2015 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 40th Parliament
HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 24, Number 8

ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)
ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 2015

The House met at 1:33 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Prayers.

Introductions by Members

Hon. S. Anton: In 1906 Sikhs in Vancouver formed the Khalsa Diwan Society and built the first gurdwara in North America. In the 1960s the gurdwara moved to the building at Ross Street and Southeast Marine Drive in the beautiful riding of Vancouver-Fraserview. The gurdwara has recently been renovated and looks absolutely spectacular. It is the home of the Komagata Maru Museum.

[1335]

Notably, it recently hosted two Prime Ministers, the Prime Minister of Canada and Prime Minister Modi of India. That was a thrill for the oldest Sikh society outside of India.

The Khalsa Diwan Society at the Ross Street temple has built community in Vancouver for nearly 110 years with sports tournaments, Punjabi classes, worship and food. May it continue to do so for at least another 110.

We’re joined in the House today by 18 members of the Khalsa Diwan Society of Vancouver: Mr. Sohan Deo, the president; Mr. Sukwinder Gill, the treasurer; Ms.Niranjan Mand, recording secretary; Mr. Ranjit Hayer, assistant treasurer — and I might add about Mr. Hayer that the last time he was in the House was 50 years ago, when W.A.C. Bennett was Premier; Ms. Betty Hayer, liaison officer; Mr. Kuldeep Thandi; Mr. Kashmir Dhaliwal; Mr. Ajay Rai; Mr. Sukpal Juti; Mr. Boojah S. Mangat; Ms. Shirley Hayer; Ms. Amardeep Johal; Ms. Balbir Gurm; Ms. Cindy Kadola; Mr. Surinder S. Sidhu; Mr. Jagjeeven S. Gill; Mr. Jinder Hayer and Mr. Avtar Singh.

Will the House please make all of these members of the Khalsa Diwan Society from Vancouver-Fraserview very welcome.

H. Bains: It is my pleasure to join with the Attorney in welcoming the Khalsa Diwan Society and their executive.

The names that are mentioned are synonymous with our community. These are the people that our community is known by. They represent an organization that has history in building Canada. In 1906 this organization was established, the oldest outside of India of any Sikh organization.

It was not just that the Sikhs went to the gurdwara to pray and get the spiritual strength. They did that. But along with that, it was a social hub, economic hub, the centre for community get-togethers of all religions to talk about the difficulties that those members of those days were facing, whether it was the struggle to get the right to vote or fighting to keep those passengers from the Komagata Maru here or to have fairer immigration laws in Canada or promoting human rights in Canada.

I think it was with their work, along with the communities they were able to lead, that we are a better country today and that we are a better society today.

I want to say that along with the executive…. And there are other members of the community. There are activists. They are there day in and day out, and we meet with them. They are the ones who give us the advice and strength and guidance to continue to do a good job here — to make that society, our society, a better place.

I just want to ask the House to please join with me and give them a very, very warm welcome. I say thank you so much for making us a better society and a better Canada.

J. Thornthwaite: I have two sets of introductions today, but first of all I’d like to welcome the Scouts of Canada to the Legislature.

I welcome Cassidy Benson, Ryan Buckley, Kiara Caplan, Neala Hutchinson, George Inglis, Braydyn Johnson, Sarah Kallesoe, Ian MacLean, Sebastian Markwick, Cindy Mei, Kenya Mendosa, Benjamin Ng, Ernest Ng, Owen Paetkau, Caitlyn Piton, Linda Rainbow, Bryson Stoughton, Kaitlyn Taylor, Melanie Walker, Ian Wilson and Max Witte, all with their leaders William Schulte, Mark Paetkau, Iqbal Lalany, Maria Orozco and Alamin Pirani.

Thank you very much for joining us, and for the members of the House that joined us for lunch today. I welcome them to the House.

J. Horgan: I want to join with the member from North Vancouver in welcoming the Scout representatives here today, particularly William Schulte from my district of Juan de Fuca, from the great city of Sooke, which will be the host this year for the Pacific Jamboree at Camp Barnard. My colleague here said, “I bet they called it barnyard,” and when I went there 40 years ago, that’s exactly what we called it.

[1340]

It’s going to be an exciting time this summer for scouts right across the Pacific side of this continent. Would the House make them all very, very welcome.

Hon. N. Letnick: It’s indeed a pleasure to have someone from my riding here today. John Shandalla is a member of our area and a former karate champion, I understand.

Would the House please make him feel welcome.

G. Heyman: It gives me great pleasure to welcome a number of old friends and some new friends from an organization I spent a few years working with, the B.C.
[ Page 7810 ]
Government and Service Employees Union. Joining us in the gallery today to observe question period is executive vice-president Mike Nuyens and — I’ll miss somebody, so I won’t name them all — the members of the BCGEU’s political action committee. They’re a committed group.

Will the members of the House please join me in making them very, very welcome.

V. Huntington: If the House Leaders had decided that only they would introduce the Scouts, given they forgot to mention that to me, I’m going to take advantage of welcoming a longtime young friend of mine to the House, Linda Rainbow. Linda started her scouting career as a Sea Scout, becoming a Sea Venturer and achieving the Queen’s Venturer scout award, became a Rover scout and is now working at the national level in the scouting movement.

Linda will be meeting with me later today, and we’ll be joined by Bryson Stoughton, also of Delta, and Melanie Walker from Langley.

Would the House make them particularly welcome.

D. Horne: It’s a pleasure this afternoon to introduce a group of students visiting from Western Washington University in Bellingham. They’re here today to learn about the Canadian system of government and are in a fourth-year political science course entitled the politics of Canada.

As our next door neighbour, it’s fitting that these students take the day to see firsthand how we operate and how parliamentary democracy works here in British Columbia — perhaps the advantages of controlling both the administrative and the legislative sides of government.

They are accompanied by their professor, Dr. Theodore Kamena, as well as the new director of Canadian-American Studies, Dr. David Rossiter.

Would the House make them truly welcome.

M. Karagianis: Both sides of the House have the great privilege every year of working with a group of interns that help us on either side of the House. We have today the family members of one of our brilliant and amazing young interns.

Kristine Parker’s family is here, so I would like to give them a welcome: Janice Parker, Kristine’s mom, who lives in View Royal; Webster Parker, Kristine’s dad, who lives in Chemainus; Terry Weber, who is Kristine’s stepfather, also in View Royal; Donna Somer, who’s Kristine’s aunt, from View Royal; and Matthew Hall, Kristine’s husband, from Gordon Head.

I’d like you to give them a really good welcome for being here today.

D. Ashton: I, too, want to welcome the folks up from Washington. I had a pleasant meeting this morning with them. Again, in a quick explanation, I said that during question period they’re going to see ladylike and gentlemen-like behaviour in here — not the polarization that they’re used to. So welcome.

I also would like to welcome Byron Burnett and Tyler Willox, from Information Services in Saskatchewan.

R. Chouhan: I would like to welcome a person who runs my office with a smile, taking care of all my constituents every day, day in and day out — Amber Keane — and all her colleagues from the BCGEU, my friends.

Please join me to welcome them all. Thank you very much for coming today.

J. Thornthwaite: Last night and today the Legislature was treated to Creative B.C.’s film, TV, music, books, magazines and digital entertainment. I’d like to introduce some folks in the gallery: Liz Shorten, Allen and Cynde Harmon, Fawn McDonald, Nancy Mott, Gordon Hardwick and Ron and Lynne Hrynuik.

Please allow me to welcome them to the Legislature.

K. Conroy: I, too, would like to welcome the Scouts. I just wanted to say that when I met with four of them this morning, they were an incredibly well-spoken group of people and talked about the history of Scouts. It was really good to meet with them.

[1345]

Specifically, I want to introduce Ryan Buckley, who came the furthest. He came from Trail. He got to fly, though, but he came the furthest, all the way from Trail in my constituency.

J. Shin: I have the pleasure of introducing to the house Shari O’Neill and her 11-year-old daughter Cassidy O’Neill, who in the last half a year since I saw her has grown taller than her mom or myself. She’s aspiring to become a singer one day.

Shari is well known in the community as an advocate with much of her efforts focused on youth engagement and education. She serves as the board member for the Amanda Todd Legacy Society and is the member-at-large for school district 43, DPAC and TriCities Soroptimist. And in her spare time she also works on two school parent advisory committees.

Visiting Victoria is apparently an annual mom and daughter date for Shari and Cassidy, and I ask the House to please thank them for their service and make them feel very welcome.

D. Routley: Can the House help me welcome the father of one of our interns. The interns are university students who come and help both sides of the House. One of our interns, Kristine Parker, welcomes along with us her father, Webster Parker, who is a constituent of mine from Chemainus. May the House please help me make him welcome.
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Statements
(Standing Order 25B)

CREATIVE INDUSTRIES WEEK

J. Thornthwaite: Our government has proclaimed April 27 to May 4 Creative Industries Week in British Columbia. This proclamation recognizes the many contributions that film, television, music and digital media industries make to the economic, artistic and cultural identity of our province.

The creative sector is one of our biggest employers. The film industry alone counts for more than 20,000 direct and indirect jobs and generates more than $1 billion in spending each year, making B.C. one of the most sought-after destinations for film and television production in North America and a growing hub for animation and digital effects.

Production companies love to set up shop here in B.C. because of our talented crew, world-class studio and sound stages, skilled post-production and animation houses, spectacular landscapes and competitive tax credits. Recently our government adjusted two tax credits to boost our edge on the competition. The distant location tax credit was extended to the capital regional district, and the DAVE, or digital animation or visual effects tax credit, was extended to post-production services, encouraging content creators to finish post-production and editorial right here in B.C.

So 2015 will be yet another big year for the industry, with many multi-million-dollar productions going to camera in British Columbia, including Star Trek 3, Steven Spielberg’s Big Friendly Giant, and Deadpool, starring Vancouver’s own Ryan Reynolds. Deadpool is currently filming in the Lower Mainland, and it is expected to employ more than 1,000 people and bring more than $37 million in spending to the region.

Creative Industries Week coincides with the launch of B.C. Creates, a communications initiative designed to promote and celebrate the industry’s success. B.C. Creates will showcase the work of the sector, shine a spotlight on local talent and bring the industry players together so that we can boost B.C.’s profile on the world stage and continue to build an exciting future for our vibrant, creative economy.

JAPANESE CANADIAN INTERNMENT
COMMEMORATION AT HASTINGS PARK

S. Simpson: “In early 1942, fuelled by racism, Canada uprooted over 21,000 Japanese Canadians from their homes on the west coast. Over 8,000 were detained in Hastings Park before being sent to internment sites in the B.C. Interior or to work camps across the country.”

This is the statement on the front of the program for “1942: Japanese-Canadian Internment at Hastings Park,” a very important event that occurred on Sunday, April 26. Over 200 people gathered at Hastings Park for the unveiling of four panels commemorating this disgraceful part of Canadian history.

These panels provide a snapshot of the life that was faced by the thousands of Japanese Canadians who spent time at Hastings Park. It was the start of a tragic experience where people lost their homes, their businesses, their properties, essentially their lives — where families were separated, and Canadian citizens of Japanese descent were labelled a threat to our country with no justification. This House has formally apologized to Japanese Canadians. That was the right thing to do. What this presentation at Hastings Park does is help us not to forget.

[1350]

I know as a child I often enjoyed the fair, Rollerland and concerts in Hastings Park with no knowledge of this past. Maybe today, because of this work, children and their parents coming to enjoy the annual fair will take a moment to read the panels and to begin to understand this sad part of our history.

This commemoration was a major effort by many that deserve our recognition. I want to thank all the members of the Japanese-Canadian community and others who contributed to making this dream a reality, especially the working committee that steered this project to completion over a number of years.

We know racism has been a scar on our history in Canada and B.C. Whether it’s the Chinese head tax, Komagata Maru, Indian residential schools or the Japanese internment, we need to ensure that these memories are never too far from our minds so as to guarantee we never repeat them. Let us thank "1942: Japanese-Canadian Internment at Hastings Park" for helping us to ensure that we stay vigilant and we do not forget.

CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY
CONSTRUCTION AND CHINESE WORKERS

R. Lee: I rise today in commemoration of the 130th anniversary of the Last Spike of the Canadian Pacific railroad and those who helped build it. In 1871 British Columbia joined Confederation after being promised that the CPR would be built. It took 14 long years to finish, with the Last Spike driven into the ground in Craigellachie, halfway between Revelstoke and Salmon Arm on November 7, 1885.

As the longest railroad built at that time, it was a symbol of ingenuity and determination. But it was built on the blood, sweat and tears of its workers, and its completion marked a dark chapter in our history when a great injustice was inflicted upon the 17,000 Chinese labourers who were crucial to building the CPR.

They toiled away for only $1 a day, half of what a Canadian worker would have earned with the same work. They were often worked to death without proper wages, food, clothing or respect and dignity.

In 2006 the federal government recognized this hor-
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rendous treatment of those Chinese labourers and apologized. This history should not be forgotten, and it’s being remembered. The contributions of these Chinese labourers are being recognized with an exhibit at the Chinese Cultural Centre in Vancouver until May 31. The opening ceremony will be held this Saturday.

This exhibit features workers’ photographs, landing papers and labour contracts, along with documents and ink stamps. In addition, the CPR’s spikes are on display, on loan from the Suey Sun Tong Association and other early generation Chinese immigrant families.

I welcome everyone to visit this exhibit, learn more about our history — the good and the bad — and recognize the sacrifice of those who helped build British Columbia and Canada.

COOPERATIVE HOUSING

J. Shin: There are many kinds of cooperatives, from food co-ops to credit unions. Any group of people can form a co-op, where its members own the co-op and the co-op provides a service they need.

We have alarming statistics at hand, with one in four Canadian families spending more than a third of their income on housing. With housing and rental prices skyrocketing in Burnaby and across B.C., it is co-op housing that continues to prove itself as the affordable housing solution against the kind of housing crisis we face in Metro Vancouver today.

Since the 1930s co-op housing has successfully provided accessible means for its members to call safe and healthy living spaces home. Today there are 261 non-profit housing co-ops, comprised of more than 14,000 units in British Columbia. Burnaby-Lougheed is home to 943 households and ten co-ops, made up of people from all walks of life who work together to comanage the diverse and vibrant communities they form with much care and pride.

With the federal government’s operating agreements for co-ops expiring, starting this year through 2020, we will be seeing hundreds of B.C. families and individuals on limited and fixed income evicted from their homes. These are not just our seniors who have contributed lifelong into the public purse and who have earned and deserve dignified retirement but also young families, those with disabilities, single parents and new Canadians.

These are my constituents — real people with names and faces I’ve gotten to know personally through my weekly door-knocking and at their annual general meetings, picnics and socials.

Adequate housing is a fundamental human right under the United Nations definition and should be so for each and every British Columbian. So let’s work with the Co-operative Housing Federation for real solutions to fix the co-op housing crunch and keep B.C. families in their homes.

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WAYNE MARCH AND
SICAMOUS EAGLES HOCKEY CLUB

G. Kyllo: One of great things about this province of ours is that every community can boast of people who contribute so much of themselves that we can’t imagine our towns without them. One of those people in my riding of Shuswap, in my hometown of Sicamous, is Wayne March. Wayne is known in Sicamous as Mr. Hockey. Twenty years ago Wayne was instrumental in forming the Sicamous Eagles of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League, the KIJHL, and has been the team’s general manager ever since.

The Sicamous Eagles have won the KIJHL league title three times, the provincial Cyclone Taylor Cup twice and the western Canadian Junior B championship, the Keystone Cup.

Nine of Wayne’s former players have been drafted, and five have gone on to play in the NHL, including the Nashville Predators captain and Canadian Olympic team gold medallist Shea Weber.

Young men from across Canada and the U.S. competing at the top of their hockey game come to Sicamous every August to attend try-outs for the Sicamous Eagles. In addition to providing world-class hockey skills development and encouraging teamwork on the ice, Wayne and his lovely wife, Lorraine, open up their home, billeting a number of players each season.

Wayne truly works to keep these young men active in our communities. A great example of this is how Wayne and the Sicamous Eagles collect books from around the community and donate them to the Literacy Alliance of the Shuswap, helping to promote literacy projects in the area.

The Sicamous Eagles are so much more than a hockey club. The Sicamous Eagles form part of the heart of our community. In addition to his position with the hockey team, Wayne manages the Sicamous and District Recreation Centre. Wayne and his dedicated team of staff draw numerous hockey tournaments to Sicamous each winter. They have an enormous positive impact on my community. Away from the rink, Wayne is a board member of the Sicamous Chamber of Commerce and is a driving force behind the annual car show in Sicamous.

At 71 years young, this Canadian army veteran of the Queen’s Own Rifles shows no signs of slowing down. I ask that this House join me in recognizing and thanking Wayne March for his many contributions to Sicamous and the Shuswap.

PROPOSED NATIONAL PARK IN
SOUTH OKANAGAN AREA

K. Conroy: Recently, last week, I attended a confer-
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ence in Spokane on the Columbia River treaty, where the majority of the discussion was about returning salmon to the Columbia River in Canada. For part of the conference, though, they talked about national parks and the economic value of national parks in the States and the considerable programs that they provide down there.

It made me think about what’s happening in the South Okanagan–Similkameen. The people there are clamouring for a national park, and over 70 percent of the people in the region support a national park. They look at the economic benefits that could come to the region by a national park. This area has some of the highest endangered species in Canada, in B.C., and it would protect those species.

It’s a huge source of tourism. I know considerable European tourists come to Canada specifically to tour our national parks. They see the economic value, but they see the beauty. They equate Canada with our national park system. It would be a huge drive for the region to have a national park in the Similkameen Valley there. When you talk to the people of the area, they talk about it with pride. They want to see that national park. They want to see people come to see their area. They want to share the beauty of their area.

I was recently at the burrowing owl site. They want to see that happen also, because they see that the burrowing owl is an endangered species. They also want to have a national park where they can have tourists come to see the many benefits of what a national park can bring to the area.

I agree with the 70 percent of the people in the region who are very supportive of a national park and hope that we all in this House can support them as well.

Oral Questions

GOVERNMENT ACTION ON
SURREY GUN VIOLENCE AND
ANTI-GANG PROGRAM FUNDING

J. Horgan: Last night two more shootings in Surrey. Last week, when I asked the Premier what the response of the government was going to be, she said: “We are doing everything we can to prevent young people from joining gangs in the first place, helping them find a way to a life that is different from the path they might go on.” That was last week. Yesterday the Premier announced a $270,000 lift to the Wrap program in Surrey that will do away with half of a 40-child wait-list.

[1400]

My question to the Premier is: what are you saying to the families of the other 20 kids that will not be affected by your announcement yesterday?

Hon. C. Clark: I want to put politics aside for a minute here and just take a second to talk directly to the people of Surrey, who have been so affected by this. I want people in Surrey to know that the government of British Columbia stands with them, that we are behind them, that we are working and showing the leadership that they expect from all levels of government to ensure that we deal with this problem.

There are two issues. There are two sides to it. One of them is law enforcement. That means that part of that is making sure that those 100 new officers that Surrey has requested and we’ve approved come as quickly as possible from the federal government. We are working on that to make sure that the people of Surrey feel safe and secure in their streets.

The other part of that is crime prevention. It’s working in programs like the Wrap program, which we are doing. I should say that yesterday, when we announced this in Surrey, people who are involved in the Wrap program — people like Jesse Sahota, the RCMP chief superintendent — and many, many people who live and work there were very happy to hear that the province is making a new commitment to support a very important program that has put Canada on the map nationally and internationally when it comes to keeping kids out of gangs.

There is always more that we can do and more that we will do. But I think it’s important in this House today, when there is such a serious issue facing the people of Surrey, that the Leader of the Opposition and all of us take the politics out of it and think about how we can work together, rather than just fight with each other here, to try and find solutions.

Madame Speaker: The Leader of the Official Opposition on a supplemental.

J. Horgan: I think the Premier is looking for a fight where none exists. I’ve been saying consistently since last week, when I attended a forum in Surrey and listened directly to parents and families, that this isn’t a partisan question. This is a question of safety and security, which is a fundamental responsibility of the province of British Columbia, to ensure that our citizens feel safe in their homes, safe in their streets, safe in their communities.

I appreciate that the Premier wants to make the statement that I’m somehow opposed to direct action in this regard. I am absolutely not. But I have an obligation, not just on behalf of the people of Surrey but the people of British Columbia, to say that when you miss the mark, Premier, it’s my obligation to inform you of that.

Making an investment — a one-time investment — to a problem that has been with us not just since the Liberals became the government of British Columbia but for some considerable period of time…. If we have unanimous support in this House to fully fund a program like the Wrap program, which is what I said seven days ago, not criticizing the government in any way — in fact, encouraging the government to take that full measure of
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step to get those 40 kids off the wrong track and on the right track — that’s not a partisan statement.

I’m saying to the Premier now that 20 kids remain on that wait-list. What are you going to do about it?

Hon. C. Clark: I do look forward to hearing some encouragement from the opposition sometimes, some days. Unfortunately, around this issue we haven’t heard a lot. It is important, as the member for Surrey-Newton has said, and I think quite rightly, that we set politics aside, that we make sure this does not become a partisan issue.

It’s one that we have to deal with collectively to try and find solutions, and we’ll only do that if we try and do that in a non-partisan, non-political way. It is much too important for the people of Surrey. The people of Surrey need to know that we are working together on this and, in fact, that we are encouraging one another.

I’ll say this. Yesterday when we committed the $270,000 in additional money to the Wrap program, something that was applauded by the people of Surrey — in fact, something that the city of Surrey specifically asked us to do — we also set out to call on our partners in the federal government to also step up and renew their funding for the program, as well, to make sure that all of those kids who are waiting or who could be waiting in the future have access to those programs.

They’ve told us they will expedite, as fast as they can, the 100 new police officers for Surrey at our request. We’re very pleased about that, and we hope it happens soon. We also know that they understand how important this issue is to Surrey, to British Columbia and to the whole country. I think, in recognition of that concern, we will see our federal partners come to the table and support this just as fully as we have.

[1405]

Madame Speaker: The Leader of the Official Opposition on a further supplemental.

J. Horgan: The Premier just said, “Fully support, as we have,” and acknowledged at the announcement that half of the kids on the wait-list will remain on the wait-list.

Yesterday the Minister of Citizens’ Services said the following: “We need to demystify the gang lifestyle for kids.” I agree. He also said: “Threat assessments on our young children and people are needed.” I agree. He also said: “Determine if there are factors leading this young person to enter the gang lifestyle.” I agree. I believe all British Columbians and every member of this Legislature agrees with the member from Surrey in this regard.

Again, I’m hopeful that the Premier is not looking for a fight where none exists, because I will support the government in fully funding the Wrap program.

I’ve even got a suggestion where you can get the money from. The suggestion would be the city of Jumbo, which does not exist. There are no citizens at risk. There are no citizens at risk in Jumbo — $300,000 going to Jumbo. Government is about choices. The Premier yesterday didn’t have enough money to take all the kids off the wait-list, and I am cooperating with her and offering up a suggestion that I believe would be supported by every member of this House, save perhaps the member for Kootenay East.

To the Premier, will she divert resources that are underutilized in other areas of government to focus on the challenges that we, all of us together, are facing in Surrey? Will she do that today?

Hon. C. Clark: Well, he laid off the politics for about two minutes. I’d say two minutes is still progress, so we’re getting somewhere at least on this.

This issue is way too important to be treated as a partisan issue. It’s something that we really do need to work together on cooperatively and collaboratively and recognize that for each step that government is taking in this, we’re doing it to try and make sure that we protect those kids and stop them from going into gangs.

Yesterday when I met with the chief superintendent, with the school board CEO, with the mayor and with people who run the Wrap program, we talked about some of the other things we could do.

A help line for parents, an anonymous way to be able to make sure that people are able to seek help rather than going directly to the police when they see their young people are being attracted to gangs, to be able to stop that in advance, recognizing that for many parents, as I think all of us can imagine, there is a great deal of shame involved in admitting and bringing forward someone in your family who you may think is joining a gang or has joined a gang. We need to try and make sure that all those avenues are there for parents — so a tip help line, making sure that people can do that anonymously and come forward.

Making sure that we’re supporting the Wrap program in a new way, with new money, that we haven’t done before — calling on our federal counterparts to do the same. As I said, I’m confident that they are going to step up because they, like us, understand how important this issue is for people in Surrey every single day. Expediting the new 100 police officers who will come to the city of Surrey. That’s something, again, we’ve worked hard on with the federal government.

We have more to do and more that we are doing, but politics of the opposition aside, I want to speak directly to the people of Surrey, and I want them to know today that we stand with them, that we are working very hard to make sure that we address this issue. We know that through law enforcement and crime prevention, we can make sure that Surrey is known for all of the great things that happen there every single day.
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ACCESS TO CANCER TREATMENT
AND DIAGNOSTIC SERVICES

S. Fraser: Jean Kanngiesser, a constituent of mine from Port Alberni, has been waiting since last summer for a medically recommended colonoscopy. In 2011 she had three significant procedures to have a large polyp removed from her colon. When she went back last summer for her three-year check, after a bout with breast cancer, both she and her doctor were dismayed to discover that she could not get the recommended colonoscopy.

[1410]

Jean is yet another of my constituents at high risk for cancer, but without the necessary and medically recommended diagnostics, there is no way of knowing for certain if she is healthy. Can you imagine what it’s like living with that, waiting? And her own doctor can do nothing but wait with her in frustration and fear.

Does the Minister of Health think it is acceptable for Jean to wait nearly a year — a year late — with no sign of this colonoscopy even being scheduled?

Hon. T. Lake: We are always happy to follow up with individual patients if they are experiencing challenges.

It’s important to understand the different levels of colonoscopy — and any diagnostic procedure, for that matter. We have the FIT program, which is a screening colonoscopy program, so that if there is hidden blood in someone’s stool, the immunochemistry finds that out, and you’re scheduled for a colonoscopy.

Through that program we have 155,000 patients who have been registered. Nearly 1,100 patients have been diagnosed with a high risk for cancer, had surgery and quite readily had their lives saved because of this program that we have put in place here in British Columbia.

There are other types of colonoscopies. Routine surveillance colonoscopies after a procedure was done in the past. There are diagnostic colonoscopies that are done when clinical signs appear and a physician wants that done right away.

If a physician feels their patient needs to have urgent access for a colonoscopy for medical reasons, they can always put that patient at the front of the line. Any patient who feels that they’re in that position should talk to their physician to make sure that’s exactly what happens.

J. Darcy: Whenever we bring forward in this House stories of real people who are suffering because they can’t get access to timely medical care, the minister’s response is, sadly, completely predictable.

This woman has gone to her doctor. Her doctor is as frustrated as she is. This woman has had cancer already. She is at high risk, and the answers the minister gives are no solace to Jean, who needs urgent treatment and care now.

You know, it doesn’t help Jean that the minister likes to point the fingers elsewhere — in this case, at the doctor. She’s probably not impressed either by this minister’s continual efforts to try to duck responsibility, as he continues to do today.

Jean has had cancer. She is at high risk. She’s worried about her health, and she wants to get a procedure done. Surely, that’s not too much to ask in British Columbia today.

Madame Speaker: Question.

J. Darcy: Why isn’t the Health Minister ensuring that Jean, and people like her, has access to the timely medical procedures that she absolutely needs to make sure that she is able to remain healthy?

Hon. T. Lake: The members opposite apparently are highly trained physicians and can diagnose, treat and recommend treatment for every person in British Columbia.

We have highly trained physicians, who care for their patients, who have the ability to make clinical judgments. When they feel their patient needs urgent treatment, they can move their patient to the front of the line. If the physician is feeling that their patient needs to have that service, it will be done.

It was this government that set up the patient care quality offices throughout the health authorities in British Columbia so that if a patient isn’t getting the service they feel they need, they can go to the patient care quality office for a review.

We on this side of the House support our health care system, our very highly trained physicians. In this case, if I was the patient who was concerned, I would go back to my physician and make sure that if she needs urgent treatment, she will get it.

[1415]

FREEDOM-OF-INFORMATION PROCESS
AND ACCESS TO RECORDS

M. Mungall: Well, a “no records” response to freedom-of-information requests has become too frequent with this government. While the Premier has promised an open government, reality is proving to be something quite different. You just can’t take her at her word.

Last week we asked the Minister of Citizens’ Services about a briefing note prepared on August 20, 2010, that described an indemnity granted to the current Premier, a briefing note that we have obtained but that the government claimed did not exist.

The minister has had plenty of time to look at this case. So can he now tell us why these records weren’t produced when we asked for them?

Hon. A. Virk: The British Columbia Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, as the member opposite certainly knows, has the broadest coverage in
[ Page 7816 ]
Canada. The member opposite certainly knows, as well, that the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act is quite clear on what information can and quite clear on what information cannot be released. The member opposite also certainly knows that it’s trusted professional public servants, whose decisions are indeed guided by that act, that are responsible for ensuring the appropriate information that’s permitted within the act is released in a timely fashion.

Madame Speaker: The member for Nelson-Creston on a supplemental.

M. Mungall: Well, that was definitely less of an answer that we got here today than what the media got. The minister told the media…. He said that his staff said that our request wasn’t properly directed. That just isn’t true. We directed our request to the Ministry of Finance risk management branch, the branch that was listed as the contact on the document. Another FOI confirms that this branch does, in fact, prepare these notes.

Will the minister please explain why the government denied the existence of these documents?

Hon. A. Virk: Once again, the member certainly knows that the act is, indeed, administered by very senior and well-trained public servants who worked through the request. The scope of the request, as I’m advised, changed. The requester should have canvassed more broadly and determined where the records were located.

There is a process. There is a process that members can certainly follow if they feel that the process is not followed. Section 4 and section 5 of the Freedom of Information Act are very clear on the remedies available.

D. Eby: Now, we asked the minister last week about why freedom-of-information requests for e-mails from his chief of staff came back also claiming no records exist. In fact, records did exist — lots of records. Mr. Facey sent 41 pages of e-mails to the minister, e-mails that included advice to cabinet and policy advice.

Has the minister now spoken to Mr. Facey about why he broke the rules by deleting or not disclosing these important government records?

Hon. A. Virk: It’s standard practice to maintain good record management, and there’s a duty to manage those records appropriately. In this case, all appropriate records were responded with. There’s an onus on staff, including my own staff….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members.

Hon. A. Virk: There’s an onus on all staff, including my own staff, to manage their records in accordance with the legislation and in accordance with FOI requests.

Madame Speaker: The member for Vancouver–Point Grey on a supplemental.

[1420]

D. Eby: Members of this House will remember it was just a few months ago that the minister didn’t disclose to this House the content of his own e-mails sent while he was a board member at Kwantlen University. Now he has a staff member who also didn’t disclose e-mails, important e-mails, and — no surprise — the minister doesn’t see any problem here. Anyone else, after last week’s questions, would certainly, at a minimum, go and speak to his chief of staff.

Does the minister believe, as this side of the House does, that his own personal history around failing to disclose e-mails is compromising his ability to do his job properly and deal with his chief of staff?

Hon. A. Virk: Well, as I said, all staff across government, including my own, are expected to manage their records in accordance with the appropriate policy and to respond appropriately as well. It’s mandatory for all staff working in the minister’s office to also receive training on the Freedom of Information Act. In this instance, all the appropriate records were provided, and I will clarify my expectation that all staff abide by the act.

S. Robinson: It appears that government’s practice of claiming that records don’t exist doesn’t end at the Minister of Citizens’ Services office. Oh no. In fact, we recently requested e-mails sent by the Premier’s deputy chief of staff, Michele Cadario, over two three-day periods last November. It was a very, very specific request. We received a “no records” response, meaning that over those six days Ms. Cadario didn’t send any e-mails, or perhaps she destroyed them all.

Can the Minister of Citizens’ Services explain why the Premier’s deputy chief of staff, a pretty important person, didn’t send any e-mails over two three-day periods last November?

Hon. A. Virk: I do have a copy of the act that I can certainly provide the member afterwards, and perhaps the member opposite may certainly refresh herself on the act.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members.

Hon. A. Virk: As I said, my staff and all staff are expected to act in accordance with policy and act accordingly within the FOI legislation.
[ Page 7817 ]

S. Robinson: Well, we also requested records that were sent and received by the Premier’s chief of staff, Dan Doyle, over the same period. And guess what. It appears that Ms. Cadario sent her boss, Mr. Doyle, at least 15 e-mails during that period.

They weren’t transitory notes talking about lunch plans or dinner plans. They were proposals for providing legal representation for the families of the victims of the Babine mill explosion. They contained policy advice on Site C — records of important policy discussions. But Ms. Cadario apparently destroyed them or, somehow, they just weren’t in the records.

Can the Minister of Citizens’ Services please explain to this House why senior political staff in government are either destroying or hiding important government records and then claiming that they just don’t exist?

Hon. A. Virk: Well, it’s even more abundantly clear that I’ve got to provide a copy of the act to the member opposite, and perhaps I’ve got to provide the member opposite with training under the act as well. It sounds like a good idea.

The government responds to almost….

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members will come to order.

Hon. A. Virk: The government responds to almost 10,000 FOI requests each year, and the severing of FOI records is done consistently by professional public servants in accordance with the act.

[1425]

D. Routley: We have a copy of the act, but I think the minister just offered to provide a copy of the training program. Well, we also asked for details of the training program political staff receive on their obligations under FOI, training that explains what they must keep, what they can delete and what they must disclose. What was the government’s response? Well, they told us to FOI an FOI training manual that explains how to work under FOI so that they could redact it under FOI.

Is the minister embarrassed to hand over such a straightforward document?

Hon. A. Virk: Maybe I’ve got to simplify it for the member opposite. The severing of FOI requests….

Interjections.

Hon. A. Virk: Maybe I should speak slower. Maybe I should speak slower.

Interjections.

Madame Speaker: Members.

Hon. A. Virk: I will simplify it and slow it down. The severing of FOI requests is done by trusted public servants who apply the act when they supply information.

Madame Speaker: Nanaimo–North Cowichan on a supplemental.

D. Routley: What we have is a severe case of irresponsibility, in the case of the minister. As far as severing of documents goes, the minister responsible for FOI is hiding behind FOI in order to keep a training manual on FOI secret. You just can’t make this stuff up.

My question for the minister is simple. What evidence can he produce that shows that political staff in his government have been trained to follow the Freedom of Information Act?

Hon. A. Virk: As I’ve said a number of times, the sound record management and knowledge of FOI legislation are an ongoing effort. It’s an ongoing effort and an ongoing process. Information and privacy training is available to all public servants. It’s, in fact, available 24-7 in an on-line course.

Let me be clear that the application of the act is consistent. If the member suggests that the act is not being followed, the member is incorrect.

M. Farnworth: Well, we’ve listened to the minister responsible for freedom of information in the province of British Columbia try and tell this House why key documents are not released, why the act or how the act is supposed to be applied, and yet when you ask to make sure how staff are trained — the documents, the program in place to train staff — as my colleague has said, you have to FOI it.

Does the minister not understand the ridiculousness that what is a training manual for the public service in the province of British Columbia on how to deal with information requests under the FOI Act — those training documents themselves, that training manual — is to be kept secret and not made public unless you receive a request under FOI? And even then, it’s under “denied.” Does he not understand the ridiculousness of that?

Will, then, he at least commit to the House that he will table those training manuals on how to use the FOI Act in this House so that all members can have at least some idea that in fact the act is being followed properly?

[1430]

Hon. A. Virk: As I said, information-and-privacy training is available to all public servants and available, as I said, once again, 24-7, and it’s available even on line. In fact, I’ve spoken to the government’s chief information officer to ensure that public servants have a clear and consistent approach to the application of the act.
[ Page 7818 ]

[End of question period.]

Hon. T. Lake: I seek leave to table a document.

Leave granted.

Tabling Documents

Hon. T. Lake: I’d like to table a document on the colon screening program from the B.C. Cancer Agency which outlines follow-up recommendations regarding screening and surveillance guidelines.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. de Jong: In Committee A, Committee of Supply — for the information of members, the estimates of the Ministry of Children and Family Development — and, in this chamber, continued second reading debate on Bill 11.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 11 — EDUCATION STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 2015

(continued)

B. Routley: I’m happy today to take my place on Bill 11, the Education Statutes Amendment Act, 2015. I guess it comes as no surprise that this government would invent a plan that threatens teachers, threatens students’ privacy and cripples school boards’ and school trustees’ autonomy.

It attacks the basic democracy in the province of British Columbia by…. Imagine this. The minister now wants to tear pages out of the handbook for community leadership. No longer will school trustees have their elected rights in the province of British Columbia. The big hammer of the government of British Columbia is once again going to reach in.

The head of the B.C. Teachers Federation, Jim Iker, recently told The Tyee newspaper that he’s absolutely baffled by this bill. “Why would a government that just achieved a hard-fought contract settlement with teachers then introduce Bill 11? ‘I thought they wanted labour peace,’ Iker said.”

This gives me the opportunity to reflect on my experience, and I had a lot of experience with labour relations. Contrary to popular belief, as a union rep that negotiated with more than 50 companies, I didn’t go into bargaining with the goal to have a strike or a lockout; I went into bargaining with the goal of reaching a fair achievement for working-class people.

I’m happy to report that in 95 percent of the situations we were able to find a fair agreement at the end of the day. But it was through listening and real collaboration, not surprise, like what this government is doing here.

[1435]

Why this government insists on creating conflict in education, one can only speculate. It makes no sense to me — none, zero sense. Let me explain why it makes no sense to me. When I was a young man working in a veneer plant, I had the kind of command-and-control management that this Liberal Party represents — command-and-control, top-down management. I still remember the experience. That manager managed to take us from one of the better-producing veneer plants….

Veneer, by the way, is the stuff that goes into making plywood. We were a supplier in the Youbou veneer plant for the Victoria Plywood plant of the day. I’m reaching way back to the 1970s and my first experience. I was in my 20s at that time. I remember it well, because the entire crew was turned against the management team with this command-and-control attitude, who came down and brought the hammer down every opportunity, had lots of criticism for the crew, had no words of kindness and no collaboration, no willingness to listen to what the crew thought or could do.

I still remember my job. I was working on the booms, and they used to cut mostly fir. Every now and then I’d get a balsam log, and it was my job to make sure that it was prepared for the veneer plant lathe. I would cut them most of the way through but leave a little bit of holding wood so that they wouldn’t sink to the bottom, which I knew, as a boom man, that they would do.

You know what? That manager thought he knew better. He came down, and he had the audacity, from a top-down management style, to tell me, “I know how to do your job” — even though he didn’t have a clue — and he said: “You don’t leave those on anymore. You cut them off.” So you know what? I cut them off, gladly, each and every day, knowing what was about to happen.

Sure enough, in a few months we’d built up such a pile of them that we couldn’t cut a single log. Then we had to bring in the tug to blow out underneath the wharf. Why? Because some idiot manager wouldn’t listen to his crew, wouldn’t understand what needed to be done. Then we had the whole veneer plant down while we blew out underneath the boom shack and got it ready.

This kind of stuff went on throughout the entire operation. We had the worst management relations; we had the worst operation. You know, if it wasn’t for the fact that finally somebody in the higher level of that company — it was BCFP at the time — said: “We’ve got to clear this guy, this deadwood, out and get in somebody that can, maybe, really manage.”

I consider myself fortunate. I got to see the fresh, clear thinking of a manager that came in with real ideas, real collaboration, real listening — somebody that wasn’t going to, from the top down, decide he knew what was best. His name was Hody Hodson. I remember it well, just
[ Page 7819 ]
like it was yesterday, because it was one of those teachable moments.

I hope the Liberals that are here are actually listening, because you can learn a lot from that young man’s experience, and it happens to be me. That was going from the worst production in the province of British Columbia, certainly on the coast, and terrible labour relations to the best in a matter of weeks. In less than a couple of months we were the highest-producing veneer plant.

I want you to know how he did it. You could write a book about this stuff, about how to do things right, how to work with young people, how to make labour relations and discussions matter. It was Hody coming down, and he put his arm around me. I still remember. He told me a little joke, kind of goofy, and put his arm around me.

He looked at me, and I still remember. He did something the Liberals could never do. He said: “I’ve got to tell you. I don’t know a thing about being a boom man. I don’t know a thing about your job. But you know what? I’m hoping that you can help me, because I’ve never run a veneer plant before. I know that you know how to do your job down here, and I’m hoping I can count on you.” Again, the magic words: “I’m hoping you can help me.”

[1440]

You know, he went away. I was a young man. I’d never heard a manager come down and say: “Could you help me?” Wow, what a concept. What a concept for these B.C. Liberals to ponder, the idea of asking teachers: “Can you help me? You know, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t have a clue. I’m not a professional teacher. Maybe we should ask for help.” No, that’s not what’s going on.

Anyway, this magic word of “help” and treating people with dignity. Hody worked that through the entire veneer plant. Again, a teachable moment. All young people, not used to this idea of command and control, the old-style management. It’s like yesterday’s news. If managers today don’t get hold of a management style where you listen to the people that you work with and actually allow them the dignity in the workplace to come up with good ideas….

Any of you can, if you read the business section once in a while, pick up points from the ten best companies in British Columbia or the ten best companies in Canada. You know what they all have in common? They all have in common that they have good labour relations, that they bring the best out of people, that they allow and promote innovation from within the company. They allow people to feel special. They come up with collaborative ideas, whether it’s work-sharing or all kinds of wonderful ideas that can come up.

Again, going to the former manager. He used to be like the Liberals. He went down, and he threw peanuts at the crew. “Here, peanuts, popcorn.” Everybody made animal noises and were angry.

No, they got rid of that notion of treating people with disrespect. Both sides ended up in total disrespect. Then what comes is Hody with his wonderful sense of humour and his asking for help. He came down one day, and he asked me: “Bill, I talked to the guys up there at the lathe. They said, ‘You know, if you could’” — there were a lot of big logs coming in — “‘every third or fourth log, if you’ve got them, bring in a smaller one, that helps us at the lathe clean up the ribbons.’”

When they used to cut a log on the lathe, they would cut these ribbons, and they would pile up and make a mess. They needed the opportunity to clean them up.

He came to me and asked me for help. As a young man, that was a magic word for me. He wanted my help. You know what I did? I went out there and busted my butt. Maybe I can’t say that. I worked really hard on behalf of the job that I was doing. I knew that I could do it, that I could do what he was asking for help for.

Just the fact that he gave me the dignity and respect to say, “You know what you’re doing. I need your help,” I went out there and worked extra hard. He came down later in the day. I still remember him coming down after about four or five hours. Again, he puts his arm around me. I didn’t know what to make of this guy, laughing and joking. He’s got his arm around me, and he says: “I just want to thank you, Bill. It was wonderful what you’re doing, because they’re telling me up at the lathe that things are going so much better now. You’re helping make that happen. I just want to thank you.” Away he went.

You know, he didn’t have to come down every day after that. He didn’t have to give me a raise or pay me more money. He sure as heck didn’t need to threaten me or threaten to attack my professional development and tell me how to do my job. No, he certainly didn’t have to. He just had to treat me with the dignity and respect that all and every worker…. Certainly, what the teachers expect, in return, is a little collaboration.

We went from the lowest to the highest. The workers had the radio station on. They had the boombox going. They were pulling veneer like it was no tomorrow. In fact, he said to the crew one Friday night: “If you want to crank it up a bit, here is the number we need, and you can go home early.” Well, we ended up going home a half-hour early because we got the highest production level that was possible, I think, in a veneer plant at the time. It was some kind of a record.

[1445]

Again, all of that was possible by real collaboration — really listening to the crew, really giving them the dignity to feel that they had a contribution to the workplace, that they mattered, that what they did was important, that management was there to support and listen and to provide whatever the workers needed to make it happen.

We don’t have that in the province of British Columbia. Instead, we have a Liberal government running around in a glass house with a sledgehammer, slashing away with their sledgehammer, breaking the desks of the school board of trustees, saying: “Oh no. Forget that plan that
[ Page 7820 ]
you are running things. We’re going to run things for a while. We think somebody that might have been in charge of advertisement or was a car salesman….”

I don’t know. Imagine me. Imagine if I thought, as some former labour guy or some millworker or veneer plant worker, that I should be deciding on the professional development for teachers. Now, how dumb would I be to come up with a plan like that?

Interjection.

B. Routley: No, no. That’s what we’ve got over there. They’ve got a bunch of politicians sitting around with nothing better to do than to come up with a plan that they know how to have professional development for teachers. Oh yeah. They really…. Oh, they’ve got it all figured out. They’ve got nothing better to do than go around and destroy things, and so they do. They attack the school trustees.

My son — I phoned him the other day, and I said: “What do you think about it?” He’s a trustee up in Lake Cowichan now. “What do you think about this government’s plan?” Of course, it was the immediate response of every trustee organization. He says: “How can a government attack the democratically elected role of school trustees who are elected by their constituents in the community to do what the Liberals think, to listen to the command and controls from above?”

No. They’re supposed to act on behalf of the constituents in their community. That includes things like community land. Like, if there is a school that’s been there…. A lot of those schools and school lands have been part of the community, not just a school. A school isn’t just a school; it’s a community meeting place. The very notion that we’re going to have the big hand of upper command and control management come reaching in, grab the sledgehammer and slash about some more — not only trustees, but now the teachers….

Bill 11 includes amendments to the School Act, the Independent School Act and the Teachers Act in four primary areas. You know, I heard the minister call them pillars. I would call them plunder, not pillars. They were plundering the existing rights of school trustees, of teachers, of professionals, of community democracy.

They claim they’re building a framework for continuing professional development. At the risk of making someone sad, I have to say it’s more jiggery-pokery. It’s the kind of stuff…. The unilateral right of the minister to impose professional development on teachers at his whim.

My friend is here who happens to know something about education. He was a principal. When I think about the fact that he has to witness this nonsense going on, and he actually has professional credentials…. You think about the idea that somebody who is a professional teacher….

It’d be like a professional forester. Oh, maybe that’s coming next week. Maybe it’s coming next week that we’re going to have a new act to tell the foresters how to do…. The minister, who has got no experience whatsoever as a professional forester….

Maybe he’s going to bring in legislation, and he’s going to start telling the professional foresters association how they can do their job — especially professional development. Oh my goodness. I’m sure he has some real ideas on what he’s got in mind. Maybe he’s been to a different country, and he wants to impose some kind of professional development idea.

The problem is nobody even knows what’s going on. All the groups…. Education has to be like this. There are all these different players, and nobody in the rest of the sandbox knows what’s going on. All they know is they’re once again getting sand kicked in their face from the government, who says: “Oh well.” You know?

[1450]

The bully on the block comes into the sandbox and kicks the sand in the school teacher’s face and says: “Oh well. So what? We negotiated with you. We want a few more command and control tools here. A little hammer never hurts.”

Then the same thing with the school boards. Those school boards should be coming cap in hand to the government — cap in hand, beholden to whatever is going on, whatever flavour of the day the minister thinks up. “We want them shaking in their boots.” That’s what this Liberal bunch is saying. “We want them to know that we can take their land away, that we can create partnerships. We can have the school district next door in charge of your school if we feel like it. Ha, ha, ha.” Yeah, that’s what we’ve got going on.

They talk about the minister’s right to impose professional development. They’re going to facilitate delivery of shared services. That’s another fancy jiggery-pokery way to say that this is actually…. So the word “facilitating.” Let’s just change that up to what it really means, but they can’t put it in the legislation. It’s forcing the delivery of shared services. It’s not facilitating. Who are they kidding?

They’re not going to facilitate anything. They’re going to ram it down their throat, and they’re going to do it if they want, and that’s the way it’s going to be. The minister’s going to have the power, and they intend to come in here with their horses and ride in and just charge away at the same groups. You know, they’ve had these huge disputes over all these years.

Today I picked up the newspaper. Vaughn Palmer wrote a thoughtful piece about what’s been going on. He points out that back in 2001 — think about this, the decade that’s gone on — the then Liberal leader announced to the public as part of their plan: “I don’t believe in ripping up agreements.” The soon-to-be Premier said: “I’m not going to be tearing up any agreements.”

Now, I get asked…. Where do I talk about jiggery-pokery or sleight of hand or that kind of thing? Why do I use that word? Well, what do you call a government that
[ Page 7821 ]
stands for election and says, prior to the election, “Oh, we’re not going to rip up contracts” — not just to teachers but to health care workers? “Oh, no. You can trust us. We won’t be doing that.” And then they go ahead and do it — a matter of public record.

There are probably a lot firmer words I could come up with than “jiggery-pokery.” I think that’s a kind word. It’s like “razzle dazzle, sleight of hand.” That’s the kind of stuff that we see going on, and I don’t know what else to call it. If somebody’s got a better word, they should ship it over to me because I just haven’t found one that fits all of this razzle dazzle that goes on.

You know, it’s stunning. Health care workers — in 2002 they were told: “Oh, no. We won’t be doing that.” We’re back to teachers being stunned. The teachers are stunned right now. What?

What do teachers write in their letter? Their letter to government starts off with the BCTF calling on the government to…. The act is an “infringement on the rights and responsibilities of democratically elected boards of education.” Absolutely. The act is an intrusion “into teacher-led and -directed professional development,” and the act allows “the collection and use of student data without sufficient privacy protections.”

I could go on. But it’s so obvious to me, again, with my experience, that this is not only an attack on the individual groups, teachers and…. This is uncalled for.

We don’t even know…. I’ve talked to the different groups and asked them: what problem do you think they’re trying to resolve? What’s the problem? What’s the beef? And there’s no idea — no communication, no collaboration, no understanding of what they’re thinking. What does this really mean?

It’s probably somewhere about money. Obviously, the idea that you can command one school board to work together with another school board — I’m sure that they’re doing some of that now already voluntarily.

[1455]

At the end of the day, it’s all about imposing themselves from above — command and control taking over where they’re not invited.

Don’t forget, we already have democratically elected school trustees. If you look at what they’re there to do, you’ll find out that it’s exactly the kind of stuff that this government is intending to unilaterally change and take away. They’re going to force…. They’re going to drive change by forcing change instead of by collaboration. It’s micromanaging.

They talk about updating the accountability framework. I just love this language. It’s just so much fun to read, because the real intent about it is about how they want to tell teachers how to teach. They’re going to micromanage teachers, but they call it an accountability framework for student learning through reporting. Somehow, they feel that they’re going to get to the bottom of the matter by….

We get enough reports from the kids on what they’re doing or what they’re learning. For a second, I want to camp there. I was a school trustee in school district 66 in Lake Cowichan, which is no longer there. It amalgamated with the school district in Duncan to become what is now school district 79. It used to be school district 68.

In any case, when I was a school trustee I had the opportunity to hear a professor talk about professional development and teachers and their skills and the kind of things that a good teacher can do. I just want to use this example because it was one that stuck with me for years and years. In fact, here I am talking about it again today. It was a wonderful example of what we would want teachers to do and to aspire to.

I know that teachers are caring individuals who love to do — most teachers love to do — what they’re doing, and they’re not doing it for big wages because there’s not the kind of big wages involved that their degrees would imply. If they went into a trade, there’d probably be a lot more money involved after their years of training than what they achieve dealing with the most precious asset that we have in the province of British Columbia, and that’s our children. Yet it is funny how we value a certain kind of work.

Back to the point. This teacher was teaching grade 5 or 6. I forget the exact detail of that, but I think it was grade 5. She asked the children at the beginning of the year, not just the stuff about “How was your summer vacation?” but they were asked to learn a little bit about democracy and voting skills, and they were going to all be encouraged to bring in their favourite projects. If you were collecting rocks or stamps or whatever, bring that in, and we’re going to have a vote amongst the students on what’s the way forward over the coming six months or year on what we’re going to use as a theme as a classroom.

It was really very interesting, because what the class chose…. They voted on it, and it was almost unanimous, but a large number of the votes was for…. A young gal had brought in a collection of buttons.

Now, why is that interesting? Because they made the point that real education — I think most folks would agree with this professor on that — is about imparting information — and not just in a way that somebody can remember it. It’s not just about memory retention, but it’s also about having education exciting, as the professor said, “to make it like Christmas day every day that you’re learning something new.” For those kids, it was like Christmas day because they got to choose buttons.

The teacher found a way to ask the students to write about all of these different subjects, and they used the example of history. They used buttons in history. They talked about the kind of buttons that might have been used by certain former historical figures, and they researched the buttons.

Of course, they learned more about Napoleon talking about buttons than they might have otherwise remembered about Napoleon.

[1500]

They also learned more about writing letters. They were all asked to write a letter, and they wrote a letter to all of these different groups. One of the kids thought of writing a letter to a marine-based submarine commander. You know what? The whole class was invited to go and tour the submarine. It’s a wonderful story. At the end of the day they went through the submarine, and of course, those kids will never forget that experience.

On the other hand, here we’re back to a government that says they know best about professional development. You know, we don’t even know where this came from. It just came out of thin air.

Despite the government’s promises of a commitment to co-governance with school boards…. And let’s remember that that wasn’t that long ago. You know, it’s hard not to laugh. To think that they actually went out and signed co-governance agreements with school trustees and school boards. I think it might have been a photo op or they were on a bit of a, you know, go around the community and meet with the trustees, and let’s sign a co-governance agreement.

But now the government is unilaterally taking their authority away and giving it to the minister to do things like demand imposed shared services to improve student performance — whatever that means. More weasel words.

Despite the promises of a new beginning following the end of the longest teachers strike in B.C. history, the government failed to consult, once again, with teachers on major, major proposed changes to professional development. This government’s refusal to consult prior to bringing the hammer down on professional development shows a real lack of respect for our B.C. teachers.

While other jurisdictions in the world are strengthening protections around student information and data gathering, this bill loosens restrictions on sharing student information, which is likely to facilitate the implementation of programs like MyEducation B.C. The school planning councils, a failed B.C. initiative, have been eliminated, and the superintendent of achievement….

Anyway, this bill — I see my time is running out — is really a kind of a wild, wild west attitude. They ride in, shoot them up and then get on their horses and ride out of town. But they’ve left the same kind of impression with the people of B.C. They just don’t care, and they just don’t listen.

S. Gibson: Part of British Columbia’s economic advantage, particularly in what remains our fragile global economy, is the quality of education. That’s important to our government. The better we prepare our young people to enter the workforce, the greater chance they have of enjoying a rewarding career through their lifetime. How important is that?

Education is the most powerful route towards an individual’s career satisfaction and a direct pathway to our own collective prosperity. Naturally, we want a highly skilled, highly adaptive workforce that is competitive and committed to lifelong learning and earning. The fact is British Columbia does have a world-class education system.

Interjection.

S. Gibson: That’s right. The Conference Board of Canada confirmed that in a report last June. B.C. was ranked first, number one — I could do that in my radio voice — number one among 26 jurisdictions, including all ten provinces and 16 peer countries, and earned an A-plus for high school attainment.

More than 91 percent of B.C. residents aged 25 to 64 have a high school diploma. That’s the highest score, not only among all ten provinces, but it also outranks Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. In fact, British Columbia scored third overall in the entire world, with only Japan and Finland ahead of us. That’s a positive comment about the quality of teaching that we experience in this amazing province.

We are proud of B.C.’s world-class education system. But we’ve got to find ways to improve. We always want to raise the bar. That’s this government’s policy. That’s our standard. That means pursuing new, innovative approaches that promise better results for students.

[1505]

Ultimately, our focus is on producing better educational outcomes. If we can look for opportunities to spend less on administration, for example, and concentrate more on students, we’ll all benefit. We should pursue those savings. Shared savings are a part of that solution. British Columbians expect their tax dollars to be used wisely. Taxpayers want every available education dollar going to help children in the classroom.

For several years now we have been working with school districts, getting people together, focusing. We have now made some good progress through the first phase of the service delivery project. So far, the results have been that school districts collectively have saved nearly $8 million to date. That’s good news.

Through phase 2 of the project, the ministry and school districts will implement the working group recommendations in areas…. For example, group purchasing is a good thing to do — shared legal services, employee wellness and staff replacement costs. All good things to work at in shared services.

As we have worked through this, we’ve determined that the School Act can be a little ambiguous on the question of shared-service governance. With 60 school districts all delivering, in many ways, similar services, there are significant opportunities to reduce overhead costs through sharing of services. We want to make sure the legislation is very clear that they have the authority to enter into these service delivery arrangements. So it’s allowing that collective input. And that’s exactly what this legislation is all about. It represents a concerted attempt to do things
[ Page 7823 ]
better with limited resources and available funding.

I think we all realize that government is about stewardship. The Minister of Education will continue to work closely with districts as they evaluate and develop workable strategies to implement shared services. It’s good news for the taxpayers of British Columbia and for the students and teachers in the system.

Protection of privacy and personal information is also important. This is another aspect of this legislation concerning modernization of how students’ personal information is managed. We must ensure that it conforms with the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act and protects the adequate safeguards and protections under the Protection of Privacy Act. At the same time, we need to have access to solid research and analysis to deliver approaches that work better for students. And that’s what this is all about.

We need to know that we are doing things well and how we can do things better. That means guidelines for the proper use of student data. Access to high-quality data is essential to improving educational programs and monitoring the impact of new curriculum and other learning innovations. At the same time, the protection of personal student information must remain a high priority. The disclosure and use of quality data must be balanced with the protection of personal student information.

The way personal information is currently managed through the School Act is inflexible and out of date. We are, therefore, modernizing existing provisions and safeguards related to the use of student personal information for consistency with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act — very important. Previously, through the School Act, the disclosure of data tied to students’ personal education numbers was restricted to research specifically aimed at the evaluation of education programs.

By properly aligning the School Act, we are providing clear standards for the disclosure of personal information consistent with practice across the broader B.C. public sector. It’s all good news, and I’m excited to speak today in favour of this bill.

R. Austin: It’s my privilege to rise and to speak on Bill 11, the Education Statutes Amendment Act, 2015. Before getting into the specifics of what this act is attempting to do, I’d like to take a few minutes to speak about the context upon which this piece of legislation is coming about.

[1510]

I think it’s fair to say that for those of us who’ve spent any time in the public education system…. And I was privileged to do that before becoming an MLA. Any time I see this government bringing forward bills around education, I get a kind of shiver going down my back. The reason for that is because what we’ve seen over a period of 14 years now — 14 years — is a government that has in large part undermined the quality of public education in this province. They clearly were elected in 2001 and had — let’s be honest — a very hidden agenda with regards to what to do in regards to public education.

As has been alluded to by prior speakers, the then Premier of the province was committed, prior to being elected in 2001, to maintain the legislation around the education act — education changes that made guarantees to ensure that teachers not only would be able to go into the classroom and teach, but they would have the necessary supports in place in order to do their jobs.

Upon getting elected and very soon sitting down here, coming into the Legislature and stripping those contracts and thus removing many of the supports that children required and teachers required in order to do their job — that kind of set the tone. And 14 years later, when I see another piece of legislation coming in saying that we’re going to somehow improve public education, well, I and a lot of people in the province of British Columbia, naturally, are very skeptical.

Let’s just look at the history here. As I mentioned, the teachers’ contract was stripped. What effect did that have on their ability to teach? More importantly, what effect did it have on the learning conditions of the children of British Columbia? Well, let’s see. I remember being elected and hearing in a throne speech here that we were going to be the jurisdiction in North America with the highest literacy. What has the outcome been?

Well, we’ve seen libraries closed. We’ve seen teacher-librarians lose their jobs. They have done the exact opposite of what they said they were going to do in terms of trying to have the support teachers, the specialized teachers, in place to support the classroom teachers. We’ve seen, as a result of all of these changes…. Many counsellors who help deal with behavioural problems or learning disabilities have been laid off and lost their jobs over the last several years. What we have seen is a dilution of the quality of supports in the classroom to enable our teachers to do their job.

Let’s get to more recent times. We have seen, just a few months ago, the longest strike in B.C. history. It’s very interesting to be in this Legislature and listen to the Minister of Education, who speaks in glowing terms of what I guess he sees as the wonderful success of that strike. He likes to stand here and say: “Well, it was a long strike. We were tough, we won, and we got a teacher contract that’s long.”

Let me, for a moment, give a little bit of feedback. When I spoke with the teachers in Terrace and Kitimat and the beautiful Nass Valley, they felt very disillusioned by the whole process. The reason why they went out on strike, the result of the strike…. They certainly don’t see this as any kind of success, when they were eventually forced back to work and into the classroom. I’ll tell you why.

The fundamental reason why they went on strike — in spite of what the government likes to say, which was that
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they just wanted to increase their salaries — was to fight for something that they’d been fighting for, for the previous 12 years, which was to improve the classroom conditions, the learning conditions, of the children. That has all been reduced because teachers who have been teaching since the B.C. Liberals came into power have seen the quality of the classroom supports go down endlessly. They were fighting for that, and I think parents understood that.

I think it’s fair to say that most of the teachers were really disgusted at some of the antics that took place during that strike. Let me give you an example. The government hired a PR firm, using public dollars to manage Twitter and Facebook accounts, sending out what the minister described as important information for parents.

[1515]

I think if you went and looked at those information bulletins, you’d see it was nothing but partisan activities happening on behalf of the B.C. Liberals. They weren’t sending out information to parents to help them get through the strike. What they were doing was they were sending out absolute propaganda, stating that teachers were greedy, that teachers just were doing this for extra money.

They never mentioned the fact that teachers were walking the line every day, giving up their salaries, their pay, in order to try and fight for the things that had been stripped and taken away. They were things which, by the way, — you know, we had this debate in this House — the B.C. Supreme Court agreed on.

Let’s understand this. Madame Justice Susan Griffin is not a member of the B.C. Liberal party. She’s not a member of the NDP. She’s an independent justice — highly valued and respected. She has deliberated on two occasions in regards to the battle that has gone forth, the continual war of attrition that the B.C. Liberals have put upon the teaching profession.

Here are some of things that she said. She said that the B.C. Liberals negotiated in bad faith, that they didn’t take the advice of their own staff when they were making decisions around public education. That’s a pretty challenging thing, I think, when a Supreme Court judge actually admonishes the government of the day for bringing in legislation which, by the way, was ruled unconstitutional.

Here we are in 2015, and we’re still going through the court process. My understanding is that even later this week there’ll be another ruling, and it may go on beyond that. That is the context upon which this piece of legislation is coming in — one in which teachers feel that they have been put upon and that parents have not had the kinds of supports for their kids that were expected. That’s the context before I even start to look at some of the details of this bill.

Now, I’ve heard many members on the government side say that one of the good things about this bill is that it’s going to enable the government to force shared services upon the school districts. In theory, that’s quite a good idea. If you’ve got several school districts, and all of a sudden they’re able to pool their resources and do something that could save taxpayers’ dollars, it may be a good thing.

But let me give an example of one of the great attempts at shared services over the last ten years. I’m going to speak for a minute about the computerized database system called BCeSIS that was a brought in by the B.C. Liberals. This was a new computer system brought in, designed by a company that actually had never ever before designed any form of software or database management around schools.

You know, good idea — let’s go to the market. Let’s find what is out there to try and bring in a database system that will give us better data, better information on our kids and how they’re doing. But let’s choose a company that’s never done it before. That was probably the first mistake.

Over a period of ten years we wasted $100 million — let’s round it off to $100 million — on BCeSIS. It was a failure from day one. It didn’t work. They forced the school districts to ensure that every teacher got training on BCeSIS. They denied that the system wasn’t working properly.

They spent millions more trying to fix problems, and by the time six years had run of this ten-year run of BCeSIS, the government was putting good money after bad. In fact, I remember a former Education Minister trying to defend BCeSIS by saying: “Well, you know, now it’s been six years. It’s like Windows 5. You’ve got to update it.”

Windows 5 had all of its own problems. I think people who buy Microsoft products would probably say that when you get a Microsoft product, it comes with a few glitches. But BCeSIS crashed on occasion on a daily basis.

Imagine being a teacher. Imagine being an administrator. You’re trying to put classes together. You’re trying to write reports and put data in, and you’ve got a computer system that breaks down on you on a continual basis.

Or if you make a slight mistake when entering data…. Here’s another great thing about the BCeSIS system. If you made a couple of mistakes in the entry process as you were signing in, after three mistakes…. A bit like when you go to get money out of a bank machine — if you’ve forgotten your PIN, after about two or three attempts, you’re out of luck. Well, it’s not the end of the world. You can always go into the bank, tell them who you are, and you can get your PIN back.

[1520]

But if you’re are a teacher and you made a mistake entering data in the BCeSIS system — well, guess what — you’re all locked out. You’re locked out for a couple of days. Never mind that you’ve got a deadline and you’ve actually got to get report cards in by a certain time.

That was the beauty of the BCeSIS system. It was an example of the government forcing school districts to
[ Page 7825 ]
engage in something that they said would save money, would give better data. It proved to be a disaster.

Surely, it’s better for local school trustees to make those decisions as to whether they want to take on something that the government’s offering them. Maybe they could do their own research, do their own due diligence and find out that, in fact, what is trying to be forced upon them is perhaps not the best thing. Maybe there’s another way to go.

I think that it’s important. If we’re going to have school trustees, if we’re going have elections, if we’re going to say that we believe in co-governance, then isn’t it better to have those who are duly elected actually do some governing?

School trustees already play a very important role for the government. They’re the ones who take the blame, having to make all the hard decisions, for the fact that the last 12 years the public education system has been underfunded. That’s the reality. I know that members on the other side will say: “Oh no. No, we’ve spent more money than in the history of mankind on public education.”

Then why is it that over the last 12 years the budgets that come out of Victoria have resulted in cuts in the classroom? Why is it? Why is it that you can go to every school district in the province of British Columbia and continue to hear school trustees, teachers, principals grumble that they don’t have the resources that they had in years previous? Clearly, there’s something not quite right here.

The fact is that costs have gone up which have not been covered by the government. They don’t like to talk about that. They like to say that per-pupil funding has gone up. Yes, it has. But clearly, it hasn’t gone up enough to cover all those downloaded costs that they, quietly, don’t pay for.

I’ll give you an example. In my school district 82 about seven years ago, I guess, they had to make a very, very big decision. They were so short of resources that the school board had to have discussions and go onto a four-day school week.

Now, you tell me how it is that in one of the wealthiest jurisdictions on planet Earth, in British Columbia, a school district could not afford to send the children to school five days a week. Explain that. It makes no sense. If they were being properly funded, then a country and a province as wealthy as this should have been able to send their kids to school five days a week. But no, not here.

They actually had to make cuts. Why? Because they can save on transportation in a school district that has very high transportation costs. They could save on maintenance and all the CUPE workers, who suddenly found themselves having a 28-hour week instead of a full week. That’s how they saved money.

Here is the interesting thing. If you went and spoke to any of those school trustees at the time, they would have told you that they weren’t making these decisions based on the welfare of the children. It wasn’t to improve public education in Skeena that they were putting their kids onto a four-day school week. No. They were doing it to make up for the lack of resources that were coming to that region, to that school district. This was how they had to resort to these kinds of extreme measures.

I’m sorry to say this. It’s not good enough for this government to say that this amendment act is here to improve things when all they have done over the last 14 years is make things harder and more challenging for the teachers.

Here are another couple of interesting statistics that people might want to hear. I heard the previous speaker talk about data. If you go and speak to our educational establishments, one of the very sad things coming out of the faculties of education is this. Within the first five years of young people coming out of the faculties of education, 40 percent of new teachers quit within the first five years.

Think of that. We spend a lot of money to subsidize post-secondary education. I think I’m right in saying that students pay roughly 23 or 24 percent of their cost of education and tuition and that the rest comes out of central taxation.

[1525]

We are investing huge amounts of money to educate new teachers who, after they enter the system, suddenly realize that the supports necessary for them to do their job aren’t there. They seek another job opportunity and leave the profession. What a chronic waste of this amazing social investment that we make.

If you speak to teachers who have been there longer, for many years, they will tell you — and it doesn’t matter what there politics are; it doesn’t matter whether they vote for the government or vote for the opposition — that the conditions in the classroom have deteriorated terribly over the last 12 years. That’s the reality.

When I hear people in this Legislature get up and say, “Well, our students perform well in this and well in that, and we’re winning some awards,” I would say this. It is in spite of what this government has done that teachers have struggled and worked so hard to ensure that, yes, we still do have a high-quality education system. It’s not because of what the B.C. Liberals have been doing. It is in spite of their efforts to undermine public education in the province of British Columbia.

Quite frankly, I think most teachers who have spent their lifetime dedicated to this will tell you what while they love their jobs, while they love working with kids — obviously, that’s why they go into the profession — it has not been an easy thing. Many of those who are close to retirement — I can tell you, as I’ve spoken to many of them — are looking forward to retirement. As they say: “Teaching just isn’t what it used to be when I got into the profession. It’s just not there. There’s just not the kind of help that’s required.”

Let’s talk about some of the specifics here. The B.C. School Trustees Association have been very clear about
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this bill. We hear a lot about co-governance, a lot of nice words in this House by various Education Ministers over the years — that it’s important that we have local decisions made in the areas around the province, because it is locally elected school trustees who know their communities best, who can set the agenda and the priorities that fit for the communities.

Yet here we have, in the most recent School Trustees Association meeting, them coming up with a resolution saying that they want this bill withdrawn. Why? Well, it’s the usual story with this government. They haven’t even been consulted on the potential changes that are being made in Bill 11.

No one came and said to them: “Listen, I know you guys co-govern this huge system which we call the public education system. You guys help to manage the dollars. You guys make local decisions. Why don’t you come and spend some time with us, and let’s figure out how we can make this system better together.”

No. Instead, they bring down Bill 11. It’s a surprise to the B.C. School Trustees Association. They say very clearly that they were not consulted. The minister says: “Well, no problem. We’ll bring in the bill, and then we’ll spend a few years consulting.” Is that the way to run the province of British Columbia? I don’t think so. Especially when you consider that a lot of this bill is enabling legislation.

Let’s be clear, for those people who might be watching. This isn’t a bill that, necessarily, is prescriptive in all of its clauses. What it says is, in many cases: “We, the government, will have the right to make these changes. Oh, and by the way, we’ll decide what those changes are later — in cabinet, in secret — and then we’ll let you know.” I’m sorry, but given the history of the B.C. Liberals in regards to public education, it’s no wonder that school trustees, teachers, administrators are a little bit wary of that kind of legislation.

No one knows what some of this stuff means in Bill 11. We hear some nice, kind words. But once it’s passed, they can then go and, by regulation, make changes at will without there being the proper discussion, without there being the proper input from the people who actually provide the service.

I was listening to some of the speeches from the government members at the beginning of second reading. The people were making the case that most self-directed professions take care of their own professional development. I think that is true.

What we have here in Bill 11 is an incursion by the government to be able, through the school trustees, to go and say to our professional teachers: “Listen. Not only do we want you to have these X amount of hours of professional development” — and in most cases that is already in the contracts, school district by school district, how many days the teachers have for professional development — “but oh, by the way, we’re also going tell you what it is you’re going to go and study.”

[1530]

If you have a profession, if you believe that teachers are a profession — and the other side, the Liberals, apparently say that they do — then surely the teachers can come up with their own ideas. Maybe they’ll have some consultations with their administrators. Maybe their school districts and their trustees will have some input. Maybe they’ll come up with ideas which will work for their entire community, if they have a certain problem or certain weaknesses or deficits that are specific to their own school.

Surely, isn’t that a way for teachers to be able to govern themselves and decide what their priorities are for getting further education to make themselves better teachers?

Why is it that folks down here — in a government that spent 14 years, essentially, in a war of attrition — are now going to have the right to use this legislation, by regulation, to suddenly say: “Oh, here are the priorities. Here’s what we think, out of Victoria, you should be learning in Dease Lake. Here’s what we think you in Kitimat should be learning when you go and spend time developing your skills to make yourself a better educator”?

It is counterintuitive to think that folks down here, centrally, know what is best for the kids in the communities that are so varied around the province of British Columbia. More importantly than that, it takes away from the very notion of having a profession. If you have a professional doing their job, let them do it and give them the supports necessary to let them do it.

We don’t have the Minister of Health standing up in this House and saying: “I want some legislation to tell the doctors what it is they’re going to learn.” That’s just not going to happen. We don’t have ministers here standing up and saying: “I’m going to tell the accounting profession what it is they’re going to learn to upkeep their skills.” It doesn’t happen. Yet here in Education this government says: “Yes, they’re professionals. We admire what they do.” Blah, blah, blah. “Oh, but by the way, we’re going to tell them, on such and such a date, for this amount of hours, what to do.”

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that these are professionals who know what it is, who’ve spent years studying, to do their job, and then we’re going to be micromanaging them out of Victoria. That’s not how you deal with professionals.

If you believe that they are learned and skilled at what they do, then get out of the way and let them do it, for goodness’ sake. That is what teachers want, and that’s what school trustees want. They want to be able to exercise their democratic rights as elected school trustees, and teachers want to be able to go into the classroom and teach without being told and prescribed what it is they have to do constantly.

There are many problems with this bill that I think need to be withdrawn or amended. You know, there’s no rush, frankly. I think that with a fall session and a bill that has got the School Trustees Association, the body that
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represents school trustees right around British Columbia, saying to withdraw this bill…. When you’ve got the profession itself — okay? — saying that they are very unhappy with this bill, then why don’t we put this on hold, frankly, and let’s go and do the consultation?

You know, this government, since the strike, has said: “We want to work together. We want to actually sit down and work with all the stakeholders in our education system to make it a better system.” Yet here we are again, once again, with a piece of legislation which really is ramrodding the views of the government without taking into consideration the experts in their field — the people who actually spend time every day with our kids in the classroom, making them, hopefully, the best citizens that we can hope to have in British Columbia.

I would like to take a minute here just to quote something that I read that came from a former school superintendent who writes here in the Times Colonist. His name is Geoff Johnson, by the way. He says: “Whether any of those elements of the public school system urgently needed ‘amendment’ is a moot discussion. But conflict is an essential element of a good headline, though, and that, in turn, is the bread and butter of politics. In the meantime, B.C. quietly tolerates one in five of its children being raised in poverty.”

You know, we don’t spend enough time talking about some of the real issues behind the challenges that teachers and families face here in British Columbia. I think this gentleman really touches on the root.

[1535]

Instead of bringing in legislation here that’s trying to strip school trustees of their democratically elected duties and to ramrod further rules and regulations down the teachers’ throats, why don’t we actually sit here and have a debate about the challenges of poverty in the classroom and what that has done to affect the teachers’ ability to do their jobs and what it has done to families who struggle to support their kids while they’re in poverty? Wouldn’t that be a better discussion to have here in British Columbia?

Of course, being a province that doesn’t even want to engage in a discussion and have an anti-poverty plan and has — what? — one in five children living in poverty, that’s something that’s perhaps not worth discussing. That’s not as important as bringing in amendments to the School Act which actually don’t make things better and make things worse. I think this gentleman has it absolutely right when he says that that is much more important than these kinds of amendments.

Really, what this bill is, is a bit of a whitewash. It’s a whitewash that doesn’t want to accept and acknowledge the 14 years of underfunding and the fight that the teachers have put on, on behalf of parents and kids. Instead, it wants to change the channel and have some other discussions about controversial elements, while not dealing with the real issues of poverty in the classroom and dealing with the issues of the kinds of changes that were made as contracts were stripped and resources taken out to help our kids. That is really what is taking place with this bill.

This bill, in section 12, appears to give the minister authority over custody, maintenance and safety of school properties. Again, this authority already rests with the school board. So what’s the purpose of taking that away from them? It’s just another example of the fact that we are centralizing our school policy here and making more decisions down here. It’s simply not the right way to go.

In concluding my thoughts, I think it’s fair to say that when you have both the school trustees and teachers upset, and recognizing that there are elements of this bill that are, frankly, contrary to moving the education system forward….

Certainly, given the context of the challenging relationship between the teachers and this government, surely after the strike and everything we’ve gone through, I would have hoped and would have liked to have seen a collaborative approach take place so that any legislation coming into here has input from the main groups who have spent many, many years arguing with this government. At the end of the day, I still trust the teachers of British Columbia to do a better job educating our children than I do the Minister of Education.

C. James: I appreciate the opportunity to rise to speak to Bill 11, a bill, for those who are just tuning in, that proposes amendments to the School Act, to the Independent School Act and to the Teachers Act.

I think, as my colleague before me did, it’s impossible to discuss Bill 11, a bill on education, without beginning with a little bit of history around this government’s approach to public education. And I have to say that it’s not a positive history. I wish I could say otherwise.

The government’s decision and direction on public education began shortly after the B.C. Liberals were elected. They started off their relationship with the public education system by tearing up a contract with teachers. A collective agreement that had been duly negotiated was torn up by this government.

As you can imagine, that certainly isn’t a way to start a positive relationship, a way to begin relationship-building with the education system, with the teachers union and with others — for a brand-new government to decide that that’s going to be one of their first acts when it comes to public education.

I also wish I could say that the B.C. Liberals recognized that this was the wrong direction and that they began to repair it. But sadly, that wasn’t the direction the government took. They decided to continue to pick a fight.

[1540]

I do find it interesting that our current Premier was then the Education Minister, and it was not a positive relationship with the public education system.

The ripping up of that contract, as it would for anyone, caused mistrust, broke the relationship, meant that
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money, scarce dollars, was spent on legal costs. I have to say that that has now been a 12-year, almost 13-year, process of scarce resources being spent on legal fights for breaking a contract.

That meant a gutting of supports for students, because when that contract was ripped up, it meant that support services and other services in schools all across this province, for students all across this province, were gone.

It meant that we saw a huge loss of counsellors in our school districts. It meant that the counsellors that remained were overloaded with caseloads and not able to take on the kind of preventative work that is so critical to our education system — things as simple as anti-bullying programs, things as simple as checking in with students to see how they were doing in the school day. Things that have a direct impact on that child’s education just weren’t able to be done because of the caseload and the workload of the kind of counsellors who were left there.

We had many schools during that time period which lost their teacher-librarians completely or went to one part-time teacher-librarian who also covered off the prep time for other teachers or covered off a halftime in a classroom, trying to do, again, a critical job. When you think of a library, you think of the overload of information that comes in now and the importance of teaching our young people to filter through that information, to be able to make the judgment calls when they go on the Net, to be able to decide what is quality information and what isn’t, to be able to start off their career reading and to be able to discover the joy of literature, the joy of books.

We lost many of those incredible teacher-librarians during that time period. We lost, in many schools over that time period, fine arts programs. We lost sports programs. Not extras. These aren’t extra supports in school; these are critical basics of an education system. We also lost a huge number of support staff, because as resources were cut, that’s often where the squeezing came.

That’s the gutting of what is a critical part of our infrastructure of our province and our communities, which is public education. Did the Liberals stop there? Did they stop and decide: “Okay, we shouldn’t have done that. We shouldn’t have torn up that contract. We need to look at how we support our education system”? No. In fact, what we saw was a continued reduction of funding for public education through the downloading of costs by this government.

I think it’s very frustrating to raise these issues, because I’ve seen the government across the way use this as a tool to be able to try and communicate that they’ve put more money into education. “Don’t worry, the budget is larger than it was before.” Well, what they neglect to mention are all the costs that they have downloaded onto school boards. The costs that don’t get covered, that are larger than the money that’s been put into the education budget.

These are not costs that are decided by school boards, that school boards decide to take on and then say: “Gee, I wish we had the resources for them.” These are costs that are determined by the provincial government and then downloaded on to school boards, which are then told that it’s their job to pick up those costs. It’s their job to cover something off. Decided up here by the provincial government, and by the way, there aren’t any resources to be able to manage that.

We saw it with contract costs over the last number of years. We saw a government that set up a process for provincial bargaining, that determined that it made sense to bargain at the provincial level for school boards all around the province. There would be government representatives at the table because government is the one that holds the purse strings. They’re the ones that are controlling the resources, and so therefore, it made sense to have them at the provincial bargaining table.

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I think there were a number of trustees during that time period who felt that it made good sense. It would make sure that government recognized that if they negotiated the cost of something, those resources needed to come down to the school board. Well, that’s not what we saw and not what we have seen over the last number of years.

We have seen a government that has negotiated costs at a provincial table with government representatives at that table and then not passed the funding along to school boards to cover that. School boards do not have the right to tax. If they are told that something has to be covered, then they have to find the money within the existing budget. What happens when those costs are downloaded? School boards end up having to squeeze their budgets.

That isn’t the only area where we have seen the provincial government download costs. We’ve seen it with an increase in hydro rates. We’ve seen it with an increase in medical service premiums. These are decisions, again, made by government and downloaded onto school boards. School boards are then expected to find and cover those costs.

In the end, it’s the students who lose out. It’s the students who are the ones who end up with less resources, less supports and continued conflict going on, when it should be the years of their lives where they’re discovering all kinds of amazing things.

There are children now who have been in the school system and have known nothing but conflict for their entire education. From kindergarten to grade 12 now, under this government, there are students who, every year, have seen fights, have seen arguments, have seen a government download costs and blame the education system for what’s going on. They’ve seen nothing but scarce resources throughout their education system, for their entire education.

It shouldn’t be that way. It doesn’t have to be that way, and it certainly shouldn’t be that way. From my perspective and, I know, my colleagues’ perspective, there is nothing more important as a resource than our pub-
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lic education system. There is nothing more important than people who dedicate their lives — everybody from teachers to trustees, support staff to administrators, parents to students — who spend all of their time and energy making sure that our public education system is there for every child.

I truly believe that a public education system should be at the centre of every government’s agenda. It’s often the single common thing in our society that brings us all together, binds us together. Most people have been to school. It’s a common experience that we’ve had. It also provides a foundation for all of us as we go to school — a common foundation of literacy, of numeracy and of our history — social and sciences. It provides an opportunity for critical thinking. It provides all of us with a well-educated, thoughtful citizenry, which again, is a benefit to all of us.

We will not have a healthy democracy without critical thinkers. Where do we create critical thinkers? We create them in the public education system. That’s important for all of us. There’s a great John Dewey quote that talks about democracy: “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.” I think it just points out again the important nature of public education and bringing everyone together.

Public education is our opportunity as a society, our obligation as a society, to address inequality. We don’t need another study to be able to remind all of us that a society that invests in education and well-educated citizens is going to be able to reduce inequality. It’ll provide more opportunities for social mobility. We’re going to have a better, well-educated workforce. We’re going to see reductions in crime. We’re going to see reductions in justice costs.

We don’t need another study to remind all of us that investing in education is an investment in our economy. It’s an investment in growth in GDP. We also see the studies, and there are many of them that have come out over the last number of years, that talk about income levels and the amount of money that individuals make as they grow and get into the workforce.

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Again, it’s been clearly shown that income levels rise proportional to education levels. Investing in education isn’t simply an investment for that child and that family. Investment in education is an investment for all of us.

We know that we live in a global economy. We know that things are very competitive and that we, as a province, need to remain competitive. Well, I would suggest that that won’t happen unless we provide opportunities for all of our citizens to have access to equitable, affordable, quality public education. And I truly believe that that has been eroded over the last number of years by the B.C. Liberals and the downloading of costs and the fight in the system and the huge costs that parents are having now to look at to try and provide that equity for their students.

We know, again, that if we take a look at the jobs of the future, many of those jobs are going to be self-created. We’re going to need entrepreneurs. We’re going to need creative thinkers. We’re going to need inventors. We’re going to need artists. We’re going to need writers. Well, I would say that that doesn’t happen without a strong, quality public education system.

The problems and the challenges of today are complex. There aren’t simplistic, simple, one-area answers to all of the challenges we face. They require problem-solvers. They require the ability to work with others. They require people to be flexible, to be critical thinkers.

If you just take a look at one of the major issues facing us today, the whole issue of sustainability and climate change, we’re going to need bright minds to be able to address that issue, to be able to think differently than we’re thinking now, to be able to look at society in a whole different way and to be able to come up with the ideas and the solutions for what we’re facing. Again, I would say that that happens in the public education system. That’s the place where we bring our young people together. That’s where we give an opportunity for them to work together, to problem-solve, to be critical thinkers. That’s the strength. So education and quality public education, in my mind, is key to sustainability and key to addressing the problems and the challenges that we face in the future.

We also know that the links between health and quality health and education are also clear. An investment in public education is, again, an investment in a healthy community, because well-educated citizens are able to get better-quality jobs and able to then make better-quality choices around their health.

I think we all know the continued challenges and pressures that we face in the health care system. Well, prevention — making sure that we prevent many of the costs that we see in our health care system — happens in a quality public education system.

The school is the opportunity to bring many of those services together, but not to download those costs on to the education system. I think if you talk to most teachers, if you talk to parents, they’d say to you that it makes good sense to provide, for example, anti-bullying programs in school. It makes good sense to have a great exercise program in our schools. It makes great sense to have meal programs in our schools because that’s the place that children are. That’s, again, the common experience. We’re more likely to have children together at school than we are anywhere else.

But that doesn’t mean that those costs need to be borne by the education system. That means we need to look at working across ministries and providing those services and supports to our young people. We have seen on the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth over the last while, as we’ve taken on the issue of youth mental health, people coming to present to the committee talking about the real shortage of support for young people
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struggling with mental health and the real challenges that that creates for the family, for the community, for the school system.

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There’s been a common thread running through many of the presentations that have said that the place to be able to provide those services and supports, the place that makes sense, the place that is of comfort to those students, is their school. But does that mean that the school system should cover off all of those costs and all of those pressures when they’ve seen their budgets reduced? No. It means that we need to look at schools and our education system as an investment for all of our futures.

I’m very proud to live in a province that is a multicultural province, where we have people from all parts of the world. It’s a diverse society. It’s a huge strength to us — a huge economic strength to be able to make those connections across the world, a huge cultural strength across the world.

Well, where is the place where we’re able to bring people together of diverse backgrounds, of diverse abilities, to learn to work together, to learn to live together, to learn to support each other, and to see the strengths in each other? That happens in our public schools. You only need to walk into a school these days to see the diverse faces, to see the diverse abilities of students in school.

It’s an amazing thing in our society to have a place where we can teach those kinds of values, where we can value each other, where we can share our cultures, where we can talk about our past, our history, the mistakes made and the strengths we have, and to teach each other from that.

That’s an extraordinary thing in a society. I think we take it for granted, and I think this government has eroded that strength over this last while. In a world of strife and in a world of conflict we can’t underestimate the power of a public school in providing that opportunity for our young people to come together and to learn to live and appreciate and support each other. We need that in our society, and that work happens in public schools, in our public school system.

If you look across government, whether we’re talking about a strong economy, a healthy population, a jobs plan, a multicultural society, prevention of crime, elimination of poverty, strong environmental protection, it doesn’t matter what area of government you take a look at. All of those areas require a strong public education system. They all require a well-educated, caring society, citizens who will be ready for the future. That’s all built in a public education system.

That’s not, sadly, what Bill 11 is about. I wish I could stand here and say that I see a bill in front of us that strengthens our public education system, that builds on all of those things I’ve talked about, that builds on the strength of bringing students together, that builds on the strength of a well-educated society, that addresses inequality, that provides good, strong entrepreneurs for the future — good creative thinkers.

Does Bill 11 build on any of that? No, it doesn’t. What we see is a bill and a government that, for 14 years, has picked a fight with the system and the people in the public education system, has downloaded costs, and now, through Bill 11, decides that the best thing to do to address our education system is to undermine local governance in one of our most important public resources.

Bill 11 puts all of the cards and all of the power into the hands of the Minister of Education system, and I’m sorry, but given this government’s track record on public education, we should all be concerned with that. We should all be worried about that.

This bill states: “…the minister may, by order, issue administrative directives in specified circumstances and set out the requirement for boards.” Then you look to see what specific circumstances or specified circumstances will be. It says if “it is in the public interest to do so.”

Well, that’s about as broad as you can get — in the public interest, as determined by the minister and by this government. I haven’t seen a lot of public interest paid attention to by this government over the last while.

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I haven’t seen the public interest when they brought the budget forward and decided to give a 2 percent increase, a break in taxes, to the top 2 percent income earners and say to middle-income families and others who are struggling: “By the way, you’ve got an increase in fees and services.” That’s a choice that was made by the government.

Do I think that it makes sense for us to bring a bill forward that says the minister and the government will determine what kinds of circumstances are in the public interest and when it’s fine to step in and say to a locally governed board: “No, sorry. You’re going to be gone. You’re not following the direction we want”? It’s not the right direction to go, and it certainly doesn’t support our public education system.

The bill goes on to say that the minister may, by order, issue a directive to a board to participate in or undertake a project in respect of the improvement of student performance or “another matter specified by the minister.” Well, again, that’s about as broad as you can get. That’s about as open-ended as you can get. Any matter specified by the minister — that’s the ability that this bill gives.

To make it even worse, this legislation has been brought in just a short while after a memorandum of understanding was signed between the minister and the B.C. School Trustees Association, the provincial association for boards of education, to say: “We’re going to work on co-governance.” Well, this is co-governance? This is one of the worst examples of do as I say, not as I do.

This is this government once again saying: “Yes, we believe in co-governance. Sign a memorandum of understanding. But by the way, we hold all the power. But by
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the way, while we’re signing this agreement, we make the decisions. Co-governance as long as you’re doing exactly what we want you to do, as long as you follow exactly the direction that we believe is right. If you don’t, by the way, we now will have a tool through Bill 11 to force you to do exactly what we think is right.” Well, that is the opposite of co-governance.

I spent a lot of time, before I got elected provincially, focused on education — 11 years as a school trustee around the school board table and five years at the provincial level. I continue to be passionate about the public education system. I didn’t always agree as a trustee with government, even when it was my own political party around that table. I think most people would tell you that I was vocal on behalf of the public education system and the kids that we governed the system for.

It isn’t the trustee’s job to always agree with government. It’s their job to govern on behalf of the education system, because public schools belong to the public. This government seems to have forgotten that.

There’s a reason we have local governance of school boards. They aren’t there simply for people who have kids in school. They aren’t there simply for a parent who has an interest in their child. They’re there for parents, yes, but public schools are there for businesses and seniors and people who don’t have children and people whose kids have moved out of the system.

As I said earlier, the public education system is a strength for all of us. It builds a strong economy. It supports us all. That’s why local governance is so critical. It provides that local accountability. It provides the opportunity for a diverse range of opinions to come forward. It provides an opportunity for connections to the community that aren’t simply just parents and kids but that do bring those broad ranges of interests around the table.

I believe, in fact, it’s probably more important than ever — in the global economic world that we’re in, in the overload of information that we’re in — to make sure that those diverse views are represented around the school board table. Now, communities are diverse, and so are school boards. If you travel around the province, you can see the strength of B.C. communities. You can see how they’ve benefited from that local representation and that local decision-making.

There is a common curriculum that every school board follows and that every child receives in the province, but there are all the local flavours that come with having local governance.

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I’ve seen heavy-duty mechanic programs and forestry programs in the Interior and the north. I’ve seen biology taught with ocean sciences here on the coast — again, common curriculum, common outcomes but a curriculum that meets the needs of the students in the district.

I think this bill also doesn’t recognize the importance of those local relationships that happen with school boards, the local agreements with municipalities, with community groups, with child care — again, all built on local relationships.

If you don’t build those local relationships, you don’t see those kinds of opportunities with schools — the opportunities to say to parents: “Yes, we’ll provide a space in our school for child care. Yes, we’ll make your life easier by making that connection for you.” Or to the community group that rents the school in the afternoon or the evening that provides opportunities for communities to come together….

You see schools with Rotary groups and other community organizations coming in and providing supports to kids. One of the most powerful programs in one of the schools in my district was a Rotary club that came to an inner-city school to teach chess to kids. They sat and played chess at lunchtime. They started off with, I think, three children, because chess wasn’t a big thing in that school. It was a very diverse, multicultural school. Well, the impact of that chess club — which is now packed with kids, now has kids who wouldn’t miss their lunch hour playing chess — and the impact it’s had on those Rotary members is huge.

First Nations agreements have been signed, again because of those local relationships.

You would never see the provincial government standing up and saying: “Let’s get rid of local municipal government’s decision-making. Let’s be able to tell them.” Well, maybe that’s happened in a few experiences. Maybe they’ve moved in that direction.

[D. Horne in the chair.]

But there is a worry. If they’re able to look at school boards, what’s next? Are municipal governments next? Will governments say: “We can get rid of you if you don’t follow along, if you speak out too loudly about what’s going on”?

The entire community benefits from public education and from local governance, and this bill takes it away. I think that people have asked why this bill is coming in. Well, I would say that I think the bill is coming in because this government doesn’t like it when people complain about their agenda.

The government doesn’t like it when people speak out. Well, I’m sorry. If you’re government, you stand up for your belief and your values. People will disagree with you. But this bill takes that away and says: “You don’t have a right to speak out.”

I think it’s a diversion for government to say: “Don’t look over here where we’re underfunding education. Take a look at Bill 11 and what we’re doing in Bill 11.”

So what should the government do? The government should withdraw Bill 11. The government should actually build relationships in the education system — true co-governance with boards of education.
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They should build a respectful relationship with the people who work in the education system. Show some respect for the extraordinary teachers and support staff and administrators who, every single day, despite the challenges that this government has given them, get up every morning and go to school because they believe in education and they believe in the young people that they are teaching. They believe in opportunity.

J. Darcy: I am pleased to take my place in this debate on education, Bill 11. I want to begin by thanking the members of my community, people in my constituency, who have been sending in lots and lots of emails in the last few days, when I’ve let them know that I’m going to be speaking on this issue in the Legislature, and sharing their thoughts with me.

Let me say at the outset, that this was certainly my belief, the belief of the members of the opposition, also the belief of school trustees, as we’ve heard, the belief of teachers across the province, but it is also absolutely the belief of people who live in my community. That is, that Bill 11 is completely out of touch with the real priorities of parents and kids and educators in our school system.

I’ve asked my constituents what it is they care about. Well, none of what they care most about is reflected in this bill. In fact, this bill is damaging to what their goals are and what they care most about in public education, which is, of course, quality of education in our classroom — issues like class size and class composition that ensure that every child in a classroom has the opportunity to learn and to prosper and to grow.

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They’re concerned about budgets for books and computers and essential tools of learning, and too often our kids have to go without. They’re concerned about having to pay more and more out of pocket for school trips, for programs, for sports activities, which creates, effectively, two-tier access for kids in our schools. They’re concerned about the delay in the program for seismic upgrades, which affects 2,700 children in New Westminster, and they’re very concerned about the need for a new secondary school that is long, long overdue.

They also say, loudly and clearly, that it’s time for confrontation in public education to end. When they hear about this bill, they ask: “What does this bill have to do with anything that matters as far as improving public education in our community in New Westminster or for students across British Columbia?” The answer is: nothing.

Bill 11 does nothing to solve the real challenges that we face in public education today. That’s how my constituents feel. It’s how stakeholders across British Columbia feel. Every major stakeholder group in this province is speaking out and is saying exactly the same thing. That doesn’t happen very often in this province. It doesn’t happen very often in public education. But they are speaking, essentially, with one voice.

One of the most outrageous things about this bill, as my colleagues before me have said, is that there was no consultation whatsoever with key stakeholders before this bill was introduced. A quick phone call? A quick phone call to the leader of British Columbia’s 40,000 teachers before the bill is tabled? By any definition, that doesn’t qualify as consultation.

Now, we do know from the history of this government on public…. We certainly know that this government doesn’t have the first clue about what real and genuine consultation looks like. They’ve been told that. They’ve been told that by the courts on more than one occasion. The Supreme Court of Canada has been very clear on the issue of what genuine consultation looks like. A quick phone call to the head of the BCTF is not consultation.

It’s not just the BCTF that wasn’t consulted. The School Trustees Association had no advance warning of the contents of this bill either, and when they met last week, as we now know, they said very clearly in a resolution they adopted that Bill 11 goes too far, too fast, and it should be withdrawn. That’s what school trustees from one corner of the province to the other are saying. They’re right. It should be withdrawn. The government should back off, and they should engage in a real consultation on the challenges facing education today.

You know, it wasn’t very long ago that here in British Columbia we endured the longest, most disastrous school disruption, affecting 550,000 children and families right across British Columbia, including, of course, in my community. A school disruption, a school strike, that was completely unnecessary, that was provoked by this government. After it was over, what did the Premier say? She said: “I think that in the school system right now, it’s time to heal.” That’s a direct quote.

It’s time to heal. That’s the Premier of British Columbia speaking. That was only seven months ago. Now I guess the time for healing is over. That’s what Bill 11 says. It’s time to pick a fight again — and not just with teachers but with elected school trustees across British Columbia, just like we’ve seen in the past decade from this Liberal government in public education. Confrontation, not collaboration or cooperation. Healing is the farthest thing from what Bill 11 will bring about.

Instead, this government has given itself even greater power to override the decisions of elected school boards. As the member for Victoria–Swan Lake has expressed very eloquently, the government already has more than enough power in that regard to be exercised in extraordinary circumstances. But no, the government wants far more power, far-reaching power in order to intervene in the decisions and the actions of elected school boards.

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As for professional development, the Minister of Education has now been given carte blanche — effectively, complete control — over what professional development in public education could look like going forward.
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Again, as my colleague from Victoria–Swan Lake, the official opposition’s spokesperson on Education, has said very clearly, blank-cheque legislation is dangerous. We shouldn’t make laws like that in British Columbia or in any other jurisdiction. We have too many examples of why that’s the wrong way to go.

When it comes to public education, effectively the government is saying to parents, to students and to educators: “Trust us.” They’re asking the people of this province to trust them on public education after the atrocious track record of this government since they came to power 14 years ago. The Minister of Education says he’ll consult with the teaching profession. He’ll consult with the BCTF — after the bill becomes law. That’s consultation?

You’d think the government would have learned its lesson on that score after having its wrists slapped big-time by courts already on two occasions. Consulting after a decision is made amounts to no real consultation at all. Have the minister or the Premier really gone out and spoken and consulted with parents and teachers about public education? Have they done that? Has the Premier actually asked educators and teachers and parents about public education? Has anyone actually said to the Premier or to the Education Minister: “Oh, I think your priority should be to take away more power from elected school boards? Oh, I think your priority should be to take control over professional development”? I doubt it.

It’s not what I’m hearing in my community. I doubt it’s what any of the MLAs in this Legislature have heard from people in their communities either. What folks in my community are saying is that they are deeply concerned about the lack of investment in public education in this province, for the sake of our children and for the sake of our future and our economy as a province.

What people in my constituency and people across B.C. are concerned about is that under this government we’ve actually declined, from being the second-best-funded jurisdiction in Canada to the second worst — the second worst — with only Prince Edward Island behind us. We’re now $1,000 below the per-pupil funding average in Canada. In 2006 we were the average.

It’s not just the official opposition saying that. It’s not just school trustees. It’s not just parents and teachers. It’s the Conference Board of Canada. The Conference Board of Canada has recently expressed deep concern that British Columbia spends less on education than any of the other western provinces, and they’re deeply concerned about that as far as the health of our economy now and in the future.

We can’t separate this bill from the recent budget that this government introduced, one that said that the teachers’ contract would be fully funded, and then it wasn’t, a budget that actually gave — they certainly didn’t hear from people in my community that this was a priority — the top 2 percent a $230 million tax cut, while all of these underfunded….

Deputy Speaker: On Bill 11 please, Member.

J. Darcy: Well, we’re talking about taking power away from elected school districts. We’re talking about the priorities of this government. Certainly, my constituents feel that the priorities should be investing in public education, not taking power away.

We also had a bipartisan Finance Committee that said exactly the same thing. If we’re talking about consultation, and that’s a critical theme when it comes to public education, we have a bipartisan Finance Committee, and they consulted people about their priorities. Certainly, they didn’t hear: “Take power away from school boards.” They didn’t say: “Take control over professional development.” They said: “Invest more in public education.” People in my community flocked to a community meeting in my constituency office in order to voice those opinions. The bipartisan committee recommended it — only now to see that the government didn’t listen.

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On the issue of professional development, how could the government not engage with the teaching profession on something as fundamental as professional development and still claim that what it wants to see, and what the Premier claims she wants to see, is healing in public education?

Teachers aren’t any different from any other profession. They want to stay on top of their game. They’re professionals. They want to sharpen their skills. They want to learn from the best and the brightest in this province and around the world, yet this government says they should take control over all of this.

The issue of low-hanging fruit, the issue of finding savings in administration, which is one of the things that this bill says is one of its purposes…. You know, when I speak to people who work or have kids in public education, they don’t know whether to laugh or cry when they hear this government talking about low-hanging fruit. That low-hanging fruit was picked a very, very long time ago.

The savings in administration, supposedly back office and support services, which, in fact, are critical to the success in public education…. Whatever low-hanging fruit there was has also been picked a long time ago.

An awful lot of school districts, including my own, have already worked very hard on shared services. They’ve worked with the municipality. They’ve worked with other jurisdictions. They’ve done everything they can to save money. Are they being rewarded in any way for that? Is their initiative being recognized? No.

In fact, through shared services, presumably, they have to share things like legal costs, even though…. Because they built cooperative relationships at the local level with the teachers union and with the CUPE local, they have very, very low legal costs, but somehow this ought to be a shared service — hardly an incentive for school districts doing what it is that they’re elected to do.
[ Page 7834 ]

I want to take my remaining time to share the thoughts that my constituents have shared with me. There are many, and I hope that I get through most of them.

A parent says: “Oh my gosh. Giving more power to the province challenges the system of elected boards. I urge you to speak up for the power of locally elected boards, and most importantly, I urge you to speak about priorities for school funding basics — schools with adequate teachers and support staff such that class size is reasonable and children get the instruction that they need. Schools with physical safety….”

She talks about having a child heading to the high school that continues to be unacceptable. A replacement school has not been built, and the current facility is not safe or acceptable — a very strongly held view in my community.

A child care operator from New Westminster wrote to me: “I run a licensed family daycare, and I have lots of exposure to many different children with many diverse needs.” She talks about a child she knows suspected to have dyslexia, who has gone through grade school without testing. Her parents have been told it’s too late now, after six years of difficulty in school, and now her parents must pay the thousands of dollars for private testing themselves.

Another child she cared for, she said, was non-verbal when she took him in at age 2½. She researched what help was available and got him on a wait-list, but the wait-list was 18 months long, and this was a family that couldn’t possibly afford to pay for private support for their child. The mother was disabled. The father died. No private insurance to pay for any help.

She goes on to say that we absolutely need to give children…. She says: “Why can we not see that helping children early will help society in the long run? Teachers can only do their best and desperately need help from specialized people, but there’s no funding for them.” She talks about future drains on our tax coffers, not to mention criminals: “Every that day we wait, more children fall through the cracks. We need to help them now.”

Another resident of New Westminster spoke on the issue of support services, shared services, special needs students. This is a teacher who lives in New Westminster and teaches elsewhere: “I’ve seen firsthand the negative impact the reduced budget has had on all students in public schools.”

And if you think that there are savings to be found in cleaning and maintenance of our schools, she says: “This year my school has already lost our full-time custodian. My classroom is always dirty. I’ve had mice in my class at least five times this school year. I’ve found mice droppings and dead mice more times than I want to admit, and these can pose a serious health risk to myself and to my students.”

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She also talks about one of her students being on the wait-list for a psychoeducational assessment for over one year now — over one year — and how much that child falls further and further behind. Another of her students has autism and is considered high-functioning. He qualifies only for part-time assistance. Because he’s high-functioning, neither this child nor the other child, with whom he shares the educational assistant, are getting the time that they need.

She says very clearly that this is a direct result of the chronic underfunding that schools have received from this government. Bill 11, she says, will “erode away the rights of parents to have a say in how public schools are run by taking power away from the democratically elected school boards and putting it in the hands of people who are far removed from the daily workings of public school systems.”

A grandmother wrote to me. She’s a former teacher. “Where do I begin? At the end of my teaching career, I found it so difficult to meet the needs of my students. I was an inner-city teacher, and all those little ones were so needy. Now I see things from a different perspective. I’m now a grandmother, involved in the education of my grandchildren.”

She talks about one of her grandchildren. “They had to pay, because of the wait-list, almost $2,000 for a psychoeducational assessment done outside the school system for our grandson as his learning issues were deemed not serious enough to get this done in the school district. It was discovered then that he, in fact, had a significant learning problem and that he required intensive one-on-one daily assistance.”

She goes on to describe that situation, but that story is repeated tens of thousands of times in classrooms and schools right across British Columbia.

She concludes by saying: “Bill 11 will hammer yet another nail in the coffin of an education system that was world renowned. The losers will be the children, the adults of tomorrow, who will have been cheated out of the education that they deserve. Shame on this government.”

Another parent and resident writes to me: “I currently have two children enrolled in public school in New Westminster, and I am deeply concerned that Bill 11 will take away the decision-making abilities from our elected school board trustees and give it to the Minister of Education. Over the past decade decisions like removing funding for learning assistance have had negative impacts on students and teachers in schools.”

She goes on to talk about how hard it is for teachers to manage class size and composition. She concludes: “Elected school board trustees have a responsibility to our children. They understand our city, and they understand the unique needs of each school.”

On the issue of professional development, a teacher-librarian writes: “I need to be well versed in all areas of the curriculum. As one of only two secondary teacher-librarians in my district, I find it more useful to network
[ Page 7835 ]
with secondary teacher-librarians in other districts or schools. I already hold a master’s degree in teacher librarianship, am working on my fourth degree. I know what areas I would like to work on, and I don’t think the minister should be telling teachers what they should be doing on professional development days.”

A parent writes: “I have big concerns about giving the government more power to micromanage education, given how much bureaucracy I see in other areas of government. I’m the parent of two children. One is in grade 1, early French immersion.”

She talks about putting her daughter on the French immersion wait-list as soon as she could. Didn’t get in to the first school, an intercatchment school, so went to the second choice — now 75th on the waiting list. Her child did get into French immersion, but she goes on to say that because of underfunding for special needs children in French immersion: “We have the equivalent of one FTE — one full-time-equivalent — for a resource teacher in French immersion that serves 900 children.”

She also talks about speech pathologists, the shortages of speech pathologists and, therefore, the long wait-lists in that area. In this case, it’s about her daughter. She says: “We had no choice but to turn to a private speech-language pathologist at the rate of $120 an hour, and it goes up from there.”

That’s a huge burden on that family’s budget and pocketbook. Imagine what it means for kids whose families can’t even possibly afford it. They fall through the cracks.

[1630]

Another parent writes about stripping power from school boards.

“I think it shouldn’t be right for the minister to have more power over school boards. This is because school boards’ position makes them understand more what’s happening on the ground than the Education Minister. It quickens the implementation of the set objectives and the planning for our schools.

“The $54 million in cuts are not a very good idea either, because for any sustainable economy like ours, education shouldn’t be compromised at all.”

Yet another teacher and parent writes about the stripping of power.

“I’m concerned about any democratically elected body that would strip the rights away from another democratically elected body through legislation. We don’t have to look too far in the past to see some horrific examples of this poorly thought-out legislative tactic. Elected school boards need their power restored, and that includes removing the threat of firing uncooperative boards.”

She goes on to say that education and spending need to be responsive and localized.

A young teacher writes — she has years ahead of her in her career — and she says:

“The implementation of this Bill 11 right now, at a time when teachers are frantic to cover the last of the curriculum, having lost a month of teaching, and at a time when we are exhausted — students included…. I’m not surprised that this bill has been brought forward. Why not kick us when we’re already down and financially recovering?”

She goes on to say:

“This attitude of top-down governing is disheartening. Every school board across this province is different,” she says. “It is very different, has real challenges. Having an outside source come in and make demands is absurd. Is this not a democratic right — to make decisions as a collective whole?”

She also goes on to say that what frightens her is the ability of the ministry, effectively, to punish school districts that may speak out. She says:

“What frightens me is that those who do squeak and squawk will be crushed by minister directives. Anyone who even thinks of voicing concerns and budgetary woes will be kicked to the curb. I’m so afraid that many boards and trustees will be silenced by initiatives such as these.”

A parent and teacher says:

“I know that government underfunding affects me in the sense that all my classes are very large and diverse to the point of a high degree of inefficiency and unmanageability. I simply can’t help enough of the students who need one-on-one assistance.”

Another teacher:

“I’m outraged that this government intends to control education and the profession of educators. What other profession is governed by the whimsy of elected officials who pay lip service to the opinions of the electorate? Draconian measures used to control educators — supposedly from a government which believes in less government?

“I’ve spent the last 20 years,” she says, “working in inner-city schools. These kids are profoundly disadvantaged at home, severely disadvantaged at school. Many arrive at school hungry. Many cannot speak English. Many, in the case of refugees, have suffered profound traumas.

“Whether living in refugee camps prior to arriving here, exposed to the evil by-products of systemic poverty, living in homes riddled with drug or alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional and verbal abuse, kids with behavioural and emotional challenges need intense support. Kids with learning challenges need intense support. Kids with physical and mental illnesses, with challenges like ADHD, anxiety, depression, early psychosis, Tourette’s need intense support. It goes on and on.

“These kids are integrated into our classrooms, which are then so large and so crowded that even if the kids had the support they needed, the room would be crammed, would be claustrophobic, counterproductive.”

She’s currently volunteering in a north Surrey inner-city school, where she says:

“The staff are completely devoted, the school, the facility and the supplies, the ambience…. It’s very old. It’s shabby and depressing, but the staff are bright, cheery and lovely. The number of kids here who could end up in poverty, in early parenthood, on welfare and in gangs and on drugs and illiterate is mind-boggling to imagine. The money that the government is throwing at the Wrap program to curb the drug and violence and the shootings is a joke.”

[1635]

Just a couple of more comments, a teacher:

“I am a teacher, and I’m weary and discouraged. Here is just one of the many items that continue to dishearten me: professional development. I know best what I need to do in this area. I’m a well-trained professional, committed to continuous growth. Yes, require of me a plan for the year, what I will focus on, what conferences and workshops I plan to attend, but leave the what and the how to me.”

Finally, one of my constituents wrote to me about his deep concern about all children having access to high-quality public education.

“I am a strong supporter of public education,” he says. “It is my view that a democracy can only exist with well-educated citizens. It is our government’s and country’s highest responsibility to pro-
[ Page 7836 ]
vide first-class education to students, from kindergarten through to a PhD or a quality trade school, depending on the student and their goals. Poor and working people should have the same rights as the ultra-rich to public education.”

From the other examples I’ve shared, it’s clear that especially when kids need extra help, when they need extra support that they are not able to get in the classrooms, we’re not talking about equal access to public education. Those are the kinds of issues that this government should have been addressing. Those are the kinds of things the Premier and the Minister of Education should be turning their minds to, not stripping power from elected school boards or taking control over professional development of teachers.

There are many more voices. The e-mails were still coming in when I came into the House a couple of hours ago, so many more stories that I could share from my constituents. But the Coles Notes version is this. This bill is wrong. Bill 11 should never have been introduced. This bill should be withdrawn. This bill is not about healing.

This is absolutely a time for collaboration, for cooperation and for healing in public education. The only way we can have that is if this bill is withdrawn and if the government goes back to the drawing board and really does listen to parents, to teachers, to families, to educators, to school trustees in New Westminster and right across this province.

S. Hammell: It’s with great pleasure I join the debate in the House on Bill 11, the Education Statutes Amendment Act, the government’s latest effort to impose more centralized control over the public education system in our province.

The government’s behaviour, in fact, is quite contrary to the principles of a strong education environment, an environment where there is strong collaboration between team members, where evidence has proven over and over again that the ability to respect and work with others is the key to success not only in the world of education — and, I would assume, in some context, the world of politics — but also in business and in the public sector and the non-profit sector.

Schools have many times stressed the need, particularly in graduate studies and in universities and colleges, that the key to success is developing strong teams and for those teams to work collaboratively together on the problems of the day.

I had the pleasure of working with a young man who has gone on to apply for medical school at a number of universities in Canada. I was fortunate enough to know him for a period of time, work with him on a number of projects and was able to provide a reference to him.

It was very interesting what key questions of the person, the characteristics they were looking for in someone that they were prepared to invest their time in, in terms of medical school.

[1640]

The first one was to communicate well. Communication, they said, was not only the ability to give strong communication or to present a communication well, but it was also to receive and hear what someone is trying to communicate to you. I look at that, and I think of this bill and how well it has been communicated to its stakeholders, not only how well it has been given but how well it has been received.

Another characteristic they were looking for — and in terms of this bill, it’s interesting: is the person or the person they’re looking for teachable? Does that person have insight into their strengths and their weaknesses? Again, when I think about this bill and I think about the context of the education system in the last number of years, there seems to be no evidence at all that the government is aware of any of its weaknesses in terms of its handling of the education system.

Now, another of the characteristics was: is the person amiable and congenial? I do think the Minister of Education has those characteristics. He’s quite a likable kind of guy, a good kind of person to be around — jokes and has a good time. But I’m not sure that is the predominant characteristic that’s going to carry him through this day.

The other question I was asked in terms of this person who was applying to this faculty of medicine was: does the person have integrity? Can you take him at his word? Does he have a strong sense of “doing what you say and saying what you’re doing”? When you look at this bill and its imposition and its presentation — after saying that the government would not do this, that there was a new era of cooperation, that all the team players would be respected and that they would not do this kind of action — we have this in front of us.

Another of the characteristics was — and I just thought this so insightful: does this person respect other values? Can this person get out of themselves, in a sense, and see the world from another point of view? Again, if you look at this bill, there’s absolutely no evidence that the government has any understanding of how the B.C. trustees look at this bill, nor the teachers — two of the key players in terms of running a fine education system that is not only effective but is excellent in its results.

The last characteristic was: does the person work well with others? Again, to work well with others, you have to respect that person. You have to have some kind of integrity so that you’re trusted. You have to be able to understand your strengths and weaknesses and, of course, communicate well — not only communicate out well but receive communication well. It just doesn’t seem to me that this bill has hit home on any of those characteristics.

Let me start with, first, the four sort of pillars that the minister refers to, the first pillar being that of professional development. The Minister of Education seems to believe — and not only seems, is declaring he believes — that it is absolutely imperative that the ministry take control of
[ Page 7837 ]
professional development of teachers. Now, the rationale is that teachers are at the heart of student outcomes. I couldn’t agree more.

[1645]

I am suggesting that the tactic of imposing professional development on a professional body through the ministry is probably the most inappropriate way of putting the teacher at the heart of the education system. You cannot demonstrate that kind of disrespect and then expect excellence, because you’re in fact expressing behaviour that is not excellent. You’re not modelling the kind of behaviour that leads to excellence in outcomes.

Going back to the characteristics that I was talking about, it hardly respects other’s values, nor does it indicate in any way that the minister or the ministry or this government knows how to work well with others. These are fundamental to being able to have good outcomes.

Again, instead of putting teachers at the heart of the matter, teachers at the centre, what we’ve had is a history in British Columbia where contracts have been torn up, where Bill 28 ripped up the supports for class size and composition between the government and the teachers. It tore the very fabric of their relationship and tore it into tatters.

We have this Bill 11 set in the context of a history of torn-up contracts, court cases, legal fees, challenges — a conflict and a confrontation between the government and the teachers. We’ve had strikes regularly. We’ve had disruptions of schools, and this Bill 11 sits in that context. What we are getting here is more of the same.

We not only have not put teachers at the centre. What we have has gravely disrespected teachers and their contribution, and major contribution, to the education of our children.

Even in the conflict that ended up in the last strike, which was the longest strike in the history of the province between teachers and the government, in court documents it suggested that provoking the strike was a deliberate strategy to try to draw anger and resentment from the government to the teachers. It was a part of the strategy. It was admitted by the government’s own negotiators in court that there was an attempt to produce, to provoke a strike.

We have Bill 11 that sits in that kind of context, that kind of tension. You have to ask yourself: what government would use children, our children, in an education system to provoke a strike to promote their benefit?

What we do in Bill 11 is see more of the same — that in fact, we’re right back at it, where teachers are being put at the centre of a dispute and where there was very little consultation. A fundamental aspect of professional development is being usurped by a central government so that they can tell people what they have to do and what they don’t have to do. It’s actually quite outrageous.

The universities….There’s a whole system that develops through academia and through research: what are the elements of what teachers need in their professional development, especially as it works toward educating teachers? It’s no doubt that the teaching profession is aghast at this bill, has asked that it be rescinded and removed from the Legislature.

[1650]

Another aspect of this bill is the fact that we have moved to shared services. Shared services are being imposed on school districts. Again, you have to ask yourself: did the minister communicate well with the trustees? Has he learned anything, and the government learned anything, from the past? Is he teachable? Is the government teachable in terms of being able to learn and grow and become a better government in terms of its ability to handle teachers?

Now, we know, again, that the minister is amiable and congenial, but does he demonstrate a deep sense of integrity when he says one thing to the School Trustees Association and then does another? Does he respect the values that they have to work with and they are operating from? Does he work well with others? Those characteristics wrap around people who are performing at a high and excellent level of development.

These are the questions that were asked of me about this person who was trying to get into medicine, and the description was of a very…. They’re looking for people that are very highly developed and very effective in their execution of their duty.

What we come down to is shared services — again, an imposition of a central government on locally elected school boards. There is a joint responsibility, a joint sharing of power in terms of the school board and the government. Both are elected, and both have a role. But of course, this government has come in with this heavy-handed legislation, and it has demonstrated very clearly it is not into listening to its school trustees at all.

I just need to sort of ground myself again back in my hometown of Surrey, because in Surrey the school board has written to the minister. Now, Surrey is the biggest district in the province. As I’ve said in the past — in fact, a few days ago — in this House, we have 120 schools in Surrey. In fact, we have more classroom portables than some schools have classrooms. We have a huge number of students, 70,000 students, and 12,000 new people arrive to the city every year.

We get 1,000 people every month coming to our city. It’s an extremely fast-growing city, and the school district is growing with it. Our school district, our board, the board of education in our district — again, the biggest district — passed a unanimous motion at its last meeting, last Thursday. I know that my colleague, the member from Whalley, has read this into the record, but I think it deserves repeating.

[1655]

This is from the largest school district in the province. It said: “Dear Hon. Minister” — because it has made sure that this letter has gone out far and wide.
[ Page 7838 ]

“At its 2014-04-24 public meeting the board of education, school district 36, Surrey, unanimously adopted the following motion: that the board of education, school district 36, Surrey, ask government to immediately rescind Bill 11.”

This isn’t about, you know, that maybe we need to talk. This is very clear. The board of education of Surrey, the largest district in the province, has asked that this government rescind Bill 11 — and this just reflects back on those characteristics of a well-developed and high-achieving human — and “allow for a thoughtful and productive dialogue between the government and boards of education about the challenges facing our educational system and any legislative requirements required to promote a quality and sustainable public education system.”

I am quoting the board:

“We believe that the introduction of Bill 11 is neither reflective of our relationship with the Ministry of Education nor with the spirit of a co-governance relationship, as outlined in the BCSTA agreement.”

Again, may I remind you of integrity?

“We believe that as stewards of Surrey schools, we have been strong, consistent and capable governors. We need to bring reliability and sustainability to the province’s education system. This can only be accomplished through a thoughtful and collaborative process.”

Again, I’m off the page here. Can you work well with others? Can you collaborate?

Back to the letter. The board says:

“The board of education has a strong reputation that has been built up over many years. We are indeed concerned that the sections of Bill 11 that pave the way to forcing boards into projects through administrative directives will erode our authority to make local decisions.

“Sincerely, Shawn Wilson, chairperson, board of education, school district 36”

Strong and straightforward. Rescind Bill 11. Go back and allow for a thoughtful and productive dialogue between the government and the boards of education. What an amazingly simple yet clear request by our school board.

I think that it is something that this government needs to consider. It is indeed something that is a reasonable request, and it comes from a school board that has a huge and strong reputation of being cooperative and supportive of the government.

I just need to remind you, and I think most people here would know that, but this is certainly not a board that flies the New Democratic flag. It is a board that is strongly representing and supporting of this government. If this board is upset, most boards across this province, I would assume, are upset. But then I do understand that, in fact, it was passed at the B.C. Trustees Association — that they asked the government to review and rescind this bill.

What these boards are concerned about is the erosion of their authority and their ability to make effective and well-informed local decisions. When you centralize, when you take decisions up into the atmosphere, you lose the knowledge of the ground. When you try to remove, up into the bowels of the ministry, decisions that are then played out on the ground in places like Surrey that are very complex and very challenging, given that we are the largest school district in the province….

Interjection.

S. Hammell: Thank you, Member.

Just reflecting back on what the member just said, this board has a 2 percent administrative cost to it. Now, as the member has said, there is an economy of scale that operates. It is a big district, but to assume that the ministry can make effective and good decisions at the local level is bordering on absurd.

[1700]

In fact, if you look at the one of the messes that the ministry made in its decision to put in a disastrous…. I’m going to quote, again, my colleague: “BCeSIS was an extremely expensive, disastrous and flawed centralized data system initiated by the Education Ministry to collect and process data on all students. It has cost school districts large amounts of unfunded staff time just to try to get it to work.”

Here is a centralized decision imposed on the districts throughout this province, and it is a mess. It has not been successful. It has cost, centrally…. I think it cost $100 million. I’m not sure whether…. I’ve sort of lost track. Is it still around? Is it still…?

Interjection.

S. Hammell: No, I think it was probably, you know: “We tried that out.”

This ministry, having issued that kind of directive, imposed that kind of decision-making and made a mess, then proceeds to assume that it can do better than the local governments. It’s just not possible.

Not only are the school trustee associations opposed to this bill; so are the teachers. Again, the teachers go right back to a government approach from above. You impose decisions on the local area. The absurdity of the ministry pretending to know how to teach best in the classroom is just…. You go back to the member from Cowichan. If you engage and you have respect for and you work with people, you will get the best out of them. But this government does not seem to have the ability to do that.

One of the things about education that makes it something we care so much about is that it is a great leveller. The path of education leads people through and to their dreams. The path of a strong, strong public education system with committed teachers, a government committed to it and committed trustees can take a child from a family that has never graduated to a student that is now graduating. It can take a child from a family that has never had somebody go to university to a child going to university and being successful — going to university, to college, to BCIT or to art school.
[ Page 7839 ]

An education system needs to be the centre of excellence, because it speaks to and supports almost all of the kids in this province. I know not quite all; I think around 90 percent of the kids in our province enter the public school system. It does need to be the best that it can possibly be. We are aware — I can quote my colleague from Victoria — about how far we have fallen when it has come to education.

This government has a great habit of pointing back — as far back as into the last century, let alone the last decade — to try to drag up things so that they don’t have to take any responsibility for their behaviour. But British Columbians…. This government has taken the education system from the second-best in the country to the second-worst. That’s their contribution to education.

Bill 11 continues that drive. It continues to shortchange the people in the education system and continues to drive what was an amazing education system to where people — the parents, the teachers — are having to do more and more just to try to keep it together.

[1705]

From my catbird seat in Surrey, I have watched the resiliency of teachers, students and parents as they struggle through with the education system.

I’ve seen amazing programs at Betty Huff. They have a decade tradition of putting on musicals in the elementary school system. It’s just amazing. I’ve gone to pancake breakfasts at Cindrich, where the teachers and the parents are busily handing out breakfasts to these just really excited young kids. I’ve supervised or participated in public speaking courses at many of our schools.

Despite this government, the schools are continuing to move forward and to put their best in front of their kids, and they do this despite the fact that Bill 11, again, is an assault on teachers. It’s an assault on the trustees. It takes away the ability of local elected school boards to do the most effective things it can for students.

By leave, I move:

[That Bill (No. 11) intituled Education Statutes Amendment Act, 2015 not be read a second time now but that the subject matter be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Education, and further that the committee be empowered to invite witnesses to appear before it to assist in its deliberations.]

On the amendment.

S. Hammell: I believe that this is the best way out of a situation that has not been in fact communicated well, shows no understanding of the other players on the team. There’s been no sort of indication of having learned how to manage the education system in a strong and productive way.

It has the opportunity to put integrity back into the system, where once you’ve said something, you actually do what you’ve said. It also, more importantly, has the ability to demonstrate that there is a respect for other people’s values and that the players in the education playpen can all play together. So I make that motion.

M. Farnworth: It’s a pleasure to rise today and speak to the amendment on Bill 11, an important piece of legislation before us in this chamber — the Education Statutes Amendment Act.

This is an important piece of legislation. Some people say that this bill is an answer to a question that no one has been asking for. That is that it has not come out of any demands or requests from the British Columbia School Trustees Association. It has not come about because of any desire from the BCTF.

It has come about from a government that has decided that it wants to make some changes and that it will impose the changes. That’s what this particular piece of legislation is about.

My colleagues from Surrey–Green Timbers and colleagues previous — the Education critic, from Victoria–Swan Lake — have all outlined, I think, in great and substantive detail the reasons and the concerns about their opposition to this bill and why the referral motion is so important.

What will happen if we move this referral motion, if we agree to refer this bill to the Standing Committee on Education, is there will be an opportunity for that committee to go out and hear from the people impacted by this bill — to be able to hear from teachers across the province, to be able to hear from trustees across the province about the problems and the issues with this particular piece of legislation.

I think this is an important referral motion. I will do my best to, hopefully, convince the members on the government’s side to support it.

[1710]

I think it’s also important to outline for people — for members in the chamber, new members in the chamber, and for those watching at home — exactly what the mechanics of this particular resolution will do. One of the things we have in this Legislature is that at the start of each session we select what is known as a committee of selection. It selects membership on the standing committees of the Legislature.

Most people would think: “Oh, that’s great. You know, there should be committees of the Legislature.” Those committees deal with a variety of topics — for example, whether it’s agriculture or forestry or finance. We have Public Accounts. Many of them do great work. The Public Accounts Committee met today. The Standing Committee on Health, for example, met today.

But do you know what? The Standing Committee on Education — education, one of the largest components of the provincial budget — hasn’t even been constituted. It has never met. Imagine that. We have a standing committee on education in this Legislature, and it has never met.

Why has it not met? Because under our system of operation in this Legislature, a committee can only meet
[ Page 7840 ]
when it is instructed or given a task by this House to do.

This is an opportunity. This is an opportunity for the House to say: “We want the Standing Committee on Education to meet, to go out and hear from people on the implications of Bill 11.” What a remarkable and novel concept that is.

We hear all the time….

R. Fleming: It’s been eight years.

M. Farnworth: It has been eight years, as my colleague from Victoria–Swan Lake has said. It has been eight years since the Standing Committee on Education has met. Imagine that — eight years since the committee has met to discuss education. During that eight years, when you look at what has happened in this province on education issues, whether it is Bill 29, whether it has been the government’s refusal or constant engagement in disrespect and battling with teachers of this province on education issues….

When you look at this bill, in terms of what it does — in terms of the autonomy of school boards and how it interferes on the professional development of teachers — you really think: “How many problems could have been avoided if that Standing Committee on Education had been empowered to go out and talk to trustees, talk to teachers, talk to parents and talk to people involved in the education system?”

I bet some remarkable work would have been accomplished. In fact, we might not be here at this point debating Bill 11 because those issues that Bill 11 tries to deal with…. We could have dealt with them. We could have dealt with them in an informed, educated way, where people come and say: “Here’s our view of the world.” They would have been able to have some dialogue, some back-and-forth discussion.

That would have resulted, I believe, in much more solid public policy that would have benefited our education system. Unfortunately, the government decided not to go that route. Instead, they have gone the route which I think has become a habit for this government, which is a top-down approach — not particularly interested in what the people on the front lines have to say, not particularly interested in what parents have to say, not even particularly interested in what their backbenchers have to say but more dictated by the concerns of the front bench of government and, in particular, the front office of the Premier. That’s not how public policy should be dealt with.

Some might say: “Well, why do we need this committee? What are some of the particular issues that you have a problem with?” I’m more than happy at this point to outline some of the concerns that have been raised and why I believe those concerns should be referred to the Standing Committee on Education and what it would be able to do.

Under Bill 11…. This bill will in essence create or give power to the Minister of Education to develop administrative directives that will, in fact, override the independent authority of duly elected school boards.

[1715]

We just had municipal elections this past November. People put their names forward for a variety of positions on city councils, regional district directors. And one of the most important areas is in education, school boards right across the province. In my own area, in Port Coquitlam, we are part of school district 43, which encompasses the Tri-Cities of Port Coquitlam, Coquitlam, Port Moody, Belcarra and Anmore.

I see, hon. Speaker, a smile on your face. I know that you know that well because you represent that area well, and you’re familiar with the hard work that our school board does. You’re familiar with the hard work that our school trustees do. And you know they do it on behalf of the students of our district and of the communities and the public in the area that they represent.

They were chosen by us. They weren’t chosen by a board in Burnaby. They weren’t chosen by an electorate in Vancouver. They weren’t chosen by an electorate in West Vancouver. They were elected by the people of the Tri-Cities. They are accountable to the people of the Tri-Cities, and they went out and spoke to those people on the issues around education that mattered to them.

At the end of the day, they have an authority, and they should be allowed to exercise that authority without undue duress as to whether or not the Minister of Education is going to come in and say: “You know what? I don’t like what you have decided to do. I don’t like the position that you have decided to take. Therefore, I am going to dictate down to you an administrative directive on how you will or will not conduct certain types of business at your board level — in particular, around the issue of shared services.” It’s one of the key areas where school trustees have, in no uncertain terms, made their position clear.

I’d like to put on the record what trustees have said about this bill. The B.C. School Trustees Association have said they would like an immediate review of the intent of Bill 11 legislation and an opportunity to recommend amendments prior to final adoption, as well as the formation of a management partners working group to participate in the developments of any subsequent process or resulting regulations.

We are in this chamber. We are in this place until the end of May. We, hopefully, will have a session in the fall. During this session this particular bill has been tabled. Trustees, who were not consulted on the bill, have made it clear that it is heavily flawed, that it impinges on their autonomy.

They have asked the government to withdraw the bill. The government is clearly not doing that. They’ve also said they want to be consulted. They want to be able to participate in ensuring that this bill is changed.

Well, the best way to do that is by referring this bill to the Standing Committee on Education so that it’s not just
[ Page 7841 ]
the Minister of Education and the Minister of Education’s staff who decide what is in this bill or decide whether or not to hear certain parties or certain issues on this particular piece of legislation. It will be members of this chamber and members of the Standing Committee on Education who will be empowered by this chamber to go out and talk with trustees.

They would have the power to call witnesses, experts in the field of education, experts in terms of the roles and responsibilities of a trustee, academics who have studied education, teachers whose livelihood has been devoted to the education of our children.

That’s what a standing committee on education would allow. That’s what this referral motion would allow. For the life of me, I don’t know how any government, particularly a government that seems to say: “We want to collaborate. We want to work with you….” Why wouldn’t you want to do this approach? Why wouldn’t you want to support this referral motion? It’s common sense.

[1720]

I think if you asked the public, if you went out and asked your constituents…. I see members busy working away. Actually, they’re probably sending out e-mails right now to some of their constituents.

Hon. B. Bennett: No chance.

M. Farnworth: Now let me clarify my remark. I understand exactly why the member for Kootenay East will not be sending out any e-mails. You know what? I fully get that, hon. Member. I, too, have shared your frustration with the reaction that sometimes people have when you send out what you think are helpful suggestions by e-mail and, unfortunately, they are interpreted wrongly.

The member for Kootenay East — I totally get it. He’s given a pass in this particular case. However, other members in this chamber….

An Hon. Member: Or probation.

M. Farnworth: Ah, probation.

Other members in this chamber who I think have a reputation for being more technologically diplomatic…. I see no reason why they would not want to consult or ask their own constituents as to: “Hey, do you think it’s a great idea that we have a standing committee of the Legislature, composed of members from all sides of the House — even independents — go and listen to a piece of legislation that we thought was a good idea, but we’re hearing some concerns from the parties that this legislation impacts? They’re saying that maybe we should hear what they have to say.”

I see the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head nodding approvingly. I see my colleague from North Island nodding approvingly. It makes sense. So why wouldn’t we do that?

I am asking members on the other side. You know, you may be members of the government back bench, but you are not beholden to the whims and dictates of the Minister of Education or to the whims and dictates of the cabinet. You have it in your power, as duly elected representatives of the ridings and the constituencies that you represent, to stand up and to say no. You have the power and the ability to stand up and say: “You know what? The opposition is right.” You have the power and the responsibility — and indeed, I would argue, the obligation — to say, “Our constituents believe that there is another way,” as opposed to this dictatorial approach that is being taken, “to truly adopt a consultative, more thoughtful approach by supporting a referral to the Standing Committee on Education.”

Now, I have talked a little bit about some of the issues that trustees are concerned about — in particular, the issues around administrative directives and the ability of the Minister of Education, if he doesn’t like the direction a school board is heading, to use administrative directions to force a change, even to the point of appointing somebody else, an administrator, to run the board; in essence, the ability to get rid of a board of education that has been duly elected by the members of its own community.

That, I would suggest, most people would think is a rather draconian approach, one that is not necessary and certainly would not be necessary in a bill that has been developed in consultation with the affected parties and in consultation with a more collaborative approach with the public.

Other parts of this particular piece of legislation deal with professional development. Now, professional development is an important component of nearly all professions, whether they are the legal profession, the real estate profession, the professional engineering profession, the teaching profession — you name it. Professional development is just that. How can I be the best that I can be in my profession? What are the changes and practices that are best practices that are taking place?

[1725]

Those are issues that are determined by the professional bodies themselves. Not imposed by governments. Not changes that government says: “You know what? We’re not teachers, but we think we know what your professional development should look like. We’re not teachers, and we think we know what’s best on how your profession is.”

They wouldn’t dare do that to the legal profession. They wouldn’t dare say to the legal profession: “Here’s how we think your professional development should take place.”

I see the member for Surrey-Tynehead looking at me. I know his background in the RCMP. I can tell you, hon. Speaker, if he was still in the RCMP and the government came in and said, “Here is how professional development for the RCMP is to be conducted,” they would not take
[ Page 7842 ]
kindly to that either. They would not take kindly to being told how professional development is to take place. They rely on their own expertise to develop these kinds of programs. It is the same thing with education. It is the professional body of teachers. It is teachers themselves.

Likewise, the Minister of Health was a veterinarian in a previous…. In fact, he can still, I think, be a veterinarian. The issue again is if the province came in and said, “Oh, by the way,” to the veterinarian profession, “here’s how your professional development will be structured, or here’s what you will do or you will not do,” they wouldn’t take too kindly to that either.

Interjection.

M. Farnworth: Oh, he says if they pay, they expect to set the standard. In other words, what he’s saying is: “We pay your salary, so we are going to decide how your professional development will take place.” In other words, completely disrespecting their professional qualifications, completely disrespecting the role and what and how teachers conduct professional development.

I can tell you that the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head and his professors at the university would not take kindly to the government coming in and saying: “This is how your professional development would be done.” You know?

The point being….

Interjection.

M. Farnworth: Well, I mentioned them. I have mentioned them.

Deputy Speaker: I think the member for Port Coquitlam has the floor.

M. Farnworth: Well, thank you, hon. Speaker. I appreciate your intervention. But nothing that the government has said I have taken offence at. In fact, I find it enjoyable to engage my colleagues across the way.

The point I’m making is this. We have professional bodies that are accredited, that are responsible, and they understand the needs of the profession. That is particularly true when you’re talking about professional development days. The idea that you’re going to go in and say: “Oh, we want to make changes….” Well, hang on a sec. That’s something that needs thorough consultation, which brings me to this point.

Teachers have raised concerns around how the government intends to implement these sections, how the government intends to make these changes. The government said: “Oh, don’t worry. We will consult. We’ll take two years. We’ll consult.” Well, if you’re prepared to take two years to consult, why wouldn’t you want to go out and say: “You know what? Let’s start in a show of good faith”?

The track record of the government has not been that good when it comes to consulting with the education profession in this province. It has not been that good at all. In fact, the consequences of their approach to education and their lack of consultation will, in fact, unveil itself tomorrow, I believe, in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, where an important ruling on education and the government and teachers is going to come down. I know that there will be considerable interest outside this House and inside this House on what that ruling has to say.

[1730]

Whatever that ruling says, the reason that ruling is going to be coming down is because of this government’s record in the past. You can apply this government’s record in many other areas of government policy. So when they say, “Oh, we will consult with you over the next two years,” you can understand why teachers are somewhat skeptical, why they have a hard time believing this government. Why they have a hard time going: “You know what? Hey, the government says we’re going to consult. Tell you what — we’ll take them at their word.”

What would make more sense is if you had a government that said: “You know what? We are going to take time to consult. One of the key ways we’re going to show our commitment to consulting with you — one of the key ways in which we’re going to say in a very public way that you can see we are genuine in our desire to bring changes that work for teachers, but also work if the government has a case that it thinks needs to be made — would be to invigorate the Standing Committee on Education.”

As our referral motion says, empower that committee to hear from witnesses. It’s done so in an open forum. It is done so in an open way, so that not only can the public have an opportunity to hear what is being said and the media has an opportunity to hear and to report what is being said, but members of this House have an opportunity to participate and to ask questions and to be able, in essence, to tell members of government, members of cabinet — in particular, the Education Minister and, I dare say, the Premier — that: “You know what? There are a number of good points that have been raised. A number of good issues have been aired. A thorough discussion has taken place on the issues that matter that will allow us to come back with positive, good public policy that will achieve objectives.”

As I said earlier, I think if you ask most people, that’s how they think this place should work. In fact, it doesn’t work that way, and it shouldn’t be that way. It should work that way. Committees should be, as a matter of rule, on legislation such as this.

I know my time is somewhat limited, and I know that there are many other members of this chamber who wish to participate in this particular piece of legislation. I just want to reiterate, in the final few minutes that I have available to me, once more to members who may
[ Page 7843 ]
be wondering if this is the right approach. Absolutely. It’s the right approach.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

It’s the kind of approach that the public think government should be taking. It’s the kind of approach that I think educators would support, trustees would support — for the government to step back and acknowledge that serious and valid concerns have been raised, that we have a referral motion to the Standing Committee on Education that makes sense.

I would ask — in fact, I would implore — government members to support this referral motion when it comes to a vote. I know in their hearts of hearts that they want to. I know that they don’t appreciate being told what to do, dictated to, by the Minister of Education or the Premier on this issue. I know they understand how important education is to the future of this province and that the professionals who teach in our schools are worthy of legislation that is sound public policy and trustees deserve the respect of this government for the fact that they are duly elected representatives of their community on boards of education that deal with one of the largest expenditures that governments make.

This bill is a bad piece of legislation. The referral motion that we have put forward will allow this bill to be turned into something much more positive. Therefore, I ask the House to support it. And with that, I look forward to comments of other members.

[1735]

J. Kwan: I rise to enter into debate around Bill 11, which is the bill called the Education Statutes Amendment Act, 2015, to which my colleague from Surrey–Green Timbers has just moved an amendment.

The amendment reads as follows: “That Bill (No. 11) intituled Education Statutes Amendment Act, 2015 not be read a second time now but that the subject matter be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Education, and further that the committee be empowered to invite witnesses to appear before it to assist in its deliberations.”

That’s the essence of the amendment which we’re debating at the moment as it relates to Bill 11. I wish to speak in support of this amendment, and I think that all members of the House will know why, even the government members. Since this bill has been introduced in this Legislature, Bill 11, we have been receiving an onslaught of communication from our own school trustees, from all of the ridings across the province of British Columbia. I am sure that MLAs are receiving comments from their own school trustees in their own ridings about their concerns regarding Bill 11.

Now, I will get into the substance of the concerns momentarily, but really, surrounding the implementation and the bringing of Bill 11 to this House, one major concern that school trustees have brought forward is the very fact that the government actually did zero consultation with the key stakeholders around this bill.

How could it be — you have to think about this — that the government could bring forward a major bill that would impact substantively the jobs of another duly elected group of representatives — in this instance, school trustees — in their role as trustees? The government has undertaken this approach by basically bringing forward a piece of legislation that will undermine their authority as duly elected school trustees in their work when they make the decisions that they deem to be in the best interests of the students in their own respective communities.

How is it possible that a government would do such a thing, to bring in such substantive legislation without talking to the key stakeholders? Not only did the government not talk to the school trustees; they didn’t talk to the teachers. In fact, I am left wondering — in fact, many people are left wondering — who exactly did the government talk to when they brought forward Bill 11?

Did they only have a conversation amongst themselves to make a determination of what those changes ought to be? Is that their approach? I’ll tell you this. That has been the pattern of behaviour from this government, whether it be about collective bargaining and their approaches to collective bargaining…. The government would actually not do proper consultation and embark on a process instead and unilaterally bring forward legislation in this House, in this very chamber, by bringing down the sledgehammer.

They think that somehow that’s bargaining in good faith, only to have the courts say: “No, you don’t. You’re not bargaining in good faith. You need to engage, and you need to do proper consultation.” You would think that the government would understand the important message embedded in that, and that is that you need to consult with the key stakeholders around these key decisions. But no, not so. Even as we stand today, there is a major court decision before the Supreme Court of Canada around this issue, and the government is not engaging in proper consultation.

In this instance, what are we talking about? They’re talking about taking powers away from school trustees. In reaction — it should not be a surprise to anybody — aside from individual school trustees that are responding to their respective MLAs in their own area, the body called the B.C. School Trustees Association, on behalf of all the school trustees, gathered together. They wrote a letter to the minister about their concerns related to Bill 11, the Education Statutes Amendment Act, 2015.

[1740]

In fact, this letter is copied to all of us. We all have a copy of it. It’s available, and it’s on the public record. It says, very specifically, to call on the government to actually withdraw the bill. They want the government to withdraw the bill, and particularly in the area where it
[ Page 7844 ]
overrides the authority of elected boards of education.

The government actually has a chance to do something right in this Legislature at this moment in time, and that is to support the amendment that’s been put forward by the opposition, calling on the government to step back and to honour school trustees, to honour education stakeholders, to honour parents, to honour students, to honour the teachers by putting this bill before a committee so that the committee would be able to hear the input from the larger community on what they think about this bill — what needs to be done and what should be done and what ought not be done.

That would be the proper way of proceeding. After all, we do have select standing committees. The government has the authority to actually call these committees and put them into function to enable it to do its work — and I think, in this instance, critical work that would be useful for the government in terms of this bill. It also will show a sign of good faith from the government, where they will actually listen to the community for a change and step back and show a sign of good faith that they will engage with the education stakeholders as it relates to Bill 11. That would be something we can all celebrate.

I heard earlier today that the Premier talked about non-partisanship as we engage in certain issues in this chamber. No question, there’s an opportunity, I say, before her right now to step back and do this work in a non-partisan way. Bring forward an education committee, and engage with the stakeholders to hear from them what they have to say. Then amend the bill — adjust it, if you will — according to the voice of the people.

Now, that would be democracy in action. That would be a government which would show that they will, in fact, listen and value the education stakeholders in British Columbia. I do hope that the government will, in fact, do this.

Aside from the notion of consultation, why this is so important? Substantively, there are sections in this bill that completely undermine the authority of the school trustees. The school trustee from Vancouver, Patti Bacchus…. People will know her. Mr. Speaker, you will know her really well, because formerly she was the chair of the Vancouver school board. She was an outspoken trustee, always stepping up to represent the best interests of the students in our education system and for the Vancouver school board.

Year after year she stood up and challenged the government on the question around underfunding. My colleagues and myself have gone to numerous meetings that are held by the school board where they raised this issue. They want to hear from the public about what their thoughts are with their funding shortfall. This year was no different. Like all the years before, those meetings took place. The Vancouver school board was faced with substantive, chronic underfunding, which the board had to struggle with.

In fact, all across the different boards across the province of British Columbia, the Minister of Education called it low-hanging fruit to say that to cut $54 million out of the administrative budget of school boards was going to be just fine and it was not going to impact the education system. Of course, we know that the majority of the school boards’ administrative budget on that line item is somewhere, on average, around 3½ percent, so it’s already very low.

[1745]

In the case of Vancouver, it’s actually even lower than that. If memory serves me correctly, I think it’s around 2½ percent. The budget is already skimmed right to the bottom, right to the bone, and there’s really no place to cut.

Now, as it relates to Bill 11, you’re wondering: what does budgeting have to do with Bill 11? Why is it important? Well, the bill actually gives the authority to the minister to bring forward administrative authority that the government deems to be the right thing to be done for the school board — to force them to sell off assets, as one example — and to force them to make these decisions.

Whether or not the school board thinks that’s the best decision or not in their own school district, the government is going to veto — in essence, using the powers in the bill that they brought forward to override local school trustees’ authority in that regard.

Trustee Patti Bacchus, in fact, raised this issue in the public realm. In an article that raises this concern, here’s what she said on the question around disposing of school lands: “That’s an area where we’ve had a lot of pressure verbally from government and encouragement to get rid of, as they say, capacity…and my concern, this sort of pressure, to sell off public assets into private hands, and, you know we’ll see a bit of that with this government, and I’m concerned that they’ll be pushing, pushing harder on that.”

In essence, what this bill does is that if the school board does not do what the government wants them to do, the failure to do so…. She goes on to say: “Failure of a board to comply with an administrative directive…is grounds for the appointment of an official trustee.”

That is to say that the school trustees could get fired by the government. They will run roughshod over them and override their decision-making authority, micromanage these decisions on behalf of the board, thinking that somehow the provincial government — which is not the order of government who is given the responsibility to operate the everyday functions of our education system; that is done by the school trustees in their decisions — will, in fact, now have the authority under Bill 11 to actually override the school trustees’ decision and run roughshod over them.

If they don’t agree and do those kinds of things the provincial government wants them to do, they will simply get fired. That’s the essence of Bill 11. You will see why school trustees will have a lot of concerns around this
[ Page 7845 ]
kind of change. And get this: for the government to bring this level of change forward without consulting with them, without talking to them is absolutely astounding to me.

Now, I know that the school trustees — because the B.C. School Trustees Association has written to the minister — have raised this issue. And then the government’s response is to say: “Oh, but don’t worry. It’s going to be okay because a lot of this stuff will be done through regulation, and we’ll consult with you then.”

Really? You will consult with them after the bill has been passed? If the government says that they will consult with them after the bill is passed…. They somehow think that is the proper way of doing things. Then I have to ask this question. What is the purpose of that consultation after the bill is passed?

What is the purpose of it? The government has already put in place the very provisions that will take away the authority of the school trustees.

What’s the government going to do? Are they going to come back and recall the bill? Are they going to repeal the legislation after they’ve passed it and say: “Oh gee, oops, sorry. We’ve done consultation now and, guess what? People don’t like it, and they disagree with it, and in fact, they offer better solutions on how we should proceed”? What is the government going to do — come back and repeal Bill 11? I think not.

A logical way to do this was simply to stand down this bill right now, accept the amendment that’s been put forward, strike the committee and have this work, the consultation work, be done by the committee.

[1750]

Once you receive the input, then you say these are the changes that need to be done with Bill 11. Then after the change has been made the government can actually table that bill. Then we can have a thorough debate around that bill — again, in this House — and then go through the various steps and processes in adopting the bill. That would be a proper way of doing things.

I don’t know if anybody on the government side is paying any attention to the amendment that has been proposed and would be inclined to consider this, even just remotely. I fear, actually, that the good amendment that has been put forward by my colleague the member for Surrey–Green Timbers is going to fall on deaf ears. I’m not even sure if it’s going to be noticed by the government at all, by the government members. But I do hope somebody somewhere out there on the government bench side is paying some attention to this important amendment.

I know that the B.C. School Trustees Association would be supportive of this amendment. I know that the school trustees would be in support of this amendment. That’s what they’re calling for. They’re calling for the government to stand down and do the proper consultation.

Another piece of this section of the legislation that the government has put forward I find quite interesting. I was here when this debate took place, when the current Premier, who was the Minister of Education and the Deputy Premier back then, brought forward that legislation back in those days and introduced this concept of school planning councils. So guess what. Now, in Bill 11, she’s calling for the elimination of school planning councils, the very body that she established and that she touted as the way to go forward in terms of establishing student achievements and so on.

Lo and behold, now that she’s the Premier — when she was Deputy Premier, she brought this forward — she’s saying: “Oops. That was actually a big mistake, by the way. I admit it now, ten years later. Hopefully, nobody remembers that I brought the school planning councils in place. Maybe nobody will remember. But you know what? It actually didn’t work. So we’re now going to get rid of it, and it’s going to be done through Bill 11.”

It’s interesting to me, because that’s an admission of her failure on that question. It would be really good, though — wouldn’t it? — to actually hear from the stakeholders about that question. How did it work? Where did it fail? Why?

The government is now cancelling it, getting rid of it. Maybe we should learn from that experience. After more than ten years of it being in place, maybe we should find out how it failed the system. Then you can put a better system in place and say: “This is what we can do to do better on behalf of the students and to make sure that we achieve the goals that we set out.” I know the government says all the time that they want to do this for the students. Well, if you want to do this for the students, then do it right.

Surely, the government will understand the importance of consultation with key stakeholders on any legislation, not the least of which on a major piece of legislation that impacts our educational system, not the least of which when the educational system impacts the future of the students. When we all say around this chamber…. I believe that all of us believe in this concept, which is to say that we need to invest in the future generation.

I have children. Everybody has got…. Actually, some people have got grandchildren — many, many grandchildren. You want a good future for them. The way forward, in terms of that good future for them…. There are many things, but one of those key factors is the foundation of it, and that is a good education. Therefore, an educational system that is sound, that is supported and that has investment put into it would benefit not just individual students but would benefit the entire province.

[1755]

In terms of an investment, it is a key investment into the future of British Columbia socially, economically and culturally. It is what makes us function well in a democracy, when you have those kinds of investments in place and when the young ones are in a situation where the foundation is laid and where they have the opportunities to succeed and to maximize their potential. So it is very
[ Page 7846 ]
interesting to me that the school planning councils are now going to be eliminated.

The other issue that has been brought up — I’ve heard other members talk about this, and it is worth, I think, a mention — is that the government says one of the things that they want to go through is to force the school boards, to compel the school districts to take part in what they call shared services — that is to say, really, basically forcing school boards to amalgamate their services. And if the school trustees and school boards don’t want to participate in that process with whatever service that has been identified, the government will override that decision, as well, with this bill. That will be the authority that they would be given — to override the school board’s decision.

In some ways, really, when you do that, then the school boards are no longer making their own decisions, are they? And particularly, for the smaller school boards, if they’re forced to engage in a process that they don’t want to participate in, in essence, I would say and I would argue, their voice has effectively been lost.

So what is the purpose, then, of having a duly elected school board if the government is going to do this kind of thing? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that you’re going to honour local authority and local decision-making and then, at the same time, bring in legislation that will override them and run roughshod over them and make those decisions for them when you don’t agree with them. In some other countries, when you have that going on, it’s not a democracy. You can pretend that it’s a democracy, but in reality, it isn’t.

That’s what this bill is proposing to do with local governments. On decisions that the government doesn’t like in certain areas, they will have the authority to override them, and if the school boards don’t proceed, actually, they could simply just get fired. That’s what we’re talking about in terms of this undemocratic piece of legislation.

My colleague the member for Port Coquitlam also mentioned this issue, the question on professional development. It is fascinating to me that the government would do this, that they would actually have control over teachers’ professional development. It’s not like legislators are experts in that sector or that field. The people who are experts on that question are the teachers themselves. So why would the government make a decision and put in the legislation to say that the government will now have control over teachers’ own professional development?

You wouldn’t do that for any other profession. You don’t do that for lawyers. You don’t do that for doctors. You don’t do that for any other profession, yet the government has singled it out to say: “But that is what we’re going to do for teachers.”

Really? Why is the government doing that? After all, I think I’ve heard the Premier say this too: how much she values the teachers, right? But is this how you show value and trust, to say: “I actually no longer trust you in terms of how you’re going to proceed with your own professional development. In fact, we, the government, will know better, and we’re going to tell you how you should do that”?

That’s what the government is doing, in essence, with this piece of legislation, and that, to me, is absolutely shocking, an absolute level of disrespect that you can show to any profession when you do that kind of work. And let’s be clear. These are not regulatory measures. It’s professional development measures that the government is bringing in place.

[1800]

To that end, it would be wise for the government to stand down this bill, to support the amendment so that it would be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Education and to empower that committee to invite witnesses to come before it so that we can hear their points of view, so that we can engage in that fulsome deliberation on what is the best approach in going forward and so that we can, in fact, ensure that we have a world-class education system for everybody.

When we talk about the education system, we know that is dependent on partnerships, partnerships where people go to the table, where you are sincere and genuine and where you actually treat everybody as partners around that table. To that end, the government….

If they really wanted to do that, then they will need to hear what the B.C. School Trustees Association is calling for, what the B.C. Teachers Federation is calling for. That is for the government to stand down this bill, to engage in a proper consultation process and to not bring forward changes that would infringe on the authority of the local governments in their decision-making.

That would be the right thing to do. That is going forward in such a way where you can actually build partnerships in a harmonious way, not in a way that is confrontational and that will infuse this system with further animosity. We just came through, as you know, the longest strike that we have experienced in the province of British Columbia, a very bitter process. The teachers certainly did not want to be in a striking situation, yet the government forced their hand once again in that situation.

By bringing forward this bill in this way, I’m very afraid that the government is, once again, creating, I think, animosity in the process — now with the school trustees, with the teachers and with all the major key stakeholders that are very much part of the education system.

The other piece that I want to bring forward around this legislation and around the amendment that should be in place is this. If we stand down…. This amendment, actually, would also give MLAs the opportunity to go back and consult with parents, as well, and let them know that there is this process of the committee to which they can provide their input. I say parents are a major stake-
[ Page 7847 ]
holder, as well, in the education system. We ought to hear from them about what their thoughts are and how to best proceed.

That said, I see that my time is now fast running out. I would urge all the government members to pay attention to this, a sound amendment to re-establish ourselves, to re-establish the government’s standing in going forward and engaging in a proper process of consultation and doing it in such a way that I think would help build the kind of partnership that we want in going forward, as we embark on the process of bringing educational changes with respect to the School Act.

With that, I hope that the members of this House — the government members, the opposition members, the independent members — will support this amendment. I’ll look forward to hearing the debate and their points of view as it proceeds and, ultimately, to voting for this amendment, which I hope we’ll pass so that we can turn a new leaf on how we move forward with respect to Bill 11.

S. Simpson: I’m pleased to have an opportunity to participate in this debate around Bill 11, the Education Statutes Amendment Act, and, more specifically in this case, the amendment that has been moved by the member for Surrey–Green Timbers.

[1805]

It would, in essence, take this piece of legislation off the table, give it to the Education Committee, have that committee go and engage a full consultation — including bringing the legitimate stakeholders, the legitimate partners and the public to the table to hear fully their views on Bill 11, their views on aspects of Bill 11 — and then bring the legislation back at a future time with a report and allow us to engage debate on it then, possibly with amendments, if the government chose to take those.

That’s what we’re looking at today. The reason…. I think the first thing I want to do in discussing this is talk a little bit about the bill and what it entails so that we can have a perspective about why this amendment makes as much sense as it does. It certainly does make a lot of sense.

Bill 11 is a piece of legislation that essentially undoes and unwinds what has been the long and rich history around co-governance of our education system. We’ve always had a system where we had local school boards that are elected locally and have an administrative function — the application of policy, dealing with issues around application of curriculum and that — and the provincial government, which obviously develops curriculum and does a lot of that work and provides the funding. It has been a co-governance model. It has always been a co-governance model.

School boards, because of their nature and their local sense, often create a partnership within their own construct. That’s a partnership that includes teachers, local teachers associations and parents, usually through district parent advisory councils. Together, they have the discussion and the conversation around education.

Most school boards — I think it’s fair to say the vast majority of school boards — are pretty engaged with their partners in education. They’re pretty engaged in that discussion with their local teachers, with what is often the local CUPE local that deals with support services, and with parents, through the parent advisory councils and the district parent advisory councils.

That’s the model we have. What we have today, though…. The government has introduced a piece of legislation that, frankly, has been…. I’m not sure that it surprised partners. I think most of them are pretty cynical about how much this government cares or doesn’t care about education — and certainly how much this government cares about anybody else’s opinion on education. I think most people are pretty cynical about that.

What this bill does is it centralizes government control of education. It says the co-governance model is dead for all intents and purposes. It says the co-governance model is finished. It says: “We know best. We in Victoria know best for the Cariboo. We in Victoria know best for the Kootenays. We in Victoria know best for Nanaimo. We know best for Williams Lake — and any other community that you want to pick.”

That’s what Bill 11 tells us. That’s what the view of this minister and this government is. Why do I say that? Well, when you start to look at where the government erodes further…. First of all, the amendments of the bill clearly centralize government control and strengthen government controls over education.

They unilaterally give authority to the minister to impose shared services and projects to improve student performance. There’s nothing in here that says you’ve got to talk to students. Nothing in here that says you’ve got to talk to teachers. Nothing in here that says you’ve got to talk to parents. But somehow in here you’ll improve performance.

I suspect there’s a lot of skepticism out there by teachers, by parents, by students and, I suspect, by trustees, when you look at this legislation, over whether this government is a body that you would want to give any more authority over anything. That’s another matter. But that’s what this bill does.

Also, this bill begins to impose around professional development for teachers. It does it unilaterally, and it has done it without discussion with teachers. Now, you would think…. And we’ll have to see what happens tomorrow. We’re going to get a court decision tomorrow from the Supreme Court of B.C. We’re going to get a court decision over the ongoing legislation.

[1810]

It’s going to be very interesting to see what that court decision is. But we know every court decision up to this point has said the government has broken all the rules when it comes to consultation with teachers and when it comes to the way that it has imposed on teachers. That’s
[ Page 7848 ]
what the courts have said. We’ll see what tomorrow says.

What this says is that we are going legislate more imposition through professional development. Professional development usually is a matter for teachers, for school boards, for other educators, for curriculum development — a partnership that says: “Let’s look at how we develop and evolve the best in professional development.” Well, this says that the government knows best. That’s what this says.

There’s been a lot of debate around school planning councils. They’re a tool, though, for parent involvement, another tool for parent involvement. They’re a tool that many parents, I think, supported. I think that there are challenges around them, but parents did support tools that gave them stronger voices. I think that when school planning councils were brought in, there was certainly a fair body of parents who thought that they provided a stronger voice.

They’ve been eliminated. I didn’t see anywhere in here where BCCPAC or the parent advisory councils or other school trustees or any of those people were talked to before that decision was made.

The bill appears to give the minister authority over custody, maintenance, school safety of properties — authorities that currently, probably more than any others, rest with school boards. It now takes many of those administrative functions and says: “We have authority over those things.”

What the bill does is it just unravels the co-governance model. To be clear, the model today, pre–Bill 11, is a model that still heavily weights in favour of the provincial government, in favour of the Minister of Education. The Minister of Education has lots of authority today. The Minister of Education has lots of ability today. The Minister of Education has control over the budgets.

We know the Minister of Education today can appoint administrators. We have this situation in Vancouver. The Minister of Education gets up on his high horse and says: “I’m appointing an administrator because the Vancouver school board can’t manage things.”

Well, let’s be clear. First of all, the Vancouver school board never, ever said it wasn’t bringing in a balanced budget. The Vancouver school board went out and contracted Pricewaterhouse. They contracted independent expertise to give them advice on how to manage some of these challenges that they face, and they face real challenges. They did that, but when the minister was asked, he didn’t know that. That’s stunning. He didn’t know it because he never had a conversation with the Vancouver school board about the notion of an administrator. He just announced it. How is that co-governance?

How is anybody to believe the Minister of Education when he says, “I’m about partnerships and co-governance,” when he appoints an administrator without even having a conversation about whether that makes sense, without even having the facts about what that board had done? As a result, he’s alienated that board.

Now, there are those in Vancouver who believe that the minister is pretty keen about Vancouver closing some schools — that the Minister of Education wants some schools closed and that he doesn’t think the board will necessarily do that. He’s concerned the board may manage its budget without having to do that. So he’s got an administrator in place. We’ll just see, when that administrator reports out, whether that administrator actually says, “I think we’ve got to close a few schools,” and then we’ll go from there. So we’ll just see what happens.

That’s probably the most glaring example of the government just dismissing the historic partnership, the co-governance model that has been in British Columbia for an awfully long time in terms of the administration of the education system. We have this situation where that is what has happened.

[1815]

What have we done on this side? We have moved a motion that says it’s time to have a broader conversation. It’s time to consult. You have brought in a fundamental piece of legislation — a piece of legislation that changes the rules, that guts the partnership — and you’ve done it without talking to anybody. That’s what you’ve done.

When you start looking at what people have to say about this, you start to realize that it’s glaring. The B.C. School Trustees Association…. We know the school board and the school trustees are the natural partner. They are the other partner to the minister and the government in this partnership around education.

Well, the school trustees recently had an annual general meeting. This was the topic of the annual general meeting. I would note that unlike most years, the minister didn’t see fit to go to the annual general meeting, didn’t see fit to talk to the school trustees, didn’t see fit to be in the room. He didn’t see fit to take the questions and the challenges.

He sent a video message saying: “Have a good meeting.” But he didn’t have the courage to stand in that room, take those questions and discuss these matters with the duly elected trustees who are in place to deal with and manage education in their respective jurisdictions and districts.

Frankly, it’s insulting that the Minister of Education can’t find time to sit down with the governing body for school trustees provincewide. That’s pretty stunning. But he did. He said: “No, I’m not going.”

I suspect he didn’t go because it would have been inconvenient for trustee after trustee after trustee to have come to the microphone and tell him what a dismal failure he is as a Minister of Education, to tell him what a dismal failure this piece of legislation is, to tell him what a dismal failure he was in dealing with teachers. That’s what we would have seen.

So what the trustees did, of course, is that they dealt with the issue. They couldn’t get the minister. They dealt with the issue themselves. They passed the following
[ Page 7849 ]
resolution at their annual general meeting, the following three motions in regard to Bill 11. First:

“That the B.C. School Trustees Association demand the government of B.C. immediately withdraw the sections of Bill 11 that override the authority of democratically elected boards of education, specifically where Bill 11 adds new provisions which broaden the minister’s authority to issue administrative directives, where Bill 11 would amend the special adviser provision and where shared-service providers are designated by the Minister of Education.”

The school boards at this meeting, at their annual general meeting, said: “This bill has to go.” This bill rips up the contract between school boards and the minister, between school boards and the B.C. Liberals. It rips it up with no good reason when we know that the challenges these boards face are challenges that have largely been created by the way this government has decided to administer the resources that go to school boards.

That’s where the problem lies, but instead, we have seen Bill 11, and we know what the school trustees say. The school trustees also “publicly advocate strongly against the erosion of local board of education autonomy in Bill 11.” That was the second motion that was passed by the trustees — a motion that clearly says: “We are a legitimate partner here. We are democratically elected. We are put in place to be the local voice for education.” They are put in place to be advocates for education in their communities, in their jurisdictions. That’s their job.

But it’s inconvenient for this minister, it’s inconvenient for this Premier and it’s inconvenient for the B.C. Liberals to have people speaking up for community, speaking up for kids in school, speaking up for parents, so we’ll just take their authority away. What the BCSTA says in this resolution is that they strongly oppose that erosion of board of education autonomy.

Third: “The B.C. School Trustees Association demand an immediate review of the intent of Bill 11 legislation and an opportunity to recommend amendments prior to final adoption as well as the formation of a management partners working group to participate in the development of any subsequent processes or resulting regulations.” That’s what they say.

The government may want to ignore the school trustees. That may be the notion here, but it’s not good government. It’s not good government by any standard.

[1820]

The amendment moved by the member for Surrey–Green Timbers says: “Let’s deal with that.” The amendment doesn’t say that the bill should disappear. I might say that the bill should disappear. The amendment doesn’t say that. The amendment says to send the bill to the Education Committee of the Legislature.

Now, some of us may vaguely know about that committee. It’s a committee that doesn’t do anything. It’s like most of the committees of the Legislature. They don’t function. A handful, a small number, function — some, like Public Accounts, because they’re obliged to. A few others function. The majority of committees don’t function. Education essentially is a non-functional committee. That’s the reality.

Well, it’s time to put the committee to work. As the motion, the amendment, from the member for Surrey–Green Timbers, has said, it’s time to put that committee to work. It’s time to say: “Convene the committee.” Give the committee authority and direction.

Tell that committee to go talk to people. Talk to school trustees. Talk to teachers. Talk to parents. Talk to students. Travel a little bit. Go to different parts of this province. Talk to urban boards — the Vancouvers and the Victorias. Talk to rural boards. Talk to northern boards. Talk about this piece of legislation. Talk about the issues that underlie this piece of legislation. Talk about why this piece of legislation is good, bad or indifferent.

I assure you, hon. Speaker, if you have that conversation, you’re going to hear two things from the vast majority of those participants in that discussion. One group of them, I think, is going to say: “Get rid of it in its entirety.” Another group will say: “Here’s a series of amendments to this bill that might make it palatable.” But I will assure you, you would not….

The Committee on Education, the Education Committee, would go out on the road, and they would not find support for this bill. They wouldn’t be going community to community where parents and trustees and teachers were standing up and saying: “What a great piece of legislation. You couldn’t do that fast enough.” That’s not going to happen.

Pay a little attention. It’s far too easy to sit here in Victoria and play Father Knows Best. It’s far too easy to do that, and that’s exactly what the minister is doing. Being the Minister of Education is a tough job, but it’s a tough job because you need to be able to build consensus, you need to be able to build common ground and you need to be able to find agreement on challenging issues.

This minister has decided that’s too hard for him, that’s too much work for him, so instead he brings in a piece of legislation that just says: “I will sweep all of that away, and I will do what I want to do because the legislation says I can. I will do what I want to do because I have 40-odd friends on my side who will adopt the bill and allow me to do that.”

It doesn’t matter if it’s good for B.C. It doesn’t matter if it’s good for kids. It doesn’t matter if parents like it. It doesn’t matter how teachers respond, and it certainly doesn’t matter how the duly elected respond. It doesn’t matter one little bit. That’s the challenge in what we face with Bill 11.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

The amendment will take us to a different place. It will take us to a place where we can start to address some of these issues. It’s pretty important that that happen, be-
[ Page 7850 ]
cause when you go back and you start to look at what the bill does — and I outlined some of the key points in the bill — you see the problems. And when you look and you start to listen to what people in the community, respected leaders in the field of education, say, it also becomes very concerning.

The Delta school district, the chair of the Delta school district, said in a letter to the minister: “We have been democratically elected to safeguard the resources of our district on behalf of our constituents. We must, therefore, speak against any legislation that would alter this mandate by placing an unelected special adviser who is not accountable to our community in front of our trustees’ ability to serve our community.” That’s what the school district in Delta said to the minister in response to Bill 11.

[1825]

I’m sure that chair would like nothing better than for the amendment of the member for Surrey–Green Timbers to send this to the committee, to have that happen, so that she could appear in front of that Education Committee and make that case to a group of MLAs who are supposed to be listening.

The chair of the Burnaby board said: “It appears this government does not want to cooperate with anyone in education, whether it be trustees or teachers. They talk a great game about consultation, but they never do. They make announcements and afterwards back-pedal, saying they want to discuss it.”

How dysfunctional can that be? Now, we know that seems to be the way this government does a lot of things. They jump in. They don’t do the background work. They don’t do the due diligence. They don’t pay attention to their staff. They make announcements. The Premier makes an announcement somewhere, and the minister and the staff scramble to cobble together whatever the Premier thought of that particular day. And then you have bad legislation.

We certainly have that with Bill 11. You know, it’s not just in the Lower Mainland, not just the Deltas and the Burnabys. Prince George — it’s very concerning. The trustees in Prince George — it’s very concerning. And its implications we really don’t know until we’ve had a real good chance to look at what it means for the board governance, what it means for board autonomy and what it means in a lot of ways. That’s what the trustees in Prince George are saying.

This isn’t a Lower Mainland thing. This is provincewide. This is across the province — trustees saying: “You’re ripping up the contract. You’re ripping up the contract between locally elected trustees and the provincial government and the Minister of Education.”

Trustees in Vancouver are saying, when they’re talking about regarding administrative directives and how they may force a school board in Vancouver…. I talked about school closures. It’s a real issue in Vancouver. It’s a real concern that the administrator is there for the sole purpose of forcing the dissolution and the dissolving of some of those properties. What they’re saying in Vancouver is: “That’s an area where we’ve had a lot of pressure verbally from government and encouragement to get rid of, as they say, capacity.”

This sort of pressure to privatize, to sell off public assets into private lands — and you know we see a bit of that with this government, and I’m concerned that they’ll be pushing harder on that. We’ve already seen how good the government is at asset sales. You just have to go up to Burke Mountain and you can see how capable they are on asset sales, but we’re talking about that there.

Even the new chair of the Vancouver school board, Mr. Richardson, who I would suspect politically would be closer to the government — certainly closer to the government than he would be to this side…. What did Mr. Richardson say when he talked about the minister and he talked about this legislation? “He’s reshuffling the chairs of the Titanic.” That was his take on Bill 11.

There are many more — board chairs, trustees, one after the other — saying that this is a bad idea. There’s nothing good about this idea, and it shouldn’t happen. The question becomes: why wouldn’t the government do this? There’s nothing compelling about this legislation that it’s urgently needed now. Absolutely nothing.

It’s a major policy shift. It’s a major move in the way government functions in education. I can’t think of a piece of legislation that would be more ideally suited to have this second reading debate as we’ve had it, adopt this amendment, send it to a committee of legislators, a committee of MLAs, the education committee with very clear direction to go out and talk to British Columbians, talk to school trustees, talk to teachers, talk to parents, talk to students, talk to academics who pay attention to education — talk to all of them.

Make some judgments. Debate within the committee among members. Look at the detail of this. Look at the consequences. Look at the pros and cons. Look at all of that. Prepare a report as a committee. And then bring that report back here in the fall. If we have a fall session. Bring it back in the fall.

[1830]

If the government’s not going to have a fall session, bring it back in the spring. Bring it back then. Let us see what a group of MLAs from all sides of this House do — a group of MLAs who are tasked with the job to go out and engage British Columbia in a discussion about education, to engage school trustees in a discussion about the co-governance model and how that model works, and then come back and say: “Here’s what we learned. Here’s our assessment of what we learned. Here’s our evaluation of what we learned. Here’s what this means for our thoughts, as a group of legislators, about Bill 11.”

It would give teachers an opportunity to sit down at that table and talk to legislators about how this impacts; to talk to legislators about what professional development
[ Page 7851 ]
really means; to talk to legislators about why, as teachers, they might have a better insight and a more thoughtful approach to what professional development means than the Minister of Education has. I suspect that that’s a pretty easy bet that that’s the case.

It would give parents…. We know that parents want to be engaged in the system that their kids are part of. We know that parents want to have a say. Yet that engagement of parents is largely with their local schools, and it’s with their school boards. When parents want to talk about education, they go to a meeting of the local school board, and they talk to their school board. They don’t come and talk to the Minister of Education. They go to their school board, and they talk about what’s happening in their school.

Well, this piece of legislation says to parents: “We are diminishing the value of that. That school board really isn’t going to have the authority, in any meaningful way, to be able to help you solve your problems, because I, as the minister, am taking that authority away. It’s my decision. It’s my choice. I will decide.” When the minister does that, it diminishes the role of parents.

Why would this government want to turn its back on duly elected school trustees? Turn its back on parents? Turn its back on kids? They certainly never get to the minister. They might get to talk to the principal or their teacher. They certainly never get to talk to the minister. Every once in a while, they do get to talk to their local school board.

In Vancouver they’ve adopted the model of having a student trustee on the school board, so there is a student voice on the school board. It’s working. I’ve talked to the student trustees. I’ve talked to the other trustees. They’re all excited about it. They’re excited about making sure they have that voice at the table. That voice becomes less valuable when the school district and the school board become less valuable.

It’s bad legislation. We’re not saying “throw it out.” I might say, “Throw it out,” but that’s not what we’re saying. We’re saying: send it to a committee. Let the committee do its work, and bring it back. You’ll have lots of time to adopt it, if you want to adopt it, but at least it will have gone through some kind of process.

As the minister is turning his back on co-governance, turning his back on consultation, he’s not just doing it with the content of the bill. He’s doing it with the whole existence of the bill by turning his back on consultation about whether Bill 11 should even exist.

Bad legislation, more bad legislation, by the B.C. Liberals. It truly is time to send this somewhere else. The member for Surrey–Green Timbers has put the option on the table to do that. I wish the government would adopt it. I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen.

N. Simons: Thank you to my colleague for warming up the crowd. They were very engaged. You can tell. I’m sure that the soothing words you had to offer have made them all feel better that they have an option. The government has an option now. They’ve been rescued by the opposition giving them one last chance, referring this bill to committee, to maybe try to get it right — maybe.

The opposition, obviously, in all our forms, finds this piece of legislation, Bill 11, inappropriate to be tabled in the Legislature at this time in its current form.

[1835]

I’m hoping that our motion to refer this bill in its entirety to the Education Committee of this Legislature, which I’m sure exists on paper somewhere — to reconstruct that committee and to give them an opportunity with the time and the discussion that is characteristic of committee work to actually iron out the problems that exist in the legislation as it currently is written, maybe fix some of the problems that were written right into it, and give the chance to government to correct this error that they are about to commit.

Now, many on that side, I’m sure, haven’t really thought of this legislation in terms of how flawed it is. I would suggest that it’s a good idea for members, from wherever they hail…. If they’re not in the cabinet, perhaps they haven’t received the notes on this bill, but I can give them a hint of what folks in the communities are saying about it. They’re saying this throughout the province. This legislation is, first of all, unnecessary. Second of all, it’s insulting to many people. And third, those first two reasons are enough.

I think that, quite frankly, the legislation as proposed is a little bit of a poke in the eye. I don’t know why government wants to do that all the time. You know, I could try and guess but…. It’s either deliberate, in which case, you know, we have to see these ulterior motives or clear motives, or it’s just by mistake. They don’t realize it.

I seem to remember that there was a bit of a labour dispute in our education system not that long ago. I remember because I saw lots of kids hanging around in the street and wondered: why aren’t they in school? I heard something about a labour dispute.

That labour dispute was the longest labour dispute in the education system in the province’s history. After it was finally resolved, we figured maybe that was a time for everyone to get together and to be friends — at least, if not to be friends, to get along. You know, sometimes you don’t have to be friends to get along, but you can get along. You can see each other’s differences, but mostly you try to help each other out. Mostly you try to find the common ground. Mostly you try to avoid another fight after one has just ended.

The dispute was resolved. Government claimed some sort of victory out of that, which they’re good at doing, and we had what we thought was some peace in the land. I’m not going to get into my biblical quotations yet. We thought we had some peace, and we were reassured. Maybe even some of us became slightly hopeful when the
[ Page 7852 ]
words coming from the leadership of this government said it was time for us all to get along better. It was time for healing. Peace in our time. Time for healing.

Now, the cynical among us might say, “She didn’t say it was time for healing. Maybe it was, ‘time to bring educators to heel,’” which is spelled differently and has a slightly different meaning. One might not be too off the mark, in looking at the legislation before the House now, if one were to suggest that that’s what the government is doing: trying to bring to heel the school administrators and school teachers and the entire public education system.

If that’s in fact what the government wants to do, they should be a little bit more open about it. Maybe the government should say they want to take over education entirely, set the entire curriculum, teach everybody through some sort of state-sponsored school system, state-sponsored teachers education system, and say: “This is what you teach. This is how you teach it. We’re going to take over all your professional development opportunities. We’re going to tell you what the administrators can do, and if you don’t do it, we can take the administrators out.” Even if they’re elected. That’s okay. Elect — that’s just sort of a nice little formality.

[1840]

This legislation, which we’re hoping to refer to committee, is so full of flaws that it really would be a good idea, if not just to fix the mistakes, to at least show, to demonstrate to the public how the government intends to deal with what they perceive as a problem but nobody else perceives as a problem. Fundamentally, this legislation deals with taking control from the school boards and putting it into the hands of the minister.

Now, I often say in this Legislature, when we have poorly constructed legislation such as this…. It’s not even necessarily what this particular minister will do with this legislation. Imagine if a less benevolent minister were to come along and to see this legislation — the tools at his or her disposal — and to, perhaps, even use the tools within the legislation for more nefarious purposes than we could possibly imagine the current minister contemplating.

That is what we should be concerned about — legislation not specifically associated with one particular regime, as we may have in the House now, but future regimes. How will they be able to manipulate or use legislation in a way to pursue their particular goals? When you look at the track record of this government — and this is the kind of thing we could get into in more depth if we were to refer to committee — what is the pattern of behaviour that this government has demonstrated toward the education system?

Now, we’ve heard about the actions that governments have taken and the court responses. We’ve seen occasions when the government has been rebuked for the actions that it has taken. We’ve seen the deliberate provocation for job action. We’ve seen a history of distrust and acrimony between this government and the education system, I would say, as a whole.

What this piece of legislation does…. Just when we thought we would at least all get along, they come along and basically kick them in the shins — like, out of the blue. Walking down the street and all of a sudden someone kicks you. And you wonder: “What was that for?” That’s what people in this province are saying about this legislation. “Wait. What are you doing? Why now? What’s this for?”

Why do this when you’ve just come through a difficult time? You’ve gone through all the things…. If it were a family: you’ve gone through all the counselling. You’ve gone through the getting together to realize the best way to manage the household issues and the children and all that. You’ve come to some peace. It’s cozy again in the house. Then all of a sudden, someone has a temper tantrum, and everything falls apart.

This piece of legislation, to me, looks like somehow it’s motivated by some…. I don’t even know what could motivate this legislation. Is it really about the minister wanting to be in charge of what teachers learn in their professional development? That’s a little scary, actually, when you think about it. I’m not saying about this particular minister — future ministers.

Imagine being in charge of setting the professional development goals, how many hours they have to do, what courses they have to take with whom. I think it’s the ultimate in micromanaging what should be a creative and constantly evolving profession, unhinged from political interference. Teachers are professionals who know how and what and when to teach children. I don’t think I could give this particular minister…. I couldn’t say the same thing about this minister.

I don’t know why this government thinks its…. It’s almost like state control. It’s going the wrong way from their ideological perspectives. Unless, of course, it is to undermine the public school system, which is completely within what one might expect from this government. Let me just, for the benefit of my friends who are listening….

There are serious questions asked by trustees across the province, no more so than school districts 46 and 47 — the lower and upper Sunshine Coast, respectively. They’ve expressed their concern to government, and I believe that they would unanimously support the referral of this bill to committee for further discussion.

[1845]

That would be the best thing for the province. That would be the best thing for this legislative process, and it would perhaps even restore some faith in our system, which currently is not exactly riding high in the public trust region.

Betty Baxter from school district 46 asked the minister “on behalf of trustees and on behalf of parents who are constantly fundraising so their children can have a field trip or a guest speaker at their school.” She asks on behalf of “the teachers who bring their own materials to school” because they can no longer supply adequate materials
[ Page 7853 ]
and “on behalf of principals who work unspeakably long hours ensuring schools are excellent on ever-shrinking budgets.” The question is: “How can you talk of support of education in B.C. and refuse to treat the school districts with respect?”

It’s a basic expectation that government deals with everyone with a degree of respect. I think it’s not hard to recognize that this piece of legislation is disrespectful — not because, in and of itself, it’s disrespectful. In and of itself, it’s just bad legislation. It’s disrespectful because it contravenes something that this government promised teachers and promised the education system very recently, even within their short-term memory. We don’t have to go back to the ’90s for them to think that they remember correctly. This is all about respect.

What about the memorandum of understanding? Was it because it wasn’t a legally binding document that they decided to ignore it? Were people misled into signing that? Did they think that something other than an understanding would result from a memorandum of understanding?

Maybe, when the government entered into this understanding, they didn’t understand. Maybe they didn’t realize it was a form of commitment, a form of a contract. Maybe not a binding contract…. We know what this government does with binding contracts. But even an agreement that they would talk to each other before implementing any significant changes to the co-governance model in our public school system…. We would talk. We would discuss it.

Well, the day before this legislation was tabled, it wasn’t even discussed. School teachers and administrators were told about Bill 11, and there was no discussion whatsoever. I think on that basis alone, the legitimacy of this bill is questionable. On that basis alone, the fact that people were misled by what this government told them….

They had an opportunity to discuss this with the ministry officials. The School Trustees Association had an opportunity to hear from the government. They must have been misled, in their mind. They must have felt misled, because what happened after this memorandum of understanding was signed was something that was almost in direct contrast to the agreement.

I find that troubling. My mother was a teacher. I know what kind of work goes into being a teacher from witnessing her hours of preparation and hours of after-school work. She did that for over 40 years.

I think of people like my mom, and other people know teachers who, I’m sure, they feel a sense of gratefulness towards. I think it’s important that you think of those people when you realize what their government is saying about their profession, what the government is saying about these people. Almost making it into a situation where….

What are we supposed to expect? If a government is treating a profession like this, what do we think of that profession? Do we really think that the government has the accurate perspective on what it is to be a teacher in this province, what it is to be a school administrator in this province with all of the challenges that they’ve had to face, with the constant strains on resources that impact on children?

[1850]

I’ve been into many schools in my life as a social worker. I know that the challenges teachers and administrators face are far beyond what most politicians may understand or know. I think it’s important that we use the tools of our democratic system to discuss in depth.

Maybe that’s kind of cute, or whatever, or naïve. But we have committee rooms in this building. We have committee members on a piece of paper somewhere. We have issues of great importance to discuss. We’re basically skipping all that because a minister wants a little bit more power, for reasons unknown to me, to the detriment of our school system.

To me, that’s troubling. It’s troubling to me, it’s troubling to my colleagues, and it’s troubling to most teachers and administrators in this province. I think if the students were fully aware, as many of them are, they would see a government taking jabs at their school system and undermining the credibility of their teachers and school administrators by questioning their professional conduct.

If the minister has to get in there and decide what you’re going to learn on your professional development day, what does that say? Do they not think that teachers have an understanding? This is the problem with this bill.

It says a lot about this government’s approach. We’ve had the conflicts in the past. We thought that we had some peace now. This government doesn’t want to let it go. It wants to keep at it, almost like provocation. I don’t think we should be engaging in this kind of brinksmanship or provocation that governments seems to be engaging in.

If they’re not, then obviously we should send this to committee. This should just be a vote that we take. Let’s just send it to committee. The committee will have a full discussion. We’ll be able to get into some detail.

Christine Younghusband said she couldn’t stay silent. She’s not necessarily one to want to be loudly critical of government, but she will say what she thinks. She believes that staying silent on this bill is not an option. We need to have our voices heard.

I respect and hold my hands up to those school trustees who, with their umbrella organization, have stated quite unequivocally that this is not helpful legislation. It’s not helpful at all. Even if we’re using that standard, it’s not helpful. It’s possibly harmful, but even if it’s not helpful, that should be enough for us to say let’s just have another look at it.

Now, we’ve heard the BCSTA’s resolutions in this House on a few occasions. I can’t help but think that there’s a degree of disrespect involved in the tabling of
[ Page 7854 ]
this legislation. Then you see that the minister didn’t attend the annual general meeting. Maybe there was a scheduling conflict. We all understand the pressures of our time. But this is a fairly important issue after a fairly tumultuous time that, one would think, would have generated an understanding on the part of government to go that extra step, to make sure that everyone’s feeling okay about how we go from here — unless it’s all about conflict and moving on. If it’s all about conflict and moving on, I’m sorry to the people of British Columbia. We have until 2017 to try to fix that again.

It’s about an approach, and I think that the approach is wrong. I think it’s based on a flawed perception of our education system that is ideological or ill-informed. Either way, I find either option quite troubling.

N. Simons moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

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

Hon. T. Lake moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Madame Speaker: This House, at its rising, stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.

The House adjourned at 6:54 p.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE
DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
CHILDREN AND FAMILY DEVELOPMENT

The House in Committee of Supply (Section A); D. McRae in the chair.

The committee met at 2:37 p.m.

On Vote 17: ministry operations, $1,378,927,000.

The Chair: Minister, do you wish to make an opening statement?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Yes, thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone. Before we get started, I’ll acknowledge just a few members of my team who are here with me: Mark Sieben, deputy minister; behind us, Allison Bond, ADM of service delivery; Cory Heavener, office of the provincial director and aboriginal services; to my left, Reg Bawa, ADM, finance and corporate services, who comes to us from Finance and Education; Christine Massey, ADM of policy and provincial services, who joined us from the Ministry of Advanced Education. That’s everybody that’s here at the moment.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and welcome the new official critic for Children and Family Development, as this is his first time sitting through this formal process with my ministry. I’m sure he will find it both instructive and informative.

For the third consecutive year I’m honoured to be here as the Minister of Children and Family Development and to lead a ministry that’s dedicated to making a positive difference in the lives of children and families and vulnerable people in this province. In fact, my ministry services reach about 155,000 children and families each year, and 90 percent of our budget goes to support those clients in communities. More than $1.2 billion is invested in programs and services.

The budget, at $1.379 billion and change, has increased by approximately $40 million over last year. This includes an increase of approximately $34 million to support the third year of the B.C. early-years strategy and $5.4 million for increases under the economic stability mandate that are required by provincial ministries.

As minister in this portfolio, I’m happy also to continue the momentum and good work of our staff moving ahead with the B.C. early-years strategy, which is an eight-year commitment to create child care spaces and make child care more accessible for parents and caregivers.

[1440]

As well, the provincial office of domestic violence, guided by its three-year provincial domestic violence plan, continues its important work, strengthening supports for women, children and families affected by domestic violence.

Of course, we will continue to work, as well, to increase the number of children and youth being adopted throughout the province. Although many children have found permanent homes through adoption, the need for more families continues.

Within the current fiscal environment we remain committed to control spending and maintain a focus on balancing our ministry budget. Taxpayers rely on the government that they elect to make fiscally sound decisions while, at the same time, finding effective and innovative ways to ensure that supports and services that British Columbians need are available to them when and where they need them.

The decisions we make now about our spending, of course, play a larger role in our children’s futures and the future of our province as a whole. We will continue our work with our partners in the social service sector to find efficiencies and to innovate within our existing budgets to better benefit vulnerable children and families.
[ Page 7855 ]

We will continue to try to make measurable improvements in the accessibility, effectiveness and quality of services for children, youth and families — especially those services that focus on aboriginal children and families, who are so overrepresented in our system.

In closing, I would like to thank all of the ministry’s staff. Whether we are here in estimates…. Their work continues, and they are dedicated. I know that we have tremendous people around the province working every day for children, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them for their work.

That concludes my opening remarks.

The Chair: At this time I would like to recognize the member for Stikine and invite him to make some opening comments as well.

D. Donaldson: I would like to, first off, acknowledge that we’re on Coast Salish and Lekwungen traditional territories here today. And I would like to thank the minister for her prompt arrival after question period. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and there’s never enough time, so I appreciate being able to get started right away.

Just a few initial opening comments. I want to thank the researchers on the official opposition side, particularly researcher James Harada-Down and intern Matthew Chan, for helping me and supporting me in putting together preparation for budget estimates — and also to the staff who support the deputy minister and assistant deputy ministers and senior management, in helping them prepare the minister.

It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort, but the estimates process or Committee of Supply is an important legislative process for democracy in that it provides an opportunity for transparency and accountability about this minister and the government’s decisions when it comes to children and families.

I look forward to respecting all the preparation work that went into these budget estimates on behalf of staff on both sides, by using the next few days that we have to achieve some accountability and transparency by getting answers to my questions from the minister on the public record.

I’m going to begin with some general budget questions. Later today we intend to cover, as I’ve already spoken with the deputy minister about, the adoption service area and the early-years service and provincial office of domestic violence. We’ve got lots to cover, so I’ll get going right away.

I’m interested in starting generally. What’s the number of children and youth in care of the ministry, the number of children and youth in care that are of aboriginal ancestry, and what percentage of children and youth in care of MCFD do they represent?

Hon. S. Cadieux: The number of youth in care of the ministry at December 2014 is 8,290, and 4,432 of those are aboriginal, representing 53 percent.

[1445]

D. Donaldson: What was the percent in…? Let’s take December 2014. What was the percent of youth in care, of aboriginal ancestry, in December 2013 and then December 2012?

Hon. S. Cadieux: In 2013 that number was 8,109 and in 2012, 8,106.

D. Donaldson: Thank you for that. I was more interested in what the percentage was in 2013 and 2012 of those with aboriginal ancestry in care.

Hon. S. Cadieux: The percentage change from 2012 to 2014 is 1 percent — 1 percent change overall and 1 percent aboriginal.

D. Donaldson: Is that a 1 percent increase or a 1 percent decrease?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Increase.

D. Donaldson: We started in 2012 with 52 percent, then, if I’m getting this correct, of children in care of aboriginal ancestry — so the majority. It has held about stable in that majority.

My question. I’m sure the minister understands where I’m going with this. In a census in 2011, about 5 percent of the population in B.C. identified themselves as aboriginal. As we see, more than 50 percent of children and youth in care are of aboriginal ancestry, First Nations mainly. Why is that, in the minister’s opinion?

[1450]

Hon. S. Cadieux: While the number of kids in care over time as a whole has gone down significantly — from just over 10,000 in 2001 to the 8,200 we see today — the majority of that decrease in number of kids in care has come in our non-aboriginal population and in the different type of work that is done in social work in prevention.

The reality is that the federal funding formula, the way that we are funded to provide services to First Nations on reserve, is set up to favour kids coming into care and not the preventative work that we’ve had success with elsewhere. That is precisely why we’ve been refocusing our work and taking on and endeavouring in the ASI project, the aboriginal services innovations project. We know that the work we’ve been doing off reserve has been successful in reducing the number of kids in care, and we want to see that work and that similar result with our First Nations children.

D. Donaldson: The minister points out that since 2001 till today there’s been a decrease of approximately 2,000
[ Page 7856 ]
children in care of the ministry and alludes to successful efforts when it comes to First Nations that the province has been able to undertake. Of those 2,000, did she not say that that reduction was mainly with kids who are not of aboriginal ancestry?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Yes, that is what I said.

D. Donaldson: In fact, the efforts to reduce kids in care that the province has taken, or preventative measures, really ended up targeting non-aboriginal children.

Hon. S. Cadieux: As I said, the work that we’ve been able to do with our non-aboriginal population is different work. The way we’re funded to do the work with First Nations children through the delegated agencies and on reserve has not focused or is not able, currently, to focus on the same work. We are not satisfied with that, which is why in the last year or so we’ve been refocusing our efforts in the ministry and looking at the aboriginal services innovations program to see if we can’t institute the same types of programs and success that we’ve seen on the non-aboriginal side.

D. Donaldson: We’re looking at severe, disproportionate overrepresentation, I think the minister would agree, of First Nations or aboriginal children in care of the ministry when we understand that, demographically, about 5 percent of the population in B.C. are of aboriginal ancestry, and we have 50 percent of the kids in care — over 50 percent, 53 percent as of December 2014 — of First Nations or aboriginal descent.

I’d like to move on a little bit now, though, to actually some staffing questions. My question is: how many assistant deputy ministers and executive directors compose the senior management team for the minister?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Obviously, we have one deputy minister, five assistant deputy ministers and 29 executive directors.

D. Donaldson: Do the 29 executive directors include…? Would you call the head of a service delivery area an executive director as well? So there were 13.

[1455]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Yes, executive directors of service.

D. Donaldson: Out of those, what did we have? It’s 29 executive directors, five ADMs — that’s 34 — and one DM, so 35. How many of those are First Nations?

Hon. S. Cadieux: One, that we know of.

D. Donaldson: So you have a majority of kids in care of aboriginal descent, and you have the majority of the budget of this ministry expended on supporting First Nations kids, yet one member out of a 35-member senior management team is First Nations. Does the minister…? Obviously, the minister must see that there’s something wrong with that picture.

The ministry service plan says: “Aboriginal people need to have responsibility to design and deliver their own child and family service.” I would think that in this world that we just revealed here, “their own” would be actual control of the ministry, if we were talking statistically what we’re faced with here.

In a 2013 recommendation to MCFD the Representative for Children and Youth said: “A senior aboriginal person must be directly involved in leading each of the six program lines of the ministry’s work.”

My question is: could the minister please inform the name of the senior aboriginal person and their position title in each of the six program lines: children and youth with special needs; children and youth mental health services; youth justice services; child safety, family support and children in care services; adoption service; and the early-years services?

Hon. S. Cadieux: I’m sure the member is aware that hiring for executive positions and all positions in the public service goes through the Public Service Agency. We follow those guidelines.

I would agree it would be wonderful to have greater representation of aboriginal people in positions of leadership in this ministry. To date, those people have not either presented or had the skills, I guess, to achieve those positions or chosen to take positions of leadership within this ministry. I look forward, though, to people with a First Nations background or ancestry joining our team and hope that interested individuals will apply to postings that occur.

D. Donaldson: Sure, let’s explore that a little further. The Representative for Children and Youth report in 2013 called for MCFD to “immediately undertake a review of its senior leadership team and develop an action plan to ensure that aboriginal leaders with expertise in effective child welfare service provision are represented on that team.” This was a recommendation to MCFD, not to the Public Service Agency.

[1500]

The review and draft action plan to address the representative’s recommendation were to be presented to the representative by February 1 last year, 2014. Did that happen?

Hon. S. Cadieux: A review was done, and the findings of that review were communicated to the representative during our regular reporting meetings with the representative. Ongoing discussions continue on how best to action the intent of the recommendation.
[ Page 7857 ]

D. Donaldson: The recommendation was pretty specific about the senior leadership in the ministry. What did the review say, and what were the actions the ministry took to address the situation?

[1505]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Through the review, there was a review of leadership positions. As well, we launched a front-line focused recruitment and retention project with the aboriginal internship program through the PSA. As well, tools and resources are provided across the ministry to non-aboriginal leaders, including an aboriginal competency training program. We have an aboriginal advisory committee to provide advice and guidance on ministry matters.

An aboriginal policy lens is applied to all policy development. That is supported by an aboriginal integrated policy working group, comprised of staff and leadership in aboriginal and Métis organizations as well as the delegated agencies.

In addition, this spring the deputy minister engaged with the deputy minister of the PSA to start discussions about holding a forum in the fall with the UVic School of Public Administration to engage our ministry and cross-government social service sector providers to look at recruitment and retention of aboriginal people in government and in leadership positions as well. We look forward to the results of that.

D. Donaldson: Well, discussions are good. Those kinds of discussions — I commend the assistant deputy minister and the minister for that. But it’s been since 2013, since the recommendation of the Representative for Children and Youth.

My question is: how long is it going to take for those six senior positions to be held by aboriginal people, and when does the ministry expect the composition of the senior management team to reflect the First Nations life experience of those that they are serving?

Hon. S. Cadieux: There’s no way to answer that question. That is unpredictable because, frankly, people have to have the skills, desire and expertise to work in the field. They have to do their training. They have to work their way up.

First of all, people with aboriginal backgrounds have to want to do the work and have to be engaged in actively seeking that work with the ministry.

D. Donaldson: Since 2013, since this report came out, how many assistant deputy ministers and senior management executive directors, out of those 34, are new to the position?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Amongst the assistant deputies and the executive directors of service since that time, we believe that five are new. One of those is of aboriginal descent.

D. Donaldson: In the last two years, out of those 34 positions, five of those people are in new positions, and four of them are of non-aboriginal descent. Why was the ministry not able to hire First Nations into the other four positions?

[1510]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Firstly, let me say that MCFD doesn’t have control or authority over the hiring of its deputy ministers. That hiring is coordinated through the PSA, because ADMs are seen as a corporate resource and are appointed to their positions.

That said, regardless of that fact, one of the reasons for this forum in the fall is to have the discussion about how do we — as social service ministries particularly, but even more broadly across government — make government and our ministries an employer of choice for First Nations people?

The reality is that we have great difficulty in attracting qualified people to the positions that we post. We are greatly interested in changing that. But it is a culture shift, both internal to government and external with First Nations people, to see these careers as opportunities and as places they’d like to work and work they’d like to do. We’d like to see that shift over time, but it will take time. It’s not going to happen quickly.

D. Donaldson: Well, I agree it’s not happening quickly. It was 2013 that the recommendation came out. We know that the percentage of youth in care, that the majority have aboriginal ancestry. That’s been there for longer than a couple of years. I think as a manager, as a minister, as a government you’d want to be addressing that.

You know, I think the minister would agree with me that role models are very, very important. The work has to be done, definitely at the grassroots, as the minister has described — in some cases, within her ministry — but the role models and the senior management need to be in place.

As the minister previously said, it’s not that it would be just wonderful. It’s a part of the ministry’s service plan. It’s the right thing to do. It’s necessary in the eyes of the Representative for Children and Youth, and it’s a necessity, I would say, in the eyes of First Nations in this province.

Again, the minister said they were having great difficulty in attracting qualified First Nations and people of aboriginal ancestry into these senior management roles. Yet what did you do to try?

[1515]

Hon. S. Cadieux: A lot of the work that I’ve already described in my previous answers, answers this question. But in addition, for the member, the deputy minister has
[ Page 7858 ]
approached First Nations individuals in other organizations out in the community and encouraged application to postings that we have.

To date that has not been successful in getting those applications in, or that interest. Additionally, for the last number of positions we have posted for EDSs, we have included a First Nations representative on the hiring panel to, hopefully, bring another perspective as well. We will continue to do work in this regard. We see the benefit of doing that. But First Nations people do have to also want to work with us.

D. Donaldson: I’m going to move on to other aspects of staffing. But it’s disturbing to me that one of 35 senior management team is of First Nations descent, yet 53 percent of children and youth in care are of aboriginal ancestry, and the minister said she can’t provide a time frame or a timeline when that will be corrected or can be corrected. I’ll move on to other aspects of staffing.

In a presentation to the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth in February of this year — just a couple of months ago now, I guess — the representative said that the ministry “has now acknowledged that there are some 530 FTEs that they need to bring into the child welfare system and to the child-serving system.” So 530 FTEs — full-time equivalents, I think, to those that maybe don’t live in the government world. That is, in other words, 530 full-time jobs.

The representative broke this down into 130 new full-time people for positions waiting for the hiring process to occur and 400 of what she described as an underburn — that was her word — or unfilled existing positions, for a variety of reasons. That’s a lot of vacancies. It’s going to take an enormous effort and a lot of resources to recruit and hire. How is the ministry going to do that, and what is the timeline?

[1520]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Certainly, I can acknowledge that the representative did present to the committee and give a number. We are not aware of the methodology by which she arrived at that number. I do know that she is also considering doing a report on staffing specifically. I look forward to the results of that, clarifying that methodology.

The member is right. Certainly, I have not been shy about talking about the fact that staffing is a challenge for the ministry. That’s why, back in November of last year, I announced that we would add another 200 positions to our ministry’s complement beginning this fiscal year.

We also talked at that point about the number of positions that were vacant that we were actively recruiting for and attempting to hire into. I can report for the member that we are currently up 7 percent in the number of people in the ministry. That’s 100 positions, 100 FTEs up over last year this time, essentially filling all of those vacancies from last year.

In addition, we are working now on converting, or have been working to convert, the 70 auxiliary positions that we had hired over the last year to permanent and are looking to add to that up to another 150 people. As a matter of information for the member, as we have now started this new fiscal year, we are embarking on a new quarterly recruitment process for MCFD. As a result of our first quarterly recruitment, we have had 130 people pass the interview stage and move on to record checks, and we are hopeful that those individuals will be members of our staff soon — including, in that number, 23 who have been identified as people who would fill some of our hard-to-recruit-for positions in rural areas.

[1525]

D. Donaldson: Let's get to the 200 people. I'd like to pursue a little bit more on the representative's underburn numbers, but if there's time I'll come back to that. Let's get to the 200 apparently new hires.

Following the release in November 2014 of the report Choose Children: a Case for Reinvesting in Child, Youth and Family Services in British Columbia by the B.C. Government and Services Employees Union, the minister announced plans to add 200 new child welfare workers by 2016. The minister broke that down into 70 people already working on short-term contracts associated with the troubled integrated case management computer system who have become permanent employees.

I would assume that their short-term contracts were already with MCFD, so I’d say it’s disingenuous to say they’re new hires. Then there are the 130 new hires. Let’s deal with the 70 existing first. How many now are permanent employees?

[D. Ashton in the chair.]

Hon. S. Cadieux: I’m going to clarify for the member how this works, because obviously he’s not clear on this. Auxiliary staff are not on contract. Auxiliary staff are hired into the ministry through a competitive process, and once they reach 1,827 hours they can be converted into permanent positions, into vacancies. That’s what we are looking to do.

The 70 auxiliary staff were hired last year to backfill 70 positions that went away to work on ICM. Those 70 positions that went away are coming back. These 70 are added now as permanent positions into vacancies, and they form the first tranche of the people that will make up that 200.

In fact, we are actually shooting to hire over that 200 in order to be in a place where we are not facing shortages when we have loss of staff for other reasons, be it maternity leaves or people that move on to other employment.

D. Donaldson: I’ll take a nod of the head if I get this right. You had 70 permanent staff who were seconded, for lack of a better word, or who went to work on the ICM system, so to speak. Then there were 70 people hired in auxiliary capacity to backfill those positions.

[1530]

Now, under the announcement in November, those 70 auxiliaries are going to be offered permanent positions. Did I get that right? Okay. Thanks for that.

How many of those 70 have taken up the permanent positions? As well, I’ll double up on the question for time-wise. It would seem to me that there would be an increase in staffing costs between an auxiliary position and a permanent full-time position. We’re faced with pretty well a stand-pat budget, other than those two areas that the minister mentioned in her introductory remarks. Where is the budget increase for the 70 auxiliary positions becoming a permanent conversion?

Hon. S. Cadieux: I’m going to try to read my scribbles here. If I miss something, we’ll go back. First off, a note of clarity. There is no difference in cost for the ministry in terms of an auxiliary social worker or a regular full-time person. There isn’t a difference there. Second, in terms of the numbers that have transitioned from auxiliary to permanent when they’ve reached that number of hours, we don’t have that schedule here with us, but we will provide it to you. We will get it for you and provide it to you perhaps tomorrow.

Overall, as I said back in November when I made this commitment to hire these additional social workers into the ministry, the reality is that that is where our need is. Although there isn’t an increase in our budget line, the reality is that we are going to manage this within our global budget, manage to the bottom line, as we do with any challenges where we need to put our focus. This is a priority for me and for the ministry — to ensure that we have the people that we need there — and that’s what we’re going to do. That’s my job.

D. Donaldson: I just want to make sure I get this right. There are no additional benefits that accrue to a full-time social worker versus an auxiliary social worker? In other words, those would be increased costs associated with going from an auxiliary to a full-time position.

[1535]

Hon. S. Cadieux: To clarify, when an individual is auxiliary, they’re paid in lieu of benefits. When they are made permanent, they receive benefits in their permanent position. But the difference in cost is negligible to the budget. All of it is laid out in the collective agreement. There’s no ability to deviate from that. It’s clear and there for all to see.

D. Donaldson: I believe what the minister told me in a previous answer was that they’ll get me the numbers on how many of the 70 auxiliary actually have been moved into a permanent position. Have all the 70 who were already in a permanent position that had been working on the ICM now returned to whatever their previous jobs were?

Hon. S. Cadieux: For the benefit of the member, ADM Bev Dicks has joined me for this one. There are currently eight people who had moved who are not yet back in their positions.

D. Donaldson: The 70 people who did move into responsibilities associated with trying to sort out the ICM mess, I assume, were experienced workers. The people who, in the minister’s words, backfilled those positions, the auxiliary, I would estimate didn’t have as much experience. How was proper oversight maintained by the ministry while the 70 positions were vacated?

Hon. S. Cadieux: To clarify for the member, the oversight and responsibility for that oversight doesn’t change related to who the staff is or their years of service. Our clinical supervision, our training and our delegation processes are the same for all our staff. Some of the staff that were hired on auxiliary were very experienced social workers. Some were newer. But that same training and delegation process applies, as well as the supervision, to all of the staff.

[1540]

D. Donaldson: Let’s look at the promise to hire 130 new workers now. We’ve kind of left the 70 for now. It’s a modest increase. In 2013, 4,536 were counted as working for MCFD. That was a decrease of 112 persons, a drop of 2.4 percent; 102 of the 112 were front-line positions. So if you’re counting only the 130 new hires, that’s only a net increase of 28 positions in the last couple of years. How many of the new 130 have been hired?

Hon. S. Cadieux: I’m not exactly sure what numbers the member is referring to or the clarity, necessarily, around the staffing in the ministry in terms of how many people are front-line social workers and so on.

What we’ve been clear on, and I’ll reiterate, is that certainly over the last number of years governmentwide there has been a managed staffing strategy to manage budgets, although in MCFD we’ve been given leave over that time and continue to have the opportunity to hire into our front-line social worker positions, because there is an understanding that those positions are essential to service delivery.

[1545]

That does not mean, though, that we haven’t had challenges in recruiting to fill those positions, especially in rural and remote communities in British Columbia, and the member well knows that.

What I have articulated already today is that, over last year, we are up 100 people in the ministry — 7 percent, which is promising. As well, as I mentioned, we’ve started a new quarterly hiring process, basically to get ready for this new fiscal year. With that, we have seen more than 130 people go through the process, be deemed to be qualified. We will look, over the next couple of months, to hire as many of those as possible into positions, whether
[ Page 7860 ]
they be vacancies or whether they be in that cohort of new hires in that 130.

D. Donaldson: In the minister’s announcement back in November, the commitment was made to hire these 130 by 2016. How much does the minister expect 130 full-time positions will cost? What would be the wages and benefit costs, approximately? What are the recruiting and hiring costs? What are the training costs associated with that? And where in the budget for this year upcoming or the year after that are these increased costs reflected?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Back in November when we announced this, we were asked that same question. I believe my answer to you at the time was that we anticipate the cost of the additional staff to be approximately $12 million, once all of them are in place. As it relates to training, it’s a regular part of our budget. We manage that on an ongoing basis for our staff, because it’s not just new training but training on an ongoing basis as well.

As to where we’re going to see this money in the budget, as I’ve said to the member, there is no additional money in the budget for this. I am managing my budget to address the priorities that I see as essential and necessary — this being the most important one. We did see an increase in our budget in the early years line this year of $34 million. I plan to meet all of my accountabilities in that line and find the ability to manage our staffing requirements at the same time.

D. Donaldson: So around $12 million for the costs. I would suggest it will be more. If you have more people, there are going to be more training costs associated with that. Let’s go with $12 million and no new dollars. That’s $12 million associated with the 130. There could be additional costs in bringing the 70 auxiliary into…. If they were auxiliaries, there wasn’t any year to-year budget. If it’s going to be a permanent position, then I would say it’s going to be part of a new budget. The minister is shaking her head, so I’ll take it that she disagrees with that. I’ll just focus on the $12 million.

When I used to work in the non-profit world, we talked about juggling all the balls, all the responsibilities we had. The minister is now juggling the budgets of six different program service areas. It stretches the credibility to say that with a hit of $12 million, a ball isn’t going to be dropped. Which ball is going be dropped?

[1550]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Well, I appreciate the acknowledgment that we have many balls to manage in the ministry, as does any ministry and any minister. That is the reality of governing, as I’m sure the member knows. My background in non-profit also provided me experience in doing that same thing and managing budgets that inevitably were strained and challenged by the demand for services.

I am completely satisfied that we will be able to meet the requirements and all of our accountabilities in the ministry. Thankfully, we did have a budget increase of $34 million this year, which will assist with that. It is my job to ensure that we do that, and certainly we will.

D. Donaldson: Well, again, that stretches credibility that, as far as the $12 million hit, services that already have wait-lists aren’t going to be impacted. But I’ll move on to another aspect of this hiring.

The demand for services from the ministry is increasing. The Choose Children report that I alluded to describes an already undersourced and overstretched child welfare system, with severe staff shortages and excessive caseloads. This was a survey done of front-line workers in both the minister’s ministry and the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation.

Not only is 17 percent of B.C.’s population under the age of 18, but 8 percent of those under 18 are of aboriginal descent which, again, is higher than the representation of First Nations in B.C. in the overall population. We’ve got a big portion of young people coming along, and we have a high portion of that in a very vulnerable category.

The Choose Children report also pointed out that child and youth mental health cases increased by 10.4 percent in 2012-13. The trend for the increasing need for services is there. Yet child welfare workers and MCFD are already stretched to the limits. The best-practices data from academic research put the ratio of workers to cases at one to 16 or 17 per month. That’s academic research for best practices. The hon. Ted Hughes, in a report on the Manitoba child welfare system in 2013, suggested that a one-to-20 ratio of child welfare worker to monthly cases is workable.

In this extensive survey conducted by the BCGEU of its members in MCFD they found that over 80 percent of those MCFD workers surveyed, front-line workers, had caseloads greater than 20. Thirty-two percent had 20 to 29 caseloads per month; 48 percent over 30; and 10 percent exceeded 70, mostly in the children and youth with special needs service area. A third of the workers said they were carrying another worker’s caseload.

Last year in estimates the minister said the average caseload was 27. Presumably, the hiring announcement following the Choose Children report last fall was to alleviate some of that excessive caseload work which leaves children and youth vulnerable and workers subject to burnout. One quote from that report, from a child protection worker in the Lower Mainland: “The government cannot continue to abdicate their duty to the vulnerable. By failing to support them, they are perpetuating the abuse. We are going to have a dead kid at some point.”

Caseload is a critical factor in service. What’s the minister’s goal in hiring these added positions? What impact will it have on the caseload numbers? What does the initiative expect to achieve by 2016? What is the anticipat-
[ Page 7861 ]
ed average caseload ratio with these new hires? That’s the main question.

[1555]

Hon. S. Cadieux: In the Choose Children report that the member references, the BCGEU made recommendations to government that government should take immediate steps to fill current vacancies in MCFD. We have done that. That is the 100 staff over last year that I referenced.

They go on to say: “MCFD new hiring should include an additional 100 FTEs per year over three years to address…workload pressures.” I would say that we’re well on our way there, having over 130 people currently in line and getting through the hiring process right now into new positions with the ministry.

They go on to say that the workers assigned to fixing ICM should be returned to service delivery and should not count towards that FTE count. That, too, is a check mark, because the 70 auxiliary individuals who were hired are not counted in that 100 new FTEs. They are in addition to that, bringing us closer to a count of 200 new people by the end of fiscal 2016.

The member referenced a number of things related to caseloads. Certainly, it’s one measure of workload and one measure of how we’re doing. With the addition of the 100 people to fill the vacancies from last year, certainly in some areas of the province those numbers are better immediately. In other areas, that remains a challenge.

The other things that we do and look at on a regular basis to look at the workload of staff include how people are managing their workloads and the complexity of staff makeup in an office with senior people and new people. We’re looking at — and it’s why we’re looking at service redesign work — centralization of some types of transactional-type work that can be done differently to relieve front-line social workers and enable them to spend more time with their clients.

I’d like to just ensure that the member is aware that, in fact, in the spring of 2014 there was an establishment of a joint working group with the BCGEU to look at workload issues. That committee was working along while the GEU prepared their report Choose Children and in fact informed the decisions that we made on staffing in November. That work with that working group continues on an ongoing basis.

D. Donaldson: Thank you for that rosy overview by the minister. That joint working group was supposed to report back to the Representative for Children and Youth by April 2015. I’m not sure if that happened, but maybe she can add that.

[1600]

As far as managing workloads, the Choose Children report pointed out that workers in her ministry and the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation have higher rates of absence due to illness relative to the rest of B.C.’s public service. They’re faced with such incredible workload pressures that that’s how they’re managing the workload. They’re getting sick and missing work.

Let’s not cherry-pick from the report. I’ll also say that the Choose Children report recommended that a $231 million investment over three years is needed to support core business areas. I didn’t actually hear the minister reference that part of the report. The report called for additional full-time-equivalents, not the backfilling of vacancies.

I’d like to ask again…. I don’t think I got an answer to the question. Obviously the minister thinks that caseload ratios are important, because the ministry is hiring new positions — 130 for sure. They actually haven’t been hired yet, but we’re waiting. It’s 2016 that’s the date.

The ratio last year was 1 to 27, as reported by the minister in estimates. With this additional hiring of staff, there must be a goal or a figure, you would think, that the ministry has in mind to reduce that caseload ratio level to what the experts say is the best practice, whether it’s 1 to 16 or 17 or, in hon. Ted Hughes’s case, 1 to 20.

Finally, what’s the goal as far as the ratio goes? It’s a significant tracking number. And I’ve always been curious about this: why is the caseload ratio not part of a performance measure in the ministry’s service plan? You’re acknowledging it as an important tracking feature on services, yet there’s not one mention of it as a performance measure in the ministry’s service plan.

[1605]

Hon. S. Cadieux: There were a number of things covered in that question, the first being a report from the working group. Indeed, there was an interim report, and there is now a final in draft form. It will be provided to the representative and everyone else who is expecting it very soon.

He also referenced the health and well-being of our staff. Certainly, that is of utmost importance. There is an enormous recognition that the work of the folks in the Ministry of Children and Families is different from the work in many of the other lines of business of government.

Certainly, I would believe it’s much more difficult and stressful to be a front-line social worker in the Ministry of Children and Families dealing with incredibly emotional and challenging issues on a daily basis than to be pushing paper. Not that that’s not important in the Ministry of Finance. I’m sure Reg would agree with me that that, too, can be very stressful.

The reality is that the work that our staff do is difficult, and they do a tremendous service. As a result of their work, we do have higher numbers than other ministries as it relates to short-term illness and injury. However, that said, our concerns around that is one of the reasons we embarked on the joint working group on occupa-
[ Page 7862 ]
tional health and safety with the BCGEU — to continue to look at ways to improve both safety and the health of our staff collectively.

Certainly, we can report that this year the short-term illness and injury rates are down in the ministry. They are down by one day per FTE, on average, and that is a significant change and a significant, I think, movement in the right direction in terms of making sure that our staff are supported and, certainly, safe and well in their jobs.

We’re looking just to make sure we have the most accurate number on caseload. But I would mention to the member, while we’re waiting for that, that we don’t have a specific goal in that regard, and there is a reason for that.

There are a number of reasons for that, not the least of which is that not all of the work and not all of the caseloads that members of our staff hold are the same. They’re not necessarily the same in terms of complexity, nor necessarily the same in terms of the type of work they do.

[1610]

The necessary touchpoints with the clients can be very different between somebody who’s working on child and youth special needs, who may have limited work with a family or client once the appropriate services are put in place, versus a social worker doing child protection and working with family development response, and so on. While we look at caseload numbers on an ongoing basis, it’s not one of our measures in our service plan and not one of the measures of our effectiveness overall that we use.

We use other measures that more accurately reflect whether or not the work is being done and whether or not the important outcomes are being achieved for children and families, including the rates of use of family development response, the outcomes for children in terms of whether or not all of the steps are being taken by our workers in terms of the legislation and the steps that they need to follow when working on child protection cases and so on. So that is what is reflected in the service plan.

D. Donaldson: In acknowledgment of how time-crunched we are, you can provide that ratio number when it comes in, regardless of where we are in our conversation. I’ll now defer to the member for North Coast.

J. Rice: I just wanted to acknowledge that the canvassing that I’m doing is focused on adoptions, if you’re ready for that.

I just wanted to acknowledge that there has been much progress in adoptions. I know that this line of questioning can be really tiresome and onerous, but there are some moments to be congratulated on, such as the fact that the ministry is now focusing on adoptions. I wanted to acknowledge that and to thank you and thank the staff for participating today.

I guess, generally, I’ll start with the question around staffing. We know we have a new associate director for adoptions. If you could just outline how many other senior employees are focused on adoptions — and front-line workers as well as senior management.

[1615]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Welcome to the deputy critic.

To outline just sort of broadly the adoptions and permanency side of the ministry, back in the spring of 2013 the provincial director of adoption became sort of a new position. I think that’s what you were referencing. And that is Dr. Anne Clayton, who has joined behind me. As well, I want to just let you know we’ve also had Denise Devenny join us. She’s the executive director of aboriginal services.

In Anne’s service area we have five delegated directors of adoption regionally. We have 50 adoption workers. They work alongside the hundreds — we don’t have that number right in front of us — of guardianship social workers, who also have responsibility for permanency planning for the children in their care. We have five adoption and guardianship consultants that advise and work with our adoption workers. As well, there are two delegated aboriginal agencies that have delegation agreements to do adoptions.

J. Rice: The ministry has announced the hiring of 200 new social workers. My question is: how many of these new hires are, or will be, adoption workers?

Hon. S. Cadieux: It’s a good question. The answer would be none yet. The reason for that being that our first area of work that follows along with our announcement of new hiring is to do the centralized screening work and the centralization of some of the work that can be done centrally. That’s a terrible answer. When we’re finished with that work, then we will see how that shakes out in terms of workload improvements in the regions, in the offices, and look at how that work has then been rebalanced to take into account the work that will be done centrally once that is set up.

[1620]

There is an intent to look, then, at how we can rebalance the work in the various offices to ensure a focus on permanency and adoption, certainly, as it is a priority for the ministry and a priority to ensure that all of our kids have plans and so on.

That question will be better answered at the end of this year or in next year’s estimates, because we’re not there yet. We have to do that centralized process first. There are logical steps to take in the management of staffing in a ministry with as many front-line positions as ours. In as many regions, doing as much critical work as we do, we have to do it in a careful and balanced way.

J. Rice: I have a few other staffing questions, but just in the interests of time…. I apologize in advance. I may be
[ Page 7863 ]
scattering all over the place to sort of cover the ground that I hope to cover.

We had a significant lift, a $1 million lift, in adoptions this year. But that slows dramatically to $50,000 and $100,000 in the next two years. This is in the fiscal plan. I’m just curious if you could elaborate on why there is no continuity of funding for adoptions.

Hon. S. Cadieux: The reason for that is that there is no real increase in the adoptions budget this year. What you’re seeing are adjustments to align our estimates budget with our working budget, where we’re actually spending dollars, and two other small amounts that relate to the BCGEU wage agreements. That’s the only increase there.

The additional spending in adoptions is the $2 million that we put out in grants last year and have continued, with another $2 million this year as well.

J. Rice: This year you set a target of 300 adoptions, which we all know fell a little short. I wanted to know: how did you come up with the target number of 300 adoptions? Was it based on the amount of adoptions staff, or was it the amount of home studies that could be done? How did you set that target? Why that number?

[1625]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Not a lot of science, more magic in this one. The reality, though, was that back the last time there had been a bit of an injection into the adoptions line of business in the ministry was 2008, and, at that point, they were able to achieve 300 adoptions in that year. That was one way to look at it. We also looked at the number of families that had applied and were hoping to go through the process and be adoptive families, so looking at what likely was our pool of adoptive families that were in the stream.

To be honest, I would have liked a target of 1,000, but I was told that that was completely unreasonable. So we are continuing in our effort, certainly, and I’m pleased that more kids are in homes today than would have been without the additional focus and effort last year, in that we reached just over 265, I believe. Certainly, we didn’t reach the target of 300 last year.

What I am buoyed by is that there are lots in the works. We hope to see those numbers increase, and, as I’ve said, those numbers just get added on to this year’s target because we need to see these numbers improve over time.

J. Rice: We have a new goal with, I think, an additional, approximately, 35 adoptions to carry over from last year. What is the plan to meet the addition on this target from last year?

Hon. S. Cadieux: First off, I think we have to recognize that any time you embark on something new, there’s a bit of time it takes to get something out the door, to get the traction with new work. We were working with agencies to do work they hadn’t previously done on our behalf, so there was a learning curve for both the agencies and our staff in terms of how that relationship would work and how the work would be done.

That said, we did achieve a better number last year, and there are more than 100 proposed matches out there right now that we hope will result in forever homes for those 100 kids. So we can see that the work from last year is now…. The momentum has built and is continuing to build.

[1630]

The work is ongoing. The work’s not stopping. I note that the member attended the adoption permanency forum with the representative a couple of weeks ago. Again, we were having conversations about how we improve on where we are and how we get there with our partners.

We know that the numbers have improved in terms of finding permanency for First Nations children as well, but there’s a lot more work to do. Certainly those two days were an effort to start really focusing in on how best to do that work.

I can’t point specifically to strategies, necessarily, that we know are going to be effective, but we have a lot of irons in the fire in that regard. The work continues from the work we started last year in terms of speeding up the home study process, reducing the backlog on home studies and making sure that families who want to adopt have the opportunity to do that in British Columbia.

J. Rice: So $2 million invested. Has there been an analysis of how that money was spent? Could we get a breakdown exactly of where the money went?

[M. Bernier in the chair.]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Last year’s $2 million investment went out as follows. The Adoption Centre of British Columbia, $200,000; Choices Adoption, $100,000; Family Services of Greater Vancouver, $200,000; Sunrise Family Services, $100,000; Adoptive Families Association of B.C., $600,000; Indigenous Perspectives Society, $600,000; Fraser Valley Children and Family Services, just under $100,000; Abbotsford Community Services, under $100,000; the Pace program, $100,000; and the consortium for children, under $100,000. I don’t have the exact numbers for those under-$100,000 ones.

What I will note for the member is that because these were put out in contracts that were tied to outcomes, a percentage of that money in that first $2 million hasn’t been spent yet, as I mentioned in my last answer, partly because this was a new endeavour, and it took time to ramp up the ability to do the work, get the people in place and so on. So at the end of December there was still
[ Page 7864 ]
$800,000 of those contracts yet to be expended and fulfilled or the outcomes received for those. So that is before the $2 million from this year.

As I say, the momentum is building, and we anticipate the outcomes to reflect that.

J. Rice: Are there outcomes expected per agency that you’ve given this money to? Is this readily available?

The Chair: Just a reminder to go through the Chair.

Hon. S. Cadieux: Yes, each and every contract had a number of things that would be delivered to achieve the outcomes that we’re looking for in terms of permanency. Some of that work is around family-finding and roots-finding for aboriginal children. Some of that work is around doing the home studies for families that are prospective families. Some of it’s about training prospective families and getting them to do the adoption training. There’s a number of things.

It’s too much to go through here, and I’m sure the member doesn’t want to take the time to do that here, but we would be happy to provide a briefing to outline in detail what those contracts were about.

[1635]

J. Rice: The 1000familiesbc website. Is there a program or a plan that we can see — the outcomes of that and how that was successful or not successful and what was achieved with that?

Hon. S. Cadieux: What I can tell the member directly about the campaign was…. The 1000familiesbc website and campaign listed a contact number for calls to go directly to the Adoptive Families Association. What we know is that there was a 200 percent increase in interest during that one-month period over the year before. Certainly, the campaign definitely drove interest in adoptions and inquiries. We can get more information to the member outside of this process regarding the stats related to the actual website use, the social media exposure and so on, if she would like to see that.

Overall, the plan is that it continues in the sense that we’re continuing in our efforts to build the profile of adoption in British Columbia and of the kids waiting for adoption in British Columbia and will be continuing with that campaign again this year.

J. Rice: Does the minister feel that, even though you drove traffic to the website and increased the interest in adoptions, there was an appropriate amount of staff to actually handle the increase in the new interest in adoptions? Was that adequately provided for?

[1640]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Certainly, we foresaw that putting an additional focus publicly on adoptions would likely increase interest — or at least that first stage of interest, the calls. This is why we enlisted the assistance of the Adoptive Families Association to be the receiver of those first calls, do that screening, basic information-sharing, question-answering.

We bought capacity within the agencies out there to provide assistance with facilitating the home studies for those families who went on to that step after having purchased additional spaces with AFABC to enhance the availability of the on-line training for families that is essential and a part of the process before a home study is embarked upon.

All of that effort, I believe, assisted. I would hope that it was adequate. As I said, we know, though, that it did take time for some of the agencies, certainly, to get up to speed in terms of staffing and otherwise being able to do those home studies. We still have more capacity left from that last investment to do those, so we hope the numbers increase.

We did see the number of home studies or families approved for adoption increase over the year before to the tune of about 20 — so from 260 to 280 or thereabouts — with additional work obviously still continuing, as I said, with work that’s outstanding in the agencies themselves. Buying that capacity externally to do some of that work with the prospective families allowed our staff to focus their efforts on preparing the kids for adoption and on the matching process.

J. Rice: Let’s just talk a little bit about home studies. We know that there are various processes. There is a home study for fostering a child. There’s the MCFD home study process. I think it’s called the SAFE Assessment. We know that private agencies have their own home study process that they deploy.

Does the ministry acknowledge that these multiple, time-consuming processes could be a barrier to timely adoptions? What is the ministry’s plan to address these onerous processes and make the process a little smoother and easier?

Hon. S. Cadieux: First off, let me say to the member that I think this is the greatest number of questions in estimates on the area of adoptions ever. I’m thrilled by that, because I think it emphasizes that we have indeed directed attention to this, both internal to government and external, and that’s just fabulous.

[1645]

As well, I would like to acknowledge that I certainly would agree with the member’s sort of veiled assertion at this point that the process is too long and too onerous for families in many, many cases. It’s one of the reasons that we’ve embarked on this work. We’ll continue to do that, because it’s too long and too onerous for the families, and more importantly, it’s too long for the kids to wait to find
[ Page 7865 ]
their families. That’s why we’re doing the work.

There are a number of processes that have been used over the years in terms of home study assessments for whether somebody is entering the adoption process to look at an international adoption, whether they’re looking to adopt from the ministry or whether they were foster parents or are wanting to be foster parents. At times that has been different. Internal to the ministry, we are attempting to bring that all together so that one home study would be equivalent no matter which entry point you came in with.

Certainly, it’s something I’ve been concerned about, and I acknowledged that in a letter in response to a letter from one of the member’s colleagues recently, that indeed I agreed that that was problematic and we were doing work. There is a great deal of work going on internally to see how we fix that, how we work with our partners, because the agencies doing international work have used a different process. We want them to come together and use ours. Certainly, we want to ensure that all of our staff are trained adequately when they’re doing work within the ministry to ensure that foster homes are also being assessed with the same tool, so that work is underway.

As well, we are undertaking a lean process starting this June specifically in the area of adoptions and permanency to look at what we can do differently. What’s in the way, what’s slowing things down, and how can we improve the process? It’s all a part of that.

J. Rice: Thank you for that answer. That was a very thorough answer. Just so I understand clearly, there is an endeavour or an initiative to streamline the process? Okay. That was a head nod. That was a yes.

I wanted to know how many home studies were contracted out last year and how many were completed within the MCFD process.

[1650]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Last year MCFD internally would have or will have completed approximately 258 home studies, contracted agencies through the $2 million bucket that we contracted out. We’re contracted to do 138 home studies. And 22 were done and returned as of December, and that speaks to the time lag in getting things up and running and everybody working on the same tool. That was as of December. The other 116 are still in the works, some of which will have been received between December and now.

J. Rice: Wow. What analysis is being done to show that contracting out of the home studies is an actual appropriate strategy, and how does this meet the ongoing needs of sustainability of doing the adoption process? Is that…? You look confused. Are you looking at if contracting out is the appropriate method to do home studies, if I could reframe my question?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Sorry, I was maybe looking a bit confused just trying to take in the fullness of the question. It’s a fair question absolutely.

The reality was that we had a known backlog in terms of our ability to complete home studies for families in a timely way. That was problematic to me, certainly, and to our staff as well — to leave people hanging. We don’t want to lose those families because we’re not able to get them through the process fast enough.

Last year we had the ability to invest in adoptions, but that investment, by necessity, was external. And because the legislation says that home studies must be done either by the ministry or a licensed agency, we had that opportunity and that option, so we took it.

[1655]

That said, we need capacity in both places. As you can see from the numbers illustrated just a moment ago, we still did the vast majority of the home studies internally and likely will continue to do that. But we need the flexibility to be able to purchase additional capacity, and know that that work is good and meets our standards and so on, when there is influx and when we know that we’re not going to be able to meet that demand internally. We definitely don’t want to lose the families because we couldn’t turn them around fast enough.

J. Rice: Does the minister see the contracting out of home studies as a long-term strategy, or is this a short-term strategy to deal with the backlog?

Hon. S. Cadieux: As part of my mandate letter, I have been asked to provide two cabinet options for increasing adoption and permanency in British Columbia. I anticipate that that will also require the investment of dollars. There may be other things we can do that don’t cost dollars, such as improving timeliness, for example, or looking at lean processes, as I’ve mentioned, to streamline the work that we do.

That said, part of that work is looking at what our capacity is to do the necessary work: home studies, matching, preparation of children, family-finding and so on — all of the pieces. What we had was the ability to do that — to jump-start that work — with dollars last year to contracted agencies. We’ve done that.

We’re continuing this year with additional work in that regard, following up on the work we did last year, looking at some additional things we think will help us have added success, especially around aboriginal and First Nations children. We’re going to continue that. But certainly, we will be looking at which things we get the most value from and where and how we’re best positioning ourselves to have success going forward.

J. Rice: As the minister just mentioned, timeliness is a huge issue. It’s an obstacle for many families or potential adoptive families, and it’s preventing children from get-
[ Page 7866 ]
ting the permanency that they need. Would she be able to outline some of the other strategies to deal with the crises of the timeliness issue?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Other than what I’ve already outlined in terms of the work that’s underway to speed things up both internally and with the use of external assistance in that regard, the other things we’re looking at are…. We do have options around adoption and permanency that don’t include adoption — so looking at the other permanency options.

[1700]

That was spoken about a fair amount, I understand, at the forum in Nanaimo a couple of weeks ago, talking — certainly with First Nations — about custom adoption. What does that look like, and how do we facilitate the use of that as a tool in finding permanency for kids? It has been available as an option in legislation but really not utilized to great effect in the years past. We want to see if that’s an option to improve our timeliness and our effect.

As well, there are other options under the CFCSA, like transfer of guardianship under section 54.1 to other family members and so on. That allows for us not to have children come into care and required to go through the CCO process. That’s good. We know that, on average, the time it takes for a child after becoming a CCO to find permanency is over two years, around two years. We think realistically it should be no more than a year.

There is an understanding that there’s a length of time that it takes to do these things properly and well. We have to prepare the child. We have to make sure that we’ve found the right match. There’s process. There’s court process and other things that take a real amount of time and need to be done thoroughly to ensure that we’re making the right decisions for children who are under our care, in placing them in a permanent arrangement.

Certainly, there needs to be some…. It’s not going to be overnight. We’re never going to get to that kind of situation. We know it’s going to take time, but realistically we’d like to see the length of time shortened by at least half.

J. Rice: If I could just go back to the 22 out of 138 home studies that were complete, are there some set expectations or some accountability measures in place that that goal will be achieved and, hopefully, in recent times? Progress report.

Hon. S. Cadieux: Again, to reiterate, some of the delay or some of the challenge in not seeing all of those completed in the last fiscal year was because of the delay in getting people up to speed. Part of what we had to do is our own work, quality assurance work, in terms of making sure that contracted agencies were providing a product that was up to our standards.

They had to be trained first in doing a safe assessment. Then we also had to make sure that they were doing them to our standards. There was a training component, a back and forth component for a while to make sure that everybody was on the same page. That slowed the process down, but quality assurance on this is obviously important.

That said, the rest of the work on those is underway, and there is an expectation they will be completed — and well before the end of this fiscal year. We would hope, certainly, that we’re well into the additional new dollars that we announced in April well before the end of the year. It took some time to get them to build their capacity to do the home studies to our standards. Now that we’re there, we hope to see those improvements.

J. Rice: Just so I understand, with the $2 million that was invested, if $800,000 has yet to be spent, where did that $800,000 come from? What other area within MCFD did not…?

Interjection.

J. Rice: Okay. I’ll finish the question just for the record, and then you can elaborate.

I’m curious. What wasn’t the money spent on?

[1705]

Hon. S. Cadieux: This isn’t about what wasn’t done in MCFD. This $2 million expenditure to assist us with adoptions was money that we put out in contracts to agencies to do the work. It’s not work that wouldn’t otherwise be done. It’s not coming out of somewhere else. That work will still be done because they are dollars assigned to the outcomes that are received.

We’ve put out contracts for 138 home studies. We will get the 138 home studies with the money that’s been invested.

J. Rice: I could deliberate on that for a little bit longer, but in the interest of sticking to the time I’ve been allotted, I’m going to actually just move on to the representative’s forever families report. I would love to have the time to actually go through all the recommendations with you, but I’m just going to focus on recommendation No. 3 in this recent update from the representative.

She renewed the calls for government to act on recommendation 3 of the report and, specifically, to “move forward with amendments to the Child, Family and Community Service Act…to require an annual external review of permanency plans” for children in care. Will the ministry act on that recommendation and implement annual external reviews of permanency plans for children in care?

Hon. S. Cadieux: What I can tell the member is that we are indeed looking at bringing a proposal to government to amend the CFCSA to include a formal annual review. We are in discussions and continue to have dis-
[ Page 7867 ]
cussions with the representative about what that would look like, what the form of that review would take.

That said, I have, as recently as the forum in Nanaimo and as far back as our first discussion of the adoptions initiatives last year, referenced that indeed I agreed with the representative that an annual review would be required.

J. Rice: I’m just going to flip around because I have precious few moments. I want to know if the minister could provide the number of child protection–qualified social workers that are working in adoptions.

Hon. S. Cadieux: While we deliberate on an answer, if I could take just a quick health break, I would appreciate it.

The Chair: With that, we’ll just take a five-minute recess.

The committee recessed from 5:09 p.m. to 5:13 p.m.

[M. Bernier in the chair.]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Thank you for that little break.

I may need a little bit of clarity from the member on what she’s looking for here in relation to child protection. What I can tell you off the top, certainly, is that all of the adoptions workers would have C3 delegation for guardianship under the CFCSA.

J. Rice: My question. I’ll elaborate on what I’m getting at. I believe that we have social workers that have once worked in child protection now being employed in adoptions but being called out from their work in adoptions due to the continued crises in child protection. What I was looking for were the number of staff that have that designation that are working in adoptions.

Then my further, second question was going to be: what’s the frequency of these workers being pulled away from their work in adoption due to crises in other areas within MCFD, not just child protection but chronic shortages of staff, particularly in rural areas? That’s what I was looking for.

[1715]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Thank you for the clarity on your question.

We don’t track it quite as specifically as you’re requesting, so I can’t give you a number in that regard. What I can tell you are two things. First of all, for adoption workers, so the 50, that’s all they do. The guardianship workers…. It’s a much larger number, and we haven’t given you that overall number but in the hundreds. Those workers, by the design and nature of their job, have duties that extend beyond guardianship and adoption work, permanency work. They do more work with the clients on their caseload, the kids on their caseload.

Certainly, the other reality is that, especially in smaller communities, we have many more cases and many more situations where the staff are generalists in more ways than one. We don’t have a specific person for this and a specific person for that, necessarily. They may already do multiple lines of work in their job and, therefore, have to make decisions about how best to spend their time, depending on what the issues facing them in that community are. So that would happen from time to time.

That said, again, referencing staffing and so on, one of the reasons we’re focused on recruiting, filling the vacancies, going a little beyond is so that we are ahead of the game when we do have people leaving or on maternity leave and those sorts of things — hiring our mobile response team so we have a team of people, when there are extreme circumstances, that can go in to fill in during a period of time where we’re hiring into a community, etc.

There are a lot of things underway, but we don’t track specifically what you’re suggesting, Member. The reality is that for the 50 workers focused on adoption, that’s all they do.

J. Rice: I will just reiterate something that you’d said sort of midway through our estimates canvassing here. This is indeed the record amount of questions asked on adoptions. I researched in recent history. So I do want to thank you for the time that we’ve had today. Saying that, I actually didn’t even get through all of my questions. It is telling that we are focused much more on this important issue.

Just on the last comment, before I hand over to my colleague, I would encourage the minister to actually look at the rural communities where these generalists are operating. I can tell you anecdotally that this is happening. It’s a concern for the adoptions process that it’s not going to get the attention it needs, but it’s also an issue that you are well aware of in the fact that there is a crisis with staff in the rural communities.

[1720]

It’s particularly important to me in the north, particularly in North Coast, my constituency, where 50 percent of my constituents are aboriginal, and you said at the start of estimates today that 53 percent of the kids in care are aboriginal. It’s a huge issue for us in the north, and I certainly gladly welcome extra resources and energy and focus and study and analysis being done in the rural parts, in the northern parts, considering the number of aboriginal kids in care.

I appreciate your time today.

M. Karagianis: I have a small number of questions on the office of domestic violence, and then I have an number of questions on child care. Do you have a particular concern about which way we do it?

Hon. S. Cadieux: No.
[ Page 7868 ]

M. Karagianis: Then I think that the office of domestic violence…. I have fewer questions there, so let’s start with those, if we may. I’ll just maybe make a few comments on this while we’re realigning staff.

Just to kind of set a context for my questions today, there was no mention of new money for the domestic violence office in the budget. I’d like to be asking some questions about that, especially in the context that last year B.C. hit a five-year high for spousal violence. I think that’s a matter of grave concern.

I know that the Premier, in the last throne speech, promised a violence-free B.C., but the budget was subsequently cut for both victim services and crime prevention. And the 2015 budget is effectively frozen with only a 0.3 percent lift. That really puts us in fact, realistically, below the 2013 funding levels.

Lastly, I didn’t see any mention of money announced for a GPS-enabled electronic monitoring system for sex offenders. That was something that was promised in October — came out of a report by the Plecas blue ribbon panel in June, which was released in December. Those set the context for the concerns I have with this.

Could the minister break up for me: what is the budget for the provincial office of domestic violence, specifically for that office within your budget, and what are the projections for the next three years, please?

Hon. S. Cadieux: The member is correct. There’s no new money for the provincial office of domestic violence. Its operations stay the same. The budget for the office is $878,000 and continues that way through the following two years as well.

M. Karagianis: Great. Thank you very much. That was the 2014-15 line item as well, so that continues right through.

Now, I know that there were some other moneys coming in from the provincial domestic violence plan — $5.5 million over three years, starting in 2014-15. Can I assume that that remains the same?

I know that sits in other ministries, so you may or may not have the answer for that. Perhaps, just to sort of keep timely in this, because I do have a lot of questions on the second piece…. What is the specific amount of spending within your office that goes to tangible programs for women?

The Chair: Through the Chair, please.

M. Karagianis: Through the Chair. Thank you.

Hon. S. Cadieux: It depends on how you look at it, I guess. Children and Families — almost everything benefits women. But as it relates specifically to PODV, or the provincial office of domestic violence, and domestic violence–related services for women, there are no direct services delivered through the Ministry of Children and Families.

[1725]

M. Karagianis: Maybe just segueing, then, into what the minister kind of alluded to, I understand that this office coordinates other ministries, but can you break out what the Ministry of Children and Families is spending in the way of programs that directly address issues of domestic violence for women? Are there any dollars at all being spent in this ministry directly for domestic violence?

Hon. S. Cadieux: No.

M. Karagianis: The question’s pretty fast when the answer is just no, no, no.

The February 2014 “Provincial Domestic Violence Plan,” part 2, “Actions to Improve Domestic Violence Response.” outlines a series of proposed actions to improve domestic violence response. Of those actions that were outlined in 2014-15, are there any that are still outstanding? Are there some that are underway? Which actions were not undertaken at all?

[D. Plecas in the chair.]

Hon. S. Cadieux: As the member is aware, through the last couple of quick questions, the provincial office of domestic violence has a coordinating role and doesn’t provide any of the programs or work directly. That said, we do have an oversight role to ensure that the things we’ve committed to are, in fact, happening.

In year 1 we committed as a government to a number of things, year 1 being 2014, and all of those things have been completed.

They included expanding the number of domestic violence units; developing on-line tools for settlement and other professionals who work with families who are affected by domestic violence; working with 17 communities to enhance the ability of the ICATs, the Integrated Case Assessment Teams; introducing new courses on trauma, threat and risk assessment, and safety planning for school personnel, police, child protection workers, income assistance workers and victim support workers; amending the CFCSA to include domestic violence as a threat to children’s safety and well-being; expanding the Safe Relationships, Safe Children project to 21 pilot sites; and acting on the recommendations of the Minister’s Advisory Council on Aboriginal Women, MACAW.

Since then we’ve signed a memorandum of understanding with aboriginal leadership and established a secretariat to support the activities of the council.

M. Karagianis: Can I just ask a question about the expanded domestic violence units? What does that actually
[ Page 7869 ]
represent? Do we have domestic violence units in every region? We have them in how many communities? How many personnel are dedicated to this?

I spoke at one point not that long ago with a community up in the Interior who said that the domestic violence unit in their particular town or city was one person. There was not a dedicated unit available in reality.

[1730]

I’m just wondering. What, in effect, does that look like on the ground, and how many communities have this kind of reliable, fulsome unit that they can rely on?

Hon. S. Cadieux: The number of DVUs that existed pre the plan were five: Abbottsford, Victoria, Kelowna, New Westminster and Vancouver. Added to that in the last year are Surrey and Nanaimo, and there are more to come. I can’t tell you where those are — you’d have to follow that up with Justice, who’s responsible for that specific piece — but there is a commitment to expand the number of DVUs around the province.

There are also the ICATs. There are 23 of those fully operational now, and those are in more rural communities. Certainly, the model between DVUs for urban and ICATs for rural is part of the differentiation. That’s where it stands today.

M. Karagianis: This will probably be my last question, maybe, on this topic. I have a big concern. I mean, we have seen a five-year high in spousal and intimate partner homicides, and for the minister responsible for children and families, I would expect that this is a major concern — 75 percent of the victims were women. When we see these high incidences — this office of domestic violence is simply a coordinating body — how does the minister address advocating for greater resources or ensuring that there are greater options out there?

Certainly where there is spousal and domestic violence, there are very often children involved, and it would seem to me that your role is much broader than simply taking children into care. There does need to be, as you hold this important office, some advocacy.

I’d like the minister to just talk about how you do that. How can you do that when it seems like this office is severely restricted in its ability to be proactive in addressing some of these issues? I would think that, for the minister responsible for children and families and for the care of children, trying to curtail this, trying to find resources to change this…. It would seem that at this stage of our evolution — the 21st century, the year 2015 — to see such a dramatic increase, there must be some concern, I would hope, in the ministry about this.

What steps is the minister able to take and is taking to be more proactive an advocate on this?

Hon. S. Cadieux: To the member, I appreciate the passion with which she speaks about this particular issue and the concern, because it’s a concern, I believe, to all of us. Certainly I don’t believe in any way, shape or form that it is the responsibility solely of the Ministry of Children and Families to look at the issue of domestic violence. I believe it’s a cross-government issue; I believe it’s a cross-society issue.

As such, our role in the provincial office is to look at what we’re doing across government to advocate and discuss where there needs to be change, where there can be improvements, what more can be done. But it is also to work with the other ministries who have the responsibility for delivering the programs and services to balance what we are able to do with what we’d like to be able to do.

[1735]

Our office, and certainly I, was point on leading the first campaign around violence-free B.C., the #SaySomething campaign. We focused very much in that campaign on the realities, the very drastic and stark realities, of domestic violence and the fact that the vast majority of cases go unreported.

While we have an unacceptable number of tragedies occurring, we also know that the number of occurrences of unacceptable, completely unacceptable, violence against women is much, much greater. That is concerning, and the only way we as a society are going to address this and the only way we as a society are going to, I think, decide to expend more resources on new solutions to these issues is if society changes its expectation and says: “This is not acceptable.” That takes the voices of everyone to talk about violence, acknowledge that it exists, acknowledge that they have a role to play in stopping it.

Certainly, I take my role in the ministry as the Minister of Children and Families and as the de facto head of the provincial office of domestic violence very seriously in that regard.

M. Karagianis: I take those words very sincerely, but I think it’s frustrating that, as you say yourself, you don’t have the authority over the other ministries that are linked into this office of domestic violence.

I think that you’re right. All of us need to be proactive on this. It’s very disturbing that we’re seeing growing numbers at a time when we’re declaring a violence-free environment and at the same time we’ve seen budgets virtually frozen. You can’t really do anything new with frozen budgets. You can’t initiate anything.

If the programs we’re currently resourcing into communities out there are not preventing this kind of violence, then I think we need to do more. I guess that’s what I was hoping for. What is the ministry’s vision, what’s the minister’s vision, on how we do more?

You said here immediately that many of these budgets are staying static or have such meagre increases that they’re not allowing anything new. Well, if we don’t do anything new, then we’re not going to stop the increased incidence of violence. Or if we have to move dollars out of
[ Page 7870 ]
one program to put into another — none of those things seem very effective. I was just hoping for a bit more of a vision that the minister might have on where we go in the future with this.

If we continue to see this kind of growth in numbers, that’s alarming. I mean, we’ve already seen increased violence in other aspects of our communities. The Surrey discussion that’s going on right now — also very disturbing.

This increased occurrence of violence everywhere in our society means that we’re failing. We’re failing communities. We’re failing women. We’re failing children of women who are being murdered or abused by spouses.

I’m just looking for maybe the minister to talk about: what does this advocacy look like? Is it just coordinating, or is there something a bit more that communities can look forward to in the way of just more proactive involvement?

[1740]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Certainly, I appreciate, again, the interest and passion in the area. I don’t think anybody disputes the need for focus in this. But it is a broad area, and there’s no one, simple solution or investment that can be made to stem what is an absolutely horrific crime that happens behind closed doors most of the time.

But what I can say to the member is that the commentary relating to the fact that there’s no investment or no new investment, I don’t think is an accurate representation. We’re one year into a three-year provincial domestic violence plan, $5.5 million being invested between this year and next on programs and services in specific targeted areas that were highlighted through consultation with the anti-violence community in terms of where new dollars would best be spent and on what areas we needed to focus.

In addition, there’s the ten-year “Violence-free B.C.” strategy that was launched in March, announcements of additional dollars for DVUs and, through civil forfeiture, an ongoing commitment of $3 million a year for victim services programs and things through JAG. I would encourage the member to canvass more thoroughly with JAG the breadth and depth of those investments.

But certainly, there is an acknowledgment. I believe that acknowledgment is government-wide, and not the least of the people acknowledging it is the Premier in her commitment to “Violence-free B.C.” Frankly, any form of violence in British Columbia is not acceptable. We’re going to continue to work — from our anti-bullying programs and our Roots of Empathy programs, right through to our work with offenders once they’ve been sentenced — to see change.

This is a big issue that takes a lot of work, a lot of collective work. Our role in the provincial office of domestic violence is to assist in leading that coordination.

M. Karagianis: I’ll take this opportunity to move into a discussion on child care. I have a number of questions here. I just want to set the context. I know that the minister will be familiar with some of these facts.

Child care represents, for most families, the second-highest cost after housing. In reality, I’ve heard from families who say that they are paying more for child care than they are for their mortgages. An average cost for full-time infant-toddler care is $800 a month. That’s an average. So in many communities that’s higher, and in some communities that’s lower. Often it’s higher in urban communities and lower as you move out into more rural areas.

Only one in three children currently has access to child care spaces. I know that the government came up with a $55 a month refundable child tax credit, but in reality, that’s a day of child care, if that. So I’m very concerned. The 13,000 proposed child care spaces that the government talked about — we canvassed this in estimates last year — represents a fairly small increase in the number of spaces, given the demand out there. I’ll have a number of questions around this.

The reality is that affordable child care allows more women to get into the workforce, which is good for the government. It’s good for the economy. It’s good for financial security for families. Still, far too few women are able to take advantage of that. Beyond just the cost of child care and the availability of child care, there are other issues here outstanding.

There was a 2009 goal of lowering childhood vulnerability to 15 percent by 2015. But in fact, childhood vulnerability has increased. The minister will know this. It stood at 29 percent in 2009, and it’s at 32½ percent as of 2015. That is a concern.

I’m going to have a number of questions on there, and then I’m going to talk a little bit about some of the other programs, like 15-by-15, and other early-years resources.

What is the early-years budget for this year and the next three years? And what was the actual figure for 2014-15?

[1745-1750]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Sorry for the confusion. There are a lot of lines all over the place. For the early-years services — which include early childhood development, early-years centres, early-years office, child care and all of the subsidies, etc., accordingly — last year the restated spend was $267.611 million. The budget for this year is $301.507 million.

M. Karagianis: Can I take it that the $301 million is for the next three years as well? Is that static for the next three years out?

Hon. S. Cadieux: There are slight increases, to $301.8 million next year, $302.268 million the next — so increases not in the same magnitude.

M. Karagianis: When we canvassed this last year, the
[ Page 7871 ]
minister talked about creating 1,000 new spaces for 2014-15. In fact, did you create 1,000 new spaces in that time frame? I guess, going forward, what’s the capital budget for new spaces for 2015-16 and the following three years, and how many new spaces will be created in those years?

Hon. S. Cadieux: The goal was 1,000 spaces. We announced capital funding approvals for 1,006 spaces in November. Since that time, through the contract-signing process and getting things underway, a few of those spaces have been reduced by a couple of the potential operators. So we’re adding those to the “coming to a theatre near you” result of the RFP from this spring. We anticipate doing over 1,000 spaces this spring and then, starting next year, in 2016-17, look to jump to fund over 2,000 spaces and continue that out till we reach 13,000 spaces within the eight-year commitment.

M. Karagianis: So 1,006 announced in November, reduced slightly, but expected to be in place this spring — the full 1,000-plus?

Hon. S. Cadieux: I’ll explain that. The contracts…. The announcement of the dollars was in November. It takes some time for some of these spaces to be built, depending on whether they are additions to facilities or new facilities, but our hope is that they’re up and running relatively quickly — I think by the fall at the latest for most.

[1755]

The announcement we will be making shortly on this second intake for capital for the 2015-16 fiscal year, we would anticipate, would be in place, hopefully, by the end of the year.

M. Karagianis: Great, thank you. I didn’t hear the capital budget was for the new spaces for 2015-16 and each of the three years out. But I believe I heard the minister say that new spaces created will be, for 2015-16, 2,000, and then, in each of the coming three years, another 2,000.

I just wouldn’t mind hearing what the capital budget is. Then maybe while you’re discussing that….

What does that represent in a percentage of increase for child care spaces per year? The 13,000 spaces in total that we discussed last year only represents about a 1.6 percent increase in the number of spaces. Can you possibly break it down as to what that means per year in each of these coming years? I guess I could do the math, but I’m hoping maybe you have an answer — or not.

Hon. S. Cadieux: To answer the first question on the percentage increase, it’s around 1 percent, or 1,000 over the 106,000 spaces that existed prior to the 1,000; and this next year, 1,000 on the 107,000; and 2,000 the following year on the 108,000 at that point. The percentage will vary, but not much above 1 percent as we go forward — modest, certainly.

That said, the capital budget for the spaces is just over $13 million annually. The spend on that depends somewhat on the mix of applications we get from providers, in terms of what they’re building, where they’re building, how much it’s going to cost and whether they are for-profit or non-profit providers. We pay up to 90 percent for non-profit providers and up to 75 percent when they’re a for-profit provider.

The amount of capital requested will depend on a number of factors — where they’re located and the cost of what they’re building, whether it be a brand-new build from scratch or whether they’re renovating an existing space or adding new space to an existing space. The cost per space varies depending on the application.

What we select, to reach those 1,000 spaces that we have committed to reach, depends on the criteria around underserved areas. We want to build space in underserved areas first, on school grounds or in coordinated efforts with community centres, etc. — schools, community centres.

[J. Thornthwaite in the chair.]

The costs vary from site to site and operator to operator. What we’re committed to is the 1,000.

M. Karagianis: The minister said something here that talked about underserved areas. I wouldn’t mind hearing what those areas are and how those are identified as underserved, please.

[1800]

Hon. S. Cadieux: It’s a combination of factors that we would be looking at when we suggest that, not the least of which are utilization rates, which are reported in our performance management reports — so available for you to take a detailed look at. Obviously, highest utilization would suggest that spaces aren’t as available because they’re full.

That said, we also know that the challenge can be different between infant and toddler spaces or older children spaces. We know that, generally, infant and toddler are highly utilized, so one of the priorities for the capital procurement was preference for the infant and toddler spaces. We also look at the child population in a given area. We then look at the number of spaces that we’re currently supporting in those areas and look at the utilization rates on top of that — also looking at EDI results, looking at vulnerabilities in communities.

We have anecdotal information from child care resource and referral centres, where they’re getting commentary from parents who are actively seeking child care.

[1805]

Certainly, we have said in the past that some of the areas where we know we have need are areas like Surrey, Langford, Mission, etc., with young populations.
[ Page 7872 ]

M. Karagianis: Well, that does make sense where there’s growth.

I want to talk a little bit…. Last year in estimates the minister stated that a parent survey was to be undertaken in 2014. Has that occurred, and what were the results of those surveys in terms of parents’ ability to find child care spaces? I’m sure the minister has seen this article from The Tyee from February, “In B.C., a Hellish Hunt for Childcare,” which I think outlines an experience that many, many families are having.

In fact, I’ve talked in this House a lot about my grandchildren. My own children and grandchildren are a part of this story. I know the challenges that my children have had in finding good daycare where they live that’s affordable. It’s a constant, ongoing challenge.

I’d be interested to see what the results of the survey were, if it’s been done — not only the availability of the spaces, but affordability, which I suspect to be the two things that families would talk about a lot. I’d be interested to know what the government found.

Hon. S. Cadieux: Thank you for the question, to the member. I think this is interesting data, and I was looking forward to it myself. Yes, indeed, the survey has been completed. We have some preliminary results, which I can share, but the detailed report we hope to be able to provide publicly by the end of May.

It would appear that the early results suggest that 54 percent of people are staying home to care for their children. Of those 54 percent, 16 percent suggested they stayed home because they can’t afford child care in another way; 55 percent choose to stay home because they believe it’s the best for their children. And 59 percent of families requiring care require it during non-standard hours, which may also be driving some of their decisions.

The quality of the child care provider is the biggest overall driver of satisfaction in their arrangement. One-third of respondents mentioned expensive child care as a challenge. The second most mentioned challenge was the lack of convenient hours or days of operation — again, that probably is mirroring the comment of the non-standard hours — and 77 percent of respondents did not have to be wait-listed to secure a spot in their current arrangement. Of those who responded that they were wait-listed, 11 percent were in immediate need and actively trying to locate a space.

I’m looking forward to the fulsome results and the report, which we will make available publicly, hopefully by the end of May.

[1810]

M. Karagianis: I’m looking forward to that as well, because some of these numbers, I think, are fairly predictable numbers.

Does the ministry know how many children are actually waiting for child care spaces in B.C.?

Hon. S. Cadieux: The short answer is no. What we know is what we fund, and that is 107,000 licensed spaces. The survey, hopefully, will give us some indication of the level of need out there. However, it is a survey. It is not a fulsome undertaking to be able to contact every human being in British Columbia to see if they’ve got a child that’s looking for daycare.

As it relates specifically to wait-lists, or people who would purport to be on a wait-list, those would be managed and maintained by specific providers. We don’t have access to that information, nor do they share it with us at this time.

M. Karagianis: I would think that that’s a pretty compelling bit of information that would be worthwhile. I mean, the child care advocates guess that only 20 percent of children who need child care are actually accessing child care, so that number may or may not be rock-solid. Certainly, even if we take some of the numbers that the minister has talked about here and extrapolate that out, that’s pretty significant information with a pretty compelling underlying message, I think, for government in the future.

Last year in estimates we also talked about the fact that the on-line registry was supposed to be fully implemented in 2015-16. Has that occurred? I see the minister shaking her head. So if not, what’s the timeline on that now, please?

[1815]

Hon. S. Cadieux: In fact, when we went and started doing some consultation with the sector, through the child care council and others, about what this should look like, there was a fair degree of…. Disagreement would be the wrong word. But there were a lot of different opinions about what would be useful, what wouldn’t be useful, why, experiences with different things. A decision was made to do a little more research into what else is available in other communities, in other provinces and so on. What have they used? Has it worked? Has it not worked? What are the pros and cons?

That work, the research work, was undertaken. The decision was, in the end, to go with an RFI, a request for information, posted, to look at what market solutions might be available and what providers might be interested in providing to us what we think we need. It’s posted now. It closes on the fifth of May.

From that, we hope that there will be some interesting solutions brought forward that would prompt going to an RFP to actually provide that. It would suggest we’re at least a year behind in delivering this. But that was at the urging, as I say, of our partners in the sector and cautions we were getting in terms of what may or may not be useful or practical for providers and families.

That said, we’re also taking a look with our partners at MTICS at the on-line child care map that we currently
[ Page 7873 ]
have, looking at the platform that it’s built on and what enhancements or adjustments might be made to that to make it a more useful tool for families and/or providers. So there are a couple of things that are happening at the same time. We still have an intention to develop a registry. What the final outcome of the RFI process is, I can’t say yet.

M. Karagianis: The pilot projects for the early-years centres were initially supposed to be up and running by March 2014, but I understand that is not happening either. Do you have a…? They’ve been delayed? Have there…?

Interjection.

M. Karagianis: Okay. My understanding was that they had been delayed, so if you have an update that says everything’s on track there, I’d be interested in hearing it.

Hon. S. Cadieux: The pilots for the early-years centres, the first 12 sites, were opened up by September of last year, September 2014, and have been operating. We also engaged with UBC to do some research in terms of lessons learned with the first sites to use in the go-forward.

Since then, we’ve expanded to add…. Through that lessons-learned process, we decided to expand the pilot to include 14 more that all received or had their contracts start March 1 of this year, of 2015.

In total, there are 26 early-years centres around the province that are currently open or in operation. A few have not yet had their official opening, but they are underway. We are looking to, in this budget year, expand to another 16, and we’re currently working on the RFP for that.

M. Karagianis: Great. Thank you very much. So there was a little bit of a delay from the earlier promises.

[1820]

In the case of some of these centres, are these all actually new? I mean, in the case of Smithers, they simply moved from one location into town and sort of had an opening. But they’re not new. That simply moved from one location into town. Are they included in that? Would they be considered new, part of the 12 or part of the ongoing new ones that are coming on line?

Hon. S. Cadieux: They are all new in that we didn’t have early-years centres before in the format in which we are now operating. While some of the providers would have been doing programming related to the early years and many of them were previously, and continue to be, MCFD early childhood development or whatever service providers, the reality is that the contracts for early-years centres are centred around the enhanced coordination and partnerships in community around delivery of services and ensuring that families have access to those services from a broad range of providers — the health authorities, school districts, and so on — through one centre.

They look different in different communities — hence, pilot. We’re looking at all of the different ways in which these are operating, ways in which they’re delivering new types of service, including new ways of delivering services in rural and remote areas, taking services to people in some cases, and in some cases centralizing programs or partnering to deliver more of the same.

M. Karagianis: Well, in some cases I think that the word “new” might be not 100 percent applicable, as we might view “new.” But I’d like to actually talk a little bit about recruitment and retention, noting that time is going by quite quickly here. Has the government increased the number of spaces available in early childhood educator training courses?

[1825]

Hon. S. Cadieux: The ministry doesn’t directly fund ECE training spaces. Those are provided through the educational institutions and/or private training colleges. Whether they are funded through the Ministry of Advanced Education or through fully private training institutions is up to them. We don’t fund spaces. We don’t create spaces for training.

What we did do, however, last year was provide $500,000 to ECEBC to set up bursaries so that students who wanted to take the courses had access to funding to assist them in doing that and, again, to promote the areas of greatest need, which was aboriginal specialization and infant and toddler specializations. We have renewed that commitment with an additional million dollars that I announced in March.

M. Karagianis: Yes, and I do know that the government established the bursaries.

I have a question: have you tracked how many additional educators that were recruited because of the bursary and, particularly, how many would have normally gone into the program versus how many were encouraged now to go in because of the bursary? Have you any way of tracking that?

Hon. S. Cadieux: We don’t have any way of tracking the incremental, whether or not there was incremental growth in the sense of more people being attracted to take the training because of the bursary or whether or not they would have taken the training anyway. We don’t know that. We can’t track that. Even if we could, it would be anecdotal. It wouldn’t be scientific. That said, we do know that 330 people were funded through bursaries to take the training last year.

M. Karagianis: That will certainly go a bit of a way to kind of address some of the issues around recruitment.
[ Page 7874 ]

I know that one other way that we have been getting early childhood educators is through out-of-province-trained ECE providers and the equivalency that they are granted. Do you have any idea on the numbers of those — how many we have taken in now and what the projection might be in the coming year?

[P. Pimm in the chair.]

Hon. S. Cadieux: We have a number of statistics that I’ll share that might be of interest.

Firstly, as of January 30, 2015, there were 14,335 certified ECE instructors and 5,993 ECE assistants certified in British Columbia. The ministry began tracking out-of-country and out-of-province applications only in July of 2014 — so last year. I can tell you that during that time between July of 2014 and February of 2015, about a seven-month period, out-of-country applications assessed were 99 and the out-of-province applications that were assessed for equivalency, 92 — almost 200 people.

[1830]

M. Karagianis: Do you have any idea…? Are there any projections for the kinds of numbers that we might expect? I guess we don’t know. July 2014. There’s not really enough data to be collected. That’ll be a question for another time, I guess: what the trend is in numbers of that.

One of the things we did talk about last year in estimates was the other issue for recruitment, and that is retention — which is low wages in the sector. I think last year the minister felt that the mean wage was about $17 an hour, and I know, as of reports even today, that the living wage is considerably above that.

What is the government doing to address the issue of low wages for child care workers? Certainly, it leads to a lot of turnover, sort of a decrease in quality of care, as people go and find employment that pays more. That’s a problem, ongoing. It’s a bit of a crisis, I think, when I talk to child care providers. What is the government plan for addressing that?

Hon. S. Cadieux: The way we get this number is through the ministry’s child care provider profile survey. The providers tell us what they’re paying folks. The median wage in 2014-15 was $18 per hour, which is about a 22 percent increase since 2005-06.

Our focus…. We continue to provide approximately 15 percent of operating funding through the child care operating funding that we provide to providers, but our focus has been, around ECEs specifically, on the quality and the training and providing the bursaries, enhancing the quality of the training, working with AVED on the competencies and so forth that are in the training itself at this point.

We haven’t focused specifically on wages. Our operators are private — private or non-profit. But they’re not our employees; they’re their employees. So at this point we haven’t focused on that. We’ve focused on enhancing the quality, which was one of the things that the sector was also looking for.

M. Karagianis: Is it something that the government plans on focusing on? I can see, certainly, the logic in the focus so far. There has been so much pressure from families on getting more spaces out there, getting better quality and licensing and oversight and things.

It would seem to me that if this is a growing trend, then there’s another crisis coming. It seems to exist at some levels around making sure that people actually want to do this work because it does pay them at least enough to live on.

I would think that the cost of living on the south Island here and in Vancouver and areas…. You know, this is not the kind of income that allows people to live in those areas very easily. Has the government got plans to turn their minds to this in the coming time frame, years or whatever?

[1835]

Hon. S. Cadieux: What I would say is that there hasn’t been a decision not to focus on the wages of staff. The decision has been to focus the resources and energies around the early-years plan that we’re working on, with focusing on the early-years centres, the bringing together of all of the different types of services and supports that we have, ensuring that the quality is enhanced in the sector. The quality of the staff, enhanced through training and bursaries and so on, in and of itself will put upward pressure on wages over time.

That said, our other commitment has been to increase capacity in the sector in terms of the number of spaces available. Modest as it is, the capital investments have been the route we’ve chosen to go in that regard.

We have to balance, I think, the recognition that should wages increase significantly in this sector, by one mechanism or another, the result will undoubtedly be a rise in the cost of child care for families — which is, of course, as we’ve discussed, already at a level that is challenging for many, many families. There’s, I think, a broad conversation happening publicly about this issue and about the challenges and about: how do we best address it as a society, and what are the individual strategies that we choose to employ to do that?

It certainly isn’t a decision to not look at that. It’s just chunking out what we’re doing first, what focus we’re going to put on the early years and where we feel we can, with the resources we have, make the most impact in the shortest period of time.

M. Karagianis: I would agree with the minister. I think that the discussion that’s going on federally, the comparisons that are being made with other provinces around universal child care, the discussions around $15-a-day
[ Page 7875 ]
or other forms of child care — all of those — have a huge impact.

You can see that the more spaces we create, the more people we need as educators, the more we have to make that career attractive and sustainable and family-supporting. Until we grapple with maybe a larger discussion on universality, which I think families would certainly support, and how that would look, then I think we’re going to continue to see these pressures.

I’m conscious of the time, and I know my colleague would like to ask at least one or two questions here before we adjourn today.

I have a couple of questions about the 15-by-15 commitment. The government had looked at childhood vulnerability, and in 2009 there was a commitment to reduce vulnerability to 15 percent by 2015, from 29 percent in ’09 to 15 percent by 2015. That has not happened. In fact, childhood vulnerability has gone up in those years. We’re now sitting at about 32.5 percent vulnerability for kids.

I guess a couple of questions. What has happened in the ensuing years? What was the plan, and what was undertaken to address this between ’09 and now? Obviously, it didn’t succeed, so what are the plans moving forward?

[1840]

I think this is a crucial issue for early childhood learning and for moving into the school system. We know how critical this is. It’s very disturbing that the numbers have increased at a time when we thought we’d decreased them to 15 percent, which now, in retrospect, seems a very lofty goal.

What’s been done up to this point? What are the plans going forward? Has the government abandoned this idea of 15 percent? What is the plan, basically?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Firstly, definitely a lofty target. A couple of the things that were done in response to that goal were the implementation of full-day K and the StrongStart centres and things that were enacted in other ministries to focus on this area of early years.

[1845]

One of the best things about full-day K, of course, is that now all children are monitored for the EDI at kindergarten, which is a good thing because we have more accurate and constant data. We continue to fund the EDI and work with HELP, and we monitor the outcomes of that survey. One of the good-news pieces is that in the different elements of the EDI…. The literacy component — we’re seeing improvements in that component of EDI. But it’s not consistent, necessarily, everywhere, and that is important.

The EDI work and the initial work on 15-by-15 has informed a lot of the work that we’re doing now with the early-years centres. What we have learned, certainly, is that in order to have the most impact on EDI and on vulnerability, you really have to be doing the work neighbourhood by neighbourhood at a community level.

The early-years centres provide an opportunity to have that focus in a community and to help make the information around the EDI — what it says and what’s going to impact the results for kids in a positive way — understood at a community-by-community level as well, because when everybody understands what they’re working towards, of course, they’re going to have better impact.

We will hope, certainly, and we will continue to work through the early-years centres to look at, community by community, trying to affect the EDI rates. We want to see them lower. I think everybody in British Columbia would agree with that. So 15 may be a lofty target, and it certainly won’t be hit this year, but I think that the work needs to continue. We’re certainly continuing to partner with HELP on ensuring that we have that data and we use that data.

D. Donaldson: Just a straightforward STOB question before we rise for the day. It’s standard objects of expense, as the ADM and Finance know, but those out there in the listening world probably don’t.

STOB 57, which is travel, in 2014-15 was $4.987 million. STOB 57 in 2015-16 is $5.182 million. My straightforward question on that is: did this travel cover any out-of-province travel or out-of-country travel in 2014-15, and, if so, to which provinces or countries? Is it planned to cover any out-of-province or out-of-country travel in 2015-16, and, if so, to which provinces or countries?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Quickly, to the member, the vast majority of travel for the ministry is within province. Of the out-of-province travel that does happen — and it does happen on occasion — the vast majority of that is operational in nature. It’s social workers either accompanying children out of province or going to another jurisdiction to do a home study type of situation or that type of thing. We can get more detailed numbers.

We can’t offhand think of anything that happened that was out of country. The deputy minister signs off on all of the out-of-province and out-of-country travel, and we can’t remember anything. We will endeavour to ensure that is the case and, if it is different, to report back.

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

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 6:50 p.m.

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