Hansard — Tuesday, April 17, 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

Introductions by Members		6749

Introduction and First Reading of Bills		6749
	Parks and Protected Areas Statutes Amendment Act, 2007 (Bill 24)
	Hon. B. Penner

Committee of the Whole House		6749
	Coroners Act (Bill 8) (continued)
	M. Karagianis
	Hon. J. Les
	C. Puchmayr

Report and Third Reading of Bills		6756
	Coroners Act (Bill 8)

Committee of Supply		6756
	Estimates: Ministry of Forests and Range and Minister Responsible for Housing
	Hon. R. Coleman
	B. Simpson

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply		6761
	Estimates: Ministry of Education and Minister Responsible for Early Learning and Literacy (continued)
	Hon. S. Bond
	D. Cubberley
	S. Hammell

Hon. B. Penner: I do have an introduction to make — actually two. In the House today we're fortunate to be joined by Mr. Dallas Smith, president of the Nanwakolas Council. He comes from the midcoast of British Columbia, and he's one of our first nations leaders in the province. Also joining us today is Chloe O'Loughlin. Chloe is the executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, B.C. chapter. Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. B. Penner presented a message from Her Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Parks and Protected Areas Statutes Amendment Act, 2007.

Hon. B. Penner: I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Hon. B. Penner: I am pleased to introduce the Parks and Protected Areas Statutes Amendment Act, 2007. With Earth Day approaching this Sunday, it's entirely appropriate that we bring this new legislation forward.

This bill contains amendments to the Protected Areas of British Columbia Act, the Park Act and the Forest Act to continue our government's ongoing work towards expanding B.C.'s parks and protected areas system, including the creation of conservancies on the central coast and north coast.

This bill will continue the implementation of historic land use decisions that will protect some of the most significant, spectacular and ecologically diverse landscapes and coastal areas in the entire world. The creation of these protected areas is taking place in the broader context of a land and resource management plan that will also provide certainty for land use to support economic opportunities for coastal communities.

This balancing of environmental stewardship with economic development is based on a historic collaboration that has taken place between first nations, industry, conservation organizations, local governments and many other stakeholders to arrive at the central coast and north coast land use decisions that were announced by the Premier last year.

The amendments to the Protected Areas of British Columbia Act will establish 41 new conservancies in the central coast and north coast in addition to the 24 conservancies that were established by this Legislature last year.

There are also amendments to the Protected Areas of British Columbia Act that concern changes to the protected areas system in other parts of the province. Three new class-A parks will be established, and additions will be made to 16 existing parks. Several boundary descriptions will also be updated, using more accurate mapped boundary description methods.

On an administrative note, I want to point out to all of the members that the Office of the Clerk will be provided with copies of the maps for members' review that depict the boundaries of the new conservancies, parks and expanded areas.

This bill also contains amendments to the Park Act and Forest Act which will create a legislative mechanism for the deletion of and compensation for forest tenure rights that are displaced by the creation or enlargement of parks and conservancies. These provisions are being added to put in place a clear, proactive framework respecting impacts on the rights of forest tenure holders that occur when protected areas are established on Crown land that up to that point have been available for timber harvesting.

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

Bill 24, Parks and Protected Areas Statutes Amendment Act, 2007, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. C. Richmond: In this chamber I call committee on Bill 8, Coroners Act, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General. In Section A, Committee of Supply, continued estimates debate of the Ministry of Education.

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 8; S. Hammell in the chair.

The Chair: You closed debate on section 18, so I'm going to call for the vote on section 18.

M. Karagianis: At the end of our discussion yesterday, I had asked the circumstances around the minister's ability to order a coroner to hold an inquest. I think we had just begun to discuss that at the end of the day. I'd like to go back to that, because I think we hadn't finished.

I don't believe the minister had finished his comments here on the circumstances around which the minister would order an inquest to be held and the timeliness of that — given, obviously, the circumstances around backup in the waiting list for coroners' inquests or the circumstances around that. The minister was going to elaborate on where and how and why he would order an inquest and what his power is there to speed up an inquest, if necessary.

Hon. J. Les: In section 19, clearly, there is opportunity provided for a minister to require an inquest to be held, generally speaking, in both sections (a) and (b) — section (a) being where an inquest has not already been held, and in section (b) where an inquest has already been held. The minister may decide that it is in the public interest that an inquest be held, in the first instance, or that a second inquest be held. The determining criteria would be that it is in the public interest to do so.

Once that decision or that request has been made by the minister — that an inquest should be held — the timing of that inquest, of course, can be a matter of some debate. Clearly, if there are ongoing criminal proceedings, as we will see in the subsequent section, the Attorney General can actually request that the inquest be delayed — and, I would suggest, rightly so.

Even absent that circumstance, there is still always going to be the necessity to ensure that all of the relevant parties that would be required to give evidence at an inquest would be available. In some cases it takes some doing to assemble all of the people that you need to be able to conduct the inquest.

My assumption would be that if a minister were to require an inquest to be held, the general requirement would be that it be held as soon as possible or as soon as practical, but that doesn't necessarily mean next week. It in some cases could easily be a number of months.

M. Karagianis: In reading further on this in subsection (2) of section 19 — under "receiving an order under subsection (1), the coroner must hold the inquest" — it is my understanding that the minister has the power, then, to actually call for an inquest even where the coroner would not automatically hold an inquest or where there are other circumstances that would lead the minister to call for an inquest above and beyond the normal procedure.

Is it true that the minister can? Can you call an inquest after the fact, as well, after an investigation has closed down and there had been no compelling reason or no impetus at the time to hold an inquest? Can the minister then go back and say: "I would like to hold an inquest into that death"?

Hon. J. Les: If the minister determines that it is in the public interest that an inquest should be held, whether or not one has been held previously, it is his or her prerogative to so order. Once that request has been made, then that inquest will happen.

M. Karagianis: Is this a process that can be triggered by family members who feel that perhaps the death of a child in their family needs to have an inquest after the fact? How is that process triggered for the minister? Does that family contact the minister and say: "We believe an inquest should be held into this"?

Hon. J. Les: I think it should be clear that there is never going to be a cookie-cutter set of circumstances here that give rise to a ministerial determination that the public interest requires an inquest to be held. Every circumstance is different, and these are always, or very often, very tragic circumstances. Each one is attended by a variety of issues, so I can't imagine that there would be an awful lot of similarity between the considerations that would lead to a minister requiring an inquest to be held, but ultimately, of course, it is the minister's decision.

M. Karagianis: What I'm really trying to establish here is…. In the case of, let's say for example, the number of child death files that were put in storage and have not necessarily been put through an inquest process, how would families trigger that? I mean, there are hundreds of those files that have been sitting in storage. We know that the children's representative will not necessarily take that as part of her mandate, to go back and look and demand reviews on any of those child deaths.

For families that have been waiting for closure or outcomes on all of those files, how is that process triggered? Is that through the minister? Is that through the Coroners Service? Is that something that's done through the children's representative's office? How do a number of those families get some kind of process — inquest or otherwise — on those lost files?

Hon. J. Les: I guess I should say at the outset here that I think the member opposite is running off the rails a little bit. The files in question that she refers to had in fact all been investigated by the Coroners Service. What had not been done was the review of all of the files on a collective basis. But all of those files had been appropriately investigated, whether the causes of death were natural or unexpected. If unexpected and unnatural, the usual coroner's investigations will have been done on all of those files.

I don't actually recall, as I stand here, whether any of those files resulted in inquests. There may well have been. But if an inquest was required, that determination

I would caution against confusing or mixing up coroner's investigations, in the first instance, with the child death review process, which is a process that is quite different. It is an additional process that often results in a collective review of all child deaths to determine trends and issues that need to be commented on in a collective sense.

M. Karagianis: In my reference to the numbers of files that were in storage, I in fact have had families approach me with regard to some of those files, asking whether or not there was going to be some closure for some of them. I know of several cases where it is possible that an inquest may have been appropriate with regard to the manner in which those children died. I think of one in particular. It's a constituent of mine whose nephew died in a fire, and the family has actually had no reporting-out whatsoever on the nature of that death and whether or not an inquest was appropriate.

With the greatest respect, I'm not trying to get off the rail, as the minister framed it. I am asking: of any of those files, if families feel that an inquest is still appropriate, is the course of action that they take here…? Where it says that the minister may order a coroner to hold an inquest, is this the appropriate avenue for those families to pursue some questions or perhaps some initiative from the minister on that?

According to this, I see that the minister has that ability, and I'm saying: is this the conduit, the channel, for families if they feel that perhaps they are not satisfied with the outcome or reporting-out of those child deaths? Is this the avenue they pursue to approach the minister directly and say: "We'd like an inquest done"?

Hon. J. Les: A couple of things here. First of all, I want to be very clear. I don't think that it's appropriate, frankly, in the context of dealing with this legislation to be bringing forward individual cases for commentary, certainly by me. I think that would be quite wrong for me to do that.

We're dealing with the legislation. The legislation is very clear that if there is a ministerial determination that it is in the public interest that an inquest should be held, in the first instance, or indeed that there should be a further inquest held, then the minister is empowered to call for that investigation. As the legislation says, then, in that case, an inquest must be held.

M. Karagianis: I wasn't asking the minister for a comment on the specific case that I outlined. I was asking the minister whether or not the appropriate avenue for families to pursue an inquest, if they felt one was desired, was to contact the minister directly. Is that in fact what this legislation says? If a family feels that an inquest is desirable, do they approach the minister directly, do they go through the Coroners Service, or is there some other avenue for them? I don't want any specific cases to be commented on but really just the avenue that families would pursue here.

Hon. J. Les: Clearly, if someone feels that a death has not been properly investigated, it has always been and, according to this legislation, always will be an option for people to request the minister to order an inquest. But I will also add to that that it is expected practice and, I believe, common practice in British Columbia that all unnatural and unexpected deaths are investigated. That is the expectation I continue to have. All deaths are appropriately reviewed, investigated, commented upon and brought to a proper conclusion.

If someone — a family member or otherwise — has a feeling that that has not been done in a certain case, then obviously I'd be interested in hearing about that. Any minister, I suspect, upon learning of a set of circumstances where a death had not been properly investigated, would want to ensure that that investigation in fact does take place and an inquest called, if that's appropriate.

M. Karagianis: In subsection (3) of section 19 it talks about the coroner holding a second inquest, and I know the minister has made reference to second inquests. What would trigger a second inquest into a death?

Hon. J. Les: Again, that determination would be made pursuant to the public interest. If the minister of the day decided that there were some outstanding issues that he or she felt had not been appropriately addressed or there was some other issue in the realm of the public interest that would benefit from further investigations through the holding of a second inquest, then that decision could be made.

M. Karagianis: Back to my previous questions on this. Is that something that a family could actually trigger if they felt that there was something further to be investigated or perhaps they were not satisfied with the conclusion? Could they then request a second inquest of the minister?

Hon. J. Les: Again, there are no two sets of circumstances that would be similar. There will be a variety of ways in which a minister would come to the determination that a second inquest was desirable or in the public interest. That could come as a request from members of the public or members of the family — any number of different people.

I think any minister would want to always consult widely and, in so doing, would be able to come to a balanced decision as to whether or not a second inquest would be necessary. I would suspect that calling for a second inquest would be an extremely rare occasion indeed. Nonetheless, that vehicle is provided for in the act out of an abundance of ensuring that the public interest is well served.

M. Karagianis: On section 31, "Who may participate in inquest." This is under the division "Evidence at Inquest." This lays out very clearly a number of criteria for who may participate in this. I'm particularly interested in subsection (4) of section 31: "A participant is responsible for paying fees and expenses the participant incurs in respect of legal representation or advice in relation to the inquest."

This topic has come up before. I think I outlined some of this in my remarks when the bill was first introduced around family members' participation in inquests and the hardship of that. I know of some particular circumstances around this that are behind my questioning. Is there an allowance here by government for family hardship in participation in inquests?

Hon. J. Les: I should point out that the expenses we're talking about here are the expenses related to the retention of legal counsel. They are not the expenses related to travelling to and from or staying in hotels and that kind of thing, and the legislation does not contemplate subsidizing people for the retention of legal counsel.

When we use the term "participants" here, we are not necessarily referring at all to family members. There would be a wide variety of possible participants in a coroner's inquest, and they would all be responsible for their own legal costs.

M. Karagianis: I take the minister's comments to mean there is actually no hardship clause whatsoever that's applicable to this section of the act.

M. Karagianis: In the case of where family members have been required to participate and in fact seek legal counsel for a variety of reasons — either because they don't have the confidence in their participation without legal counsel or where it may be advisable, but that there may be compelling hardship for those individuals — what other options can they seek in order to participate?

Often there may be distant family members who end up participating in inquests for a variety of reasons, who may seek legal counsel as confidence-building or as a way to express their particular concerns more eloquently. What avenues do they then have to pursue in order to be allowed that equal representation if they're in a financial position that does not allow them to pay for that — where they're being compelled to participate in the inquest?

Hon. J. Les: I guess I should underline a couple of things here: first of all, the fact that a coroner's inquest is not a fault-finding exercise. So therefore, it is not necessarily at all a legally adversarial kind of forum. It is a fact-finding exercise. So that certainly reduces — if, in fact, it doesn't eliminate — the need for people to be attended by legal counsel.

I take the member's point that sometimes people can draw some comfort by being attended by a lawyer, but that is at their discretion. The coroner, when conducting an inquest, is there to represent the interests of the deceased and all of the interests that flow from that and to find the facts and the circumstances that related to that death. In many cases there is going to be absolutely no requirement for the family members to be attended by a lawyer because, in fact, what the coroner's inquest is intended to do is to find the facts, to speak on behalf of the dead, as it were, and that's a commonly used phrase.

M. Karagianis: Well, what about the case of participants in an inquest who don't have English as their first language — in fact, may not speak very much English at all? What are the provisions, then, for representation? I notice in the previous clause (3) it says: "…participant may be represented by counsel or, with the approval of the coroner, by an agent."

All of these things could incur costs, certainly, so if we have people participating in an inquest who don't speak English and, in fact, are in a position, then, of having to bring either an agent or legal representation or someone else that may be at their cost in order to participate, what are the provisions for that?

Hon. J. Les: Clearly, for an inquest to be successful, people need to be able to communicate. If there are language barriers, those need to be addressed. Where those language barriers might exist, the translation services would be provided at the expense of the Coroners Service. Clearly, everyone has an interest to make sure that people can actually understand and communicate and what have you. So that doesn't necessarily at all conjure up the need for legal advice.

Simple translation services that are required…. It's not unusual — even in meetings that are quite informal, especially at the federal-provincial level — that simultaneous translation is provided. If such services were necessary to properly conduct a coroner's inquest, those kinds of facilities are made available at the expense of the Coroners Service.

M. Karagianis: So the reporting of a review…. "Following each review by the child death review unit or a death review panel, a member of the child death review unit or…panel, as applicable, must…report to the chief coroner…" etc.

This goes back to my question that I asked earlier on duty to disclose to other family members. Can the minister maybe address in this section on the reporting out of a review how, in fact, this again triggers family

members, other children in care, front-line agencies, caregivers and child protection personnel in this review process?

Hon. J. Les: When a child death review process is complete, the objective is to learn as much from those tragedies as possible, with the ultimate objective of ensuring that we do whatever we can to prevent further untimely deaths of children. It is obviously in the interests of everyone concerned — society in general — to ensure that these child death reviews are reported upon publicly to the extent possible so that we can together in British Columbia take those actions that would limit similar deaths from occurring.

I recall the example a year or so ago when there was a report released to do with a child's sleeping practices. Some very interesting conclusions and recommendations came from that which I suspect will probably have already saved some children's lives. Of course, we will never be able to quantify that. That is the kind of product that we're trying to derive from collectively looking at all of these tragedies to try and prevent further instances occurring.

M. Karagianis: Is it the expectation, then, that the death review panels themselves will be the conduit, in the case of children under protection of the government, for bringing those resources into this as well? I'm looking again at the circumstances around children in protection, the environment in which they were living at the time that the death occurred, other siblings or family members, or children in that environment that may be endangered.

Does the death review panel act as that resource that connects back to the child protection process? I don't see here in this reviewing process anywhere where that particular aspect of children in protection is taken into consideration.

Hon. J. Les: When the child death review unit is assembled, the composition of that group will vary from time to time depending on the particular focus that is being applied. At the end of that process, once the death review unit draws its conclusions and makes its recommendations, it is in fact a conduit in that it supplies information to other agencies of government — certainly to the Representative for Children and Youth, for example, and to the Ministry of Children and Family Development and to others who have a very direct interest in advancing the cause of child safety in British Columbia.

Very clearly, the child death review unit is an important contributor to the process. I think the member opposite used the word "conduit." I think in part, at least, that is correct. But that unit, though, at the same time is not the Office of the Representative for Children and Youth. It is not the Ministry of Children and Family Development. It's an important contributor to the process.

M. Karagianis: Certainly, in the minister's explanation here…. I realize that the death review panel, obviously, is first and foremost concerned with doing the death review. Part of their mandate — again, it's not been included anywhere in this legislation — is that the Coroners Service has, as part of their consideration in reviews, what the existing environment is that's left behind in the death of a child — certainly under protection. So that is my main concern here.

We've had some very harsh lessons here in the past couple of years around a too narrowly prescribed mandate for the Coroners Service in looking at the death of children that are under the protection of the government and those left in the environment in which the death occurred.

I'm just looking for some comfort here that the legislation will continue to allow for those recommendations to go out and for the process itself to also reach out and protect any other children left in a dangerous environment. It's been kind of a thread through my earlier comments.

At this particular point, in looking at how the reporting is done, I want to make sure that that is part of the reporting process — looking at other children that may still be in jeopardy in a situation as part of that review.

Hon. J. Les: First of all, I should say that where the member opposite earlier made the comment that the mandate of the coroner was too narrowly described in the past…. That's simply not so. The Coroners Service in British Columbia has always had a very straightforward and simple mandate: to review all deaths that occur — period.

With respect to the child death review unit, clearly there is an evolving scenario, in that with the recently established Representative for Children and Youth, we are developing those protocols between that office, the child death review unit and the Coroners Service to make sure that all information that is learned from the child death review unit is appropriately shared with the Representative for Children and Youth.

M. Karagianis: In this section around the appointment of the coroner and other persons…. The actual section 52 here is very straightforward about how the appointment occurs, but what I would like to ask about is qualifications for coroners and for persons that the coroners appoint. What are those qualifications?

Hon. J. Les: When we are looking for individuals to serve as coroners in the province, clearly we are looking for those kinds of people who have the appropriate life skills. Often those are people with medical expertise, people who have investigative capabilities, people who have legal skills. When these people are accepted — provisionally, in the first instance — they undergo at least six months of training in the Coroners Service on a probationary basis, after which they are eligible to be appointed as coroners.

We have people with quite a variety of backgrounds and skills in the Coroners Service today. They don't all have to be former police officers, doctors or lawyers, but certainly backgrounds akin to those professions are important. An ability to analyze a situation, a good ability to take a set of circumstances and come to the appropriate conclusions, is very, very important. We have, I think, a good process operative in the province today that, to date, has given us a very good and professional Coroners Service.

M. Karagianis: I would take it, then, from the minister's comments that not all coroners or persons appointed by the Coroners Service have medical expertise or experience?

M. Karagianis: And why would we be not requiring all people participating in the coroner's investigation process to have medical experience of some sort?

Hon. J. Les: When a community coroner or regional coroner is conducting an investigation, they have the ability to avail themselves of all kinds of specialist assistance as required, whether that's legal assistance, investigative assistance or medical assistance. So it's not required in the first instance to have that coroner himself or herself qualified as a medical professional. If they need medical assistance, they have the ability to avail themselves of that in every case.

M. Karagianis: In the situation where the Coroners Service took on all of the child death reviews, was there a process for educating the coroners on the kinds of trauma and the kinds of medical circumstances around abuse and neglect of children?

Hon. J. Les: When a child death review process occurs, there is a variety of expertise that is brought to bear on that process, and we have on the staff in the Coroners Service a medical doctor, a pediatric nurse specialist, a child death investigator and numerous other resources that are brought together to ensure that the child death review process is as complete and thorough as is possible.

I am quite confident that with these high-level resources, these very specialized abilities we have, the child death review process is indeed very thorough and offers the public generally and certainly everyone involved with these processes the ability to derive as much information from these tragedies as possible.

M. Karagianis: Is the Coroners Service — the team that the minister has just alluded to — available throughout the entire province? If a child's death occurs in the far north or some isolated community, does this team actually go into that community to work in order to investigate that child's death?

Hon. J. Les: Yes, these people are all available everywhere and anywhere in the province by a variety of means, but by travelling if necessary.

M. Karagianis: Section 54 is the appointment of coroners. The chief coroner may appoint, in accordance with the Public Service Act, one or more persons to exercise the powers and perform the duties of the coroner under this act.

Can the minister perhaps elaborate on when this would be done and why this would be done and whether these appointments would be long-term or short-term? What is the nature of these kinds of appointments?

Hon. J. Les: The intention in clause 1 of section 54…. The appointments here are the equivalent to an individual being hired as a member of the public service.

M. Karagianis: Under what circumstances would that occur? Is this simply hiring more people into the Coroners Service, or is this perhaps appointing people to deal with situations I outlined earlier in section 52 — in remote areas, in the far north or in circumstances like that? Or is this simply the mechanism by which you can hire more people into the service?

Hon. J. Les: What we're talking about in this section is the appointment of regional coroners. These are the more senior level of positions within the Coroners Service. That is distinct from community coroners, which are a different level of employee and appointment within the Coroners Service.

M. Karagianis: Would the criteria and qualifications in each of these circumstances be the same as for the chief coroner or a coroner that was appointed by the government?

Hon. J. Les: When any position is filled in the Coroners Service, the principle that's always observed is one of merit. We want to make sure that the people we attract into the Coroners Service have the skills and abilities that are required to do the job appropriately and with discretion. That will always be the guiding principle, whether they are community coroners, regional coroners or in fact the chief coroner himself or herself.

We want to be sure that we have people who have the right skills, knowledge and background and have the right training, as well, to discharge their responsibilities appropriately.

M. Karagianis: In section 2 it says that the coroner may delegate to any coroner any of the chief coroner's

powers or duties under this act. Under which circumstances would that occur, and why is that necessary?

Hon. J. Les: This particular clause in the act is actually fairly standard in the public service. Of course, all of the powers and authorities of the Coroners Service are vested in the chief coroner. When any activity within the Coroners Service occurs, it's almost by definition a delegation of that authority by the chief coroner to a regional coroner or a community coroner, as the case may be. I don't think there's anything unusual here. This is pretty standard practice.

M. Karagianis: I see here under both sections 63 and 64 that there are some new prohibitions around disclosure. Can the minister explain why there are some restrictions beyond the standard Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act?

Hon. J. Les: When a coroner's investigation is being conducted, it is important to ensure that that investigation is in no way fettered by concerns around disclosure of information. Information that is derived in a coroner's inquest process can sometimes be intensely private, personal and in some cases perhaps even pejorative in some future proceeding.

At the same time, it is still important that we, in conducting an inquest, discover all of the facts. To the extent that it is necessary to provide some protection against disclosure to arrive at all of the facts, it is important to be able to do that.

M. Karagianis: I don't understand why you don't have faith that the Freedom of Information Act as it stands gives the coroner all of the tools necessary to do exactly what the minister is saying. Why no trust here in the Freedom of Information Act? Why are special clauses being written that go beyond that, which actually constrain disclosure?

Hon. J. Les: In fact, I have a great deal of trust in the office of freedom of information and privacy protection to the extent that we consulted extensively with the freedom-of-information commissioner in developing these particular sections of the act. I can tell the member opposite that he is comfortable with the language in the legislation as it is written today.

M. Karagianis: The language here with regard to disclosure to the Representative for Children and Youth…. It's somewhat similar wording in section 67, but in section 68 I just have some concern around the terminology — that "…the chief coroner or the chair of the child death review unit may at any time disclose information…."

I'm concerned as to why there's no requirement or expectation of disclosure of information rather than some discretionary ability here for the Coroners Service to withhold information.

Hon. J. Les: This particular section, if it's read correctly, actually protects the Coroners Service where it decides to share information with others. This is a section that enables it to do that with the Representative for Children and Youth.

There are many scenarios where there may be a question of whether or not it is appropriate or in the particular interest to share information. But this section clearly enables the Coroners Service to share that information, as they decide is appropriate, with the Representative for Children and Youth.

M. Karagianis: Conversely, this section also allows the Coroners Service to withhold information from that office, does it not?

Hon. J. Les: The Representative for Children and Youth in her legislation actually has the ability to compel information to be produced. So I think there's a good balance here that ultimately will have the effect of making sure that all information is available.

C. Puchmayr: My questions are with respect to this part of the act being repealed. I would like to get some clarity as to why that is being repealed from the Coroners Act, which makes reference to section 36(1), and its repealing of section 20 of the Mines Act.

Hon. J. Les: Nothing nefarious afoot here. The relevant provision is being deleted here, but it has been migrated into section 21(3) of the act that we are debating today.

C. Puchmayr: Could the minister then explain whether this is actually strengthening the provisions that existed in 36(1)?

Hon. J. Les: There are no changes with respect to the powers or abilities of anyone under this section.

C. Puchmayr: Could the minister then explain why that is no longer required to be a direct part of the Mines Act?

Hon. J. Les: Quite simply, what we're dealing with here is the powers of individuals in respect of inquests which are best dealt with under the Coroners Service — legislation relating to the Coroners Service — as

opposed to that relating to the Mines Act. So this is clearly a provision that simplifies — in no way detracts from current powers and abilities — and makes more transparent the abilities and powers of certain individuals.

Hon. J. Les: I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Bill 8, Coroners Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. C. Richmond: I call Committee of Supply, estimates debate for the Ministry of Forests and Range.

Hon. R. Coleman: To my left is Doug Konkin, the Deputy Minister of Forests for the province of British Columbia. Through these discussions, I imagine we will cycle through a number of staff who I will introduce by name and title as they come through so that the committee is aware of who is here.

I'm just going to deal with forestry in my opening remarks this morning. I will deal with the issues in and around housing as we get to that portion of the estimates debates, which will come, I understand, after the forestry questions are done with.

In forestry our job is basically to oversee the public interest in forests in British Columbia. That means providing leadership in the protection, management and use of the province's forests and range lands, and responsibility for stewardship of over 47 million hectares of provincial forest land. There's an estimated budget of $730 million for '07-08 that covers a number of core business areas.

First, there's the protection against fires and pests. That's to manage fire to protect the provincial Crown land and invest in the forest land base. It is an increasingly interesting, dynamic area of the ministry as we deal with pests and fire. As everyone can be quite aware, fires are actually more and more a challenge to the ministry, as we've noticed over the last number of years. Plus, of course, everybody is so familiar with the pests that we're dealing with in forests in British Columbia — one in particular being the mountain pine beetle.

This includes increasing the emphasis on fuel management and constructive uses of fire. This is a public issue — to try to get the public to understand that fire sometimes is a good thing with regards to forest management and also the mountain pine beetle, which I mentioned earlier and will expand on later.

Of course, there are other beetles. There are the spruce beetle, the Douglas fir beetle, the western pine beetle and others. We have no shortage. I find that every tree has its own bug.

Hon. R. Coleman: Otherwise, you can harass me. You just have to go to your chair to do it.

The second is forest stewardship, with sound environmental stewardship for the forest resources, including looking at future forest conditions and ensuring that actions today optimize future benefits from our forests.

Range stewardship and grazing. Work with other agencies to ensure a healthy, viable range industry; manage range by limiting invasive plants, restoring damaged lands and limiting forest encroachment on grasslands.

Compliance and enforcement, which is to uphold B.C.'s laws protecting forests and range in other ministries' jurisdiction and act on forest crimes such as theft, arson and mischief.

Forest investment. Through the Forest Investment Account, some revenues are invested back into the land base. This ensures that we have productive forests for future generations.

Pricing and selling of our timber. Ensuring British Columbians benefit from the commercial use of their forest assets; providing a competitive regulatory framework, fair pricing system and effective allocation of timber harvesting rights.

The seventh area that we deal with is timber sales itself, which is the auctioning of significant portions of provincial annual allowable cut to generate pricing and cost data. This drives our market-based pricing system and provides competitive access to timber for industry.

We have a number of key priorities in the ministry. Obviously, one of them is to deal with the mountain pine beetle action plan. The infestation is the largest in B.C.'s history, affecting 9.2 million hectares of land. More than 582 million cubic metres of timber has been attacked. The mountain pine beetle action plan sets out

steps for both the short- and long-term issues with regards to the plan, and it is backed by nearly $500 million in provincial money.

We continue to want to support the communities. In the last month alone we've given additional money to the Cariboo-Chilcotin Beetle Action Coalition, $900,000; the Omineca Beetle Action Coalition, $900,000; and the seed money and funding to help the Southern Interior Beetle Action Coalition build their business case and start to get to work in their area of the province as the beetle moves there.

The climate change. We support the climate change action plan that is being prepared by government. By exploring new ways to use the wood residue and beetle-attack timber to create new clean energy; adapting to climate change by studying and modifying standards; by increasing tree-planting efforts through Forests for Tomorrow, reforesting areas affected by the 2003-2004 wildfires and mountain pine beetle infestations that are not being harvested.

In 2006-2007 we planted 732 hectares in addition to what the licensees would have done, site-prepared 4,560 hectares, surveyed another 65,800 hectares and grew 13.7 million additional seedlings. Together, government and industry and licensees plan to plant a minimum of 180 million seedlings this year. That number is to increase to 220 million to 250 million seedlings by the year 2009-2010. We are on track in British Columbia to plant our six-billionth tree next spring.

On the other issue that faces the province, and as we go through these issues in estimates, there is one in front of us that is basically a coast action plan and log exports. A great deal of work has been done in the last 17 months, working with coast stakeholders with regards to issues that face us in forestry on the coast today.

In 2001 Peter Pearse said that antiquated mills must close, and government needs to make market-based forest policy changes. We responded to that in 2003 with a 2003 forest revitalization plan. We enabled wood to travel to the highest and best by eliminating appurtenancy — no longer forced operators to log when uneconomic to do so — and we introduced market-based pricing.

More recently we introduced changes to scaling and updated pulp log grades. The Competition Council report has given us some information with regards to the coast. We did recently appoint the Pulp and Paper Task Force. We commissioned a review of the log export policy, which everyone has had the opportunity to read, I'm sure. I know the critic has. It was called the Wright-Dumont report, which dealt with a whole bunch of issues in and around log exports and, frankly, didn't make any definitive recommendations with regards to this often controversial and interesting discussion that takes place around logs.

But we do need to continue to create an investment climate that supports a future on the coast. It has to be a vibrant, healthy coastal forest sector because of the people it affects and the communities that need it. We're going to announce that coast action plan in the near future. It is in its final process of the discussions where you're down to what dollars go where, what is being identified as a priority, what can be accomplished, how it affects how we will operate on the coast, etc.

It's a very complex amount of work that's been done. I thank all of the participants that have been there, through different organizations — whether it be organized labour, communities or in fact the CEOs and companies themselves in the forest products sector. There is more to be done before that plan will actually be in position to be finalized, and there are more meetings planned. Of course, some of them have now been delayed, given the fact that I am in estimates for the next…. Lord knows how long we'll be here. So some of those meetings will actually take…. That's fine. We can always do them in the evening, which is what we will probably do.

On the first nations side, we're the first government to set aside revenue-sharing for first nations. We committed to increasing the first nations participation in the forest sector. Since September 2002 we have signed agreements with 128 first nations, including forest and range agreements and direct awards. It provides for 24.4 million cubic metres of timber and $166.5 million in shared forest revenues.

The challenge with first nations — as we've gone through that and built this relationship with them on forest and range agreements and opportunities, as we've come through — is the fact that we now need them to help. We need them to work with industry and each other to build their capacity and build the capacity for them to be able to be successful in the forest sector.

The bottom line is that now that the wood has been awarded at that level, we'd actually like to see the wood move. We would like to see them on the land base, getting the opportunities from cutting the wood and the opportunities it can by selling the wood and building in their communities the jobs they want to build. That's the next challenge with regards to that piece of the file, which we'll continue to work on.

In forest safety, the ministry is committed to efforts to continue to improve forest safety in the forest sector. As of April 1, B.C. Timber Sales requires all bidders to be registered as a SAFE company with all to be certified by the end of the year. If you're not going to be a SAFE company, you won't be allowed to bid on wood in British Columbia.

We've asked the Auditor General to conduct an independent safety review, a report that I understand is scheduled to be back to me by the end of June. That was done to see, with the work that was done starting in 2005 with the Forest Safety Council and industry and union, what successes we were having from what we were putting out there.

There's no question that forestry is a complex, interesting and dynamic ministry to be the minister of. It poses challenges on a daily basis. It proposes nuances

that oftentimes have to be taken into consideration with a number of other issues as well as statutory authorities and other issues with regards to how we manage the land base. We're on our way, I think, with more work to be done. There always will be. I'm optimistic that together we can get there, and I look forward to the debates on the ministry's budget in the next few days.

B. Simpson: I note that the minister has another staff person with him that he may want to introduce.

Hon. R. Coleman: I guess Mary snuck in behind me while I was talking. Mary Myers is the budget manager. She's the one who actually keeps me fiscally straight. Doug is the one who keeps me straight on policy and statutory authority, and brilliant in my speaking publicly to make sure that I know what I'm talking about.

B. Simpson: I will not rise to the bait on the brilliance of the minister's public speaking around forestry issues.

I do want to open with a few words, because as people are aware, I live in a community that's in the heart of the mountain pine beetle. It is a forest-dependent community. It has gone through all of the ups and downs of the forest industry over a number of decades, but it now faces a challenge the likes of which it has never seen before. I look forward to exploring some of that in estimates, because we need to know what the nature of that challenge is going to be. I've also worked in the industry for a number of years and consulted to it before that. It's an industry in a sector that's near and dear to me.

It's very easy to use the word crisis with respect to the forest sector, and I know that the minister likes to refer to me as Chicken Little when I use the word crisis, so I'm going to use a different word today. And it's not my word. It's actually the word of someone who has spent a lot of time in the forest industry, as a forest industry analyst, and has done forest research for many, many years in both the solid wood and pulp and paper sectors.

In a recent article in Truck Logger Magazine, this individual simply says: "The forest industry is in a mess." Those aren't my words; those are the words of someone who has been in this industry for a very long time. He says: "It suffers from conflicts between economic, social and policy forces. We're operating like a giant forestry sudoku game. Individual problems are given short-term fixes and then the fix causes a new problem, bringing the forest economy to its knees. We must find a way to do things differently to make the numbers line up neatly without violating the multitude of pernicious short-term rules."

Again, Madam Chair, those aren't my words, but they capture the essence of the challenge that we have in front of us with respect to the forest sector. It is in a mess. It is in a mess no matter where you look.

What I would hope to do during this estimates debate is challenge in the area of leadership through this time. That's what we need. We need someone who is willing to embrace the full breadth and extent of the challenge that we're confronted with — not run from it and not be overly optimistic about it but present it as the challenge that it is — and in all manners of public engagement speak the words of the challenge that we have and not go into the old debate of forestry is a sunset industry or a sunrise industry, which does no one any good.

The reality that we're confronted with is quite different, depending on where you go in the province. On the coast my experience — the best way that I can capture it — is that we're in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Back in the mid-'90s after the Kobe earthquake, the forest industry on the coast had cash but did not invest it in the coast at that time — for all manner of reasons they didn't do it — and we're now living with the consequences of that lack of investment.

The interesting thing is that that same group of companies are the ones who are going around and who have the voice of the government to say what it's going to look like in order for us to get investment again. We're into a vicious downward cycle where the large corporations have a voice. The independents, the remanufacturers, the communities, the workers do not.

Every time you want to do something on the coast, we go and ask the corporations — who missed their opportunity to readjust to the marketplace — what they need. What they need, according to them — whether it's the coast restructuring group, the Competition Council, the steering group, the recovery group…. I'm sure we'll get the same from the pulp CEOs. They want lower taxes, lower wages, less regulation and lower input costs. They want their stumpage down.

That's a no-brainer. That's one sector of the forest industry and the forest sector that is giving their wish list. At the same time, we have, for example, on the coast two cash-rich companies, TimberWest and Interfor, who have cash in their pocket, who have the deregulation from the Forestry Revitalization Act, who have the changes to the Forest Act, who have had their input costs reduced by a coastal master agreement on wages and fairly low stumpage rates. They still will not invest in the coast, yet they have the rights over the land base, and they are using those rights over the land base to become exporters of logs.

It has become a self-fulfilling prophecy by people who want to give a good return to their investors, and I don't have any problems with that at all. That's how the free market works. That's how corporations work. That's the job of a CEO in a corporation. But the job of government, particularly in this case, is to ensure that communities and workers and British Columbians benefit from our public forests, and that job is not being done.

I actually jokingly said — I guess about 18 months ago now — that my prediction in the interior would be that we would probably have one or two major corporations left with a few mega-mills. I thought that maybe ten

years, 20 years might be the case, if we continued on this path. Anybody who is paying attention to the industry knows that that could be sooner rather than later, with what's going on with Canfor and with the rumours that are abounding around Third Avenue Management and what Third Avenue Management is doing in this province.

The southern interior still has to go through its compression of the marketplace and the corporate buyouts that have to occur there, but certainly north of 100 Mile House we have two major players, and that's starting to cause all kinds of grief for all kinds of communities.

Over top of all of this, of course, is what's happening on the land base. I'm happy to hear that the minister said today that he recognizes there's more of the mountain pine beetle on the land base and that he recognizes the fire component to that. The reality is that that land base is under severe threat, and it's only going to get worse.

Both parts of the province, the coast and the interior, are being significantly affected by climate change. One of the things that we'll explore in estimates is what the costs are of the storms that we've got on the coast. People in Vancouver got all out of sorts about Stanley Park — and rightly so. That's their gem, and they take great pride in it.

What doesn't seem to have gone into the psyche of British Columbians, particularly in the lower mainland, is that those storms hit our entire coastal forest region. They hit everywhere. We had bridges out, roads out, trees down. We had crews that were trapped and couldn't be helicoptered out. We had Port Alberni as an entire community that was trapped and cut off for days. The combination of fire threat and forest health threat in the interior, the potential for those continuous storms…. In fact, we haven't been doing the logging that we need to do on the coast to get logs into the log market. We've been out of the bush so often because of fire threats and storms and late snows and everything else.

Climate change is going to be a major issue here, but there's another issue behind all of this. I'm glad the minister mentioned the Forestry Revitalization Act, because we're going to explore that in estimates quite extensively. I believe that the Forestry Revitalization Act not only did not achieve any of its stated outcomes; it is actually now in the way of us doing meaningful change that we need to do. That will be explored in depth.

As we've heard in this House, oligarchy seems to be the word of the spring session. That is a very serious issue, and I've alluded to it already. We also have now monopolistic situations in certain areas of the province, and that's not good for anybody.

In 2003 what actually did happen was the complete gutting of the social contract from our public forests. It was completely ripped to shreds, and I cannot help but feel that the government's actions in this regard — their continuation of only speaking to the large corporations about forestry issues and about forest policy changes — has to be related to what happens on the Liberal Party donation side. It feeds the cynicism that from '96 to '06 the forest companies have donated $6,336,980 to the Liberal Party. That's a lot of money and buys a lot of time with the minister and with the Premier's office and really shows where and why what we've done in this term has favoured the corporations.

We also have the Forest and Range Practices Act, and we'll explore that in estimates. The Forest and Range Practices Act has effectively shut the public out of any discussions about the land base. The forest practices act was initiated in 2003. We're still struggling, in 2007, to put it on the ground. The minister had to postpone the end date of that until March 31. We're going to explore where we're at on that, because I'll tell you that people on the ground — registered professional foresters, people in the ministry who have been on the ground for a long time — say that they don't know what the lay of the land is. They are caught between two worlds. Some activities on the land base are under forest development plans, and some activities on the land base will be under forest stewardship plans. Nobody knows what these forest stewardship plans mean.

The intended result of the government was to have excellence in environmental standards. No one can guarantee that that will occur under forest stewardship plans. The sad fact of that is that once a forest stewardship plan is approved, neither the public nor even the ministry staff have much in the way of oversight anymore — if at all.

We also have found out in recent months that the government did not do the due diligence that it needed to do around legal objectives in conjunction with the forest stewardship plans. The people in Clayoquot were quite surprised to find out in a presentation from the Ministry of Forests and Range staff that the higher-level values in the Clayoquot and all the work that was done there cannot be protected under the Forest and Range Practices Act and that we have to find other mechanisms to protect it. That was quite a shock and caused quite a panic.

I know that the Minister of Agriculture and Lands was brought into that discussion. I canvassed that at length in Agriculture and Lands because that's where higher-level objectives and land use planning rests, and quite frankly I was not satisfied with the answers. We simply don't know if the new results-based code is going to work. What it has become is the legal morass that the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals, the Forest Practices Board, the West Coast Environmental Law Association and everybody else said it was going to become.

In the Forest and Range Practices Act there are no values for some of the things that the minister has spoken of. There are no values for fire, so in a forest stewardship plan I don't have to talk about managing for fire. There are no values for worker safety, and in a forest stewardship plan I don't have to talk about how I'm going to ensure worker safety. In a forest stewardship plan I don't have to talk about forest health activities.

We will canvass the defined area management program and that fiasco, and how we've lost control over forest health activities, and how we can't protect it under FRPA now. Of course, there are no values stated explicitly for climate change.

On top of 2003, we then roll forward to last year and another nightmare scenario — that is, the softwood lumber agreement. I predicted at the time that it was an agreement that would not hold. My gut reaction to the terms, my gut reaction to the iterations of it as it was revealed to me, based on my experience in the industry and based on who I was talking to in the industry, was that it would not hold. What did we get?

A couple of days ago two of the key negotiators in the softwood lumber agreement — high-level people…. In fact, Mr. Aldonas was involved with the Liberal government here very early on in their mandate to try and figure out how to avoid a softwood lumber agreement through the Revitalization Act. Mr. Aldonas knows softwood, and he states categorically that the deal will likely not last. It's coming apart, and we're going to explore that.

There's a couple of things of interest here — the softwood lumber agreement, for example. We still are arguing about how to define the surge mechanism. That's an ongoing argument. You would think that would be dealt with in the negotiations, but it's an ongoing argument.

The independent manufacturers are still arguing with Revenue Canada over taxation. The woodlot federation was promised by the minister that they would get a stumpage adjustment, which all of a sudden was cancelled because we couldn't take it forward under the softwood lumber agreement.

We would be in a worse situation if this government hadn't done another thing, and that was create a monopoly for CN Rail. As the minister must have heard at the Council of Forest Industries this past week, CN Rail's monopoly is now causing grief for all the lumber manufacturers in the interior. They cannot get product to market.

But there's a trap there, because if they could get their product to market, we would most likely be in surge. We would most likely go from a 15-percent penalty to a 22.5-percent penalty, and they know it. The only thing that's floating some of the independents and the smaller operators in the southeast is the fact that we haven't yet hit surge, so the worst is yet to come.

I'm also being told by the industry that we would see a lot more downtime as a result of the softwood lumber agreement if one thing wasn't a reality for everybody — that is, they don't want to lose their workers. They cannot afford to introduce instability into the mills because they are afraid of losing their workers, particularly their trained millwrights and some of the new apprentices they have.

The coast position seems to be that we're defaulting to log exports. We've canvassed that in question period. We've done a lot of work around that, and I want to explore that further in estimates. As I said, the interior default seems to be a few mega-mills.

Yet the Premier, when he stood at the Council of Forest Industries last week, said that all it is, is that we're in a time of change and that everybody somehow has to embrace change. It's just like going from the horse-and-buggy days to the car days, which I think kind of dated the Premier more than anything else.

The magnitude of the change we've got is way more significant than that. What I believe we need in all of this is to move away from positive spin, to move away from boosterism, and to embrace the realities and the depth of the challenges that we're confronted with.

Again, the minister has been asked by a variety of groups to hold a summit on forestry, to hold a conversation around this province on forestry and to hear directly from people in this province how deep their fears and their concerns are for the viability of their communities, their mills and their jobs.

I would suggest — and we'll canvass this as well — that one start in that would be the bioenergy strategy. The bioenergy strategy should be a public consultation document. It should not be actioned without public consultation.

The coastal strategy that the minister spoke about and that we're all eagerly anticipating should not be a strategy that's actioned but should go out for public debate and discussion. As the deputy minister and the minister are both aware, I believe one of the foundations for that discussion has to be the tenure discussion that we have avoided for a long time in this province.

It is about time that we did that. The 20-percent clawback, as we'll see during estimates, simply isn't working. It's not sufficient to drive a true log market. It's time that we talked about tenure and that we talked about it in a very real way.

We also need to look in a deeper way at the implications of climate change with respect to forest management. We'll explore that with respect to what the chief forester is doing, but I believe significantly more resources need to go to that.

Finally in all of this, part of that conversation has to be: what's the new social contract? Communities and workers and British Columbians have a right to derive benefit from their public forests, and that right has been removed from them.

With that, Madam Chair, I will get into a quick question before we take a break. With the minister having his numbers person with him, of the $730 million for '07-08…. Let me rephrase the question. Are things like revitalization compensation — the amount that the minister mentioned for first nations of $166.5 million…? Are those Ministry of Forests operating costs that are included in what's reported out annually?

Hon. R. Coleman: Madam Chair, that's too bad because, boy, I would have liked to have done a bunch of sour grapes stuff on Mr. Aldonas and a few other things, but I'm sure we're going to get our opportunity in the next day or so.

Mr. Aldonas was actually the guy who was the architect under the federal Liberals who tried to drive a deal in B.C. that was going to be way worse than the softwood deal that's before us today. It was one that was going to put a 15-percent tax on only B.C. companies and nobody else in Canada. I'm glad the member opposite wants to think he's an expert on softwood, but I think he was a failed expert on softwood.

Just to the member's question — I note the time, Madam Chair — $50 million is in the budget for revenue-sharing with first nations. That is the actual dollar amount; that isn't the wood. It is the capacity-building portion of the Forests and Range opportunities that is included in the budget.

Noting the time, I move the committee rise, report a small amount of progress and ask leave to sit again.

Committee of Supply (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
(continued)

Hon. S. Bond: I have a number of things that I would like to put on the record. It was, in essence, our homework assignment from yesterday. I want to be sure we're covering off some of the questions that were asked of us, and we didn't have the answers right at the tips of our fingers.

I'm sorry that I won't try to link them directly to the questions, but there was a question yesterday about Yahk Elementary School and how the transition had worked with students that were moving from the Bountiful community. Currently Yahk Elementary School has 24 students. It is continuing to work very well. There are three students there from the Bountiful community, so that situation appears to be continuing very positively.

The Mormon Hills and Bountiful graduate question was also asked by the same member. The reason it's challenging to talk about graduates from that program — and I certainly should have had this answer yesterday…. Mormon Hills actually goes to grade 7, and Bountiful goes to grade 10. Students complete their schooling in area schools or through distributed learning. It's very difficult to look at graduation results for schools that have that grade configuration, but staff are certainly analyzing our individual results, and I will be responding by letter directly to the member who asked that question.

We were asked by the opposition critic about foundation skills assessment participation rates. I recalled that it was around 90 percent, and in fact last year the participation rate provincially was actually 90 percent.

In terms of translations, one of the members opposite asked about what we translate and how we translate and requested more translation of specific information. So I wanted to be clear and read into the record that the ministry actually works very hard on translation. In fact, translation of ministry information occurs in the following languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese.

Information that we translate includes foundation skills assessment letters to parents; satisfaction surveys; healthy schools parent guides, which will be available by the end of the month in those languages; our crystal meth guide; a letter regarding books for kindergarten students. Graduation program exams are translated into French, and there are a number of programs there. We have FSA numeracy as a straight translation into French. We have FSA brochures for parents in Chinese, French, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, and the list goes on — a handbook of procedures. There is a long, long list — I have not included all of them here today — of information that is regularly translated by our ministry to communicate with parents across the province.

We also had a letter from one of the members suggesting that we had not followed up on an issue from last spring's session of the Legislature. I have brought a copy of the letter. In fact, on May 4, 2006, we did respond directly to those concerns, and I'd be happy to table that letter and make sure it's provided once again to the member.

Finally, there are two others we wanted to clear up. There was a question about StrongStart schools being in Victoria. There are going to be StrongStart programs

in the Victoria school district. The priorities for the service were identified by the school districts, so there will be two StrongStart programs there.

There was a question around funding from the critic, and we looked at funding and how it had kept up in terms of program expansion. If we take into account all fixed costs since 1992-1993, funding is now $537 per pupil ahead of costs, which is a substantial improvement. In every year except 2003-2004, since 2001-2002 education funding increases have exceeded inflation and other cost pressures.

The Chair: If I could mention it, there is no tabling of documents in the budget estimates. If you'd send them directly to the member. If you wanted them tabled, they would have to be tabled in the big House.

D. Cubberley: We were having a discussion about ESL yesterday. There was one area of questioning that I didn't quite cover off, so I'd like to finish that before moving into some questions around literacy.

What I wanted to get a sense of is: for those children who are born within Canada to immigrant parents who are non–English speaking, where English is not the language of the household, when they arrive at school, do they qualify for ESL funding? Or are they treated like any other B.C. kid when they arrive?

Hon. S. Bond: The qualifying criterion is not being able to speak English, and so a parent simply would come and make that known to the school board. They would then designate that student as an ESL student.

D. Cubberley: Just to dot the "i" there, they would then qualify for funding in the way that any other child would at the higher level.

D. Cubberley: I'd like to venture into the area of literacy, which is obviously part of any Minister of Education's mandate, being responsible for K-to-12, but is also in an expanded sense the responsibility of the minister. I think in a general sense it's a very good thing that government has designated a minister to have responsibility for literacy and to actually break it out and identify it. It's obvious to anybody looking into these matters that the level of literacy achieved overall in a society is in some sense a measure of how well it will do economically in the modern global economy that we're operating in.

It's a fact. I believe it's documented in any number of places, but one where I've seen it documented most recently is in a B.C. Progress Board report. Of the new employment that is being generated in British Columbia — of which there's a substantial amount — 70 percent of projected employment opportunities in both new and replacement openings will require some post-secondary education or industrial apprenticeship training, which would apply attaining literacy at level 3 or higher. It's obviously a key factor in how well we do economically and therefore an important focus for government.

In a general sense, currently about one in four British Columbians has literacy skills that are too low to participate effectively in the knowledge economy. A snapshot, if we're looking at those level 1 and level 2 adults, indicates that a substantial portion of them actually have high school and even post-secondary, yet they lack the literacy skills sufficient to participate effectively in the boom. Over time, as well, we know that adults that are stuck at level 1 or level 2 tend to occupy low-income jobs and to live in relatively impoverished circumstances.

In a general sense, given the scale of this — something that affects one in four British Columbians — and the connection to the economy, I just want to ask: what in the minister's view are the most strategic measures that are needed to intervene effectively and lift those low-literacy adults to level 3 competence or better?

Hon. S. Bond: First of all, if there was an easy answer to the adult literacy problem, I think we would have found it by now across the country and around the world. I don't think there is an easy answer. We're engaged in a process right now, obviously being signalled by the Premier, by bringing literacy together — basically the focus of that — to one ministry. I think that was a very good step in the right direction.

First of all, I should let the member opposite know that on the national stage we are actually the lead province on literacy across the country. We have held two forums, one in Ontario and one in B.C., focusing on two aspects of literacy: the early learning piece and the older, K-to-12 and more adult side of that.

One of the things that's really important is that this is not about government fixing this problem by itself. It is very much about building on the excellent work that's done in communities. There's a terrific amount of work going on every day. Part of the key strategy is coordination of resources, coordination of strategies.

The big challenge we face is that adults who face low literacy still have a very difficult time admitting that challenge. Despite all of the resources that are being employed in communities across this province — we have amazing work being done — part of the big problem is that there is still an enormous stigma for adults who need to be able to admit that they have low levels of literacy. I think there is much work to be done.

We're looking at a number of strategic initiatives, and we're partnering with my colleague the Minister of Advanced Education in particular to look at an adult strategy that would bring together our resources and focus them on a number of important areas. We're looking at how we look at adult learning centres and how there is a connection between the K-to-12 system and looking at a more unified approach to adult learning centres. We are looking at how we provide adult basic education in the province.

I don't think there is a single easy answer, but I think we have a strategy in place to look at…. We're working across eight ministries in government to try to reach those adults that have a very difficult time actually admitting that they have a challenge with low levels of literacy.

D. Cubberley: I certainly take the minister's point about low-literacy adults in some cases having to struggle with their own self-image around the problem they face. I know through experience in my own extended family that that is in fact the case.

The experience that I have is with someone who is now an adult but has mild dyslexia. The dyslexia was probably not identified early enough in that person's school career for a correction to be applied, and the negative self-image was internalized very early on. That, of course, leads to a much tougher nut to crack later in life. I think that will bring us back to one of our themes and one of the priorities for public education, which is around early intervention — to try to rescue.

I would agree that there isn't an easy solution to the problem, and the problem doesn't just exist on one level. When we group low-literacy adults, obviously the population divides along a number of lines. The approaches to any one of the subpopulations in that group would need to be tailored and would look dramatically different depending on where they come from and why they're in that position. Hopefully, we'll get to canvass that a little further.

Just to take this a little bit further, one source of low-literacy adults is obviously the group of students who drop out of high school, who don't complete. I think we've said there is now about one in five that that's still the case for. Another group or another source of those might be the students who get passed through high school, who complete, but aren't up to a standard that would allow them to easily engage in post-secondary.

A question would be whether we actually have a measure through the school system of the number of kids who leave school either as a complete or as a dropout, who are low-literacy and who would go immediately into that group of level 1 or level 2 adults when they enter the labour force.

Hon. S. Bond: In fact, when a student leaves with either a Dogwood or a school leaving certificate, we don't actually link that to a particular literacy level. So to answer the member's question, we would not be able to say that a student would move into a level 1 or level 2 literacy level. Obviously, there are students for whom that would be the case. It may be a student with special needs.

The member opposite is correct. There would be students who would be at that level of literacy skill but would still complete, and we would not track them in that way.

D. Cubberley: Would it not be of some interest in assessing performance? We do have some impressive tools in place to measure performance at one level, and we're talking about accountability within the system and trying to use the knowledge that we generate through that assessment process to improve outcomes. Would it not be desirable to know what portion of the group of people who either drop out or complete with low grades are in effect not equipped with the literacy skills to participate effectively in the economy?

Hon. S. Bond: We would agree with that. One of the things we're working toward as we speak is very much looking at individual results and at how we get that information — how we drill down, how we sort out where they are — so that we know, when we're sending those students out of the public education system, what the challenges are that they're going to face.

I would agree with the member opposite. I think that is an important step that we need to take. We're not in a place where we do that at the moment, but I think part of the reform agenda that we have moving forward over the next six months is very much about that kind of information. How do we get it? How do we better equip those students?

One of the things we have recently said will happen now in British Columbia is that if students have a gap after they graduate, we want to give them the opportunity to come back and have that gap closed. The way we're going to do that is using on-line technology at the moment — so through distributed learning, not bricks and mortar necessarily. But that is a new opportunity in the province.

I think the member opposite has a very valid point, and it is part of our workplan to look at how we would measure and how we would help those individuals.

D. Cubberley: I know from prior comments and from the latter comments that the minister and her staff care about the kids who are not thriving in K-to-12. I'm pretty sure she would recognize the link between that failure and the increased risk of later failure in life both in the economy and in family life, and that all of that ultimately results in costs to society that are higher than they would be if individuals left as higher-performing adults.

There's also at another level a direct connection to economic underperformance in the province in terms of lost productivity. That's been mentioned by agencies that report to government as a significant concern. Clearly, anything that can be done to reduce the incidence of low-literacy adults and future low-literacy adults by catching and lifting more children as they are moving through K-to-12 is going to be very valuable.

In light of the scale of the problem and the urgency that has been placed on addressing it by agencies like the Progress Board, I'm interested to know what new measures within K-to-12 may be being looked at that are aimed at early detection and intervention and that go beyond what we have traditionally done — not

what we may do at individual schools or in school districts that happen to be innovating, but that we have mandated across the system as ways of intervening, catching and lifting those kids early on in their school career.

Hon. S. Bond: Well, I think the earlier we deal with it, the better off we are, and we mean early. We mean between zero to six years old. So one of the things we are looking at is: what are the practices of school boards in relationship to early learning?

We know that research would tell us that if a student is behind in grade 2 or 3, despite amazing opportunities and great teachers and all of those opportunities, it's going to be really hard for them to catch up after about grade 3.

Our emphasis will be on early learning, and we're talking about programs that would encourage school districts to resource both the child and the family because we think that you need to help parents help their children. We are looking at a new provincial program specifically across the province which would deal with early learning opportunities for families.

In addition to that, we've added significant dollars in a number of ways in terms of literacy over the last number of years. One of the things we've done is that we have continually added $5 million blocks of funding to the K-to-12 system to support innovative literacy strategies, and it's really making a difference.

I have visited schools where they have taken the grants that they have received and done, for example, intensive reading programs in inner-city-type schools in particular cities. The results are very dramatic — things like using guided reading programs where children are brought together by their skill level instead of by their grade or by their age.

The results from those kinds of innovative teaching strategies have been significant. What we're looking for is new practices. We're financially incenting districts to consider those, and then taking that best practice and looking at how we see that expand across the province. So two of the initiatives, anyway, of real, new focus on early learning and early literacy, and also supporting innovative teaching strategies….

D. Cubberley: That's a very interesting direction, and I think one that is to be supported and lauded.

I'm just wondering whether at this point there are some best-practice strategies that are beginning to emerge, which might be looked at across the system so that it wouldn't simply be a matter of school districts showing initiative and getting some funding for a pilot project, but something which is showing enough promise that we are looking at the possibility of implementing it across school districts.

Hon. S. Bond: A number of things, and I think a point well-taken. I think this is about more than pilot projects, and the member is absolutely correct. We want to take that best practice and see that move across districts.

One of the things we've done is collected the results and the strategies. We now share that information across school districts so that if we learn something from one of those pilot projects, we now look at seeing how we move that across the province.

We're also bringing people together and connecting them on the subject of literacy far more frequently than used to take place. One of my staff reminds me of the kindergarten assessment project. We're working on a project that looks at what the best way is to assess kindergarten students in terms of literacy skills so that we can find better tools to actually do that assessment at the kindergarten stage.

The other thing we will be doing as we create our StrongStart centres, which I referenced earlier in terms of that new program, is that every school district in the province will have a StrongStart centre — at least one. There are multiple numbers being created across the province. We will be able to assign PEN numbers to the children who attend StrongStart, which will give us the ability to track those students and look at their progress moving through their early years.

I think we are thinking very strategically. We are learning from the best-practice strategies and innovations, and we are moving them beyond the pilot stages.

D. Cubberley: I get the sense that it's not in the minister's mind, or in the ministry's mind, a question of simply doing more of what we have been doing but actually adding additional types of both assessment tools and programs to try and accomplish a better outcome.

I guess one question would be whether any jurisdiction — not just limiting it to Canada — has developed a better approach, has established templates that are showing better results and whether we are playing a role in bringing those templates into our system at least in a pilot form.

Hon. S. Bond: One of the challenges we face, and I think we have to keep reminding ourselves of this…. When you look at us globally — in fact, if you were just to begin with Canada — our results are still very good. Really, we have a system that's working for a lot of people, and we always have to remember that. But is there room to improve? Absolutely.

I would heartily agree with the member opposite. Our strategy in this ministry, led by this great team, is that you can't keep doing things the same way forever and hope the outcomes will change. We just have to be bold, look at how we can challenge the status quo and say: "Can we do this differently?" I think that really is what we are trying to do.

One of the areas that we have looked at is Finland. Finland has some remarkable strategies when it comes to literacy, but one of the things most interesting about it is that they are community-based. It really is a cultural perspective where everyone is working together — from all levels of government to community organizations to schools. Government and schools are just a part of

the strategy, and I think that's what we're trying to incorporate here in B.C. when we look at the mandate of school boards and at linking them to community resources.

We are looking at best practices around the world. Part of the challenge we face is that many people look at us for best practice because our results are very good in British Columbia. We're absolutely open to models from elsewhere. I know the member spends a lot of time researching and looking at those kinds of things. If he becomes aware of places or models, we are more than willing to have a look at those. We want to put students first, and we're not at all shy about saying that if some people do that better than we do, we want to know how they do it.

D. Cubberley: I appreciate the openness to all of that. I wanted, just for my own sake, to understand better the role that FSA plays in triggering additional interventions. So if Johnny and Janey do poorly on FSA and it indicates that they're not reading at an age-appropriate level, when that shows up, does it trigger supplementary intervention in some fashion? Is that intervention supported by resources? Is it mandated by policy? How does that work?

Hon. S. Bond: Well, we discussed what FSAs are useful for, why we have them and why we think they're important. Exactly what the member opposite said is what should happen. It is a tool that allows for an individual classroom teacher, a school or a school district to analyze individual results. If there is a gap here or a weakness here, it should at least trigger a conversation about what the strategy for improvement is.

That's what we think the value of the FSA is. It's to say: where are the gaps? That's one of the tools. I think I've tried to be very candid about that. It's not the only tool; it's not the only thing we should rely on. Obviously, classroom assessment goes on every single day in this province. It's valid and important. But FSA is just one of those places where you can touch bases and say: "Johnny has a struggle in this area." It does allow us…. It's the kind of tool that actually can help us pinpoint.

One of the things we have taken on as a ministry is that we have just recently asked school districts, giving them the names of children who have not been successful in a particular area, to follow up on every one of those students to say what the strategy is for John to make sure that he actually can have that gap closed. I think the member has articulated exactly what we hope FSA would do.

D. Cubberley: I know the minister will not be unaware of this, because she hears about it every day, but there is obviously a struggle for resources within schools. The expectation is that schools will at some level be all things to all people — public schools in particular — which is very, very challenging.

I wonder, though, if we have looked at the idea of earmarking funding. I know the minister mentioned the $5 million grants for innovative practices.

I'm thinking of something that is, if you will, more institutionalized across school districts and that earmarks funding for interventions when Johnny or Janey shows up on the FSA test as being below grade level in reading — so that it isn't a question of the teacher or some other advocate fighting for resources to try to intervene to address that deficiency on a kind of school-by-school or almost a class-by-class basis but so that there is some pool of money earmarked for those kinds of interventions as a strategy for trying to lift kids to grade-level reading.

Hon. S. Bond: We have not contemplated that. Ultimately it's because, when we first started working with school boards in 2001, one of the biggest concerns we heard was: "Please don't target. Please don't." I can understand that the member opposite is suggesting there be sort of an additional pot of money, but boards basically said to us: "Please give us the money, and give us flexibility to go with it."

Our belief is that…. What is more important in a school district than individual incremental achievement and making that the number one priority of your school district? We would assume that with funding that we send to school boards, the number one priority should absolutely be about making sure John and Jane are successful and looking at that at the individual level.

I should point out that in the comment that I made previously…. I got a frantic note here, basically saying….

Hon. S. Bond: Oh, it was accurate. It was just that we wanted to narrow the scope a tiny bit.

In terms of getting individual information to a school district, we are piloting that in one school district. We shouldn't have people running out now and thinking: where are our names and numbers? We want to try that.

Back to the member opposite's: "Can we do things differently?" We have given that information to one school district to say: "Work with us on this, and how we can make this happen?"

D. Cubberley: I appreciate that. I'll have staff rewrite that news release that I asked them to put out.

Okay. I want to come back to low-literacy adults. I'm jumping around a little bit here, but it kind of follows from the mandate. I think the minister appreciates that there is an inherent connection between the situation that adults find themselves in — ultimately not having the literacy skills — and how many of them have performed or not performed in high school. But there are some differences.

It is certainly not the case that the K-to-12 system generates most of our low-literacy adults, although I think those who don't succeed contribute, obviously, to that group of people. Probably the most significant

source of the lowest-literacy adults in British Columbia is new immigration. If you were to look at level 1 and level 2, adult immigrants with high school and post-secondary qualifications are significantly overrepresented, especially in level 1, low-literacy skills.

I mentioned before that there are just under a million British Columbians who are at level 1 or level 2. If we look at level 1, of the 391,000 people in that group, 64 percent of them are immigrants. That's 248,000. Nearly half the people, or a little over half, in level 1 are unemployed. Less than half of them have less than high school, which is interesting, 36 percent of them have completed high school, and 19 percent of them have post-secondary.

I guess that at the front end I want to ask if the minister would agree with a statement that it is, in fact, an incredible waste of human capital to bring skilled adults into Canada and then have them languish in economic slots that are so far beneath their pre-existing skill level, especially when we privilege those adults and give them entry based on the fact that they have credentials that we apparently wish to use in our economy.

Does the minister see that as a waste of human capital? What might she be considering by way of new initiatives to begin to address that problem?

Hon. S. Bond: Certainly, I think that anytime someone, regardless of whether they live in British Columbia or not…. If they don't have the opportunity to meet their full potential, obviously we have work to do. That would be said by any level of government in any jurisdiction. The question is: what do we do about that? One of the things we have recognized is that, first of all, we need to have a coordinated approach to that in government. We have to actually work together to solve the problem.

Right now we are in the process of developing, as I referenced somewhat fleetingly previously, an adult strategy. We're doing that in collaboration with the Attorney General, obviously, because of his key role in multiculturalism and those areas, and with the Minister of Advanced Education. We are looking at a new series of strategies that would provide new opportunities for adults. We're in the very developmental phases of that.

Much of that research would have been based on the adult literacy conference that the Canadian Ministers of Education held here in British Columbia, and so we're using that information as a resource to create the strategy. It is a work-in-progress. We know that much of that is connecting individuals with community-based resources. I think it's so important, and we can't say often enough that this isn't about government fixing things. It really is about us working with communities, service providers, school districts and post-secondary institutions.

To the member opposite: we are very much involved in creating a strategy around adult opportunities, working particularly closely with the Attorney General, to focus on the very group of people that the member opposite has brought to our attention.

D. Cubberley: I guess a couple of things. In breaking out the immigrant population within the low-literacy adults and shining a bit of a spotlight on that, it's in large part because these are people that have relatively high levels of schooling when they arrive here. Many of them these days have post-secondary or a trade, and there's very clear evidence that that group of people is not getting to work at their skill level in our economy.

One of the more disturbing things that we saw in presentations made to the Education Committee, which was dealing with adult literacy, was the persistence of that fact over time. They land in the low-wage sector upon arrival, irrespective of their skills, and if you look at it ten years later, they're not moving out of those slots. That has to be a significant concern because it is a waste of human capital.

I would suggest that it's something that we have to begin addressing immediately because of the labour market situation we're in. We're an economy that's growing jobs. The government is the first to let us know about that, and it's definitely good news. I see colleagues on the other side smiling at that. It is good news. But there are some challenges imbedded in that.

The numbers we have suggest that by 2011 new labour market entrants are going to be fewer in number than those who are leaving the labour force. That's just around the corner. In fact, we're probably getting very close to them not offsetting one another as we speak today.

It's also clear that if there's going to be growth in the future, it will be because of in-migration, and the people we bring in to grow our labour market will be substantially from offshore, because the same situation exists in the rest of Canada. That is, we're not generating enough kids from those who live here already to supply the labour force that we need. So immigrants coming in are going to be the source of labour power.

Some 70 percent of the jobs we're creating require level 3 competence in literacy to access them. Most of the immigration policy that we have today, apart from refugee policies, would privilege people who have pre-existing skill levels.

When we look at the low-literacy numbers, we see that there are far too many immigrants sitting in the low-literacy categories. It's true of level 2, as well, although less extreme. It's a much larger group of people; 590,000 people have level 2, which is just below the level of competence needed to get into the economy effectively and start earning real money. But 32 percent of them are immigrants.

The majority of those people — only 28 percent of the group of level 2 low-literacy people — have less than full high school completion. All the rest have high school. I think close to a majority, 34, have post-secondary education, and they're stuck. Immigrants are a substantial portion of both those two groups.

I think it begs the question: what is it about what we're doing now that is not equipping immigrants with the literacy skills they need to unleash their other skills, the productive assets they bring with them — the human capital, the reason that we bring them here? What is it about that?

Hon. S. Bond: I think that's exactly the question we're asking ourselves. What is it that we're not doing, or what is it that we can do differently to meet the needs of these individuals?

It would be wrong to leave with the impression that we're not doing anything, in the sense that we are seeing communities, governments and institutions really work very hard to capture this group of people and find ways to meet their needs.

Absolutely right. We have an enormous gap. We have a million new jobs that will be created over the next decade or less. Probably at 2017, if you look at 12 years from now, that will give us about 600,000 graduates if we graduated every one of them that went into the job market. So we have a natural gap.

Again, absolutely right. We have a gap, and how are we going to help those people who arrive in our province to fill some of those labour gaps?

One of the things we have done recently — and it was the first time it's been done, and it's a bit surprising that it hasn't happened before — is that we brought college presidents and superintendents together to say: "What can we do together to deal with….? First of all, identify the gaps. What are the issues that we're trying to face here, and how do we help each other to make sure we're moving that forward?" We're going to have a follow-up meeting with them near the end of April — a second time.

The other groups that we absolutely have to connect with — and we're doing this work as well — are groups like the chamber of commerce and industry, because not only are we facing an immigrant population who may need help with their literacy levels when they arrive; we have people who are transitioning through four, five and six jobs in their careers, some of which require on-the-job upgrading when it comes to the necessary literacy level.

There are a whole complex range of places where we need to do more. More importantly, I think we need to do it differently.

As we work together, particularly with the Minister of Advanced Education, I would certainly urge the member to also canvass both the Advanced Education and Economic Development Ministries as they come through, because they would have a far more up-to-date version of where they're at with the strategies we're working on together. My job is obviously the coordinating role for that.

We look at some things. We've created a new program called LearnNow B.C., which allows students and adult students to actually take distributed-learning courses to upgrade. So we have a number of initiatives underway, but we are in the process of creating the adult strategy that will look at new opportunities. One of the targeted groups would be immigrant British Columbians.

D. Cubberley: I had mentioned that by 2011 all growth in labour force participation is going to come from immigration — but in fact, growth and enrolment in the school system will also primarily come from immigration — and that currently 90 percent of those arriving lack any capability in the English language. They are highly skilled people who have no English.

My question is: what role does the minister see free access to English-language services for adults playing in determining how effectively immigrants are integrated into our society and our economy?

Hon. S. Bond: We actually don't have direct responsibility for adults and ESL programs, so I think it's incumbent upon us to work with our colleagues — particularly the two ministries that I've noted before, the Attorney General and the Minister of Advanced Education — to make sure that we're dealing with our particular roles, which would be transition from K-to-12 to post-secondary and looking at enhancing those opportunities for a community approach to this. But in essence, we are not directly responsible as a ministry for the ESL-adult component.

D. Cubberley: I understand that and am perhaps pushing up a little bit against the limits in asking the question. But it strikes me that you are responsible for literacy overall and for coordinating, so the content of programs delivered is obviously something that you would have opinions about. One might be expecting that you would be an advocate for a particular direction. So it's in that sense that I ask.

There's also another connection as a result of the way the system works. Currently British Columbia offers fee-free access to English-language services for adults, up to a very minimal level. There are some serious problems with that in a number of aspects, one of which is that there are long waiting lists in some locations to get into the programs. So we don't have smooth transition into learning English for adults.

The second is that it's limited in the level of proficiency that is being generated. Level 3-4, I believe, is what the cutoff is currently for fee-free access to those services, after which people are assumed, and quite wrongly assumed, to be capable of going out into the labour market and performing. At that level, which adult basic educators tell us is equivalent to grade 5 English, they cannot even understand health and safety information that an employer might provide them about what they should or shouldn't do around a set of gas pumps — let alone be able to advance themselves in the labour market.

One of the things that happens — and this is the way that it does come back to the K-to-12 system or its extension through adult basic education — is that

under this regime, there is a tendency for immigrant adults who want to go further to wind up in adult basic education, trying to get their English beyond survival level.

My question really is: is the ministry aware that this is happening and that the ABE system is not set up in any way, shape or form to receive and teach people who are arriving with the equivalent of grade 5 English? And do you see the need to begin sorting this out post-haste, both with access to ELSA and with community colleges and universities, which are the other providers of access to English-language training?

Hon. S. Bond: I think it's fair to say that we are certainly aware of the challenges around ESL and how we provide that and of the issues that the member has raised. I think we are trying to get at the heart of that by working with college presidents, who often are in the place of offering those programs.

We are trying to look at a more coordinated strategy, so I can assure the member opposite that an issue such as the one he's raised would be discussed in putting the strategy together. We will make sure that as we have those discussions and consider that…. Obviously, that is something we're aware of. The member's brought that to our attention today.

I also think it would be helpful to canvass the Minister of Advanced Education to clarify some of the actual technical delivery of those programs. It's not something that I would be as familiar with as he is.

D. Cubberley: I appreciate that response from the minister. It is very important, I think, to recognize the situation that adult educators are finding themselves in. These are people who are very, very committed to dealing with students who are often severely challenged in passing through the normal educational system. Adult basic educators are a very skilled and a very committed group of people who often subsidize the teaching they do with their own labours — as do all educators, which is something I find admirable.

The system itself as currently set up is not set up to receive and teach these people. Individuals are taking it upon themselves to try and do this because they don't wish to turn anybody away who arrives, and they support the potential for learning in every person who shows up. The fact of the matter is — and they bring this home to us — that the reason they are going into adult basic education is because there are no fees attached to it. Generally speaking, these are people who are impoverished by their circumstance — not necessarily by their abilities but by their circumstance.

I would ask that the minister keep that in mind when she is moving through her deliberations. The challenge, I believe, is that in British Columbia we cut them off almost immediately after they start taking English-language services for adults.

The real question is — and I will try to make this open-ended rather than a trap question…. The current skilling of immigrants with English is not done to a level that's adequate to allow them to fully participate economically. They wind up in entry-level jobs, and it isn't enough to allow educated immigrants to access other parts of the educational spectrum and begin translating the skills they have in their home language into skills in our economy.

The cure, or part of the cure — and it's not a cure-all but part of the cure — for this would be to extend fee-free English-language services for adults to a higher level of Canadian benchmarks. Level 7-8 is what's advocated. That would enable them. That would then become a passport — that level of English — either for participating in the economy or for participating in the college system to allow them to credentialize what they already have in Canadian terms.

We are receiving this year, I believe, a significant amount of new money from the federal government for settlement services. My question would be…. I don't want to trap the minister on this, but would the minister be willing to look at advocating extending fee-free ELSA to level 7/8 benchmarks, which are recognized by everyone who works in the area of second languages as being what is required for economic participation?

Hon. S. Bond: I certainly appreciate the challenge and the question from the member opposite. I must say that I very much agree that we need to be very conscious of our immigrant population and of finding ways to move them more quickly into appropriate levels in the workforce.

In my own constituency I have had countless examples of people who arrive who are incredibly skilled and there is an English-language barrier. There are a number of issues with that. So what I can commit to…. I wish I could commit to the other, but I'm sure the member opposite understands that I need to work with the Attorney General.

We are having discussions about the very kinds of questions that have been raised today. How do we better serve the needs of English-as-a-second-language immigrants to this province? I'm not certain whether funding through to level 7/8 is something that would be supported or not, but there is a discussion about a number of avenues, including, as I referenced yesterday, things like school support workers. When you think about having settlement officers in schools…. That's a big step in the right direction, helping not only the student but their family as well.

Those are the kinds of innovative strategies we are looking at. I can assure the member opposite that we will make sure that the suggestion…. Moving to the Canadian benchmarks is something that was suggested here. I can't commit to that today but certainly can commit to having a discussion about that very issue.

D. Cubberley: The minister, I hope, will forgive me. Whenever I see a pot of money appear, I always ask myself how it might best be spent in order to accomplish the ends that we share.

I do think, passionately, from the point of view of social justice, that we want to give the immigrants we bring here the opportunity to work to their full potential. Equally, from the point of view of self-interest, given that we have a productivity lag in British Columbia over the average in Canada and that there is such a huge gain to lifting people to higher literacy, it makes real sense for us, with immigrants supplying the growth in our labour force, to focus on that group of people and create the transition process into effective employment which liberates them from being stuck in low-quality jobs, where so many find themselves.

Even if one were looking at it from a far narrower perspective, those societies that have tolerated or encouraged, whether advertently or inadvertently, the marginalization of newcomers into the society have seen, over time, significant social unrest. That is something which we have never had to contend with to any great degree in Canada. In fact, Canada is a country which is looked upon as the country that has best handled the creation of a multicultural and integrated society in which all people find opportunity.

My own personal feeling is that the challenge to continue doing that is changing as we become more truly multicultural and we find the 90-odd language groups showing up in our school system or among people who are trying to participate in an English-speaking economy. The focus on equipping them with not just survival English but language skills that allow them to make their own way in the economy and become as independent in fact as we know they are likely to be in their spirit — and so to participate in the freedoms that we enjoy — is a fundamental priority.

I'm looking to bolster the minister's resolve, because I can tell you everything that we heard on the literacy committee from people who work in this area suggests the importance of that initial gift of giving them skills in English. If you free them by giving them that passport, they can make their own way, and they will integrate into society.

I would suggest to the Minister of Education that it's a twofer, because you're creating the family that can then support the child — who is an ESL learner in your school — and creating the outcome you want there. I would ask the minister to support the direction towards increasing access to ELSA fee-free.

Hon. S. Bond: I want to say to the member opposite that he's certainly persuasive in his arguments. Obviously I can't commit to adopting that thinking today, but I share his passion for ensuring that people who come to British Columbia have the opportunity to reach their full potential.

I guess the complexity of the circumstance we face is that while I absolutely agree that we need to focus on English as a second language and the immigrant population, we also have enormous gaps for first nations people in British Columbia, who are vastly underrepresented in the workforce as well. I also have significant concerns for women and the disabled, in the sense that we have other issues that we need to deal with when we look at an equal playing field in the workforce. So I think that I share the member opposite's concern for English-as-a-second-language services, but I also have to deal with a strategy that looks at first nations representation and how we deal with K-to-12.

I can simply say to the member opposite that we are committed to looking at the dollars we receive from the federal government, finding the way to best utilize those. Certainly access and capacity are big parts of that, and I think we have to look at the wait-lists and the needs. That needs to be done across British Columbia; this is not a lower mainland program or problem. I see it in my own community in northern British Columbia.

I think it's just a matter of trying to put all the pieces in place, but the emphasis with federal dollars will be on things like capacity and innovation and, I hope, making a difference and not simply providing survival English. I think the comments are accurate that we need a literate workforce in the province, but again we need to do that within the complexity of the other groups that we need to serve as well.

D. Cubberley: I agree wholeheartedly with the minister about the absolute necessity for a focus on first nations people in British Columbia because their economic circumstance is more dire in many cases than any other citizens in this society. I would encourage and urge that. But I suspect that there are possibilities for making strategic investments on behalf of first nations literacy that need not force a choice between them and focusing on immigrant populations. It's in part because the issue of our relationship with first nations has been raised consciously by government to a higher level — that stands in front of us as an obligation that we need to respond to — and in part because there are opportunities to work in partnership with the federal government, at least as a source of funding, to enable new initiatives to be put in the field. I would certainly urge that that be expedited as quickly as possible.

It remains the case though with immigrants that they are a new building block coming into our society on an ongoing basis, and it is essential that we find a way to make that transition work on their behalf and on our behalf. It's both in our self-interest collectively, and it's an important point of social justice, if we bring people here, to give them that chance.

One of the things I'd like to suggest along the way — because I don't see this that much — is to create stronger connections between the idea of the economic advantage of making these investments and the argument that the money should be allocated. I think it would be not that difficult, with information that is available publicly, to show what the added costs to society are of not integrating people effectively into the economy versus the cost of equipping them with the language skills that would allow them to make their own way.

That would then give you a cost-benefit analysis for the investments for those who look at bottom lines —

and as decision-makers, we have to look at bottom lines. That would create a rationale for prioritizing the investment.

I have to think that the federal government, being what it is by its nature, is a pocket for investing in things that the government of the day sees as being important to invest in. I think British Columbia should lead in marshalling support from the federal government for initiatives in these directions.

Be a leader, be a groundbreaker, and focus on the fact that a 1-percent lift in the overall literacy level in the society is going to translate into $1.5 billion in addition to our GDP every year.

If you think about who is in that level-two population of 600,000 people in B.C. who are just below the level…. They have the technical qualifications in education. Two-thirds of them already are just below the level of being able to be effective. Bringing them up into your level 3 population, freeing them to take part in economic growth…. That would be, amongst a whole range of strategies you need, one important focus, I believe, to have in addressing low literacy amongst adults.

I'll give the minister a chance to comment on that before passing on to other things.

Hon. S. Bond: I hope I didn't imply this, because I certainly would never mean to do that, but it is absolutely not about either/or in the case of first nations or English as a second language. I think it's a matter of how we do that plus more. Because we would absolutely agree on this side that improving literacy does exactly what the member opposite has said.

It's not just about a better quality of life, about reaching one's potential. It is better for a province. It's better for an economy and a country. I think there are lots of compelling arguments for investing in literacy. When I look at our investment over the last…. I think it's been since 2001 that we have invested $106 million in our government in literacy initiatives in a variety of ways. We are committed to seeing that improvement.

Certainly, making our views clear to the federal government is something that we believe is pretty important. On the national stage we are leading the literacy file. With other ministers from across the provinces and territories, we are setting our priorities around literacy and around what things we together as a corporate group can say to the federal government. We're working very hard on our literacy agenda to say just that.

Right now we're looking at first nations as being a significant priority, but immigration has also been a part of the discussion that we've had in terms of that national strategy. I've actually been very encouraged by the willingness…. It seems fairly obvious that as Ministers of Education, literacy should have been high on all of our agendas for a long time.

It actually took a lot of work to get the ministers' table to say: "Literacy is our number one priority as a group." I think there are a couple of avenues, not only as a provincial government but even as opposition…. As we talk to the federal government, literacy should be an important strategy.

But I think our national strategy of ministers coming together…. It's not a partisan issue. It's about: this is important for our country. I think the member is also going to see some progress with all of us together as ministers saying to the federal government: "This is a priority, and we need you to be more aggressive about that."

D. Cubberley: We've been talking about interventions, both within K-to-12 and afterwards, to try and secure better literacy. In the course of discussing that, the minister alluded to some of the new directions that are being taken around early childhood literacy. I want to move into that area a little bit and just begin to open up a conversation there.

There have been numerous statements over the last decade, but in B.C within the last three or four years, which endorse the idea that early identification and early investment in children's development is the right way to go. It's both the most strategic intervention that can be made, and it's the lowest-cost approach to improving literacy and ultimately school outcomes.

There is a whole array of interventions in that zero-to-six age group that can occur prior to kindergarten. They vary from access to some form of child care with a developmental focus, to preschool initiatives that involve a care component, to other kinds of initiatives that are aimed at improving parental engagement in their children's development.

I'm interested in what the minister may have to say about the prioritization of strategic measures that are needed to affect the one-in-five kids who are not developmentally ready when they arrive in kindergarten.

Hon. S. Bond: This is an area that we're really interested in. We think that we probably have…. If we're going to make a significant difference, if we can do that in those early years, it really will be one of the things that I think should be and has become a priority for us.

One of the interesting comments around that…. As I travel around to school districts…. The member opposite would know that as we look at the new role of school boards across the province…. School boards understood this, I think, long before governments caught on. That is often the case, because there are amazing early learning opportunities already in place across the province.

To ask what is our highest priority, first of all, we need some context. We recognize that children learn wherever they are. So we support a very broad spectrum of opportunities for children. We think that having child care opportunities is important and whether there is after-school care, daycare or a preschool program — all of those are important.

We want to enhance those services. We want to work within that continuum, to say: what can the K-to-12 system do, or what can we as the ministry do? I

would suggest that our focus has been on resourcing families. I think if I were to describe a priority, it's on not simply the child but resourcing families.

We've looked at a series of programs that include things like Ready, Set, Learn, which is a program for three-year-olds which brings families — the child and the family — to the school earlier and says: "Let's make that connection." We've got book programs for kindergarten. We have Books for Babies programs. Again, that is about more than the book. It's about what you do with the book and how do you…. Back to our topic of literacy that we canvassed.

I think if I were to prioritize at least the vision that we have, it's for resourcing families as they assist their children. It's also to make sure that that's part of a wide spectrum of choice for families. It's not one program that we think will work. It's a number of them. I do think if we were to summarize how we feel about it, it's to resource the family as well as the child.

D. Cubberley: It's interesting. Resource the families. Obviously, a direction that is valuable and one that I don't think you could disagree with on the surface. But one of the challenges that we face today is the nature of the family. Parental availability for involvement in activity during working hours is increasingly limited by dint of the fact that the overwhelming majority of families — I think it's over 70 percent — are today either two-income families or lone-provider families.

On the model of self-responsibility — where, indeed, we want loan providers to be working — prioritizing things that involve the family in bringing the child to the school or to another venue is almost bound to run into some conflict with work life. I would raise that and ask for the minister's comments on that fact.

Hon. S. Bond: I think that's very true, and that is an ongoing discussion. The member opposite is exactly right. What does the family look like today? I think this is not just in the early learning realm. It's how we better provide opportunities for parents to be involved in a child's education when 70 percent of them are working.

I think we are facing struggles with that as you look at BCCPAC and parent volunteers, and how you involve them in PACs and SPCs and all of those things. I think that, again, it goes back to a point the member made earlier: can we always do things the same way and hope the outcomes are going to be different? Again, we've got to be thinking very innovatively, in terms of how we provide service and how we expect parents to have a role in children's education when the world is a very different place.

One of the things that we've looked at with our StrongStart centres, which is just one of the initiatives that we're looking at…. I know that there's been some comment about this. We've made it clear that bringing a child to a StrongStart centre need not be just by the parent. There can be a caregiver, a grandparent or some other adult.

The point of the centres, though, is that, hopefully, they are very much focused on early learning, and early literacy in particular. It is about an adult and a child so there can be that ongoing continuation of, we hope, what they're learning in the StrongStart centres. But it is a valid criticism of the current system. How do you build a system when parents are in the workforce? There are no easy answers to that. Every organization is struggling with how you get that kind of involvement within the new world.

So we try to find ways to be innovative around that, and I think we've left enough room in the StrongStart model, for example, to allow for a caregiver or someone other than the direct parent to be involved in that program.

D. Cubberley: On the StrongStart centres: I want to ask some more questions about them. This is, maybe, a place to ask one of them. Has this been done somewhere else in Canada? I seem to recall something somewhat analogous in Edmonton, in Alberta. They have a system where they…. I'm interested in what the history might be that led to the selection of this — whether there's a template somewhere else that is being incorporated — and how we got to that.

Hon. S. Bond: There may well be models in Edmonton. I'm not as familiar with those. The model we're looking at is based on a model in Toronto, in fact, when we sort of look at how services are provided. When we look at StrongStart itself, its genesis was actually the bringing together of numerous ministries across government and looking at what some of the common issues are that we have in supporting children and resourcing them appropriately.

We have a couple of things in B.C. which compelled us to look at this model. We have excess space in schools, so we wanted to find a model that took advantage of infrastructure that was available. We have amazing work being done by Clyde Hertzman on early development information, which allowed us to strategically target some centres based on some very significant principles.

In fact, many of the comments made yesterday by the member opposite around the socioeconomic situations and neighbourhoods…. All of those things were taken into consideration in building StrongStart. We also looked at how we support families or caregivers. Really, there is a model in Toronto, but what we did here was to take the thinking behind that model, look at the B.C. way of delivering that and bring our ministries together to say: how do we create a resource? So that was the genesis of StrongStart.

D. Cubberley: I haven't really read anything about Toronto — I thank the minister for that and where the reference came from — and have only heard anecdotally about Edmonton.

I did hear that in Edmonton, when they embarked on this — and I don't know if it's true or not — they initially aimed the program at requiring a care provider to be accompanying a child. There was such a reaction over time from the majority of families who could not participate in this that they had to broaden the program out to include a care component.

I'll leave that just there, because I have another presenter who is probably only going to have about ten minutes, and then we will have to complete on the other side of this. I'll give the minister a chance to respond to that.

Hon. S. Bond: In fact, the criteria will not change. One of the requirements for funding is that there be a caregiver or adult presence with the child, and we will be quite vigilant about that. One of the things we have found with the Toronto model is the fact that…. And if we have any information — I will double-check with the staff — that we might be able to share with the member opposite, if he's interested in looking at the thinking that was part of what went into StrongStart….

We absolutely believe that it's a critical component to the success of the centres to have that adult participation. School districts are struggling with making sure that happens, because it's very clear that funding is dependent on that model.

One of the really good-news things we see, looking at that model, is that for those children who may not have been developmentally ready — when we tracked them looking at other models, or at least Toronto would tell us — it makes a difference by the time they get to kindergarten. We see that gap closing significantly, if not completely, for many children.

D. Cubberley: I'd be interested to know what percentage of the non–developmentally ready children come from families with a caregiver at home, and what percentage come from families with parents working.

Hon. S. Bond: Obviously, in British Columbia's case, we're early in the implementation, so we don't have that data. I can only give the member anecdotal data, having been there in several centres. Lots of grandparents and other care providers were there with children. I've been told that the Toronto experience is that there are caregivers other than parents there in the centres.

If I might be allowed just one observation about that, it goes back to much of the discussion we've had about English as a second language. What's very interesting in the centres that I have been in — this is happening in other early learning situations in other school districts as well — is that they are places where we get to model English-language speaking with adults as well.

I actually have been in classrooms where the children are taken care of and taught in one part of the classroom. One district is even bringing in adult educators to deal with the grandparents, the aunts, the uncles — the non-English-speaking members who bring their children to those centres. Burnaby is a very good example of where that's happening.

We're finding that we can also utilize it in our ESL strategy when we think about it. That helps the non-English-speaking adult as well as providing those early learning opportunities. It's really having a pretty magical result in some school districts already.

D. Cubberley: I cede the floor to a colleague who is going to ask some questions about Surrey ABE.

S. Hammell: Is the minister aware of the crisis in the adult education department or area in Surrey?

Hon. S. Bond: Well, we're certainly aware of some circumstances in Surrey. I don't know that we'd classify them as a crisis, but we are aware of the school district. There are some issues that are being discussed about certification of teachers, and that is a situation that we are aware of.

S. Hammell: I suggest to the minister that this is a crisis because, as I understand it, some 40 teachers will be laid off for September. What I'm here to do is to work with the minister to see if there is a solution to this situation.

Hon. S. Bond: This is an evolving circumstance in Surrey, and all I can tell the member opposite is that my staff has been working with the Surrey school district. We've been told that the district is taking the necessary steps, first of all, to be in compliance with the School Act, which is absolutely essential, because it is the law. There are some challenges for a number of educators within that school district as a result of that, and some of them are very close to being certified. We have some challenges there.

We are looking for the district, and this is a district circumstance…. I can only assure the member opposite that we're aware of the situation, that we are working with the school district and that the district is looking for fair and reasonable ways to help those educators maintain their jobs.

There needs to be some more work done. I can't suggest that we have a resolution today. It's an evolving circumstance, and I have asked that my staff be kept informed and aware of what the circumstances are as we go through the next number of weeks.

S. Hammell: Is the minister aware that this situation is a consequence of the change in the School Act in the year 2003?

Hon. S. Bond: Well, it would be great if the member opposite has a specific concern about a particular part of the act. We'd be delighted to know what that is. Our staff is working through this circumstance. Certainly, I have been informed that it is about compliance with the School Act.

If it was in relation to a change, it would be good for us to make it clear to the deputy, and he will pursue more information about it. It is a compliance issue.

S. Hammell: I agree. My understanding is that the act was changed in 2003 so that courses leading to graduation had to comply with the act for teachers to be qualified. As a consequence, and I have to assume that this is an unintended consequence, teachers who had been hired for many, many years in adult ed and who had not had that requirement prior to 2003 were in a situation — as the ministry insisted that the act be complied with — where they were at risk.

I assume that it is an unintended consequence, and that there should and could be a solution. Let me give an example. If you have an unintended consequence or you have a situation where a bylaw or something has changed and there's property that is affected, there's often grandfathering of that situation.

Is there the possibility — and I need to make it clear: my understanding is that it is not only in the Surrey district; it's also in Vancouver — that these teachers could be grandfathered so that their livelihood is ensured and their teaching career is protected?

Hon. S. Bond: First of all, as I said to the member opposite, we need to clarify that indeed it was the result of something in the 2003 changes, if there were any. Obviously, that precedes me.

Our staff has been working with the Surrey district on this file. We obviously want to find a reasonable and fair solution. Certainly, the district has indicated that they are working to do that as well. They have been in touch with the College of Teachers — that is the understanding I've been given — to look at a satisfactory resolution here.

The first thing that we will do is make sure to go and have some clarification about whether or not there's a 2003 issue here. The staff that's with me presently doesn't necessarily think that it is the case. We need to sort through that, and we can certainly commit to updating the member opposite once we have a better sense of what the actual issue stems from, and if there's been any update to the information that I received yesterday.

S. Hammell: Could the minister clarify for me whether Vancouver school district is in the same situation? Some of the teachers in Vancouver are in the same situation as those in Surrey.

Hon. S. Bond: My staff advises me: not that we're aware of. They're not in exactly the same circumstance. I'm aware of the fact that some adult education teachers in Vancouver are enrolling in evening courses to actually get their certification while they continue to work. But the issue is different in that it's based on the funding of students. There is a difference, according to the staff information I've just been given. We understand there to be a different circumstance for Vancouver than for Surrey.

S. Hammell: Perhaps the minister could be more detailed about what that difference is.

Hon. S. Bond: It is based on the funding for students. In other words, we think that in the Vancouver case, the students are not funded for courses leading to graduation.

S. Hammell: If I understand the minister, the circumstances in Vancouver are that the adult basic education teachers are able to take courses so as to comply with the act.

Hon. S. Bond: Adult education teachers in Vancouver are enrolling in some courses to certify while they continue to teach, but that isn't the difference. The difference is the students that they're teaching.

We have not had significant discussion with the Vancouver school district. As a result of the questions the member opposite has asked, we will pursue it more significantly and update the member opposite on that.

The information that I've just been given is that it's based on the funding of the students, in terms of the differential around the credentialing issue. We will work on this and be sure to get more information back to the member opposite.

D. Cubberley: In light of the time, I move that the committee rise, report progress and seek leave to sit again.

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