Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 1997

Afternoon

Volume 3, Number 14

[ Page 2361 ]

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

L. Stephens: Visiting in the House today is a constituent of mine from Langley, Mr. Stanley Rimmer. Would everyone please make him welcome.

I. Chong: In the gallery today, I am pleased to introduce two very good friends of mine, Mr. Gordy Dodd and his wife Ravinder. Mr. Dodd is a well-known and successful businessman in Victoria. Would the House please make them welcome.

D. Jarvis: Everywhere in the gallery today, you will see students from the Lynn Valley area of North Vancouver-Seymour. I'd like the House to welcome 201 students from Argyle high school.

Hon. G. Clark: Today in the members' gallery we have a special visitor from the People's Republic of China. His Excellency Liu Zhongde is the Minister of Culture of China, and this is the first visit to Canada by a Chinese cultural minister. The minister and members of his delegation are travelling across Canada, and we are pleased that they have started in our Pacific province. Please join me in giving them a very warm welcome to British Columbia.

Hon. D. Miller: I have the honour today to introduce to members the Vice-Governor for Political Affairs from Kyonggi province in Korea, Mr. Choi, and his delegation. Kyonggi province surrounds Korea's capital city of Seoul and has long been a major centre of cultural and social life. Today there is an emerging international business centre containing almost one-third of Korea's industries. Trade between Korea and British Columbia has expanded very, very rapidly over the last several years, and we look forward to signing a cooperative agreement later this afternoon with Mr.

Choi and to the prospect of ever-increasing trade between British Columbia and Kyonggi province. I would ask the House to make them welcome.

I. Waddell: I also have three guests from Korea, and I want the House to welcome them. But before I do, I notice, in the gallery, the consul general for the People's Republic of China, and we welcome him here to the House.

My three guests are Yoon Kyoung, Hey Joo and Eun Hwa, who are Korean students here studying the language and working on their language skills. They've come to the right place. We're pleased to welcome them here, and I'd ask the members to welcome them to the House.

Hon. C. Evans: Please join me in welcoming a visitor to British Columbia, Mr. Bernard Robin. Mr. Robin is a trade representative of Rioja Wines in Spain. He came to B.C. to participate in this year's successful Vancouver International Wine Festival. Please join me in making him welcome.

G. Janssen: We have with us in the gallery today two people: first, from Alberni, Terry Shannon, a dairy farmer and member of the Port Alberni Farmers Institute; and from Parksville, an old friend and a close friend, Mr. Dick Peeke-Vout. I ask the House to welcome them.

Oral Questions

MAVIS FLANDERS CASE

G. Campbell: Hon. Speaker, last week the Minister for Children and Families informed the House that Mavis Flanders had successfully completed ten weeks of alcohol and drug counselling. The minister left the clear impression with the House that as a result of this, the intensive supervision that had been required for Ms. Flanders and her little boy was no longer necessary. We now know that on February 10, six weeks prior to her death, Ms. Flanders was placed on a wait-list at a substance abuse treatment centre in Abbotsford.

Why didn't the minister tell the House that at the time of her death, Mavis Flanders was on a wait-list for substance abuse treatment?

Hon. P. Priddy: What the question was last week -- and the question that was answered -- was whether Mavis Flanders had met the conditions of the supervision order set down by the judge when her little guy was apprehended. She did successfully complete ten weeks of counselling. Many people who have drug and alcohol abuse issues in their lives then go on to do additional intensive counselling. But the conditions in her supervision order were successfully met by Mavis Flanders.

In order for any other work to have happened, we would have had to go back to court and prove to the judge that somehow, during the supervision order, she had not met the criteria to be able to carry on any work. It was not a secret that she was on a wait-list for an additional program.

G. Campbell: As I've said in the past in this House, we are all looking for answers to these problems to try to solve them. When we asked the question in the House, we asked why, in fact, there was not supervision with regard to Ms. Flanders. The minister left the clear impression -- seven separate times she told us in this House -- that Ms. Flanders had been taking substance abuse treatment courses, that she had graduated from them, that she had passed through them after ten weeks of a course. At the same time, evidently, the minister knew that Ms. Flanders was on a wait-list for substance abuse treatment. Hon.

Speaker, that is simply not good enough in terms of the House; it's simply not good enough in terms of the little boy; it's simply not good enough in terms of what's taking place in British Columbia.

How on earth could the minister not be aware that Ms. Flanders was in fact wait-listed for substance abuse, and how could the ministry say at that point that it was no longer necessary to have the intensive supervision that was clearly required under the court order because of Ms. Flanders's substance abuse problems?

Hon. P. Priddy: I think there are two things here. One of them is: yes, we did know; it was not a secret. This was information, I think, that was available fairly widely. I was asked about the conditions under which the supervision order was applied. She did successfully complete those.

Hon. Speaker, many people go on to additional drug and alcohol abuse counselling. If we're suggesting that every one of those people does not have their children in their lives, I think we have a significant challenge to deal with in British Columbia.

What I said at the time was that no child protection issues were raised during the supervision order. In order for us to get an

[ Page 2362 ]

additional order from the judge, we would have had to prove that somewhere in the supervision order, child protection issues had been raised. None were raised during that time. The fact that she was committed enough to register for an additional program, I do not think necessarily says that everybody ought not to have the right to be a parent.

G. Campbell: This is not about someone's right to have the opportunity to be a parent; it is about how we are going to protect our young children in British Columbia. The top priority we have is to protect those children. That's what the government has said they're committed to, and we embrace that commitment. We say yes, you should be committed to the protection of the child.

[2:15]

What we know -- what the minister in fact told us -- is that the child was returned by court order to the parent on the understanding that the parent would clean up the problem she faced. Clearly substance abuse was a huge issue here. It is not something where, say, someone has enrolled in a live-in, rehabilitation treatment centre, and the ministry will wash its hands of it.

The question again is: why wasn't this family carefully supervised, intensively supervised and watched to make sure that we did put the interests of the child at the top of the list? The interests of the child have to come first.

Hon. P. Priddy: Two things. One of them is: it is not that this family was not receiving support services, where people had opportunities to identify whether this child was at risk. In all of the virtually daily visits to the neighbourhood house made after the supervision order ended, nobody raised the issue of child protection. People saw a well-cared-for child.

We do not have the right, as much as people might wish us to, to say to someone, "We still believe we have the right to come to your home; let us in," unless we go back to court and can demonstrate where child protection issues have been raised. That was not the case.

M. Coell: The Peardonville House treatment centre in Abbotsford is an agency funded by the Ministry for Children and Families. The ministry has frequently referred patients to an intensive ten-week, live-in substance abuse treatment program for women and their children.

Can the minister tell us how her officials could not know that Ms. Flanders had been booked into that substance abuse treatment program that was funded by her ministry?

Hon. P. Priddy: I don't think anyone said that we did not know that information; I have acknowledged that we did know that information. Many people continue to take treatment. Does that mean that their children are taken away from them? No, it does not -- unless people have raised child protection issues. That information was available to the ministry. I did know that information. We knew she was on a wait-list. That's why we provided the additional support of respite care, visiting at the neighbourhood house and counselling, which she went to on a daily basis until four days before her death.

M. Coell: Mavis Flanders was placed on a substance abuse treatment program list on February 10. A bed was not available until April 14 -- this month -- three weeks after she passed away.

Why do a mother and a child known to this ministry have to wait ten weeks to get into an intensive treatment program?

Hon. P. Priddy: Do people have to wait sometimes? Is there not always a bed available? The member from the opposition is correct: sometimes people do have to wait. We don't have facilities with empty beds. If we did, we would be criticized for that as well, I expect.

As I think the member may know, there is a debate in the alcohol and drug abuse field about the difference between residential programs and programs where people stay in their own homes. There's actually a shifting view -- all grist for another debate, perhaps -- to the fact that many people believe programs are more effective when people can stay in their own homes and access those programs.

Is it a problem that there is a wait-list? Of course there is. But we don't have empty beds all of the time for that.

CARDIAC SURGERY WAIT-LIST CASE

S. Hawkins: Waiting lists are nothing more than numbers to the NDP. The Minister of Health doesn't seem to realize that waiting lists consist of real people with real families and real needs.

Mrs. Adel Key has been waiting for cardiac surgery for six months. She's been classified as urgent, and she still doesn't know today when her surgery is booked for. Patients don't need lip service, Mr. Speaker, they need action.

Will this Health minister stand up today and tell Mrs. Adel Key's husband, who is in the House today, when she will have her surgery?

Hon. J. MacPhail: Really, enough is enough from this opposition, which continually tries to play politics with medical decisions. Last week we saw this opposition do exactly that, in the most despicable way, and mislead the public on the exact circumstances of a heart surgery wait-list patient. In fact, when the real circumstances were revealed, it proved them to be absolutely ridiculous in their point of view of whether it's a medical decision or a political decision. They try to make it a political decision, and it turns out that it's a medical decision.

Hon. Speaker, doctors in this province know the priorities for going on a surgical wait-list. It is up to them to make those medical decisions; it is up to them to determine the urgent priorities. If the wait-list procedure is not working, it is up to those doctors to refer their patients to other doctors who have shorter wait-lists. That opposition party knows that. Unfortunately, they're not willing to deal with the real issue, which is that some doctors keep extremely long wait-lists and will not refer their patients to other doctors who have shorter wait-lists. It is shameful what they do to wait-lists.

The Speaker: Thank you, members.

Member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast.

Some Hon. Members: Supplemental.

The Speaker: There is no right in Standing Orders to an automatic supplemental, members. The question was answered.

[ Page 2363 ]

MULTILATERAL INVESTMENT AGREEMENT

AND PROVINCIAL RIGHTS

G. Wilson: Hon. Speaker, the word "trilogy," as you well know, has referred in the past to a series of Greek tragedies. So it is with the trilogy of the trade agreements Canada has had with the United States.

I have in my hand a document marked "confidential" that is the consolidated texts and commentary of the multilateral agreement on investment currently being signed by the Canadian government, on behalf of Canadians, with participating nations. The content of this is a shameful sellout of Canadian sovereignty. Furthermore, the content undermines provincial paramountcy over our ability to regulate resources, investment and the development of job protection strategies for British Columbia.

My question to the Premier is: does the Premier have representatives at the table with respect to the Canadian negotiators who have negotiated such an outrageous deal? And secondly, if so, does the Premier agree that provincial paramountcy over our ability to maintain the provincial economy should be sold out in the text of this document?

Hon. G. Clark: This is a very important question for the House to debate.

I'm not familiar with the contents of that specific document the member referred to, but I can give the member assurance in this way. I have raised, at first ministers conferences, that British Columbia says -- and most of the provinces agree -- that provincial governments should be represented at international treaty negotiations where provincial rights are at stake. We will not abide by signed international treaties that impinge upon provincial rights. I've told the federal government that repeatedly. We, in our internal trade negotiations, have taken a very strong position.

For example, all B.C. ferries will be constructed in British Columbia regardless of any treaties signed by the federal government. That's our position.

Similarly with the conduct of investment codes. These are very critical questions. Now that the member has raised it, I assure him and all members of the House that we will ensure that British Columbia has representation at any discussions where provincial rights are on the table.

ROLE OF BACKBENCH MLA IN

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY-MAKING

M. de Jong: Last week we heard the Education minister defend himself against charges by the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin that it was his lack of attentiveness that was responsible for cutbacks in the classroom. This week it's the ever-mischievous member from Metchosin who has decided to tell the people of Malahat-Juan de Fuca what kind of development is appropriate in their area, what's appropriate for them.

My question is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. Can he tell the House at what time he received formal notification that the member-from-anywhere-for-anyone had returned to cabinet, and whether he's now articulating some new policy on regional development that none of us have heard before?

The Speaker: If there's no answer, I'm going to go back, then, to Powell River-Sunshine Coast.

MULTILATERAL INVESTMENT AGREEMENT

AND PROVINCIAL RIGHTS

G. Wilson: I don't know if the Premier is aware of the urgency of this issue. This document comes into force in June. This document will completely undermine the opportunity of this government to put in place job protection strategies and to protect our primary resources from export. It is a horrendous deal.

My question to the Premier is: will the Premier immediately seek action, with the federal government, to prohibit any further negotiation or implementation of the content of this document until British Columbia has been thoroughly involved and briefed and has had an opportunity to protect its interest?

Hon. D. Miller: Indeed, these issues that the member refers to are truly international in scope, with quite some division around the world with respect to what is being proposed by the United States. We are monitoring those discussions; we're following them very closely. It is not yet clear whether the agreement will apply to provinces.

British Columbia has a number of concerns, particularly about the potential impact on our ability to lever jobs, as the Premier indicated. British Columbians will reserve the right, whether it's using B.C. Ferries or other interests, to use our own tools -- for example, Crown corporations for job creation here in British Columbia.

The member is aware, for example, of the recent attempts by some to use the environmental add-on to NAFTA to impair our ability to do business here in British Columbia. We did not sign on. We rejected that. We will continue to take that position in defence of the interests of British Columbians. That's who we were elected to represent.

The Speaker: The bell terminates question period.

Petitions

T. Nebbeling: I ask leave to present a petition.

The Speaker: Please proceed, member.

T. Nebbeling: This petition is on behalf of the citizens of Horseshoe Bay and the smaller communities along Howe Sound. The petition reads as follows:

"Howe Sound Pulp and Paper Ltd., located at Port Mellon on west Howe Sound, has applied to the B.C. Ministry of the Environment for a permit for a 300 percent increase in sulphur dioxide emissions and a further increase in nitrogen oxide emissions. [The citizens of these areas] strongly oppose any increase that will further poison the land, water and air of Howe Sound and the surrounding environment, and ask that your ministry deny this application."

L. Stephens: Hon. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of Canadian Women in Timber. The petition reads:

"On behalf of the 116 British Columbia communities that depend directly on the health and stability of the forest industry, Canadian Women in Timber call on government and the board of Forest Renewal B.C. to keep their promises to the forests and the forest owners, the people of B.C. We appeal to the integrity of government and call upon our elected representatives to stand by the original Forest Renewal legislation. We contend that the Forest Renewal mandate -- to reinvest all FRBC funds collected from the forest industry into forest resources, forest communities and forest workers -- must be fulfilled without influence from B.C.'s political arm."

[ Page 2364 ]

Hon. Speaker, I table this petition on behalf of 662 concerned citizens.

Reports from Committees

Hon. J. MacPhail: I have the honour to present the first report of the Special Committee of Selection for the second session of the thirty-sixth parliament.

I move that the report be taken as read and received.

Motion approved.

Hon. J. MacPhail: I ask leave of the House to suspend the rules to permit the moving of a motion to adopt the report.

Leave granted.

Hon. J. MacPhail: I move that the report be adopted.

Motion approved.

[2:30]

Orders of the Day

Budget Debate

(continued)

R. Masi: It is my privilege today to rise in reply to the budget speech.

It has always been a mystery to me that governments are unable to organize and plan a yearly calendar with specific dates for House sittings and an orderly presentation of the throne speech, the budget speech and the time for appropriate replies from the major players involved. It seems somewhat whimsical that the business of the province should depend upon the five-year calendar for spring breaks set by the Ministry of Education. Little does the Minister of Education realize what power he holds.

I believe it is time that the government listens to the advice of the member for Peace River South, begins to move towards fixed dates for sittings of the House and, as well, looks to a process of recalling the House for a short period if in fact an emergent situation arises relative to spending needs for certain ministries.

Let's look at the record of this government in relation to budgets. The most critical item in any budget is: where do we stand? When this government first took office in 1991, the provincial debt was sitting at approximately $16 billion. Today the Finance ministry gives us a figure for the total provincial debt of over $30 billion. That is some record of fiscal responsibility and planning, and that is some record of financial management to bring to the people of this province -- while holding out their hands for more.

Now, of course, after all these years, this government speaks of prudence and caution. I checked on the definition of prudence. It indicates skill and good judgment in the use of resources. I look at six consecutive deficits, at double the debt and at never meeting a debt management plan, and I wonder how this government has the temerity to use this word in terms of their fiscal planning.

This government speaks of prudence and caution and of becoming fiscally conservative. The Finance ministry and the government spinners even dredge up the name of W.A.C. Bennett. Have you noticed, Mr. Speaker, that W.A.C. is becoming an icon of this government and the NDP? Well, Mr. Finance Minister, I was around during the days of W.A.C. Bennett, and I do not see much of W.A.C. in this Finance minister or this government.

W.A.C. Bennett ran surplus after surplus, and British Columbians then had a triple-A credit rating. W.A.C. had a cost-effective, comprehensive health plan that looked after all British Columbians. W.A.C. built and, more importantly, maintained the southern and northern interior transportation and highways systems, and did not let it fall into disrepair, as we see in evidence from this government.

W.A.C. Bennett recognized the need for sound fiscal planning in the field of elementary, secondary and post-secondary education and would never permit what's happening today: that school districts would be put into a deficit position. Most importantly, W.A.C. Bennett attacked and virtually eliminated the direct debt of this province, and he welcomed, and opened up B.C. to, investment, commerce and initiative. I think it's time that the NDP dropped these weak comparisons and references to a great, if somewhat controversial, British Columbian and admitted that their outmoded ideologies have totally failed and that the world is passing them by.

And while I'm on comparisons, I would like to comment on the remarks made by the member for Surrey-Whalley. The member spoke of attending the B.C. Liberal convention, and the member commented on the makeup of the delegates attending the convention. The member commented that she did not approve of the open method used to bring B.C. Liberals together and went on to explain how the NDP selected their delegates.

Well, it was interesting. According to the member, the NDP select so many from the environmental movement, so many from the women's movement, so many from the whatever movement, so many from the anti-something-or-other coalitions, and so forth. And of course, behind all this and lurking in the shadows is big labour, which really controls everything, anyway.

However, the member attempted to suggest that an NDP convention of special interest groups is superior to a freely selected group of highly motivated citizens not limited to any one point of view, but who are citizens and delegates able to express themselves freely and openly on a broad range of topics vital to the growth and development of this province and to the betterment of all our citizens.

That is the difference. That is the philosophical difference between the NDP and the B.C. Liberals. That is the difference in how an NDP budget is generated and presented: catering to special interest groups rather than to the needs of all British Columbians.

Let's take a look at the budget statements. What do we see? We see that the natural resources revenue situation is appalling. We see natural gas royalties slipping downhill. We see that the mining industry in B.C. is becoming almost extinct. We see mining investment fleeing to other countries and provinces in order to avoid the unrealistic demands and inhibitions placed upon mining investment in this province. It is no wonder that the once number two industry in B.C. is now down to an estimated $44 million in revenue, with a concurrent loss of job opportunities. This industry could create 2,000 direct jobs and 5,000 indirect jobs.

[ Page 2365 ]

We also see the forest industry in a downward spiral. We see small logging and lumber companies going bankrupt and the large companies seriously talking about relocation -- again with resulting job losses.

Things are not working. Things are not working on the coast. There are no logs moving; nothing is moving. And all of this is due to a 75 percent increase in forest costs. It's due to government mismanagement and restrictive expectations and, if I may add, a government demonstrating a sad lack of economic balance.

How does this government really prefer to generate revenue? Well, typically, through the back door by raising fees and licences. Let's take a look at probate fees. By raising probate fees. . . . This again strikes at the very heart of our society: the family -- the average middle-class people who have struggled and worked and built this province and this country, families who have paid off their mortgages and saved a little in the bank. These are the people that get hurt. These are the people who are hit by the more than doubling of probate fees.

It's not the big hitters that get hurt; it's always the average working guy. I sincerely hope that the rise in probate fees is not the signal that a wealth tax is coming. I sincerely hope that we will still retain in this province the energy, the will and the enterprising spirit that built this great province.

I look with interest. . . . It's stated in the budget: "A third key priority of this government. . . education is an investment in our children's future." Well, tell that one to the taxpayers of Delta, the parents of Delta and the teachers of Delta. The Delta block funding has been reduced by $38 to each student, and Delta's block grant has been reduced by slightly over $1 million. Of that million, $745,000 is the so-called "ministry efficiency reduction," which really means: find the money where you can.

Now they say we were supposed to get it through amalgamation. We were going to amalgamate all these districts. But realistically, was Delta going to be amalgamated? Was Surrey going to be amalgamated? Was Vancouver going to be amalgamated? Of course not. There are no efficiencies there, even if you cut administration. I think the minister knows that we have the lowest cost for administration in North America; it sits around 3 percent. We cut counselling services, and now you're talking about an increase in the teacher-pupil ratio, and that's what it's going to boil down to.

It's going to boil down to raising class sizes, and we all know that. Tell that to the school board and the parents in Surrey, where they're facing an $8 million deficit, and where they're in a crisis in ESL -- again in class sizes -- and where they have a teachers' contract which limits the class sizes. Then what are we going to do? Are we going to see this government oppose the teachers? Let's wait and see. It will be interesting.

I quote the former Surrey chair and school trustee, Jim Chisholm: "The financial crisis is so severe and it cuts so deeply into this infrastructure that I think we need help, and we shouldn't be embarrassed to ask for it. We will not be able to deliver quality education." Tell that to the parents of the Vancouver school district, where they face a $16 million deficit and they are now forced to lay off 300 teachers' aides, and they're going to revert back.

This forward-looking New Democratic Party that has forward-looking education policies is now saying: "Let's revert back; let's go back to segregated special education classes." Well, isn't that wonderful? And this government calls education a key priority.

Can I honestly support this budget on the record of financial management demonstrated by this government? Let's look at the record: six straight deficits, a doubling of the provincial debt to almost $31 billion, an appalling tax grab covertly named "user fees and licences," a shifty move of Forest Renewal funds to general revenue, and a disastrous slowing of forest industry revenue caused by unrealistic and inhibiting policies towards the industry. Based on any objective review of this government policy, it's absolutely impossible to support this budget.

C. Hansen: I'm pleased to rise in the budget debate. We've now had a year to look at this new administration -- this post-election NDP administration -- and it is sad to see that we have a budget that I think personifies the rest of the government. It's one that is based on wishful thinking. It's based on rhetoric without accountability, and it is based on a record of failure. They built this budget around three principles: job creation, health care and education. You can look at each of those three themes and see a record of failure.

When it comes to the issue of job creation, it is clear to me that this government has no vision and that it has no program that can give hope to future generations. One thing that is very clear is that the nature of work is changing -- in the year 2000, jobs are going to be very different from the jobs that we've seen in decades gone by. We know that young British Columbians who are going through school today are going to face several careers. They're not going to have the lifelong careers that our parents may have had. Training is going to become an ongoing necessity.

While there have been many initiatives made by this government in the area of training that I think should be applauded, generally speaking, we're missing one of the key ingredients of this concept of a lifetime of learning that is going to be so essential to our workforce in the future.

[2:45]

What we see now is that the training programs that have come out of this government are programs that assist people who have hit the wall. We've got young British Columbians who come out of our public school system and realize that they don't have enough training or enough skills to get themselves a career. So they wind up with marginal jobs, which are fewer and further between every day. But we wind up with those individuals who, after several years of marginal employment, realize that they've got to get training. So they hit the wall. They go back and they find those training programs.

Also, we find that individuals who have been in the workforce for many years find themselves out of a job because of changing technology. The way we've approached job creation in our society means that those individuals have to stop and take themselves completely out of the workforce while they get retrained. If we want to do more than just pay lip service to this notion of a lifetime of learning, we've got to make sure that more workers in this province can develop skills on an ongoing basis.

There's a very noted economist in British Columbia by the name of Roslyn Kunin, and at one point she said something that rang so true to me. She said that every worker in British Columbia today should ask themselves what they should be doing today to have a job a year from now, in terms of keeping themselves current. I think that's a lesson that all of us should learn. It's a lesson that every worker should embed in their head, and we should be providing programs whereby they can find that kind of ongoing training.

Something else we hear this government talk about is the fact that the world is becoming more competitive, and it's

[ Page 2366 ]

very true. The world is becoming more competitive. B.C. companies -- those people who are creating jobs -- have to find ways to increase productivity if we are going to continue to maintain a labour force and a work base in this province in that constantly changing environment. The problem with the rhetoric we hear from the other side is that I don't think this government understands how we have to meet that world competition and those global forces.

We often talk about who's driving the bus. One thing that's clear to me is that on that side of the House it's the leader of the B.C. Federation of Labour who is driving the bus. I think the more appropriate analogy for this government is "driving the caboose." The caboose is an obsolete piece of equipment. If you want to watch the world from the caboose, you stand and look at where you have been, not where you're going, and that is clearly the record of this government.

Under this government we find that we are returning to the days of class warfare: a class warfare that pits labour against capital -- that somehow there's this battle going on, that if you introduce technology into the workforce you're going to put people out of work. And I believe that they fundamentally believe that. They read books like The End of Work . I remember that in the last session the member for Bulkley Valley-Stikine spent most of the session reading a book by Jeremy Rifkin called The End of Work . And yes, hon. Speaker, I have read it.

If you want to summarize this government's approach to economic development, the title sums it up: they see the end of work. They're driving jobs out of this province daily, and at the rate they're going, we will see the end of work in this province. But unfortunately, I think this government is looking at the Jeremy Rifkins of the world as the gurus. I know that he came and spoke to their convention, and he was roundly applauded. Jeremy Rifkin is living in a bygone era. Jeremy Rifkin is advocating that there is a war going on between labour and capital. What he is saying in that book is that as we introduce technology into the workforce, we are driving people out of work.

Let me give you an example of a company that I think is more typical of the real world of the 1990s, the world of the twenty-first century. This is a remanufacturing company in the Fraser Valley that I had the privilege of touring last year. A couple of years ago this company had 50 employees. They were facing two prospects. They could carry on as they were, which meant they were going to go broke and go out of business because international markets that they were trying to compete in were telling them that their unit costs were too high.

Rather than throwing in the towel, this company brought in computer technology. They brought in some of the best software in the world, in the areas of planing, lathe work and machine work. As a direct result of using that technology that they spent an enormous amount of money on. . . . They have to pay corporation capital tax on every dime they spent on that technology -- as a discouragement, as a punishment for them doing what they need to do to preserve jobs.

I'll tell you the end of that story, because this company did bring in that technology. According to Jeremy Rifkin, there would have been a whole bunch of people put out of work in that plant. That wasn't the case. What happened was a direct result of them employing that technology and reducing their production costs. They now have 100 employees, and they are very competitive in the world marketplace. And they will continue to try to be leading edge when it comes to technology, because that is the way they are going to continue to increase the employment in that plant.

The other thing this government is doing as part of its regressive look at the work force -- driving the caboose -- is the inflexibility that this government has built into the workforce. If you look at things like the changes that have been made to the Labour Code and to the Employment Standards Act. . . .

Interjection.

C. Hansen: I know this is something that gets members on the other side of the House going, because they fail to recognize that while it is important to protect the rights of workers, it is also important to make sure that that protection comes in a way that will allow the labour force to change -- allow companies the flexibility that they need to stay competitive. That is not diminishing the rights and the protection of those workers, but it's allowing those companies to stay healthy, to stay profitable and to stay competitive in world markets.

The other thing that we have seen this government do when it comes to job creation is hammer the very people in this society who are creating the jobs that young British Columbians need. During the last election campaign we heard this Premier -- every time he opened his mouth, basically -- hammering the business community. I believe that anybody that would create jobs in this province, no matter how small a company, should be celebrated. Instead, we had this hostile rhetoric coming out of the Premier.

Now, after the election, this government is saying: "We want to work with the business community; we want to work in this cooperative way to help create jobs." Well, I want to read you a quote from a minister of this government. I'm not going to tell you who the minister is until after I'm finished, but surely all of you are going to know who I'm talking about, because surely, if there is any minister in this cabinet who should understand what it takes to create jobs, this minister surely should.

I'll read you the quote: "Surely, if you identify one sector of society as the enemy, then it's pretty hard to then ask them for cooperation." The quote goes on to say: "Surely the approach we take in B.C. is better." And I probably don't have to tell any of you on that side of the House that I'm talking about the Minister of Employment and Investment. He's right: if you treat someone as your enemy, it's going to be hard to sit down at the table and work together in a cooperative way.

What we have is a government that has no economic development strategy. Quite frankly, this government does not know how to create jobs. I would like to quote briefly from a reputed quarterly economic letter from the Hongkong Bank of Canada. I find this frightening, because it says: "In B.C. the steam seems to have run out of. . .expansion." It goes on to say: ". . .there is every expectation that regardless of the provincial government's desire to increase jobs, the opposite will occur. . . ." It further says: "Many observers believe until something is done to encourage economic growth and investment, the downward spiral will continue."

I often hear members on the government side talk about us being negative. What we're doing is reporting what others are saying. That stuff is scary, because what you're talking about in quotes like that is economists who recognize that we are robbing the future of young British Columbians -- that the jobs are simply not being created.

In the past year, since the election, I have tried to figure out what this government mean when they talk about economic development. Quite frankly, what I see it boil down to

[ Page 2367 ]

is that the economic strategy of this government is simply waiting for the crisis to happen -- where people are being thrown out of their jobs -- and then they get on the phone to Doug Kerley and say: "Doug, we've got another crisis. Can you fly to. . .?" -- and then fill in the name of the city.

Three weeks ago, 13 of us from the official opposition caucus did a tour of northern British Columbia. We started in Kitimat and worked our way across this province, town by town, and we listened to the concerns of northerners. We arrived in Terrace the week after the situation with Repap had blown open. People were genuinely scared, because they saw their jobs going down the tubes, and small contractors saw their life savings going down the tubes. These individuals were frightened because of the policies of this government that were driving them out of their homes and out of their businesses.

The one reassurance that the people in Terrace had was that the job protection commissioner was on the case. I must tell you that I have watched the work of Doug Kerley over the past 12 months, and I have a growing respect for the work that that man does. So I encourage those individuals in Terrace and in some of those other small towns to work with Doug Kerley, because he has the power to address some of the fundamental problems.

We got to Dawson Creek towards the end of that week, and I was telling some of the community leaders in Dawson Creek about our experiences on this trip. I was talking to them about my perception of Doug Kerley's role and his flying from crisis to crisis, and I said: "You're lucky, because you haven't had a crisis yet in the Peace River area." I probably should have bitten my tongue, because two weeks later, what do we have in Fort Nelson? The chopstick plant closes -- 200 people out of work, instantly; another crisis. Do you know what the government's response is to another crisis? Phone Doug Kerley.

Do you know what the problem is with the way this government is approaching economic development strategies in this province? It's that they are relying on Doug Kerley to go in and try to negotiate a deal to save those jobs, to which I say: "All the power to you, Doug." The problem is that this government isn't learning from those experiences. As sure as there is a crisis in Fort Nelson today because of job losses, we know that this government is not looking at the fundamental causes of those problems.

The sad thing that is 100 percent predictable is that there is going to be another crisis immediately around the corner that Doug Kerley is going to have to fly into to try to resolve. If this government would put some economic development policies in place that would allow those companies to survive and maintain the jobs, then Doug Kerley's role would not be needed to the extent that it is today.

Over the years of NDP government we've heard a lot about something called a job creation strategy. Here's something from the infamous budget of April 1996. The then Finance minister, Elizabeth Cull, said: "In the next few weeks, a new jobs plan with ambitious, achievable targets for private sector job creation will be announced." Do you know what? Nothing happened.

Then we had another budget that came down in June. Again, the Finance minister read fine words. It said: "We will also introduce a comprehensive job plan for British Columbia, bringing together business, working people, communities and government." Do you know what? Nothing happened.

Let's look at this. This is titled "Highlights from the Throne Speech" from June of 1996. Under "Creating and Protecting Jobs" it says: "We'll keep it that way with initiatives like action plans for jobs in sectors like environmental technology, energy and tourism." Do you know what happened? Nothing.

And this is from a press release that was put out at the time of the last budget in 1996: " 'We will also introduce a comprehensive jobs plan that brings together business, working people. . .' " -- etc. -- "said [the Finance minister]." Do you know what happened? Nothing.

[3:00]

Now we find a little bit of insight as to what this government really means when it talks about job strategies. I have a document here which is titled "Communications Plan, 1995-96, for the Ministry of Employment and Investment."

"The job creation ministry does not have an endorsed macro job creation strategy."

Well, that's become pretty obvious to all of us.

"The ministry and its Crowns have made a number of major and significant commitments/announcements in the absence of a broad job strategy. This is akin to hanging many coats on an absent coat hanger -- i.e., nothing to hang the initiatives together."

Nothing sums up this government's job strategy better than that.

In February of this year the Premier of this province gave a speech in Vancouver, which was billed ahead of time as an opportunity for the Premier to lay out a job strategy, and I thought: well, at last! So I went down and attended this speech that the Premier gave in Vancouver.

An Hon. Member: Did you pay?

C. Hansen: I did pay. I paid good, hard, cold cash out of my own pocket to attend this seminar.

So this was February 6, 1997, and the Premier said: "How can we create jobs in this context?" Just to explain, this is page 4 of his speech. He had spent three pages on rhetoric, bragging about the things his government claimed to be doing, when in fact nothing was happening. "How can we create jobs?" he asks. "Clearly, we must be competitive." Well, that's a profound statement. Actually I agree with that one. But then he says, "But how?" because it's clear that this government doesn't know how.

This is the part that I find the most disturbing. Farther down that same page, the Premier has the answer. He says: "We have to design and implement an economic strategy that builds on our successes." Well, wait a second. What was all of this other stuff -- this bumf that we've heard in years gone by -- promising us that there's going to be a job strategy, an economic development strategy? This whole speech by the Premier was billed as an opportunity for him to lay out his job strategy. So what does he say as his answer? "We have to design and implement an economic strategy. . . ." Well, hon. members, the public is waiting, and young British Columbians who need jobs today are waiting.

But he does come up with something that he calls our great "competitive advantage." He says: "We live in a beautiful place. We have a high-quality education system. We have one of the world's best medicare systems." That does not create jobs. We need economic strategies in this province that will create jobs, and the fact that we have a nice place to live. . . . In fact, I remember that this is from the Premier's prepared text. He did an aside, talking about what a wonderful place Whistler is. That does not create jobs.

[ Page 2368 ]

So now we get to this year's budget. Jobs -- big initiative. This whole budget was built around jobs. So again we have something where they claim to say that the "government's job strategy is designed to maximize the employment capacity of B.C.'s economy." Well, this sounds promising, and they say there are five elements to this. I followed this with great anticipation.

First of all, according to this budget, the way you create jobs in this province is to have "a sustainable fiscal foundation." It says: "The plan for fiscal sustainability I've already outlined is a critical part of our strategy for higher growth and job creation." My reaction to that was: save us! This government does not have a record of a fiscal sustainable foundation in the undercurrents of this government and the funding of this administration. If we're relying on the fiscal plan and the fiscal stability of this government for our job creation, then young British Columbians are truly in trouble.

The second point he raises is about "better skills and training for young people." I'm going to talk a bit more later about the record of student employment, because I think that is a record of failure in what this government has done. So I'm quite surprised that our Finance minister would be bragging about it as point No. 2 in his budget speech.

The third thing he raised was investing in infrastructure. One of the things I think all of us in this House agree on is that this province needs infrastructure. We are growing. We need the schools; we need the hospitals. But I don't think this government understands what infrastructure is all about. Infrastructure, like schools and hospitals, is there to provide services to the public. You build them to the extent that the public requires them, so that we have healthy communities. You don't use infrastructure solely as a means to create jobs.

That's a fortunate side benefit, but you don't build a job strategy around using taxpayers' money to build infrastructure. Clearly, as we had an example of last year, you don't build private roads to new mines in British Columbia that are privately owned and call that infrastructure. To me, that's called a business subsidy.

The fourth thing that they raise is something called "Partnerships with the Private Sector." They say that we "both share a common interest in fostering a strong economy and a healthy business climate." Quite frankly, this government has done everything to destroy a healthy business climate, not create it.

Then we have something called "Sectoral Initiatives," under point No. 5. They talk about how they are going to protect and create jobs in the forestry sector. Well, excuse me! Here is a sector where they promised 21,000 new jobs, and what did we see in 1996? We saw 5,500 fewer jobs. So if this government is going to meet its commitment to create 21,000 new jobs in the forestry industry, it's got 26,500 jobs to go.

They talk about the second point as encouraging jobs in small business. Well, excuse me, hon. Speaker, but this government has wrapped so much red tape around small business in this province -- the hon. member for Malahat-Juan de Fuca raised this yesterday -- that they are strangling small business in this province, not creating jobs in that sector.

Tourism. Again, I'm surprised to see that they had the gall to include this in their budget speech. If you look at the percentage of the B.C. workforce employed in the tourism industry in 1991, when this government took office, 12.7 percent of the B.C. workforce was in tourism. In 1995 it was down to 12.5 percent, and last year were down to 12.4 percent of the workforce. This government is taking pride in the fact that it's creating jobs in tourism, but clearly they're not keeping pace.

Then, if I can do one last quote from the budget speech, it says, "Our jobs strategy ensures that we will continue to lead the way in creating new jobs for the people of this province," when clearly the policies of this government are driving jobs out of this province, not attracting new jobs into the province.

We have a strong economy, right? We've heard that time and time again from speeches that the NDP have presented. Yet when you go around this province and talk to British Columbians and ask them if they feel any better off, they say no, they don't feel that they're part of this economic boom. They feel that they personally have been left out and that somehow everyone else is participating in this great economic growth except them. And they're hurt by that.

Well, I have to give them the bad news that they're not alone. While we have seen economic growth in this province, the per capita growth is in decline. What that means is that our standard of living in this province has dropped every single year that this party has been in power, except in 1994. Overall, if you look at the time that this government has been in office, the standard of living of the average British Columbian has dropped significantly.

If you look at the numbers that are behind this budget this year, they show that we are going to continue to have population growth and that we are going to continue -- under this government's policy -- to have economic growth that will not keep pace with our growth in population. That is something that this government should be very ashamed of.

I mentioned that we have seen a dismal record of job creation in this province. This is a government that promised in this budget that there would be 40,000 new jobs in British Columbia. Yet already in the first three months of this year we have seen 24,000 fewer jobs. Again, let's come back to the example of the jobs and timber accord. If this government is going to meet its commitment of creating 40,000 new jobs, they've got 64,000 to go.

One of the most tragic things is the discouraged worker. Last month alone we saw 15,000 British Columbians drop out of the labour force. They gave up. They heard this budget, they saw what this government has in store for them, and they gave up looking for jobs, because they realize there are no jobs out there and this government is doing nothing to change that situation.

I want to touch briefly on student employment. Going back to the Elizabeth Cull budget of last spring, she said: "When looking to B.C.'s future, hon. Speaker, nothing is more important than investing in young people." And yet what is happening? We find that the participation rate of young British Columbians in the labour force is dropping dramatically. Since 1989 the number of young British Columbians between the ages of 15 and 24 who are participating in the labour force has dropped by 12.7 percentage points. We're not talking about dropping by 12 percent but about dropping by 12.7 percentage points.

Now barely over half of those young British Columbians are in the labour force, whether they're employed or otherwise. At the same time, even though we have fewer young British Columbians looking for work, the unemployment rate under this government has skyrocketed. We find today that we have 3,000 fewer jobs for young British Columbians than we have had in the past.

There are, I think, some things that this government could do. First of all, it could instil a positive climate for job creation. We've got to look to the private sector to create jobs, not the government. We've got to reduce government-driven payroll costs. We have to cut taxes, both personal taxes and property taxes. We have to speed up land use decisions. We

[ Page 2369 ]

have to eliminate the corporation capital tax. We've got to eliminate business subsidies, so that all companies that want to create jobs in this province are working on a level playing field.

We've got to reduce the regulatory burden that is strangling companies. Companies and investors from other provinces and other jurisdictions that come into British Columbia and look at our investment opportunities are going back home and not looking back to investing in this province, because of the regulation that they would be forced to take on. We have to address the nightmare that is caused by the implementation of the Employment Standards Act. We have to amend the Labour Code to allow a flexible workforce. And most importantly, we have to bring back open tendering.

Hon. Speaker, I will be voting against this budget, and I urge all members to do so. We look forward to a job creation strategy that will work in the future.

D. Jarvis: Hon. Speaker, I request leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

D. Jarvis: You've heard the expression "The hills are alive with the sound of music." Well, the halls of this Legislature are alive with students from the Lynn Valley area in North Vancouver. I'd like to introduce a further 45 students from Argyle Secondary in North Vancouver. Would the members please make them welcome.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I'm very pleased to be able to rise today to speak on Budget '97. It's good to see some students here in the gallery. I hope that they enjoy the debate that's taking place today. Many of the things that we are debating here and the things that we do in this hall have an impact on their future, and one of the things that I'm most pleased about in this budget is its strong protection of education for the future of the young people of this province.

[3:15]

Before I get to some of the important things that I want to talk about in protecting health and education, I want to outline very briefly what the priorities of this budget are, which the Minister of Finance clearly stated when he tabled it a couple of weeks ago. I need to do that because, quite frankly, in listening to the opposition, I haven't heard a lot of actual comment on the budget. I've heard lots of comment about what the board of trade might have wished to see in this budget. I've heard lots of comment about what the Fraser Institute might wish to see in a provincial budget.

I've heard lots of comments really attacking British Columbia's workers and the organizations that represent them. I've heard lots of quotes from all sides of the opposition -- they were quoting each other more than anybody else, actually. The previous speaker was even talking about some 1995-96 communication plan.

Frankly, hon. Speaker, I haven't heard a great deal of detailed analysis of what exactly is in this budget and of the way the Minister of Finance has crafted a budget that puts together a clear economic agenda that meets the priorities of people in my riding, Prince George North, and, I believe, of the people of British Columbia.

The commitments of this budget are clear: first, to build on this government's already strong record of job creation in British Columbia. Now, I heard the member opposite, just prior, talk about this dismal record. I have a tough time seeing the same province that he appears to be seeing. In British Columbia, in 1997 there are 220,000 more jobs than there were when this government took office in 1991 -- 220,000, the best job creation record in Canada.

Hon. Speaker, these same naysayers ran the last election in 1996 saying that there was no job creation. They tried to run on that in Prince George. The only trouble was that a month before the election was called, the headline in the Prince George Citizen was: "Unemployment at Ten-Year Low." That's what was happening in Prince George, and the hon. members opposite were saying: "Oh, doom and gloom in job creation!"

Well, the people of Prince George looked at it, and they knew who they were going to listen to -- and it wasn't the members opposite. So that's one priority here: we have created nearly 250,000 jobs in the last five years. There is clearly more to do. I think the members opposite are right when they talk about the great need for more employment for our young people. It is a tough labour market, and we have to provide our young people with the skills and abilities that they need, both in terms of academic education and training and in how to find jobs in this market, so that they can be part of the economic prosperity in British Columbia. That's part of the priority of this budget.

A second priority is very clearly what we said we were going to do when we ran in 1996: protect health care and education. Now, I believe that's one of the primary goals of our provincial government.

During the budget debate a couple of days ago, I heard a member opposite -- I think it was the member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove, though I'm not sure -- refer to this budget as representing the "heavy yoke of government" on the people of British Columbia. Well, hon. Speaker, this yoke of government provides protection for health and education unmatched in any province in this country.

Sixty cents out of every dollar in this budget goes directly to health and education services, and to somebody in Prince George who's going to a physician, or to somebody in Prince George who's been laid off and needs retraining at the new skills centre, or to somebody in Mackenzie who's coming down to attend the University of British Columbia, funded by this yoke of government. They welcome this spending and this government's commitment to health and education, which we've demonstrated year after year and will continue to demonstrate.

The third priority in this government was to ease the tax burden on middle- and lower-income British Columbians. We said we were going to do it during the election of '96. We reduced the tax on small business and individuals last year; we're doing it again this year. That's the right direction to go.

I was listening this morning to the member for Langley talking about what a Liberal government would do with the tax system, and I heard it again this afternoon from the members opposite. The member for Langley was quoting from a letter from the Vancouver Board of Trade that, I think, was sent to all members. And it was interesting, because I had it, so I looked it up. The member was criticizing some elements of this budget, so I wanted to look up and see clearly what the member was endorsing. And I found it very clearly: "Tax policy.

We recommend that personal income tax be reduced, particularly at the margin." Hon. Speaker, for visitors or those who are watching television and don't know what that means, that means reducing the tax on the wealthy of this province. That's what the Vancouver Board of Trade is recommending.

Second point: eliminate the corporation capital tax. I find it amazing that the Liberal opposition would stand here and

[ Page 2370 ]

advocate that as their tax policy when it has been so soundly rejected by the voters of British Columbia. They are still in the 1996 election mode, when they wanted to offer big banks and their corporate friends a $1 billion tax break, and cut health and education services for ordinary British Columbians. The budget debate here shows they haven't changed. I suspect we'll go through this entire session of parliament and they won't have changed.

The final priority that the Minister of Finance spoke of when he tabled the budget was to achieve these goals in a fiscally responsible way, and we are making real progress. We've based this budget on very prudent economic assumptions; some critics and some commentators have even said on overly conservative economic assumptions. We've clearly prioritized spending in the areas that British Columbians want from their provincial government, while we've reduced overall spending for the first time in nearly half a century in this province.

For the first time in nearly half a century, spending on health and education is significantly up. This hasn't been easy, but it has been the right thing to do for the future of our province.

I want to talk in a little more detail about how this budget impacts on health care and education in our province and why this budget is welcomed by my constituents in Prince George North. We have some real challenges to face in both health care and education. We have the challenge of the fastest-growing population in Canada. Almost 100,000 new British Columbians came to this province in 1996; that's equal to the entire population of Kelowna. This requires us to increase provincial services at a time when the federal government is making large reductions in transfer payments for health care and education, the very services that we need to put additional moneys into.

All provinces have faced this. From Nova Scotia to Ontario to Alberta to British Columbia, all provinces have faced the same federal abandonment of their responsibility to be a partner in funding health care and education. What's different in this province is that we have not chosen to meet those challenges with funding cuts and reductions in services, as has happened in other provinces. We've chosen instead to cut elsewhere in government and protect health care and education funding, and this budget delivers on that commitment.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

British Columbia has one of the best health care systems in Canada, and this budget will ensure that it stays that way. The funding for health services is going up, not down, by nearly $300 million in 1997-98, and that provides increased funding for hospitals and surgery waiting lists. Spending per capita on health care in British Columbia is the highest in the country.

I want to tell the chamber how much this commitment to health care has meant for people in Prince George.

Interjection.

Hon. P. Ramsey: The member opposite talks about orthopedic services. He's clearly far out of date on this, as on many other issues. There's a full slate of orthopedic surgeons in Prince George. In fact, they have more people applying to get hospital privileges in Prince George than they can accommodate. It's a shame that he hasn't stayed up to date on that, but then he doesn't seem to be up to date on many things these days. If I look in Prince George now, in 1996-97, and compare the health services to what were there when this government took office in 1991, the change has been immense.

We have the only freestanding hospice in the province operating outside of Vancouver, an initiative done in cooperation with the private sector in Prince George -- with the Rotary Club, actually, and they deserve credit for leading the way and making it happen, with provincial funding for operation of that hospice.

We have a transplant clinic, so that people from northern B.C. who need a transplant are going to be able to get their preoperation and postoperation services done in the north rather than having to spend all that time in Vancouver. And that's new. We have MRI services in the north, and that means that 2,000 people a year who had to climb on a plane or a car or a bus to come to Vancouver to get that service can now get that service in Prince George, close to where they live.

We have the new family practice clinic at Prince George Regional Hospital that is finally training doctors for service in the north and training them in the facilities that they are going to be practising in. None of those services were there when this government took office. Those and many, many more are there now. This budget -- the '97-98 budget -- will continue that progress.

Members on all sides of the House from the rural areas sometimes speak about the great tendency of large organizations to provide services that require people to travel to them -- from the rural parts of the province to Victoria and Vancouver. For the last five years, we have worked hard at moving services to where the people are rather than requiring people to travel to the services. This budget will enable us to continue that progress in moving services to where people actually live in British Columbia.

I want to speak in some detail about the Education budget. While we will have lots of opportunity during estimates, I wanted to highlight some of the things, because I've heard some very peculiar assertions about this budget from the members opposite. Quite frankly, I think they need a little education, so I thought I'd provide it to some of them.

This budget carries on our government's commitment to education. That's been vital to Prince George. In Prince George, I look around and I see a brand-new university -- the only one opened in a quarter-century in this entire country. I see a new community skill centre; I see an expansion of the college; I see new schools being constructed; I see new programs in the schools, designed to address problems of social equity; I see a real commitment to education that's making a difference to young people and workers in Prince George and in the north. This budget will continue that support.

Let's talk a little bit about the kindergarten-to-grade-12 budget. The budget tabled by the Minister of Finance provides an increase in education funding for the sixth straight year. We are the only province in Canada where that is true. In the last five years, education spending in British Columbia has gone up -- not down, up -- by nearly 21 percent. Yes, there has been an increase in the number of students. There are about 14 percent more students in the province now than there were five years ago. There's 21 percent more dollars to our school districts to help those students learn.

This year we are asking the school districts to provide high-quality education with the highest per student grant provided by any provincial government in Canada. We're not number two or number three; we're number one in the amount of money we are giving school districts to provide high-quality education to our children.

[3:30]

[ Page 2371 ]

Now, we've also told the school districts that we expect them to deliver on what they said last year when we talked about amalgamating districts -- to get efficient at delivering services by cutting their costs outside of direct delivery. We set a very simple target of finding $27 million in efficiencies this year. It was a target contained in a joint report of the Ministry of Education and the B.C. School Trustees Association. I am amazed to hear the members opposite rant and rail against this efficiency requirement for school districts. Some of them weren't here, of course, but I remember when Mr.

Charbonneau was the Minister of Education, and the Leader of the Opposition -- the same Leader of the Opposition -- urged him to amalgamate school districts and reduce the costs of administration by $50 million a year. I remember that, hon. Speaker. Some of these people weren't in the chamber then, of course.

Well, we didn't cut the number of school districts in half. We're not requiring that. They said they could deliver these savings without that sort of violent reduction, and so we only cut the number of school districts to 59 and required them to find $27 million in savings. We preserved every dollar of funding for special education; every dollar for aboriginal education; every dollar of the technical fund, which provides $10 million a year for technical acquisitions of school districts; every dollar for ESL funding. This is a record unmatched in Canada in funding school districts, and everybody should be proud of this government's protection of education.

The other part of the budget, of course, is in colleges and institutes, and the records are equally impressive there. When this government took office in 1991, British Columbia ranked ninth in participation rates in universities and colleges. We were the second worst in Canada, after a generation of neglect by the Socred governments of the day. Over the last five years, education funding of colleges and universities has gone up by 18 percent in British Columbia. We now rank third in the participation rate in Canada, and it's climbing.

That's the record of this government. We've done it in the face of truly savage cuts in post-secondary funding from the federal Liberals. Last year the budget transferred from the federal government for post-secondary education went down nearly $75 million. This year it went down another $54 million. Unlike other provinces, we didn't pass those cuts on to colleges and universities or ask them to close programs or shut down campuses. We made up every penny of that. As a result, over the last two years we have not fewer spaces but 10,000 more spaces, so people can get the training and education they need in our province.

Finally, hon. Speaker, we did freeze tuition fees. I know it's not a universally popular move. I heard the member for Okanagan East -- who happens to be the Liberal critic for post-secondary education -- say that it was just a political stunt, that only a very small number of students would benefit from a tuition freeze. That's what he said. I see members opposite looking puzzled. They ought to consult with their post-secondary critic. That's what he said. You can look it up; it's in Hansard . He said that this was simply a sop to a very few; it wouldn't benefit students. I don't buy that.

The Canadian Federation of Students doesn't buy that. People I know in my town who want to go to college or university know that keeping tuition down ensured access to them. And keeping it down is one of the top priorities of this government.

When I look at this budget, I see a budget that has delivered on the priorities of ordinary British Columbians. Spending on health care and education is up, and it's up significantly. It's a consistent record. Support for middle- and lower-income British Columbians is up, and taxes for average families are down. Jobs for our province are going up, and our deficit is down. This is a budget I'm proud to support; it's a budget that delivers on the priorities of people from Prince George North.

G. Brewin: It's a great pleasure for me to rise in this new session to talk about the budget and to talk about, as I've phrased it, fiscal responsibility and community support. It's all about making a difference in people's lives.

Before I get into that, I would like to say a couple of words, and particularly to say welcome to you, hon. Speaker, in your new role as Deputy Chair of committees, chosen by this House. I know your work will really truly begin in a few days when we pass this budget and get into the estimates discussion.

I also want to add my words of thanks to the members of the assembly on both sides who had enough confidence in my work last time to choose me as Deputy Speaker, so I get to do the same thing and will soon be working with everyone on issues of how this House works as we move through the estimates and the committee stage of many bills that will be introduced as time moves on. I know it's going to be interesting.

In the last couple of weeks since we began, we've had an interesting time of it as we're all beginning to learn the rules and how to work together. It's not easy. We come in here, as the Opposition House Leader has said, with many passions, many concerns and the desire to quite legitimately work with our communities. In this place, I believe my role is -- if I can put it together, with the help of many, no doubt -- to try to respect not only that passion and that energy but also to encourage a lot of good humour.

Because I think, as I've observed, good humour seems to frequently go a lot further than some of the nastiness and vitriol that can sometimes happen. But I'm sure that won't happen much here, hon. Speaker. We can look forward to enlightened, intelligent, interesting debate on the issues, because they do matter so much to all of us.

Moving then into where we are, may I also welcome everyone to Victoria-Beacon Hill and the Legislative Assembly. I know many members who are here live in Victoria-Beacon Hill, which is my riding and, of course, is the focal point for the capital city. I have been part of the community in Victoria for a long time, and I have been very pleased to serve in a number of capacities in my community. But so have many others. Some are here today, and it's a delight to have some members here who worked at the municipal level in the greater Victoria area. It's a pleasure to be able to be here serving with them.

I want to acknowledge the many different kinds of people who participate in our community in greater Victoria. The city of Victoria itself, of course, is kind of the heart and soul of British Columbia in a way. We have here not only the seat of government but a very vibrant downtown community. In my riding, we have people from all walks of life who are from all income levels, as well as in the whole of the lower Island. And yes, it's a big effort to get here. I sometimes hear from my colleagues who live on the other side of the water that it's a big effort to get to Victoria. But I know that when they get here, the atmosphere and the presence and so many of the

[ Page 2372 ]

attributes of this community affect them enormously as they do their business here in Victoria. Of course, the heart of it all is Beacon Hill Park itself. I know many of the MLAs have been there and have been part of all of that.

There are always, in times like this, many congratulations to offer since we last met. Some I think I'll hold until I perhaps speak in the throne speech debate. But there are a couple that happened just recently, one in particular that we in greater Victoria are very proud of. That's the new Victoria labour centre, which has opened up in the constituency of my colleague from Victoria-Hillside. Labour is a very important factor in the community of greater Victoria. For them to have been able to put together in a cooperative fashion a brand-new labour centre as a house of labour for our area is truly significant for labour across this province.

But let's now look to the budget. Let's now look to what this fiscal responsibility is about. Let's look to what community support is also there in this significant mix that this government has put together for this next year in the province. I see it as a very nice and fine balance between fiscal responsibility and continuing to offer community support and indeed making a difference in people's lives in our province. I offer congratulations, then, to the hon. Minister of Finance for the development of his prudent and, I believe, very achievable budget. It's not easy; we're not in easy times now.

Revenues are down from many different sources, and it is a major concern. But we say, and I believe this very strongly, that this is very much an achievable budget. We have set many goals; we have made many commitments. We believe in this budget that we put together that this will happen.

I've been intrigued to hear on many occasions in this chamber the invoking of an icon of mine, Tommy Douglas, with people saying various things about what he believed and may not have believed. Some of it's not been entirely positive, which has surprised me enormously. But one of the things I know, and we have a quote from him that says: "We shall be, and we must be, masters in our own fiscal house." Hon. Speaker, that's what we are undertaking with this budget of the Minister of Finance and this government.

It is a good and significant mix of fiscal and social priorities, and that's the kind of budget that I can be proud of, given what we've seen across this country, with province after province saying: "No, the only thing we can do is make major irrevocable cuts." That has left so many parts of all of our communities in our urban and rural settings at the mercy of something which is ill-defined and, in fact, not helped at all by the government's actions.

We in this province have tried, in fact, to constantly work at that balance. Yes, we're making the cuts, because the revenues are not there as they have been in the past. But we're moving always to keep the support and to keep working with the communities, with those who are less well off, so that when the cuts have sorted themselves out, they are still being supported and they haven't been left high and dry for too many years, while some of the rest of it gets sorted out. I think that's what we have tried to do, and that's what, by and large, we have done.

And that is what we will continue to do with this budget, with the Speech from the Throne and with the legislation that we know is coming.

We are very clear about and very committed to the main thrusts of that, of course, and they are: protecting health and education, working with our environment, creating jobs and working with jobs. That shows up not just across this province but in my constituency of Victoria-Beacon Hill.

Let's look generally at this commitment, at what we're talking about, and give a little bit of an overview about what we're trying to do in all of this work. As I've said, we have made that clear commitment not just to my constituency of Victoria-Beacon Hill but to all the people of British Columbia. It's a set of priorities that we know matter significantly to all of them. We know we need to build on an already strong job creation record, and we are committed to doing that. We know that we need to protect health care and education, and we are committed to doing that.

We know that we need to ease the burden on middle- and lower-income British Columbians, and we are committed to doing that. We know about the need to achieve goals in a fiscally responsible manner, and we are committed to doing that.

With this budget, then, we are delivering on these priorities. This budget shows real progress in placing the province's finances on a sound and sustainable path. It is based on prudent economic assumptions, and it is consistent, as I've said, with the priorities of British Columbians. Overall spending is down for the first time in almost 40 years by more than $100 million, demonstrating that cuts have been made and demonstrating our commitments to making sure that our fiscal house is indeed in order.

The projected 1997-98 provincial deficit, at $185 million, is smaller than any this decade. While overall spending is down, spending for health care and education continues to be up, and we are totally and completely committed to pursuing and following up on those priorities. The budget provides for $300 million in additional resources for health care, $63 million in new resources for kindergarten to grade 12, and 2,900 new spaces at colleges and universities. We have heard my eminent colleague, the Minister of Education, talking extensively about those benefits and the significant impact that those changes will have in our communities for our young people.

[3:45]

There's support in this budget for the creation of 40,000 new jobs throughout this province, building on the best job creation record in Canada. There's additional support for working families, with a further 2 percent income tax cut on top of the 2 percent provided last year. And when you combine that with continued freezes on B.C. Hydro rates, on ICBC premiums and on college and university tuition fees, this means more than $500 in savings this year for the average family.

Even more important, perhaps, is that we have changed some of our social service allocations. Now, for 200,000 low- and middle-income families, further help is available through the B.C. family bonus: there's a total of $235 million to help with the cost of raising their children.

What this budget comes down to for ordinary British Columbians is that spending on health care and education is up, while total spending is down. Support for middle- and lower-income British Columbians is up, while taxes for average families are down. And jobs for British Columbians are up, while the B.C. deficit is down. That's good government, in my view, hon. Speaker. We will continue to be putting that forward and working towards that obviously, in the year to come.

As we anticipate improvement in the economy, and with the federal commitment to no further reductions in transfer payments, we know that we are establishing a good foundation for their future and for the future of all of us. And that's going to be making a difference to our communities.

It's going to be making a difference in Victoria-Beacon Hill. I'd just like to touch on some programs and projects that

[ Page 2373 ]

have happened in Victoria-Beacon Hill in the last while, which I think have demonstrated the commitment of this government -- the NDP government -- to communities and to the kinds of activities that happen in communities in support of working families in our communities.

The James Bay Community Project has now got an addition that will house the child care program, which is run by the James Bay Community Project. This is a project that has been in existence since 1973-74, when it was one of the first original community resource boards. In that centre and in that project is a community health clinic, services for seniors, services on a volunteer basis, a library working with the community, children's services and many others that the community has decided it needs to have to keep our community of James Bay strong and healthy.

Another project, another initiative that happened in my community -- and I know in others across this province -- is new affordable housing, contrary to and without much help from the federal government, which used to participate and then abandoned social housing. That is a real shame, a major shame. I think we are the only government in Canada that is still building social housing. Kew Court is a stone's throw from here, with 40 units of affordable housing, and there's the Pandora project on Pandora Avenue to house some of the homeless in our downtown. I'm very proud of those two significant projects.

In the education field and community field, there's the rebuilding of the new Sir James Douglas school, which has been a major benefit there. The old school was built at the turn of the century, and it was extraordinarily dangerous, very old and seismically unsafe. It went through a very significant process at the school district and within the ministry. It got the funding, and it has now been replaced. Joining it, of course, are other services that the Fairfield community has been using and makes use of. The community association has a new facility for their services and programs that they run in Fairfield.

Another stone's throw from here, perhaps on the other side, is a fabulous piece of history that I encourage every member to have a look at. It's a piece of our history of British Columbia, not just Victoria's. The Sisters of St. Ann came to British Columbia, I would say, 150 years ago. They brought with them the kinds of programs and services that they knew were important to all of Canada. In our community, St. Ann's Academy was a result of that. It is being refurbished mightily at the moment, as we speak, and by this summer we will see the official opening of that building.

It is a piece of British Columbia's history located in downtown Victoria, in the capital city, and we all can be very proud of the investment in the redevelopment of that site.

Also, I can't leave these kinds of projects without expressing my gratitude and expressing the importance of two other now unfrozen public projects: the Victoria Cancer Clinic and the Royal Jubilee Hospital capital funding. [Applause.]

I appreciate the support from my colleagues on both sides of the House -- who appreciate four ribbon cuttings already, and there may be a few more. They're going to happen. The importance of this clinic and the Jubilee hospital is not just for the people in Victoria; in fact, it serves the whole of Vancouver Island and even some of the north. So these are very significant developments in this community.

We've also seen -- and it's been very important to this community -- major support for the arts, as seen through infrastructure programs and the significant partnership with the federal government in this regard. The Conservatory of Music in Victoria now has a new home at the Metropolitan United Church; the Belfry Theatre has a fabulous new and finally properly renovated theatrical and performance space; the Maritime Museum has had some significant money; Langham Court, the amateur theatre in Victoria, has also had some significant support.

So the cultural base is not just in the city of Victoria or Victoria-Beacon Hill but on Vancouver Island and through all of British Columbia. The capital city is receiving this major influx.

I'd like to mention, too, a couple of other things that are very important in this community. Coming up this summer, we are going to be celebrating the North American Indigenous Games in the greater Victoria area. I think we should all take note of that. It's called "Celebrate the Circle. . .the Spirit Strong, Brave and True." These are going to be taking place in this community August 3 to 10, 1997. I want to encourage all our communities to come to be part of this, if they can. For those living in this area, they're looking for volunteers and would welcome a call.

Also important to us in this area and of major significance for economic development for us is tourism. Just last week the major announcement on the part of the NDP government -- who, in spite of some, do recognize the needs of industry and business -- was that we have put together a tourism British Columbia agency that will be supporting tourism all across this province. It's no longer, then, a piece of a ministry of government. It is, in fact, going to be an industrywide organization that will be provided with long-term, stable funding to provide marketing for the many attractions that BC'ers are proud of and that we know our visitors enjoy having.

Tourism is also important in our community. Another initiative has taken place, and that is to the Victoria Line. The car ferry travelling between Victoria and Seattle has now been transferred over to the Clipper organization, which has been a very strong tourism transportation organization in our community -- it's been around for about 11 years -- and their catamarans have been passenger-only. Now they add to their fleet the car-passenger ferry. I want to congratulate all of them for the work they have done putting all of that together.

Also in tourism in our community, the museum made an announcement within the last couple of months that they are going to be adding a new installation, a big-screen installation that will be able to show off many parts of British Columbia and many other specially made films not just for our community but, again, for the tourism industry in British Columbia. It will provide more attractions for our community in Victoria.

The tourism industry five years ago was a $4 billion industry. It's now a $7 billion industry. Echoing the words of an earlier Tourism minister, no doubt by 1999 it will be $9.9 billion for all of British Columbia, a benefit we all recognize as significant.

For my community, too, as I mentioned earlier, another one of our major priorities is the environment and doing positive things in our environment: creating more parks, cleaning up our waterways, providing clean water for our fishing, providing all of the parts of the environment that we need. We heard just yesterday a major announcement on bottle deposits. It's going to take a year to set up while we talk with all our communities to make sure that beverage containers no longer fill up our landfills but get recycled, as appropriately they should.

In the greater Victoria area, they're working on a project with the water district, where some non-catchment lands are

[ Page 2374 ]

now going to be turned over to the regional district for a wilderness park. That will add to the tremendous array of parkland that we have and help to develop the sea-to-sea trail -- bikeway and walkway -- that exists in this community. So yes, we're a rich community environmentally, and we are continuing to work there.

Let me move to another area of making a difference in people's lives. We know the difficult economic times we're living in, and we know the pressures on government to provide programs and jobs. I just want to acknowledge some of the kinds of programs that exist in Victoria-Beacon Hill and in the greater Victoria area that are helping enormously to bring people from difficult and/or no work into training programs and then into work.

I'd like to mention the Tideline Ventures organization, which does training in life skills and employability. I know that many of the people who've come through those programs are indeed working in many different aspects of our society and our community. Eighty percent of the people who have gone through those programs have work and are still in work. I think that's to the benefit.... That's the kind of program that this government is supporting and will continue to support.

I want to commend Bridges, which is a particularly important training program for women leaving abusive relationships. They, too, are learning not just skills but also coping skills. They're coming out of a situation where their self-esteem has been hit very, very hard, and where their sense of themselves is not what it has been and what it needs to be. Working in the broad picture with that, Bridges has been enormously successful as well.

I'd like to talk, too, about the Victoria Street Community Association's work, particularly their new project called the Bent Nail. I commend to those of you who are living in Victoria, and MLAs who may have their own places here, that the Bent Nail offers recycled building supplies. What is significant about the Bent Nail -- apart from its interesting name, and perhaps its name carries with it some of what it is -- is that the people who work there come from the street. They are people who have had major problems in their lives and who have not been within the work world as many of us have been, and it has been a struggle for them.

Through the Victoria Street Community Association, they have been developing training programs for themselves and ideas about the kinds of services they could provide to get themselves off income assistance, build a new life for themselves and provide a service for the community. I wish the Bent Nail were in my riding, but I'm afraid it isn't. It's in the constituency of my neighbour to the west. I don't begrudge that; we still go there. This organization and the Bent Nail project is up for a special environment award of excellence. We're looking forward to their achieving that.

I would be remiss in this list of accolades, if you like, if I didn't mention the chamber of commerce. The province has worked in partnership with the chamber of commerce on a number of programs, but in particular on the Community at Work training program. They have done yeoman service in pulling together some disparate groups, in pulling together the people who need training with the business community, who are looking for workers. It has been very successful, and we're very proud of that partnership that has come together.

Along with the Victoria Street Community Association has been a development on a broader base by the Victoria community economic development group to build a corporation, so that we in this community -- people at all levels -- work together to ask: "What economic development can we do in our community where we can, in fact, train and respond to needs in the community?" We can train people to work in particular kinds of jobs that we know the community needs to have. This is not an easy task, as other communities across this country and across the world have discovered, but there are major success stories.

There's no question that the Victoria CED group wants to be one of those. I want to acknowledge at this time the tremendous support that the Pacific Coast Savings Credit Union has provided to CED. They are a community-based organization, as we all know, and in this case here is a practical application of their work.

[4:00]

All of these are very important parts of what makes the work that happens in budgets, in throne speeches and in bills and legislation have an effect in our communities at the ground level, and indeed it's making positive change in people's lives and making a real difference.

Before I close, I want to just say a few words about another sector of my community that is a very important one to me -- that is, the public sector. I know we have a very significant and very strong public sector in British Columbia. It is, by all accounts, the smallest public sector per population in Canada. I want everyone to pay attention to this, because we've heard some criticisms, which I think are very unfounded, of our public sector and our public servants. And I think we need to know some basic facts about some of the work that they do.

First of all, as I've said, they are the smallest public sector per population in this country. The smallest proportion of them are in the capital city, compared to other provinces in this country. Only about a third of them are in Victoria, so it is the most decentralized public service we have. We have an excellent workforce. They are very skilled; they are very committed; they are extremely conscientious. Many of them live and work in my riding. It has therefore been very difficult for many of us in this last while, when changes have had to be made.

While many private sector organizations have had to reduce, we in the public sector have had to reduce, too. I want to emphasize very, very strongly that 2,500 positions have been lost in the changes that we have made. There were many more positions vacant, and by working with the management groups and the union groups, we have been able to reduce the numbers who work here. But we have looked after those people according to union agreements that were organized before, but also with very important personnel policies. So we have tried our very best to minimize some of the difficulties.

Now, this is not to say that there haven't been difficulties. This is not to say that it hasn't been hard on morale. And I must say that I don't think it's helped when sometimes we've heard -- and I'm sure the current members of the opposition don't think this -- the opposition criticize various sectors of the public sector. We have policies that we put in place, and should the day ever come when they ever get to be government, they too would need a group of people to rely on, to put into place the policies and programs that they want to see happen. We need to support the changes.

We need to support our public sector, so we have tried to do the changes that have been made in conjunction with them. And we hope in the next months that it will have settled down and that we'll be able, in a reorganized fashion, to continue working together to implement and continue to have the best public service in this country.

[ Page 2375 ]

Hon. Speaker, I see green buttons are going and red buttons are coming up soon, so it's time for me to conclude. I just want to say that I fully support this budget. I think it is a very important budget. It's a very prudent budget. It will help us build a solid foundation for our future. It is, if I may say it this way, fiscally conservative. What an outrageous thing for me to say! We have made some very tough decisions. I'm proud of those, and I think they will prove to be very important ones. Yet -- and I say this strongly -- it is socially responsible. So despite the tough times that we're living through and that we have lived through, the future looks bright for British Columbia.

T. Stevenson: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to make introductions.

Leave granted.

T. Stevenson: In the gallery this afternoon is a friend of mine, Curtis Aguirre from Burnaby, and a friend of his from Florence, Oregon, Bryon Hansen. I ask the House to make them welcome.

R. Coleman: I would be remiss this afternoon if I started out without thanking Dr. Gerard Lambe, who yesterday fixed my root canal, allowing me to be here today in a minimal amount of pain compared to what I was in 24 hours ago. You can get dental service in Victoria on short notice, I will tell you that.

The budget of this government. . . . The previous speaker was talking about the deficit being down, but down from what? Down from what was projected to be a balanced budget prior to this, with a $750 million deficit? That's not going down; that's going backwards. My description of this budget would be: suoicodilaipxecitsiligarfilacrepus. That's right: suoicodilaipxecitsiligarfilacrepus. That's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious backwards. And that's all this budget is: a bunch of magic.

I'd like to look at the history that brings us to a budget that claims we've actually reduced the deficit. I just want to go back about a year. In December 1995, the now Finance minister, then Forests minister, made the following statement when he wrote to the Minister of Finance: he said that there would be a significant shortfall in 1995-96 forestry revenues -- as much as $100 million. In January 1996, the Finance ministry produced documents that said how the 1996-97 budget was shaping up. The document stated that stagnant revenues and rising spending pointed to a deficit of between $500 million and $1 billion.

On February 27, the old forecast was dropped entirely in favour of the alternate forecast, which the Finance ministry themselves warned the NDP of the risks of doing.

On May 22, 1996, Finance ministry documents said that budget revenues were overstated by $700 million. They revised the ministry forecast, and the NDP produced two balanced budgets that in actual fact had a combined deficit of $1.2 billion. On June 26, 1996, the Finance minister delivered a budget claiming a $16 million surplus in 1995-96 and an estimated $87 million surplus for 1996-97. And the previous speaker tells me the deficit is down. It would be if those had been the real figures, but they weren't the real figures. The real figures were that there was a $750 million deficit in that particular fiscal year.

This Ministry of Finance has just tabled the sixth consecutive deficit budget. Two of them, though, weren't called deficit budgets; we were told they were surplus budgets. Now that, to me, is somebody not telling the facts, somebody actually not knowing what they're doing, or somebody just incapable of being competent enough to do their job. When the Finance minister used the term "prudent," I prefer to use the term "brutal." Forecasts in this budget include $150 million from increased gaming revenues and user fees, such as fees for ambulance services.

I would like, first of all, to deal with the fact that there has been a bit of sleight of hand with this budget. There are a number of things that have been downloaded onto Crown corporations and onto organizations, funds that will be slid sideways so that this government will look like they've reduced their deficit.

I want to touch on health care. You know, today during question period, the Minister of Health got absolutely upset about the fact that the opposition would actually question that there would be somebody who had to wait six months for heart surgery. They said: "Why, it's shameful you should ask such a question!" My reaction to that is this: if you spent more time putting the patient first and less time trying to take volunteer boards out of hospitals and steal community assets, you might be able to do patient care. That's my concern.

There is no reason on earth that you can tell me that regional health boards are necessary for good costing in health care. You're taking volunteers who don't cost you anything, and all you really have to do is get some bulk buying together, get some inventory control together and get some proper management into the health care system. What you don't need to do is take the people's guts out of their communities by taking away volunteer boards and throwing down a democratic process.

I don't agree with the fact that this particular minister has decided that on one moral issue alone she can decide who sits on what board. The next thing she's going to ask me is what my preference is in the type of alcohol I might like to drink, and maybe that won't allow me to sit on a board. Or the next thing may be what kind of shampoo I like, because she may not want me to sit on a board if I use that kind of shampoo. That is fundamentally against the basic human rights of this province -- how this particular minister picked the health boards she appointed in this province.

With regard to education, the Minister of Education has taken some steps toward removing the freeze and doing some things in education. But the thing is, that was after this particular minister politicized the education system in the province by, first of all, selecting 11 school districts -- 11 schools in NDP ridings -- for construction over and above any priority list, over and above any criteria that existed -- one of them being sixty-third on the list.

It's also a shame that in order to crystallize an issue to a ministry, you have to collect 3,000 petitions from citizens in a community, have 1,000 letters written by students, and still, when you request a meeting with the minister, not have the minister (

a) have his office return your phone call, or (

b) write you back and say he's too busy to meet with anybody. That, to me, is inexcusable.

The fact of the matter is that, in education, we keep using this whole aura of federal downloading whenever we talk about it. The fact of the matter is that I've never heard one member opposite address class sizes versus teacher ratio as a possible cost saving. I've never heard them address the fact that their construction of schools is controlled under an open tender process that does not allow for closure on construction, and therefore cost overruns can be effected. I have not heard the

[ Page 2376 ]

minister address the fact that when they're building schools, they should put the construction management of those schools into the hands of people who have the expertise to do the job, versus having to put them in the hands of people who do not know how to handle construction. These are difficulties we should be addressing.

And the members always say we never come up with solutions. Well, I just gave you three. I just gave you three solutions you can take back. You could go to one of your own Crown corporations, which is the B.C. Buildings Corporation, and they could standardize your construction and standardize your tendering. They could produce your schools cheaper and more efficiently, as they could all your other health facilities.

I want to speak to the Minister of Environment for a second. In the Fraser Valley, we have mushroom farms -- huge, massive mushroom farms -- and they require compost. This compost has two impacts on the environment. The first impact on the environment is that it smells. What happens with mushroom composting, if you've never been near it, is that you can actually be closer to it and it will smell less than it does a mile away. What happens is that it heats up and builds a plume.

This plume gets airborne with particles and pollutes the air in the neighbourhood around the mushroom barns and mushroom composting areas. The second thing that happens is that while the mushroom compost is sitting out on the cement pad waiting to go into the 60,000- or 100,000-square-foot barn, it gets wet and leaches into the ditches and the streams, and it damages fish environment and other types of habitat.

I have made nine phone calls to the Ministry of Environment in Surrey, and I've never had one returned phone call as an MLA with regard to my concern over the contaminants coming out of mushroom composting and mushroom barns in the Fraser Valley. This is a serious, serious issue. We actually had to take Ministry of Environment officials. . . . A group of people had to rent a helicopter to take photographs concerning this issue. It still has not been addressed by the ministry, but let me tell you what the ministry can address.

The ministry can charge a 75-year-old man who makes the mistake of doing a bit of remediation on his own property. They can charge him under the Water Act or charge him under the Fisheries Act. They can harass him for two years until he has a stroke, and at that point in time. . . . They can go through all that, but they cannot take the time to deal with a major environmental catastrophe that's sitting waiting to happen in the Fraser Valley. It's time that this minister and this ministry did so.

[4:15]

Part of this budget is predicated on an increase in gaming revenue, and there are five NDP MLAs who have gone on record as saying they are opposed to the currently debated gambling initiatives. They are the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, the member for Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, the member for Vancouver-Burrard, the member for Burnaby-Willingdon and the member for Victoria-Beacon Hill.

The member for Victoria-Beacon Hill even said recently, when she responded to a question from the Vancouver Sun . . .. Her response was that if it came to a vote, she would be supporting the government position. But then she continued --and do you know what her comments were? She said: "This debate happens in caucus." What? What happened to the Legislature of the province of British Columbia? What happened to the opportunity for public debate and public input on an issue as serious as this, which can affect children, poor families, rich families and the social fabric of our province? Oh, no. It happens in caucus.

If the debate happens in caucus, then what's the point of having the Legislature? Politicians are elected to debate; it's part of our job. People who have different ideas and ideals are elected by the public to go before the B.C. Legislature. Why don't you get out of your no-mind situation and realize that at some point in time you have to represent your constituents?

We took a hundred policemen. . . . Earlier, one of the people on the other side of the House was speaking, and one of them catcalled out. They said: "Well, it's more money; more money for schools, more money for this and for that." But you know what they neglected to tell you? That they were supposed to spend $32 million to set up photo radar, and they spent $62 million to set it up. It's an abject failure, and that's how they manage their money. And if they would manage their money better, we wouldn't have to worry about where the dollars for schools were going to come from.

Why don't they take a look at their own budget, take a look at their own physical assets of British Columbia? They have $20 billion in movable assets. Go to the auditor general. Ask your own auditor general what you do with your movable assets. You know what you do? You don't even keep inventory. You couldn't even tell the people of this province what you own today in movable assets, and if you had only a 10 percent shrinkage -- which is all that is projected into the retail market in a lot of stores -- you're losing $2 billion a year in movable assets. Do you know what you could do with $2 billion a year?

You could actually build a hell of a lot of schools. Now, there is another suggestion and another answer.

Deputy Speaker: Perhaps I could just ask the member to use language that is parliamentary.

R. Coleman: Yes, I agree, Mr. Speaker, and I apologize for that. Sometimes I get a little excited. That's probably because my root canal is feeling so much better at this point in time.

You know, this government stands on education and health care as being the two issues that they support, and yet there are waiting lists for health care and problems with our schools. All they want to do is break down the fabric of society through volunteer boards and what have you, and they have no real concern about what the real issues are that face real British Columbians.

Yesterday a letter came into my hands, and this letter probably clarifies in most people's minds -- particularly in mine -- what is wrong with the operation of the provincial government. Yesterday Fama Holdings backed out of the Woodward's site. They backed out of 200 units in downtown Vancouver in co-op housing and social housing for the citizens of Vancouver. And do you know why they backed out? Because they've been negotiating for 380 days. That's 380 days to put together a simple private-public partnership. We could package you up a private-public partnership this afternoon, have the deal wrapped up and signed by tomorrow evening, and you could probably make a deal like this work.

But you can't do that. What you've got to do is negotiate, change the rules, change everything back and forth on a continual basis, and frustrate the company to the point that they back out. And now this valuable asset that could have been there for the citizens of Vancouver is gone. They've backed out, and they will go on into the market housing. I don't know how you will ever get the project back.

[ Page 2377 ]

There are a number of things that this government does that I find extremely frustrating, because most of it is a commonsense approach: inventory controls, return your phone calls, deal with pollution issues that are affecting your waterways. All those things are there. They're brought to your attention, and you don't address them. That's very frustrating for the people in my riding.

The other thing is that this government makes statements. They make statements all the time. One of the statements they made is: "We have a balanced budget for the 1995 fiscal year, and I'm committing to a second balanced budget in 1996." That was the Premier of this province quoted on March 13, 1996, in the Vancouver Province .

Another was: "This money" -- the forest renewal fund -- "will be dedicated by law to the forest workers and communities. That money can't go someplace else." There's another one. "There won't be a politician next week, next month, next year or 20 years from now who will dare to put their hands in that pocket of money." That's the member from Prince Rupert. This is the classic one: "We will not spend it if the money is not there." That was made by the Premier of this province in 1996.

In five years the NDP has increased the debt in that previous regime by $11.5 billion and has taken the provincial debt of this province to over $30 billion. They're spending money in this budget that they don't have, and their own Premier, their own leader, says they'll never do that. And they're doing it.

There are some other numbers that really bother me about this whole thing, including the $30-plus billion in debt that we're putting down on our children. There are some other things, like the $200,000 figure I read the other day. That was the amount raised on behalf of charity by NDP bingos that never reached any charity, according to the forensic auditor, Ron Parks. Where did the cash go? Do you expect us to ask you to manage the finances of this province when you won't even pay back charities you took money from? Not a chance.

I find that this budget is nothing more than one more sham. It is nothing more than one more statement by a government that is in crisis; a government that has the fastest-growing debt of any province in Canada; a government that has the highest level of taxes in North America; a government that has the longest treatment waiting lists for patients dying of cancer. It's the only province in Canada whose government is being sued for election fraud.

It's a government that has the lowest overall degree of satisfaction with its public school system, and has the highest crime rate and the lowest rate of solved crimes in Canada. It is the only province in Canada whose net wealth grew only because of immigration and not because of new production.

You cannot support a government that cannot handle its finances and its budget, a government that wants to build a deficit to astronomical levels, like $30 billion, and cannot be controlled. Mr. Speaker, there is no way that I can support this budget.

T. Nebbeling: It is also a privilege for me to rise today in the debate on the budget and to represent the communities of West Vancouver-Garibaldi.

Mr. Speaker, West Vancouver-Garibaldi is a large riding made up of residential areas such as West Vancouver and Horseshoe Bay. Then, going up the Sea to Sky Highway, you see Bowen Island down below before you come to Lions Bay. You pass Brunswick Beach, Britannia Beach, Squamish, Whistler, Pemberton and D'Arcy. The riding finishes at Anderson Lake, where the Anderson band resides.

The many issues that are important to my constituents are all parallel to the issues that are of concern to all British Columbians. All these issues are related to health care or the lack of proper health care, education or the lack of proper education, transportation and job preservation.

I'm really sorry to see that the Minister of Transportation and Highways left a little while ago, because I really wanted to talk to her about the Lions Gate Bridge. If she happens to be watching, I hope she will be able to come back in the House and answer some questions or at least listen to some of the concerns that the people of West Vancouver-Garibaldi and the people living up the corridor feel when it comes to the promises and commitments that are still not being kept on the Lions Gate Bridge.

What I would like to talk about right now are the forest-dependent communities in my corridor: Squamish, Pemberton, D'Arcy, Devine and, again, the Anderson Lake band. Within these communities, there is a tremendously strong sense of uncertainty about what's happening with the social and economic future that people in the forest industry face today. I would like to quickly read a letter that I received this morning. It is a letter addressed to the Premier from the Soo Coalition, which is an organization that represents all forest workers and businesses throughout the Sea to Sky corridor.

"Dear Premier Clark:

"In the fall of 1996, the original protected area council came to a final decision regarding the new protected area for the lower mainland. They came up with a figure that raised the amount of land protected to 14 percent within this particular lower mainland strategy area."

That was already 2 percent over and above what the target was, as the target for the province is 12 percent. However, the people in the lower mainland harvest areas did agree that the 14 percent was acceptable, subject to it being the final cut out of all their annual allowable cuts they had had in the past.

Part of the statement made at the time was that there would be no more parks created in this region, and there would be peace in the woods. If there is one thing I've learned over the last couple of years, talking to people living in forest-dependent communities, it is that peace in the woods is what they are so urgently -- well, urgent is the wrong word -- so compassionately looking for, because they consider peace in the woods as synonymous with certainty about the future.

Now it is the spring of 1997, and protesters have already started to blockade the roads of TFL 38 -- now known as the Stoltmann area -- preventing men from going to work. The demand of the environmental group that is trying to block the roads again is another 210,000-hectare reserve, which is more than what has been set aside at this point within the 14 percent, in particular in the Soo TSA. There is now the very real threat of a serious confrontation, with the working community taking an active position to protect their jobs. The Soo Coalition does not want to see the situation escalated.

Today, we also see in the Sun newspaper, on the front page: "B.C. Anti-Logging Activists Taught by U.S. Group."

That's the problem. The organizations are already set to go into the forests and again disrupt the so-called guaranteed peace in the woods. They're already being trained in all the types of activities they can undertake to indeed frustrate and block the people who truly need to go into the forest to make a living. It is a living of a standard that is considerably less than it was in the past, but they have to deal with it. It's unfortunate that

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the Attorney General. . . . All he says, when asked what he thinks about this, is: "Well, I'm very concerned to see that people are involved in illegal practices. We must have a look at that."

I don't think that kind of answer is sufficient today.

I think the people working in the forest, the people who have been promised peace in the woods, are looking for statements that have a lot more power behind them, so that people know that when the blockades go up -- and it seems that everybody agrees that they will again -- the Attorney General will immediately take action to stop the blockade and deal with the perpetrators of these illegal acts in such a manner that people know we are not going to allow Clayoquot Sound to be imposed as a strategy on another area -- and thereby bring some peace to the people working in these woods.

I hope that the Attorney General will indeed stand up for these communities, because the fear is there. And I do not think that the people who will be affected by potential blockades will sit back and let it happen as they have done in the past.

[4:30]

Nothing has created more upheaval and that same sense of hopelessness up to now as the various forest policy initiatives that have been introduced and acted upon by this government since 1991. I named the protected-areas strateg