the deputy suggesting and reminding school boards that those dollars would be sent out to school districts. In fact, they have been sent out as districts expected them to be. We made it clear that we were going to go through a process of due process to make sure we were looking at our capital projects envelope in its entirety. The money was sent out as expected.

D. Cubberley: Just on that one. As I understand it from talking with school board chairs, most of that money is typically spent in the summer period, when schools are closed, for upgrades at a time when students aren't around because it does involve physical improvement of schools. I believe that the information was given to school districts that it wouldn't be coming — not by letter but by phone call.

I'm not aware of what correspondence followed that, but I know there was a significant period of uncertainty where it wasn't clear that they would be getting the money.

I guess my question would be if that's correct — my understanding of it. And knowing that they would have expended that money and would routinely or normally expend it in the summer period, when the school is closed — because that's the only time you can really cost-effectively do those kinds of upgrades — why would you choose to undertake a capital review which, if you're reviewing it, would have the implication you might not have granted the money? Why would you undertake a capital review at that point in the process?

Hon. S. Bond: First of all, a letter was sent to school boards, and we could certainly look up the date and how that was sent. Secondly, a third of the money was given to school districts in advance of the summer, so there were dollars that schools had available to them.

We should also point out that school districts across the province had $90 million in reserve at that period in time, so we felt school districts could proceed. As in the point I made earlier, the dollars were sent out, and the commitment was made and met.

D. Cubberley: I certainly would be interested to know if that letter was sent out in August or if it was sent out in the fall. I heard about it in August, and what I heard was that there was a phone call from staff informing people that there was a capital review process. That's something that you can clarify when you have a chance to look at the file and see what the date on the letter is.

The minister indicated that they have capital reserves or reserve funds, and that they have money in it for a variety of purposes. I understand that. But would it

have been prudent for them to spend that money in that way if they didn't know if they would be getting the money that they would normally get from the facilities grant?

The question is: why would there be a capital review of that at a point in the cycle — two-thirds of the way through the year — when the money would already have been expended in large part?

Hon. S. Bond: We actually think that good planning and a proper discussion about capital is an appropriate thing to do. We have changing demographics in British Columbia where we've had school boards ask for schools, who have now come back and said: "We actually don't need you to build a school anymore."

We think that good management and looking at how we do our capital program are appropriate. We had assured school boards, in fact, that the AFG was coming, but that we were going to take some time to make sure that the dollars were in the appropriate places, that we were building buildings we were going to open and that they were necessary.

D. Cubberley: I would agree 100 percent with the minister about the role of planning. Can't go wrong with good planning, and you certainly will go wrong if you don't have it. Usually, as far as I understand it, planning is done at the front end of processes, and then a process of construction would occur. It would be untypical to have a process of construction and then, two-thirds of the way through that process, begin a planning process.

I mean, it's not unprecedented now because it's happened a couple of times in the last year in British Columbia that a planning process has been implemented partway through an approval process, leading to construction. But I don't think it's typically done that way.

We are not talking about the construction of schools here. We're actually talking about the improvement of schools. As I understand it, these grants are used for things like improvements to heating systems, replacement of roofs, the building of ramps for disabled access to schools, modifications of parking arrangements and the like. They're typically done in the summertime to avoid the disruption that would be involved in doing those things in another part of the year.

I don't grasp the connection with good planning. In fact, to me it looks rather the opposite. Perhaps the minister could clarify that.

Hon. S. Bond: Well, in fact I will clarify that. We are in a changing world, and that requires ongoing review. It's not that you can plan once and say: "Here are the buildings we need, and here's how we're going to deal with them."

We have a very complex province at the moment. We have school closures. Last year alone, the opposition critic would know that we anticipated a loss of 7,000 students, and it turned out to be 12,000. There are actually buildings that school districts are now contemplating closing, which is not an easy process. But we absolutely have to do ongoing reviews, ongoing connections with school districts. We're not prepared to invest dollars where they're not necessary.

D. Cubberley: Well, I'll just attempt this one more time. Around these grants, these are not investments that are typically made in buildings that could be closed. These are not investments in new buildings. They are the replacement of capital infrastructure that is worn out or in addition to capital infrastructure, which school districts are well positioned to know in August that they will be using in September.

My question comes back to why this was trapped in the net of a capital review. I'd really like the minister to speak to the small point, because I take her point about the larger changes in British Columbia. I understand the difficulty of operating in the kind of construction market we're in, with rapidly inflating costs.

Hon. S. Bond: School districts did receive their annual facilities grant. It was later than typically expected. They had been assured that they would receive the dollars. They received one-third of them in advance so that they could begin their summer programs, and they had $90 million in reserves with which to do the work that the member opposite speaks of.

D. Cubberley: I'll switch over to another point, having canvassed that one. I just want to check on two things. One is whether all the money that would have been required to meet teacher and other labour agreements in the past year has been sent to school districts. Have they received all of that money, or is there any outstanding money?

Hon. S. Bond: We made a commitment to fully fund. We will be fully funding. Districts have received notice of their grants. Those grants are paid on a monthly basis, so they haven't actually received all of them. They've received the commitment for all of them, but that would take place over the course of those monthly payments.

D. Cubberley: Just to work a little bit with the per-pupil grant and try to expand my understanding of it, I'm interested to know how much of the budget that school districts receive is allocated on a uniform FTE basis, and how much of it is variable and in some way relates to the unique situation of any school district.

Hon. S. Bond: Maybe the member opposite could clarify for us. Are you talking about our allocation of those dollars or the school districts' allocation?

Hon. S. Bond: Between 85 percent and 90 percent of the dollars are actually based on per-pupil. The higher number would be if you include special education funding,

because that is also done on per-pupil but obviously in a different way. The remaining 10 percent is based on unique geographic factors and other things that are included within the formula.

D. Cubberley: Would those things include distribution of population or special populations within school districts? Would they shape the amount of money, the adjustment of money from other pots?

Hon. S. Bond: Grants are different in different school districts because they are based on ESL — English-as-a-second-language students have a different allotment per student — and aboriginal students. A large and significant part of that is for students with special needs. That all adds to the per-pupil part of the grant.

In addition to that, we have unique geographic factors. We have a decline in enrolment funding. There are a number of other components that would be added in specific school districts for specific reasons.

D. Cubberley: Just to help me with this, the $7,900 per pupil that you quoted initially — is that simply dividing the number of pupils into the total mass of money that's moved and coming up with? Is that an average, or is that a base of some kind that is varied with these other factors?

D. Cubberley: I know you project enrolment declines. You were speaking earlier, Minister, about holding money back because enrolment declines are projected. Then when actuals come in, you would have to make adjustments of some kind.

Are there offsets provided for declines to try to soften the impact of them? Are those offsets time-limited, or do they continue? What's the time length that they run? Do they vary at all based on unique factors in the district? Would a small rural district with a dispersed population and declining enrolments see different money in the adjustment fund than a large urban district might?

Hon. S. Bond: We have worked very hard to try to provide additional dollars to help districts with decline. It's a pretty significant challenge. Any district that loses 1 percent or greater of their numbers receives funding for a half FTE, for the loss. If you have a loss of over 4 percent, you actually claim a full FTE for those numbers — the funding for a full FTE, 4 percent or above.

In fact, this year we worked very hard to ensure that despite the declines, not a single district actually had funding reduced. We worked to make sure that the buffer provided would not see a decline in any district.

D. Cubberley: Can you tell me how long the funding runs for — the adjustment funding? Does it phase out, or is it a one- or two-year thing and then disappears?

Hon. S. Bond: Since it's a grant based on declining enrolment, it's calculated at the end of each school year based on a district's decline. It started in 2002, and we intend to continue that process.

D. Cubberley: If I take that correctly, it means that it's a one-year grant. If the population declines in the following year, then you would get a one-year grant for that year for the portion that it declined in that year, but not for the prior year. It sounds as though it's a year over year thing, where you lose the lift after the year you're given it in, and then you deal with the next drop.

Hon. S. Bond: I think the member opposite has it described correctly, but let me try it one more time, so I make sure that I'm more clear. This is to buffer districts and help them with the transition to a smaller number of students. It could be that the number of students would go up the next year. So it is a one-year grant. It's based at the end of their year, and it is solely to help those districts that are experiencing significant decline. It's a year-by-year, end-of-the-year calculation. It is a year-by-year grant.

D. Cubberley: Just to look a little more closely at enrolment decline as a phenomenon. I'm interested in what portion of the enrolment decline that school districts are experiencing is caused by loss of students to private schools. Part of the question would be: is the population of private schools rising while the population of public schools is declining? What portion of that is accounted for by private school increases?

Hon. S. Bond: The increase in independent school attendance has actually been between 1 percent and 2 percent, probably around 2 percent, and that's on a base of about 60,000 students.

D. Cubberley: Just to clarify that, what portion of the decline in public school enrolment would be accounted for by the movement into private schools?

Hon. S. Bond: Well, if we did the math on one year alone, 2 percent of the 60,000 students, so we would suggest 120. This year 120 students have been added in independent schools, and the loss of students in public schools was 12,000 this year.

D. Cubberley: Could the minister give me an idea of how private schools are currently funded via the public purse so I get a sense of the allocation to those schools on a comparable basis — say, an FTE basis, if that's how it's done?

Hon. S. Bond: There are four categories of independent schools. Two are funded. Two categories receive no funding.

Category 1 receives 50 percent of an FTE-type funding for independent schools. Category 2 receives 35 percent.

D. Cubberley: Perhaps the minister could just tell me briefly what category 1 and category 2 mean.

Hon. S. Bond: I'll just summarize for a moment, since there's some interest in the member opposite on this topic. Group 1 schools receive 50 percent of their local public school district's per-student operating grant. There are 250 group 1 schools enrolling an estimated 48,470.25 FTEs in 2006-2007.

Group 2 schools meet the same requirements as group 1 schools and receive per-student grants at 35 percent of their district schools' per-student operating costs. There are 67 group 2 schools enrolling an estimated 11,105.25 FTEs. Groups 1 and 2 schools have employed B.C.-certified teachers and use B.C. curriculum.

D. Cubberley: What would be the difference between the two of them? What's the rationale for different funding levels?

Hon. S. Bond: One of the significant differences is that group 1 schools are typically faith-based schools. Group 2s actually have a higher tuition threshold.

D. Cubberley: So the rationale there would be that group 2s are charging higher fees and therefore are recouping more of the cost of delivering the program. I'm going to ask another question, and the minister can comment on that if I'm wrong.

I'm wondering to what extent private school fees are tax-deductible provincially and federally. Are they in turn, by dint of gaining funding from the public pot and, if they do, delivering tax deductibility? Are they required to meet all provincial standards or a subset of them? And if it's a subset, which and why?

Hon. S. Bond: Not being a tax expert, I have simply been advised that independent school fees are not tax-deductible. Donations that parents might make to the school may well be. The advice I've been given is that they are not.

Yes, the difference in terms of group 1 and group 2 schools is about operating dollars that are available in those schools, compared to public schools.

D. Cubberley: I thank the minister for that. The other question was: are private schools required to meet all provincial public school standards or only a portion of them, or none — apart from the requirements to meet the Dogwood requirements?

Hon. S. Bond: I've got to concentrate now, because I think the member described it accurately. The expectations for group 1 and 2 schools who receive funding are that they employ B.C. teachers, use B.C. curriculum and must meet the same standards in order to be recognized or receive the Dogwood. So the same standards would apply in those schools. In fact, the same expectations exist in these schools.

The difference is that they can be taught from a different perspective. So in a faith-based school they must still use B.C. curriculum, but they have some flexibility about how they would teach that material.

D. Cubberley: Around an issue like special needs kids, would special needs kids have the same access to those schools that they would have to public schools, and is that uniform?

Hon. S. Bond: Time flies, but as of last year we actually now fully fund…. That is the exception to the funding situation with group 1 and group 2 schools. They receive 50 percent or 35 percent, but the one area that they receive 100 percent of FTE funding is for children with special needs.

So yes, those schools have long been looking for, in fact, the kind of support for their students with special needs that public schools have. That is the one area where there is 100-percent funding for those students.

D. Cubberley: Are they required to accept them as students, or can they decline and decline the funding?

Hon. S. Bond: That would be determined by the school, but in essence it would also be whether a particular program fit for a family. It really is a choice of the institution and of the school. But we did want to make sure there were appropriate resources for students with special needs in those category schools.

D. Cubberley: I want to come back to overall funding and the allocation of money for a little while. There's an alternative thesis out there about the way that money is distributed by the ministry. I'm pretty sure that if the minister isn't conversant with it — and I think she probably is — her staff will be.

The proponent of the theory is a gentleman named Russ Searle, and I'm sure you've seen the material that Mr. Searle has put together. His thesis, in a nutshell, is that there are actually two pots of money, and the gateway to both pots may be FTEs in the school. Smaller, more rural school districts with more dispersed populations, in this thesis, depend on the secondary pot of money for a larger portion of their overall funding.

He identifies the two pots — one being the basic allocation that everyone gets, which he says accounts for 80 percent of provincial funding. He's using ministry figures for this. The other pot comprises 20 percent, but the smaller school districts rely heavily on the 20 percent. He's claiming that the 20 smallest districts only receive 58 percent of their total funding from the per-pupil grant. So this is an interesting thesis.

One of the other things he suggests is that since '01-02, while the per-pupil grant has increased by about 17 percent, the secondary pot of money — which the smaller school districts are more reliant upon — has only increased by 4.3 percent. His thesis is that this is

contributing to or exaggerating enrolment decline in rural and remote school districts. So I would invite some initial comment on that thesis about the distribution of funds.

Hon. S. Bond: Well, not only have I heard of the argument, I have actually met Mr. Searle. I think he was the reporter on the day I was in a school district that he was in. In essence, I think it would be fair to say to the member opposite that we've agreed to disagree on Mr. Searle's view of the funding formula.

A couple of things. First of all, I think the basic key point today is that we have actually worked to protect school districts especially from feeling the impacts of enrolment decline. That has hugely impacted rural districts. We've provided a series of buffer grants. There are a number of supplementary grants that are not contemplated, I think, in Mr. Searle's work.

In addition to that, we have a technical review committee that looks at the formula every year. That's comprised of individuals that include superintendents and others from across the province, from a variety of sizes of districts. In fact, there are small school district and rural school district reps on that technical review. So we try to look at the formula every single year to say: "Are there things we're not contemplating that we should be adjusting?"

In fact, this year alone, that technical review came back to us and said that English-as-a-second-language students needed additional dollars, and so we added additional per-pupil funding. We added additional funding for aboriginal students. We also provided the buffer protection for all districts so that no one actually saw a decrease this year.

D. Cubberley: Thanks to the minister for the response on that. I heard her say that she disagrees with the thesis. The thesis is that there is a basic inequity in the funding formula because of the reliance of the rural and more remote school districts on this secondary pot of money, which includes grants and all kinds of other things.

The second thing I heard her say was that any inequity that Mr. Searle is pointing to in this report or analysis that he's done is offset or more than offset by supplementary or additional grants that the ministry is putting in place. So there is no inequity along the lines that are claimed.

I just want to clarify that the minister is not saying they are not more reliant on the secondary pot of money. She's saying that the secondary pot of money has been increased sufficiently that there is not an inequity in the funding formula.

Hon. S. Bond: I think it's fair to say that our technical review committee is unlikely to agree with the analysis as well. We work very hard to review the funding formula every year to look at variations and look at ways to support school districts.

I'm not sure how it gets much fairer than taking a basic per-pupil allotment and then looking at specific and unique geographic factors, enrolment decline factors, weather, dispersion of school district buildings and those kinds of things. We've worked to try to make it equitable.

I know that Mr. Searle has had this argument for a number of years. We have a group of people we bring together every year, in fact, to review the formula with the best attempt to make it as equitable as it possibly can be.

D. Cubberley: We'll have to look more closely at the efforts of the fairness committee to make sure it's a level playing field.

One of the things that does interest me is that in a number of these more rural school districts, there are very substantial aboriginal populations. Just going from some material in the Progress Board report, which gives a bit of a summary…. It suggests that aboriginal students now comprise 10 percent or more of school populations in 37 of the province's 59 districts — 60 if you include the Francophone Authority.

In six school districts aboriginal youth constitute a majority of the school populations. For example, in Nisga'a it's 90 percent; Stikine, it's 73 percent; Haida Gwaii–Queen Charlottes, 66 percent; Central Coast, 62 percent; Prince Rupert, 57 percent. And in Vancouver Island West it's 50 percent of population.

I know there are unique and very large challenges in delivering education in dispersed circumstances, and there are unique challenges in delivering it to aboriginal populations. My question is whether the funding formulas in place are, from the minister's perspective, putting adequate funds into the equation to obtain the achievements we are looking for in these communities and to create a fair level of access to opportunity in all communities.

Hon. S. Bond: In fact, as I said, our formula at the moment accounts for unique geographic factors like low enrolment, rural and remote factors, small communities, climate and sparseness. In 2006-2007 that accounted for an additional $144 million to districts who had those factors.

The funding formula also takes into consideration declining enrolment. Last year in 2006-2007 we provided $19.8 million for districts who had an enrolment decrease of more than 1 percent. We continue to look at new ways to make that formula more equitable.

I should point out to the member that aboriginal students are recognized with additional funding. In fact, in the case of aboriginal students, they received $950 more last year for each aboriginal student.

This year the technical review committee brought that issue to my attention, and the funding for aboriginal students will rise in the coming year from $950 to $1,014 — an increase of $64 per student. So for those districts that have a very high aboriginal population, that translates into significantly more dollars.

Our English-as-a-second-language funding was also brought to my attention as a recommendation, and that has been increased. For every English-as-a-second-language student the district receives $1,100 more per student, and that will rise to $1,174 per student.

To the member opposite's point about aboriginal achievement, we as a government have stood clearly

and said that it is time to work to close the gap. Certainly, our Premier has taken leadership on that issue across the country. We're working very closely with the First Nations Leadership Council, and we know that this is not just about dollars.

This is about a system that doesn't serve aboriginal students well. In fact, we're going to look at school districts to actually put aboriginal achievement goals in their achievement contracts. We think it's that important.

D. Cubberley: When the character of a particular population in a school district is looked at and aboriginals are considered, is there any difference between the money per aboriginal student that would be allocated in an urban school district from a rural or remote school district, or is it the same right across the province?

Hon. S. Bond: No. In fact, an aboriginal student in any school district will this year receive…. That school district will receive $1,014 for every aboriginal child.

I should say to the member opposite that the estimated amount of supplemental aboriginal funding in 2007-2008 will rise from $48 million to over $51 million in supplemental funding for aboriginal students.

D. Cubberley: We might want to think about another way of characterizing that if we're to value them fully.

Let me ask another question about a factor which is an interesting one, and that's whether the socioeconomic status of school population is factored into FTE allocation in any manner, or whether socioeconomic status is not considered in the construction of the FTE going to a particular school district.

I don't want to overreact to the member opposite's comment about the title. Additional funding is not only added for aboriginal students, but it's also added for English-as-a-second-language students. That language has been placed in ministries for a very long time.

This government deeply wants to improve the lot in life for aboriginal students across this province, and nothing is meant to imply anything other than that. We do, though, provide additional funding to school districts in…. I can think of one program very quickly, called the Community LINK funding program, which provides $45 million annually to school districts across the province to deal with issues for children, especially vulnerable children, in inner-city schools.

D. Cubberley: I'm interested in pursuing that a little bit and just getting an idea whether the minister is satisfied that the Community LINK funding is an adequate offset for not calculating socioeconomic status of particular school populations. Is that a way…? How to put this without offending in any manner….

Given the importance of socioeconomic status as a factor in determining ultimate outcomes in education, is the $45 million Community LINK funding the best way to do this? And is it an adequate offset for the scale of impact that that has on whether people thrive or not in school?

Hon. S. Bond: First of all, it's not actually possible for the Education Ministry alone to deal with all of the issues for vulnerable children in British Columbia. We have our role to play, and more importantly, we have a role to play with partnering with other ministries in government.

There are literally millions of dollars being invested to try to support vulnerable families in the province to help make their children more successful. The Community LINK program is one small program that is making an enormous difference in this province. Of those dollars, 25 percent are used for meal programs — including hot lunches, bagged lunches, breakfast and healthy snacks. Many districts partner with local organizations to leverage those dollars.

Approximately 40 percent of the funding is for child and youth workers who provide targeted assistance to vulnerable children and youth. Another 25 percent of that funding is used for inner-city and community schools, and the remaining 10 percent is used for healthy schools, literacy and other district projects.

We've invested additional dollars. Government is working across ministries to support families, and I think school boards do an incredible job of trying to meet the needs of all the children in their schools. I've visited hundreds of schools and classrooms where children who are vulnerable are doing an incredible job at being successful.

D. Cubberley: I thank the minister for that. I recognize that a school or the school systems and the Ministry of Education can't offset all of the impacts of poverty within a society and the challenges that families face, and I recognize there are many other programs that have an impact on that.

I also recognize that the school receives all children, and it inherits every problem in society. Its challenge and — I express great admiration for this — its great success are in managing all of that incredible demand so well year after year. But of course there is tremendous scope for improvement.

The minister mentioned it in her introductory remarks because she acknowledged — and I appreciate her doing this, because I think we have to focus on it — that at least a quarter of the kids arriving at school are not ready for school when they arrive. Of course, those kids are at risk.

They are not the only kids who are at risk. A larger portion of the population is at risk, when it arrives at school, of not thriving at school. But those kids are at risk, and there is substantial cross-correlation between those kids and socioeconomic status.

I'd just like to comment on the one thing. I think what B.C. does with school meal programs is good. But I have to

tell you that I attended the Breakfast for Learning recently here in Victoria, along with a colleague of the minister, the Hon. Ida Chong. At that meeting there was some good news and some bad news. The good news was that B.C. was going to inject some additional money into the fruit and vegetable program for schools. It's something that I'm strongly supportive of, as I know you are, Madam Chair.

I don't think anybody will be upset at all — in fact, will be very pleased to know — that B.C. is moving in that direction. That's good news. But there is some bad news.

The bad news is that Breakfast for Learning revealed a national report card on school meal programs in which they assessed Canadian provinces. The average in Canada for school meal programs is "C," which is very discouraging. That's the average in Canada, and British Columbia's mark on the school meal program is "D." That is very challenging for us.

I just want to rest there for a moment, because there are two factors here. One is the challenge that people face when they come from impoverished backgrounds, and kids of course are innocent because they don't choose the circumstances they're born in. When they come to school, they have inherited many of the limitations of those circumstances.

It's the public schools' challenge in particular to lift those kids, to catch them and lift them up. So it's in that context that I was asking whether we are adequately focusing resources around the issue of socioeconomic status and the fact that many kids show up at school without the social capital that other kids arrive with.

Hon. S. Bond: Well, I think that realistically there is always going to be a need for improvement, focus in how we actually serve families not just in British Columbia but across Canada. Schools every day welcome children who have very different sets of circumstances. We are going to continue to look at a priority of focusing on supporting families. Certainly from an educational perspective, we have a number of areas that we're looking at including the beginning of StrongStart centres in this province, which are free programs that will actually be in schools that will not just support a child but in fact support a family so that that family learns to have the kinds of resources and tools to be supportive.

Community LINK is one program. We have programs now for universal dental and universal screening programs. We're looking at a cross-ministry approach to supporting families in this province. We absolutely need to continue to work on this issue. The world we live in is a complex and challenging place, and schools reflect that.

I can tell you this, though. When we equate those challenges to outcomes in schools, one of the things that research tells us most profoundly is the fact that one of the things that make the most significant difference in a child's outcomes when they're in a classroom is the teacher that's in front of that classroom.

So it's a combination of things, and we have a vision for education which will see change over the next year to try to address some of the very concerns that the member opposite is bringing forward.

D. Cubberley: Well, I appreciate what the minister says, and I hope we'll have an opportunity to canvass more thoroughly the StrongStart program. I don't want to go into it now, but it does strike me that it appears to be aimed at families that have stay-at-home parents. I would be very intrigued to know what the correlation is between families with stay-at-home parents and the 25 percent of kids who are arriving at school not ready to thrive.

We'll have opportunity to talk about early learning, and my focus really is on whether the resources are in play in a general sense within the school system, in the early years, to intervene effectively and catch those kids that are at risk — but more particularly, whether those resources are there in the schools that serve areas that have higher concentrations of lower-socioeconomic-status kids.

Does the ministry, through the school districts, measure that? Are you satisfied with the performance at that level?

Hon. S. Bond: First of all, we're not going to be satisfied in terms of the achievement outcomes or how students are served in this province until we actually feel that the system addresses the needs of all our children, and that's going to be an ongoing work-in-progress plan. In fact, the legislation and throne speech in front of us actually outline that we are looking at working with school districts to find new ways to meet the needs of children in the province.

I do look forward to commenting and walking through the issue of StrongStart centres with the member opposite. I think that the impression he has might be quite different from what occurs in a StrongStart centre. Despite the fact they're in the pilot stage, they are absolutely phenomenal, and I would be happy to discuss that.

In terms of how we make decisions about where to place resources, we've had some absolutely fantastic work done in British Columbia by Dr. Clyde Hertzman, which in fact allows us to strategically target and look at neighbourhoods across this province that are most vulnerable. If you look at how, for example, the 16 StrongStart pilots were put in place in British Columbia, they were actually based on the work that Dr. Hertzman does to identify those neighbourhoods with the most vulnerable children. We are utilizing expert research as we take dollars and invest them, particularly in the area of early learning.

D. Cubberley: I am somewhat familiar with that work, having heard a presentation at the Breakfast for Learning by an associate of Dr. Hertzman, Paul Kershaw, which I found quite fascinating. It made me aware of what the primary risk factors are for kids' failure to thrive at school — risk factors that apply right across the board. At one level it wasn't an eye-opener. It confirmed what I already believed about socioeconomic status.

It was interesting to learn that the highest risk factor, by far, for any kid is to be a first nations child. Above and beyond any other single factor, that is the greatest challenge to overcome in British Columbia. Pardon me, that's the second-highest factor. The highest factor in

British Columbia is English not spoken as a home language. It is right off the map for the risk that places the child at. I am aware of those things, and I think it's very important to focus on those in shaping all of what we do.

Thinking about trying to influence how kids come to school and their readiness to thrive is really important. I think it's also important to ensure that resources are getting to those schools that have higher at-risk populations. That would be my question. Does the minister feel that the present method of allocating funding is getting the resources to those schools that allow them to thrive and deal with the relatively higher challenges they have in dealing with these vulnerable populations?

Hon. S. Bond: First of all, I do appreciate the member opposite's concern about this issue. It is an enormous one. I can tell you that we're not going to rest until we actually see aboriginal children in this province have the kind of results that non-aboriginal children do. We have said clearly that our agenda is to close the gap, and we have worked both nationally and across this province to be leaders in this country on the issue of aboriginal education. We currently have 31 aboriginal enhancement agreements in place, and I would expect there to be 60 aboriginal enhancement agreements in place.

Those agreements are about working together with aboriginal communities to help resource both their families and their children. When we talk about how dollars get to those schools, I can tell you that there are about 1,600 schools in British Columbia. Victoria doesn't know the nature of those neighbourhoods. We can certainly rely on the work that Dr. Clyde Hertzman does, but we actually believe that school trustees….

Having been one, I understand this process. We believe that school boards, taking the dollars they have, need to find ways to make sure that the schools within their district are receiving the resources they need. That's about school boards actually making those kinds of choices.

Our job as a government is to make sure that we continue to send dollars to school districts. As I've said earlier, the member heard it in my opening remarks, we're sending record levels of funding to school districts. We want them to make choices about how best to serve those students. They know their school districts far better than people sitting in Victoria would.

D. Cubberley: I take her point, Mr. Chair, that they know their population better than the ministry would, but there's also the matter of the ministry providing some guidelines on the way in which things happen within the system. I don't sense the minister or past ministers are shy to supply guidelines for how things will happen, if they perceive there is a need for those things. I think if it's hands-off, it's hands-off by choice.

I think there are some factors that we should be looking at. I would just raise, whether the ministry…. In the context of declining enrolment, the minister has said that boards have to make tough choices and that there is going to be consolidation of schools.

Well, one of the questions I would ask is: is the ministry looking at the process of school closure, to ensure that it is not the schools in areas of low socioeconomic status that are being earmarked for closure? I'm not saying chosen because school districts are focusing on those, but whether the process of declining enrolment is not happening in such a manner that it is the schools most approximate to those areas that are the ones that are most likely to be closed.

I would just simply ask: are you monitoring that process? Is that something that school districts just do, and the results are the results?

Hon. S. Bond: We do not make decisions for school boards about which schools to close. As a school trustee for a very long time…. School trustees are intimately aware of the schools within their districts. They go through very difficult processes in order to even contemplate closing a school. I think it was the member opposite that pointed out in his opening comments what an attachment families and children have to schools. We understand that. We grew up in a culture in Canada of neighbourhood schools. That's changing, and that's very difficult for people to contemplate, much less to achieve.

We do not ask, tell, direct or give direction about which schools may be considered for closure. Those are decisions of locally elected school trustees.

D. Cubberley: Yes, I believe in the model, and I do believe strongly in locally elected school trustees. But I also believe that frameworks for the way that they do their business are supplied from the minister and the ministry. There appears to be no framework supplied for the way in which closures are undertaken by school boards.

I'm simply asking if the ministry is monitoring this closely enough to be able to determine whether inner-city schools serving lower socioeconomic status neighbourhoods, and rural remote schools serving dispersed and lower socioeconomic status areas, and subpopulations of the overall school population aren't the more likely schools to be chosen for closure because of declining enrolment. I'm asking whether they are concerned about the impact that it's going to have on those very populations that are struggling harder to come to the overall results that most kids entering the school system can expect.

Hon. S. Bond: I think that school boards and trustees work very hard to sort out how to even begin to deal with what is such a difficult and emotional issue. It's very hard to contemplate closing a school. What I've seen as I've travelled across the province is that school boards often go to extraordinary measures to try to keep small and rural schools open because they, too, recognize the value of those schools.

I think we underestimate the significant decision-making process that school trustees go through with

their communities to try to deal with what is a very difficult circumstance. It isn't going to change. As I've suggested, when we look out even to 2007, we will have lost 50,000 children. You simply can't operate school districts the same way that you once did.

D. Cubberley: No, Mr. Chair, you certainly can't. One of the other reasons for that is — and I would wholeheartedly endorse this direction — that the option of taking kids out of catchment and going to other schools has been opened up as an element of choice. That has meant a level of mobility in school populations — among families seeking special, different or tailored outcomes for individual kids — and a movement of kids between catchments that's unprecedented.

What that really means, from their point of view, is that schools — all of which are attached to their neighbourhoods; neighbourhoods are attached to them — are very, very different entities at different stages in their life expectancy as a capital asset and at different stages in their relationship with the community. Some are flourishing, and some are struggling — for reasons that reflect some of the surroundings, because of demographic changes that are occurring.

In a context where there is increased choice, every school is now in competition with every school for a dwindling population. When you add elements of streaming of populations internal to the school population, and the bleeding off of elements of the student population into private schools, it is not insignificant, because in this region nearly 20 percent — 19 percent, one in five kids — is in some form of private or independent school.

It is very, very significant. Even a small movement in that direction can take a population out of a school catchment, and it can simply lead a particular school to be considered for closure because, in the context of declining enrolment, we have to get rid of a school. Is there anything that the ministry puts in play that mitigates that, that says, "No, we have to have a process that enables these schools to have a level playing field" — to enable these schools to compete?

Hon. S. Bond: Well, I guess that we will agree to disagree fundamentally, but we actually believe there should be choice and flexibility in public education. One of the things that is interesting about the member opposite's comment…. I don't know this statistic, but I would be happy to learn more about it — that one in five children are in private schools in this particular area. I find it interesting that there is always such a vigorous debate about adding more choice to public schools.

When we look at meeting the needs of parents within public schools, including looking at models of schools that might be new — that, also, is opposed. I'm not sure you can have it both ways. If the member opposite is concerned about…. I think he used the words "bleeding off" or something like that — not meant to be a critical comment, but just describing the fact that we have kids flowing to private education. One of the things we'd need to contemplate is what kinds of things we need to do in public education if that's where we want to see many of our children.

I think we're committed, as a government, to choice in public education. We're committed to building a flexible system that meets the needs of children in whatever neighbourhood they live. I can only personally say this: I have visited schools across this province in neighbourhoods that have many vulnerable children in them. They are spectacular. They are led by educational leaders and teachers who are phenomenal. The school is full. It's a great place to be.

Our job is to make sure, wherever they end up, that children in schools are met and dealt with in the best way we can possibly do that. That's what our agenda is, and we're committed to doing that.

D. Cubberley: Just to begin, the number comes from the B.C. progress report of December 5, 2006. The report is entitled Working Together to Improve Performance: Preparing B.C.'s Public Education System for the Future, and there is a very good analysis in here. This is Premier Campbell's B.C. Progress Board appointed in 2001, with blue-ribbon business, community and academic leaders on it.

It has a very interesting analysis of where the system is at this point. It's quite dispassionate. The number about Victoria and the participation in public schools comes from this report, which is advice to your government.

I'm not quite sure what opposition the minister was trying to set up around choice there, but my point…. I acknowledged right at the front end of my comments that once it was made possible for people within the public system — not because of private schools; that was a factor — for parents to choose to send their kid outside of the catchment that they were in, it put all schools under a new pressure because population movements were multiplied.

In a time of declining enrolment, that is enough to precipitate the closure of particular schools, which for whatever reason, a host of reasons, are not able to attract sufficient students to maintain their share of the market — to use language I'm sure the minister is familiar with.

The question is about a level playing field, especially for schools that serve areas that have more at-risk kids in them, because in the elementary system those are very likely to be the schools that are approximate to those communities. Those are very likely to be the schools that get the X placed on them.

I'm asking if that is of concern to the minister. Given the concern with kids arriving at school not prepared to thrive and given the connection between lower socioeconomic status and a variety of subpopulations and those schools, is there a concern that it's just those schools that are likely to be closed?

Hon. S. Bond: I think, first of all, that the vast majority of parents choose their neighbourhood school.

While the boundaries and limitations around catchment areas were certainly removed, the vast majority of parents today still choose their neighbourhood school. I guess my point was simply this: many of those schools that serve vulnerable and at-risk neighbourhoods are fabulous, thriving and incredible schools.

School districts don't make decisions about where they place the X lightly. They look at every single factor. They are going to look at doing that, first of all, in the most compassionate way possible but also in the most effective way possible for a community. School districts do that well. This ministry, and certainly this government, is not interested in telling or monitoring school boards in terms of how they make those school closure decisions.

What we're trying to do is find new options to encourage school districts to explore programs and to use new and innovative thinking in some of their excess space — community hubs, community programs and child care. How do we actually make schools into places that continue to be viable?

Of course, we're always concerned about vulnerable children finding a place in which to be successful, but at the end of the day, school districts make those choices in what they believe to be the best interests of their children and their community.

D. Cubberley: There are, indeed, many schools in these areas that are flourishing. My hope is that many more will be enabled to flourish, especially by being given the chance and the tools to compete so that they can attract their share of population.

I will bring a little personal experience into this because I happen to have a seven-year-old child in the school system, and my child is not going to my neighbourhood school.

I'm very, very grateful, given the circumstance, that I was enabled to have the choice to go to another location. The reason for that is, quite simply, that my neighbourhood school, which is thriving and flourishing and a very good school and is 100 or 200 feet away from where I live….

Nothing could be more convenient, and nothing could be more inconvenient than to not have my child in that school, but my neighbourhood school does not have a child care program for kindergarten. It does not have an out-of-school care program which is acceptable and available to people.

So for my son, we go across town because there is another school, which is flourishing and thriving, which happens to have a complete system of child care. A child from age three can go into daycare, can be in preschool and, once they enrol in the school, can be in an after-hours care program.

This is the point that I'm trying to come around to. My son's school is not up for closure, so I'm not going there. In the consideration of schools at this point in time, the calculations about whether a school gets the X placed on it or not have to do with the number of kids in the school. What we're looking at is an FTE-based system. It's a per-pupil system.

The assets the school brings to the community and its connection to the surrounding community, I would venture, are not being considered. At the end of the day, school districts have to make tough choices. The minister has said that repeatedly, and she's absolutely right. They are really tough choices. No school trustee worth his or her salt wants to shut down any school. Especially not elementary schools — they're rooted in neighbourhoods. No one wants to do this.

My point is simply that a system which enables choice enables movements of population that are greater than one that constrains population to be in a catchment around a school. There would be changes over time in that situation, but choice multiplies the likelihood of change. I see it all around me. That can have a particular impact on inner-city schools, and it can have a very strong impact in smaller schools in rural communities.

I'm trying to come back to the point that the current system does not require anybody to consider those community assets and attribute a value to them when a school is being considered for closure. I'm asking the minister whether that isn't something that ministry policy should be embracing. There should be a policy that monitors and ensures that we are not losing school infrastructure in those very communities that are most at risk for not thriving.

Hon. S. Bond: I'll answer, and then I will move. You caught me off guard there, hon. Chair.

There may not be policy in place, but I absolutely believe that school trustees, by their very nature and their practice, consider factors like that with every decision they make. They look at the social and community values that are important.

Obviously, enrolment is one of the significant factors that's used in making a difficult decision like that. But it isn't the only factor. I absolutely believe that school trustees do that. They do consider those factors. I'm not sure that regulating or creating policy to make people do that is what is necessary. I think school trustees do that.

I appreciate the member opposite's points about schools that have after-school programs and child care and all of those things. That's exactly the model that this government is trying to look at improving and working on. My colleague the Minister of State for Childcare and I are working on a concept of community hubs, which is very much about how you include resources — not just those that deal with child care but health and other things — within schools, especially with the kind of space issues that we are facing in the future. StrongStart is very much a part of that concept.

Noting the hour, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

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