1974 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 30th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes

only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1974

Morning Sitting

[ Page 1493 ]

CONTENTS

Morning sitting Statement Purchase of debentures by trustees of the Municipal

Superannuation Fund. Hon. Mr. Hall — 1493

Routine proceedings

Committee of Supply: Department of Education estimates On vote 39.

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 1493

Mr. Schroeder — 1501

Mr. McGeer — 1502

Mr. McClelland — 1503

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 1508

Hon. Mrs. Dailly — 1509

Mr. McClelland — 1511

Hon. Mrs. Dailly — 1511

Mr. McGeer — 1511

Hon. Mrs. Dailly — 1512

Mr. McGeer — 1512

FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1974

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Mr. Speaker, I would like the

Members to welcome 35 students from Claremont Senior Secondary

School who will be visiting a little later in the morning.

HON. W.L. HARTLEY (Minister of Public Works): Mr. Speaker, I

would like the assembly to welcome a group under the leadership

of Mrs. Gloria Moses from Lower Nicola of the Shulus Band, who

are studying at Cariboo College.

HON. D.D. STUPICH (Minister of Agriculture): I was asked a

question a couple of days ago by the Hon. Member for North

Okanagan (Mrs. Jordan) about the compensation paid for the

little cherry diseased trees being removed. I said at the time

that the total compensation was $75. It is correct. Of this,

$25 is coming from the provincial government, $25 from the B.C.

Fruit Growers' Association, $25 from the cherry pool, and

further compensation is being sought from the federal

government.

MR. SPEAKER: You want to put that on record as the correct

answer.

HON. MR. STUPICH: That's the correct answer.

Presenting reports.

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): Mr. Speaker, I ask

leave to file the 62nd annual report of the Superintendent of

Insurance for 1973.

MR. SPEAKER: I don't think you have to ask leave because

it's a statutory report. Just simply file it.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: At this time of the morning, Mr.

Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: At this time of the morning. You can do it

without anyone noticing. (Laughter.)

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I file. But I need leave

for this one: the Second Report of the Royal Commission on

Family and Children's Law of March 19, 1974.

Leave granted.

HON. E. HALL (Provincial Secretary): Mr. Speaker, I ask

leave to make a statement.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. HALL: Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to announce to the

House that arrangements have been completed for the purchase of

$6,800,000 worth of 9 per cent sinking-fund debentures due in

1994, at a purchase price of $98.75 per $100, by the trustees

of the Municipal Superannuation Fund. This will result in a

yield for the fund of approximately 9.15 per cent over the

20-year term.

For many years, employers and employees who are contributors

to the fund have urged that the investment powers be changed to

include a broader range of securities, particularly those of

local governments and similar agencies where the investment

return is higher. Members of the House will remember that in

the last session the Municipal Superannuation Act was

amended to permit investments to be made in the debentures or

other securities of the Municipal Finance Authority of British

Columbia, and that has been done. I'm confident that this

transaction will meet with the approval of the employers and

employees who contribute to that fund as well as the local

authorities who finance local capital projects through the

Municipal Finance Authority of British Columbia.

I am pleased to announce to the House that $6,800,000 worth

of 9 per cent fund debentures have been purchased at a very

favourable price.

Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day.

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Dent in the chair.

ESTIMATES: DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

(continued)

On vote 39: Minister's Office, $77,408.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Yesterday I asked the Minister

(Hon. Mrs. Dailly) about one subject and one subject only,

namely independent schools. I've yet to receive a reply to my

statements or my request. I would like to remind her today that

I'll be hoping to hear a reply today and will be waiting for

it.

Briefly, the situation is that some 23,000 students are

being educated in a system for which the entire cost comes from

the parents or other benefactors who might assist. The

provincial Treasury is completely free of costs for these

students, despite the fact that parents spend large amounts of

money in tax moneys for a school system they do not use. In

terms of equity and justice, it's my view that this is grossly

unfair and that the requests for assistance should be listened

to. The Minister should elaborate on that oracular statement

that the door for aid is closed but not locked, which I believe

came from the

[ Page 1494 ]

Premier but may have come from her.

The fact is that a public service is being provided and no

public financial assistance is going to the schools in

question. I don't think it's fair that it should be this way. I

think when we realize that they do provide the opportunity for

more innovative and imaginative programmes outside of the

bureaucratic system we presently have, the Minister certainly

owes it to the people of British Columbia for an explanation as

to why this government, like its predecessor, provides no

assistance whatsoever.

Interjection.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: The predecessor government, Mr. Minister

of Mines (Hon. Mr. Nimsick), in answer to your comment,

provided no help at all, despite the fact that they promised

back in the early '50s before taking office....

Interjection.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, that may be, and that was before I

was old enough to vote. Thanks very much for your comment.

Now, another point I would like to raise at this time is the

question of the BCIT staff. The B.C. Institute of Technology

has a very good staff, an excellent staff, good teachers,

competent people. I feel they have been treated rather poorly

by the present government. They have requested, and I refer to

their letter of October 25, 1973, to all Members of the

assembly, amendments to former Bill 75, and they did not

receive it. They in turn requested exemption from being

considered government employees and being under the B.C.

Government Employees Union. They again did not receive

that.

There is a dispute here — and I've questioned the Minister

on this during the question period in the Legislature over the

past few weeks — about a salary and wage offer of 14 per cent

which was offered to them one day and withdrawn the next. They

claim it was withdrawn by the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr.

Hall), whom they regard as having indeed betrayed them on this

whole question. I would suggest that the Minister might well

like to comment upon this as well because these people I don't

think have been properly treated.

I'd like to refer for a moment or two, Mr. Chairman, to a

letter dated March 7, 1974, received by me from an instructor

at the B.C. Institute of Technology in which he says:

"The issue which will likely require the most persuasive

effort is the attempts of the staff to obtain a salary adjustment prior to the

establishment of a board of governors. The government agrees that an adjustment

is justified but hopes to leave a settlement on the matter to a board of governors."

And here's the important paragraph, the one that the Provincial Secretary, I

might add, disputed. He said in his letter:

"A written offer involving a pay increase of 14.5 per cent

was made to the BCIT staff society on May 29, 1973, but was

withdrawn the next day. The staff then received a 10 per cent

increase given to other public servants for the year beginning

April 1, 1973. It should be noted that other groups in the

civil service, ferry workers, professional engineers, et cetera,

received increases greater than the 10 per cent.

"Attached is a copy of the letter dated October 25, 1973,

which was sent by the BCIT staff society to all Members of the

Legislative Assembly. This letter provides details of the

meddling by the B.C. Government Employees' Union and a very

clear indication of the perfidious role of the Provincial

Secretary in the various dealings with the staff of BCIT. The

Provincial Secretary has ignored requests for an explanation of

the withdrawal of the salary offer of last May, but has

acknowledged the need for an adjustment in a radio interview

with Jack Webster.

"I understand the BCIT staff society have recently requested

a meeting to be arranged between the Hon. Mrs. Dailly, Hon. Mr.

Hall, representatives of the Department of Education, Mr. A.E.

Richardson of the Civil Service Commission and Mr. J. Fryer of

the B.C. Government Employees' Union.

"The contention now is that the government should show good

faith and assume the obligations of at least partially

adjusting the salaries at BCIT rather than shifting the

responsibilities to a new board. The total increase in salaries

needed to achieve competitive levels will be an issue which

could prevent the orderly commencement of collective bargaining

with the board and might well be a continuing negative

influence on the future of the institution."

I won't read the rest of the letter; I read perhaps about a

third of it. But it's the same type of detail, Madam Minister,

through you, Mr. Chairman. The staff of BCIT have had their

morale seriously affected by what they feel is meddling by the

Provincial Secretary and by what they feel is unfair,

unnecessary and unwise inclusion of their group with the civil

servants of the province. I hope that on this subject, again,

we're going to have a clear statement from the Minister.

Mr. Chairman, those are two areas I would like the Minister

to comment on, and if we don't get it we'll have to repeat the

request.

But there is another subject I'd like to touch on at

[ Page 1495 ]

this time....

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, dear!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Would the Hon. Member address the

Chair, please?

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I was hearing noises

from the back bench of the cabinet over there. Much more noise

seems to come from that corner since the Premier got into such

trouble. Interesting!

Now in preparation for this debate I looked at some of the

statements made by the Minister of Education in previous

debates. Somewhat over two years ago she had this to say:

"B.C. is one of the richest provinces per person, but the government has been going downhill in

educational spending, at the same time making 'patchwork

recommendations' instead of improving the public school system

wholesale. In 1951 B.C. was leading Canada in educational

effort, but by 1969 it was down to fourth among the provinces.

The heavy-handed centralized structure of the Department of

Education combined with unbelievably restrictive legislation

could destroy the public school system.

"Financial policies of this government are apparently based

on no philosophy but seem to point out the cold hard hand of a

bookkeeper. B.C. could spend more but chooses not to do

so.”

She asked the then Minister, Mr. Brothers: "How do you

justify your continued comments that education is taking an

increased share of the provincial budget?" She went on to point

out that B.C. was the richest province per capita, but only

fourth, as I mentioned, in terms of spending on education in

terms of wealth.

Mrs. Dailly asked Brothers how he...justified "repeated

comments that education is taking an ever-increasing share of

the budget when the percentage of the total budget allotted to

education has actually been dropping since 1965?"

That year it was 34.1 per cent of the provincial budget, and

in 1972-1973 it's down to 30.9 per cent. Now I wonder where....

AN HON. MEMBER: We want Waldo.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: I'm sure you would prefer Waldo, Mr.

Member; I'm sure you would.

We'd like to know why, if in 1972 it was so bad to spend 30.9 per cent — and

the Member for Burnaby (Hon. Mrs. Dailly) was so critical of the government

spending a smaller percentage of their budget on education why she's been so

silent when this particular government has dropped the spending even further.

It's now approximately 25 per cent — a substantial drop in the overall spending

of the government.

The replies that we've heard so far are straight out of

Brothers. It's the same old stuff except the figures are

slightly varied and the speakers are slightly different.

I'd like her to answer that question. If she was critical

about the percentage of the budget being devoted to education

in 1972, now that the situation under her leadership has

worsened so much, why is it that she is not speaking up?

On February 17 Mrs. Dailly said,

"The rebuttal to Brothers' claim of more educational

services could be found in the budget speech itself, which

showed that 30.9 per cent of total expenditure will go for

education, which is actually a decline from the previous year.

The cutback was bad enough, but what is really shocking is that

the Minister of Education would not get to his feet and justify

this decrease."

We feel today much as she did two years ago.

"The boards will be receiving grants this year from this

government which will not allow them to even meet the basic

non-controllable costs for such things as heating fuel, she

said."

Once again a very, very interesting statement in the

light of the budget and the estimates that we have before us

now.

Oh, there were quotes about class size:

"The Minister pays lip service to the new goals in education

about developing each child's potential. But how can this be

accomplished when teachers will be faced with increasing class

size this year? To stand up and say you believe in these goals

and then not provide the resources for attaining them is

shocking."

The Minister said this when she was in opposition two years

ago.

Well, that was the philosophy and the attitude expressed by

the Minister prior to becoming a Member of the government. Yet

today, Mr. Chairman — and we've gone over this before today —

we see precisely the same thing. We see a reduction in the

amount of money being devoted to education in terms of a

percentage of the budget. We see school boards being attacked

for irresponsibility on the financial side when they attempt to

implement the suggestions of the Minister on the programme

side. And that's just an absurdity. This Minister has yet to

give a decent explanation as to why this is happening.

It can be said, and it's been said before and it will

undoubtedly be said again, that supplementary estimates, extra

cash, will be found. But if after 18 months of this government

they don't know how the money should be put into education and

they cannot

[ Page 1496 ]

draw up an educational budget, something is obviously,

radically wrong in the Department of Education; and one could

only assume that it starts at the Minister's level.

We are in a situation where after 18 months of this

government and one educational budget already, and one set of

estimates already, they still have not put together a budget

which we can discuss intelligently in the House, or estimates

that we can discuss intelligently.

The excuse somehow that,"Well, we're going to add extra

money later on if it's necessary, if they come and make a

special case," is the old squeaky-wheel type of

financing where the best advocate gets the assistance. The best

hired lawyer perhaps coming over here on behalf of a school

board who does the best job arguing a case will get the money

for that school board. Others which are less skilled, or

perhaps feel that they should be spending their money on kids

instead of lawyers won't be getting the extra, because they

won't be having the same type of advocacy over in Victoria.

It really is an indication of total financial incompetence

when we have a government which comes forward with estimates,

which puts forward a budget and then comes out and says: "Well,

even though we've gone that, we know it's absurd; we know that

there are going to have to be radical changes. So the

squeaky-wheel theory can operate; send over someone who can

persuade us, whether it be someone who we have a special

relationship with or a person who's a hired gun."

It seems a crazy way to finance education, that school

boards must come and make special requests rather than having

their needs met in the normal fashion by a budget for the

Department of Education.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to — say a few words about the Bremer

matter. I was just intrigued last night to hear a brand new

reason for the firing of Mr. Bremer, namely he didn't produce

any paper. I was surprised by that because on my desk at the

time I had a document entitled "Edge: On Educational Change, an

Occasional Paper, No. 1" — put out by the 1973 National

Association of Elementary School Principals. It's an American

document; they decided to have Bremer write an

article for

them, which he did. It went on to 32 pages, and they have some

interesting things to say. I'd like to quote one or two words

from the beginning of it. This is from John Bremer, Victoria,

British Columbia:

"The following pages are not the outcome of lofty and isolated contemplation. They are the results of

sometimes desperate attempts to think through precisely what

can be done by an active and practical educational reformer as

conscious of his own limitations as those of the school and

university structures and personnel. "To survive in educational

and political change, it is necessary to have what might be thought of the desirable directions and the paths

available."

Here is a document, printed in December or at least it came

out in December, "On Educational Change." I'm no

educationalist; I'm not a professional in the field; I won't

try and go through it. But to suggest that Bremer is not

writing things on education is just, I think, foolish. Perhaps

he wasn't asked for the type of thing the Minister mentioned

last night, I don't know. She's going to have to answer that

question as well.

The fact is: he has been writing things in the period in

question. These writings are of interest to professional

educators, and he has, indeed, been, I think, doing plenty in

the writing field.

I'd like to mention to you, Mr. Chairman, it may have

slipped your mind, that Mr. Bremer is co-author of the book

The School Without Walls and, with his wife, the

co-author of Open Education — A Beginning . He's

contributed articles to professional and popular journals. He's

putting out three further books called A Matrix for Modern

Education , Open Essays in Education , and one that I think

we should all read with great interest when it comes out,

Education and Politics . The man is a writer. He is a man

quite capable of putting forward ideas, and he's done so

frequently. In the notes of the editor, he's described as being

a man who is involved in educational change; he's put forward

here as a person who will be bearing heavily on the directions

these changes are likely to take. It says, of course, that he's

looking for a process, not a product.

That apparently has been the rejection by the Minister.

She's looking for a product, and failed to realize that a

process perhaps was what the commissioner himself was looking

for.

I'd like to mention, Mr. Chairman, for your edification,

that when Bremer was fired by the Premier, the Minister made

this statement: "So, his terms of reference were somewhat

intangible, and I suppose there was adverse public reaction to

the fact that he was not there to espouse policy. So, when you

ask, am I satisfied? I think the terms of reference that I gave

him were just to go out and listen."

That was a statement by the Minister when Bremer was fired

by the Premier, and yet last night the excuse given was that he

didn't produce enough paper; he didn't give guidelines. That is

a totally different reason for firing, which has been raised

last night, and we think that this should be elaborated on at

some length. That came from January 12, 1974, a Sun

article

headlined: "Dailly Comes to Defence of Embattled School

Czar."

Mr. Chairman, I raise that and I refer to it at this time because it's tremendously

important: this man's reputation has been impaired; his ability to earn his

living has been impaired. The Minister, when he was fired, gave one set of reasons.

She did not mention

[ Page 1497 ]

the fact that she hadn't received any documents from him.

That was not the reason given when he was fired; that was the reason concocted

months later. When he was fired on January 12, she said,"I think the terms

of reference that I gave him were just to go out and listen."

I hope she'll explain why she's had to rewrite history in

her statements last night, because I think it's highly

unfair.

We then come to the document referred to yesterday a number

of times — the White Paper. Mr. Chairman, I had to ask the day

after this was tabled in the House whether it was the White

Paper because I couldn't believe my ears that after 18 months

with the Minister, we got a document such as that — five pages,

small pages, which collect a number of truisms out of what I am

assured would be an ordinary text on educational philosophy

which students of education would have to read.

These statements are so strikingly obvious that you wonder

whether the previous government, or successor government, any

government, would object.

"We believe that a major responsibility of the school system

is to provide a measure of success for every student. The fact

that it fails to do this in some instances calls for an

examination of the whole structure within which the student is

expected to learn."

Well, for heaven's sake, isn't that a bright new bit of

rethink?

That, Mr. Chairman, is something Mr. Brothers, the former

Minister, undoubtedly agreed with. It's something that every

student in the faculty of education at UBC, or in Victoria or

elsewhere, undoubtedly agrees with. It's simply a truism. It's

not any suggestion for change or any hard analysis of policy

options.

"The student has no means of resolving any conflict with the

system; he must conform, leave voluntarily, or be

suspended."

Well, has there been any change? Has she suggested any way

of improving this? Are we dealing with a White Paper which

gives us options for the student who otherwise, would leave

voluntarily or be suspended? Is there any indication there as

to what her thinking is? None at all. John Bremer, he gave

ideas. He got out and talked about these things. He was a

catalyst that encouraged debate and made people think about

these issues. He didn't simply enunciate platitudes and then

pretend it was a White Paper.

"Even the best efforts of the present system are not

effectively meeting the educational needs of these

students."

The Minister knew that before she took office. She knows it

now 18 months later, and yet there's not a word in this as to

how to solve the problem raised.

Under the title, "The Major Criteria of an Effective System," the script has:

"In order to do this the system must be equitable in the

provision of educational opportunity, and must be responsive to

the needs of the individual and the community."

Well, I would hope so. Is that a startling statement that

you can really discuss? Is that the type of statement which

causes people to challenge it and to come out with new ideas or

to analyse new approaches? Not on your life; it's another

platitude. Under the heading "What Must be Changed":

"The structure of the education system should be redesigned

in such a way that authority and responsibility are distributed

more appropriately, keeping in mind the principle that the

primary relationship in education is between the teacher, the

pupil and the parent, and that other parts of the system must

be in support of that relationship."

Well, where is the suggestion for more appropriate

distribution? Where are the areas we can discuss? Or people who come to

meetings or go to PTA meetings and discuss their children's problems

with their teachers, or the students themselves — where are the

proposals in this White Paper from the Minister that they can sink

their teeth into? They aren't there.

Now Bremer was offering suggestions. Many people were very

critical of his suggestions. But in terms of the commission he

was given by the Minister to cause people to think, to cause

them to go out and start analyzing concepts and new ideas,

Bremer was doing that job. I may not have liked everything he

proposed, but he was acting as the devil's advocate. He had a

certain Irish pixiness to him; he was out there trying to

encourage debate and needle people. And he was doing it.

But this type of statement doesn't encourage debate. It

doesn't encourage people to come out and say,"By golly, that's

a rotten idea. You know what I think is this." This type of

platitude does nothing of the sort.

Page 3:

"A system of programme development and decision-making

should be developed which allows for flexibility in programme

design."

I've gone through debates in this Legislature, Mr. Chairman,

right back to the days of the father of the present

Attorney-General. And every time you get onto education, that

type of statement comes up. But what we're hoping for is some

sort of policy proposals, White Paper policy proposals, to

which the Minister may not be herself dedicated, but which

would indicate where the areas are where we could make

changes. What are the changes that we could have for

flexibility and programming? How can we make decision-making

more responsive?

A lot of talk was made yesterday about decision-making from

the Member for Dewdney (Mr. Rolston), and yet there are no

indications here as to

[ Page 1498 ]

what type of changes are in the mind of the Minister or no

suggestion as to how the debate could go.

"Programmes to meet learning difficulties, including those

caused by background, socio-economic circumstance,

learning-ability levels, or home environment should be

developed through the co-operative efforts of many departments

of government."

Well, bully for her. But it's nothing new. Mr.

Brothers agreed there, I'm sure.

"The professional staff of schools should have appropriate

pre-service and in-service training to enable them to offer

alternative programmes in alternative ways."

Once again, that's probably the heading of one of those

chapters in the textbook on education which the young student

teachers are using. Sure it's a statement, but where is the

discussion of it? Where are the proposals to achieve that

end?

Then we get to "Right to Education. The opportunity for

suitable education should be provided to all children." Well

and good; that's great. That's something that's really going to

spark a lot of debate. There are going to be hundreds of

people, thousands of people in this province, Mr. Chairman,

getting up and saying,"Oh, no, no, no, we shouldn't provide

suitable education for all children in the province." You'd be

surprised. Oh, there's going to be just dozens of them. That's

a really inflammatory statement that's going to encourage lots

of debate. You bet your boots.

"The Department of Education will work with other government

departments to develop effective legislation and programmes in

this area." Well, great, but then it should always have been

doing that. The idea that the department is working in

isolation and has no contact with other departments is

ridiculous. It's ridiculous under any government of any

political stripe, ranging right through from fascist to communist. It's absurd to suggest that the Department of

Education in any government would work in isolation. This

statement really means nothing and there's no suggestion as to

how we can spark that debate and get on to that.

"Organization and Administration. Administrative

organization should be revised to parallel the new structure of

authority and responsibility." What new structure? Where? Where

are the proposals for the new structure? We just don't have

them, so again it's an airy-fairy sentence which comes out of

nowhere and goes nowhere. It's not something that can spark the

type of debate in education we had hoped and expected when

Bremer was appointed.

Then finally on finance. "An equitable education finance system

should be developed." Does anybody believe we should have an

inequitable system for educational finance? Are the Social Credit

Members, the Tory Members, the NDP back bench, ourselves getting up and

saying,"We want an inequitable system of educational finance"? Mr.

Chairman, this is just a platitude and nonsense.

Finally in the "Summary" we get to a statement which worries

me even more. "The Minister of Education will provide the

leadership for public discussion of the issues outlined in this

paper." She's had 18 months, she's produced a paper. Leadership

and discussion? We've had none of it, absolutely none of it.

How can the discussion take place when we're not getting that

type of leadership?

Furthermore, Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Education should

not be in the role of sparking discussion of this nature; it

should be someone outside the educational system, like Bremer,

willing to take the lumps when people don't like the proposals

he makes, willing to take the lumps when people misinterpret

some of his devil's advocacy for his own views. That's the type

of person we need. A Minister politically responsible? Oh, it's

absurd to suggest she can do this in that way. It really

doesn't make sense at all. I just don't understand it at

all.

I'd like to quote once more from a statement made by the

Minister when she was in opposition. She was complaining about

a piece of legislation and she said, "The essence of the bill

was to change the Minister's role from one of a political

figure to one of a professional educator." She added, "We

consider this highly dangerous for the educational procedures

of this province." Yet, despite that statement of principle,

she apparently would like to be involved as the chief spark plug

in debate. She has produced nothing that could spark debate at

all so far.

It's not only that she herself doesn't seem to have the

ideas that can spark debate, but she in her position as

Minister of Education should not be the person to spark ideas

of that nature. It has got to be somebody else. You've got to

have a lightning rod such as Bremer or such as some other

commissioner, someone who can get out there and plug away and

raise issues and raise unpopular issues. Sure, we can try in

the Legislature to do that, but we're not professionals. Very

few of us are professional teachers. The fact of the matter is

that it should be done by someone who is a proper expert.

I asked yesterday during the question period whether this

was the vaunted White Paper on education, something which has

cost probably around $200,000 one way or another. I was told it

is.

Interjection.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Your estimates. You start adding those

in. You have done nothing else in your time in office, and this

is the only product from the Minister in all those months. You

start adding up the cost of her office and you realize that it

might be 100 bucks a word for those truisms. It really is

infuriating.

[ Page 1499 ]

I would suggest instead for all Members of the House here

not only to start reading Bremer's works, because they're good,

not only to read EDGE, "On Educational Change" but read "The

Purposes of Education; Results of a CEA Study." Canadian

Educational Association. Read that. You'll find it's a much

more lengthy document; it runs to 45 pages instead of 5. It

deals with surveys of what people think education should be; it

has gone out and tried to do some examination of what people

would like. It's a great book.

I'll give you some more references, Mr. Chairman, you're

interested in this type of thing: "1973, Price: $2.50.

Canadian Educational Association, 252 Bloor Street West,

Toronto, Ontario, M5F IV5." It's by Joseph Lauwerys, Director,

Atlantic Institute of Education. "The Purposes of Education;

Results of a CEA Study."

That gives some sort of meat for you, Mr. Chairman, and

myself, both of us laymen in the educational field. It gives

far more in the way of an insight as to what way the debate

should go, and how we can perhaps bring in new ideas and how

the system can be improved. They deal with public

attitudes.

For instance, you and I, Mr. Chairman, may well feel the

public believes that education for a job is the most important

thing. Yet you start looking at this survey and you realize the

public does not believe that. I'll give you question No. 5:

"People have different reasons why they believe children should

get an education. Which of the following would be your reason?

1. to get better jobs. 2. to get along better with people at

all levels of society. 3. to attain self-satisfaction. 4. to

stimulate the mind." "No answer," of course, is another

one. "To stimulate the mind. To attain self-satisfaction. To

get along better with people at all levels of society" are all

considered to be more important than "to get better jobs."

Interesting: I would have thought it would be the other way

around. I just didn't know that.

The fact that so many people put down "to attain

self-satisfaction" I thought was very indicative of the fact

that they understand that education is to make the person a

fuller human being and not simply to give them a trade. It was

a very revealing question, and there are plenty more in there.

I won't go through the whole thing.

What we have in this is a collection of truisms; what we

have in this document is some sort of analysis and examination

of the problem, some attempt to raise issues and some attempt

to get public input.

I'd like to make one quote from it because it ties in

completely with what I said about independent schools.

"In a brilliant paper prepared for the Canadian Teachers'

Federation, Dr. Guy Rocher of Montreal puts forward a point of view similar

to the above.

"'All, or about all, young people are convinced that the

gravest threat hanging over them is that of being absorbed by

the infernal machine of collectivity, of being dehumanized,

alienated, and depersonalized by an anonymous and soulless

system. It is in the context of this obsessive fear and as a

means of reacting against this threat — whether it be real or

imaginary is of little importance here — that we find the

desire which is so strongly expressed to see the school and the

school system return to a personalized thought, creativity and

autonomy, and to fight against the excessively strong forces of

society.... It is not by chance that in a mass society in

which the individual is subjected to a considerable number of

pressures and constraints which tend towards standardization of

people, the demand rises for an education that is more and more

individualized....'"

Well, there is the argument in a nutshell for having in our

school system and assisting the independent or religious

school. There also is an argument in a nutshell for British

Columbia, which is becoming under a socialist government, more

and more all-embracing, more and more large and all-powerful,

for our educational system to cater to this need for the

individual and a personalization of education.

That quote from Guy Rocher is well worth reading, Mr.

Chairman, and I'll send you a copy of this because I know that

you are interested in this subject.

We're in this weird situation of analyzing the government's

legislation. We've had people come forward, pointing out how

important it is to have the type of discussion that Bremer was

trying to spearhead, and doing a good job. We questioned it

when he was first appointed. We were the ones who questioned

and said, "Why did you bring a person from the outside?

Shouldn't you have a person from British Columbia?" And we were

accused of being anti-education. Indeed, "disgusting,"

because we even asked the Minister about the qualifications of

the man and his connection with British Columbia.

We suggested other names that should have been considered as

well. We wanted to know why he had been chosen over other

British Columbians, and we were roundly denounced by the

Minister, who gave my colleague for VancouverPoint Grey a

verbal tongue-lashing. But once the man took the job, once he

started doing this — we're quite willing to admit that maybe

some other person could have done it too, and maybe some other

person could have done it better.... But he was trying to do

the job, and he was doing a job.

It just doesn't make any sense for him to have

[ Page 1500 ]

been fired as he was, because the job is still not done. We

have no suggestions as to how education is going to go. We're

going to throw the whole thing back in the department, that

institution that hopefully we were trying to get away from,

that bureaucracy that we were apparently going to get away

from.

We're going to have these structured committees deep in the

bureaucracy, and there is going to be no real opportunity, that

there might have been through Bremer or through the commission

concept, to have a public debate on the role of education.

You know, I suspect, Mr. Chairman, that when some of the

people, the hidebound bureaucrats in the Department of

Education, started to realize how effective the Bremer

commission was becoming, how interested people were in

discussing the objectives of education.... You know, you only

go round this world once. Well, you're a clergyman; you might

suggest that we go around more often than that, Mr. Chairman.

Nevertheless, most of us believe we only go around once; and if

you start off with a bad backing, a bad education, you never

catch up. You can't do it. I've said that before in this House,

and it's tremendously important.

HON. L. NICOLSON (Minister of Housing): That's not true.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, it's tremendously important for

people to have this type of opportunity to get the very best

for their kids.

So, when Bremer was fired — and I want a proper explanation

from the Minister as to the conflicting statements about his

firing when he was fired, in her statements last night, because

they are totally contradictory — when Bremer was fired others

came up trying to fill the gap. "Citizens Hope to Fill Bremer

Void" — January 30, 1974.

"A group of 23 persons wants to found a citizens'

educational commission in the wake of the firing of provincial

commissioner John Bremer. They want a province-wide

organization to ensure that changes in education are in touch

with community wishes."

Then, of course, we had the people themselves who worked

with Bremer; Stanley Burke was one of them, and he tried to get

something going. In fact he tried to have the Premier

re-examine the whole question of the firing. I asked a question

in the House back on February 21; that's more than a month ago.

"Reinstatement of John Bremer" is the heading. I'm quoting from

Hansard , page 410, February 21, 1974.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: I would like to ask the Premier whether he has discussed

with the Minister of Education (Hon. Mrs. Dailly) the representations which

have been made by the general advisory board of the Commission on Education,

who urged him to reinstate Mr. John Bremer.

By the way, that letter dates from 1973 that I was referring

to.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I've received the letter but we've not had a detailed discussion on it.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister, as his letter indicating that he was discussing

the contents of the letter with Mrs. Dailly was signed on

February 13, when in the future he expects to have such a

conversation?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Well, since I do make a practice of

acknowledging all my letters and then following through on

them, I am aware that I have answered that and I hope to meet

with the Minister shortly to discuss that.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that the Premier answers his correspondence. Could

he indicate what "shortly" means?

And the Speaker cut me off,

as naturally he would.

But here is a letter, here is a reply, that the Premier is

so proud of. He answers his correspondence. This is to Mrs. Lee

Brown, 3480 Upper Terrace, Victoria, B.C.

"Dear Mrs. Brown.

This will acknowledge and thank you for your letter of January

31. I am discussing its contents with Mrs. Dailly."

February 13 — and it is now March 22. Now have these discussions taken place?

There's another question: are we going to have Bremer

reappointed or does the government want to ignore and refuse to

answer the question because they don't want to touch the

subject?

I have the letter here. There's a news clipping of it,

February 16, signed by Lee Brown, Irene Foulkes, Eileen

Herridge — this name I'm not too sure of, Marg Laker, I think

it is, at the bottom of the page — Stanley Burke, Robert Racey

and Larry Hillman. They are members of the general advisory

board to the commission on education. They are expressing their

deep concern.

We asked questions in the House as to whether this deep

concern is being taken seriously by the Premier, and he says he

answers his correspondence — with two lines stating he has

received the letter. We've had no indication of any

conversations following these representations between the

Premier and the Minister.

So, Mr. Chairman, there's another question. I'd like to know

why the advice of the people in the field, the people on that

commission, the people who understood what was going on, was

ignored. Was it simply bureaucracy? Was it the Minister's

unhappiness with the fact that Bremer was getting a lot of ink

and he was out there as the real Minister of Education in the

people's minds? Was that factor

[ Page 1501 ]

involved? We'd like to know some of the answers to this. She gave

one answer, one excuse, when he was fired, and she gave a very

different one last night.

We'd like to have an accounting of the discrepancy.

She said that "Mr. Bremer was not producing for me the necessary

evaluation of our system and recommendations for changes I had hoped

for."

That's a quote from her press release of January 12. Something else

was given last night when she was contacted and asked by phone for her

views, and that's, of course, the headline which said, "Dailly to

Defence of Education Minister."

Mr. Chairman, I don't know whether the government fully appreciates

the difficulties that they are creating in the educational field. I

don't think the Minister understands the difficulties that she is

causing for people who are professional educators in the Province of

British Columbia.

I don't think the government understands that in their defence of

the flippant remarks of our Premier on a television programme, their

attempt to follow through with what were obviously ill-considered,

off-hand remarks, they have severely damaged education in the Province

of British Columbia.

I would like to read a letter; it is dated February 19, 1974, from Surrey:

"Dear Mr. Anderson:

I have been an ardent supporter of the New Democratic Party since

its inception. Before that I supported the CCF. You can therefore imagine my

delight when we won the last provincial election. Since that electoral victory

I have become increasingly disturbed by what is happening. As a teacher I am

particularly concerned by what is happening in education.

"It appears to me that the Minister of Education is

doing exactly what the previous administration did, but at a much

accelerated pace. She appears to have little knowledge or understanding

of the problems confronting those involved in the educational process,

both students and teachers.

"I teach in Surrey, and I am deeply I disturbed at the budget

cut being imposed upon us. The result of this cut means that the standard of

education will decline rapidly. The students will suffer, and they have no voice

in what the people's government is doing to their future. Would you please give

the enclosed NDP membership card to whomever you choose in that party?"

Well, Mr. Chairman, I feel this gentleman has made I clear that it is education

which worries him the most, and the Minister's failure in education which has

caused this gentleman, who supported the CCF, supported the NDP, worked hard

for them, to send me his NDP membership card.

I would like at this time

to ask the page to take this across to the Minister, because he's asked me — "Would

you please give the enclosed NDP membership card to whomever you choose in that

party?" — and I think nobody is more appropriate to receive it than the Minister

of Education, who is destroying the faith of her own party membership in the

ability of this government to handle this important portfolio.

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): That's not true.

That's just not true.

MR. H.W. SCHROEDER (Chilliwack): One of the areas which the

NDP in their election campaign stated they were extremely

interested in was the area of classroom size.

Since their election and since this Minister has been

appointed to the portfolio, we've had repeated statements to

the same: their primary concern is classroom size.

My question to the Minister this morning is: what is the

plan of attack to reduce classroom size? She has set a goal for

herself and she says that she plans to reduce the classroom

size by 1.5 students each year for the next three years, for a

total of 4.5 reduction, and an eventual goal of 17 students per

teacher.

In the first place, I wish we could get past the place of

referring to a classroom size by a fictitious figure of

student-to-teacher ratio. I don't believe that it's basically

honest, Mr. Chairman, to say that our classroom sizes are 21.5

students per teacher. As you know, Mr. Chairman, this takes

into consideration all the teachers who are being paid as

teachers or who are full-time equivalents, and it doesn't

really reflect the actual class size.

I said it the other day and I think it bears repeating: I

wish the Minister would begin to look at class sizes the way

they actually are.

I think that we need to take the number of classes and divide that number into

the total number of students, and that will give us the true picture of classroom

size. When you do it that way, it doesn't look good at all. As a matter of fact,

if we divide them as the B.C. Teachers' Federation has done — into categories

of 1 to 15; 16 to 25; 26 to 30; 31 to 35; and 36 and over, and you call these

small, high, medium, poor and pathetic — you find out that in British Columbia

43.8 per cent of the classrooms fit into the "poor" and the "pathetic" category.

Members of the House might be interested, by school districts, which are the most serious offenders. In Williams Lake, where the Hon. Member for Cariboo (Mr. Fraser) is the representative, 79 per cent of the

classrooms are 31 pupils or larger — 79 per cent. How about

West Vancouver — just to give you a comparative figure in the rural and in the urban area? In West Vancouver 65.6 of the classrooms are 31 students or larger. What about

Langley? The Hon.

[ Page 1502 ]

Member for Langley (Mr. McClelland) will be interested in

this. In Langley 60 per cent — actually 59.9-something per cent

- of the classrooms are in the "poor" to "pathetic" rating when

it comes to class size.

Now I want to give the Minister an opportunity to explain to

the House what the plan of attack is going to be in actually

reducing these class sizes. Through you, Mr. Chairman, to the

Minister, may I ask whether or not we are going to reduce the

class sizes first in those school districts where we have the

largest classes?

Are we going to try to reduce the class sizes in the most

offending areas first, or are we going to come up with a

general philosophy and a general plan of attack that would just

try to reduce the class size overall in the province? I would

like to suggest that we go to the areas most offending first. I

would like to say that we go to Kamloops and central Okanagan.

In central Okanagan, 69.9 per cent of the classrooms are larger

than 31 students per class. Langley...I just gave you the

figures for Langley a moment ago. You would like them to

operate there first, wouldn't you? I don't blame you a bit. You

are a good representative. I understand that one-third of the

total student growth for the province occurred in the Langley

area.

The total amount of grants to school boards was increased in

this last year by $29.5 million. This does not account for the

special grants that the boards may have if they come begging to

the Minister. These are the hard grants that have already been

given — $29.5 million in the next year's budget.

[Mr. Liden in the chair.]

However, just the cost of meeting the increased teachers'

salaries totals $30.5 million, which means that before we have

taken any steps toward the reduction of class size, we are

already $1 million in the hole. I would like the Minister to

tell the House how she plans to attack this problem of class

size and then how she plans to finance this plan of attack. In

43.8 per cent of the classes in British Columbia there are 31

students or more.

I understand that there is a problem. For instance, if you

go to a very small school district where the schools may be one

and two and three classrooms, to reduce the class size in that

instance is difficult, because to introduce one extra teacher

into that particular school may mean it reduces the class size

to 25 or even smaller. There are a few classrooms that are in

the one student to 15 students ratio.

Just by comparison, the independent schools — and I am sure the Minister would

be interested in their class size, their student-teacher ratio — the average

in the independent schools is 16.5. I would have to agree that the teaching

atmosphere must be far better in the independent schools than it is in the public

school sector.

If you wanted to meet the ideal, I think that the ideal

student-to-teacher ratio is 12 to 1. That indication was given

to us by the greatest teacher of all when he selected 12

students. He became the instructor. I have to believe that that

would be the ideal situation. The independent schools are fast

approaching the ideal. They have a student-teacher ratio of

16.5 to one. In the public school sector it is 21.5 to one. We

are, in the public school system, affecting five students per

class that, if they were in the independent school system,

would be gaining that much better an education.

I would like to say that the sooner the Minister takes

action on her goal to reduce the class size to 17 the better.

My question this morning is: how? If I might add the second

question: when do we start?

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Yesterday we

discussed at some length the John Bremer affair. Earlier it had

been a question during the oral question period by the Second

Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. Gardom): had Mr. Bremer

violated the terms of his reference? That question wasn't

answered.

Yesterday a number of Members, including myself, asked more

detailed questions as to why Mr. John Bremer had been

dismissed. In the afternoon the Minister told us that his style

wasn't right. Up to that point his competency in the job that

he had done had not been openly questioned except by the

Premier, who said on television that he had been a bit of a

flop. You know.

The Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) presented the essence

of Mr. Bremer's conclusions, having watched his appearance on

television. The Minister of Education last night said to

us:

The first point I want to make to the Members is that I would very much like to see that presentation because

I have never seen it before.

In the nine months that Mr. Bremer was commissioner I had asked him to go out and evaluate the

system and report to me on an interim basis. I did not ask him

for a big, long formal royal commission report, but I certainly

did expect some interim recommendations, as I am sure you, Mr.

Member, if you were the Minister, would wish to see something

concrete coming forward.

The Minister left the impression that Mr. Bremer had neither

produced anything concrete nor even given her informal

recommendations as to what should be done in the nine months he

was in office. She was applauded by the backbenchers, who I'm

sure were relieved to discover, at least from the point of view

of the Minister, that the commissioner of education had done

nothing in his nine months in office.

[ Page 1503 ]

I'm not going to read all her remarks because they are

quoted in Hansard . However, she concluded by saying:

I would think that in nine months, one would expect

something to be produced.

The Member was referring to the White

Paper as being motherhood, apple pie and so on. I would like to

point out to you that the White Paper may appear very minute

with just five basic issues, but it is the first time I think

in the Province of British Columbia that a government or a

Minister has stated: 'Here are the issues, as we see them, in

this province educationally.'

Earlier, Mr. Chairman, the Second Member for Victoria (Mr.

D.A. Anderson), the Liberal leader, discussed the publication, "Edge," of the former commissioner of education, Mr.

John Bremer, which came out during the nine-month period he

held office.

I have in my hands the working paper on university

governance in British Columbia. It's a fairly comprehensive

document, complete with flow sheets of the present structure

and the proposed structure for the future. The working paper

presents alternative approached to university education, makes

specific recommendations regarding changes in legislation and

provides a blueprint of sorts for the future. These are two

documents, pretty comprehensive, loaded with information which

appeared during those nine months. There's another document

here towards the learning community, a working paper on the

community colleges in British Columbia, which is from the

Department of Education, but which obviously derived from the

concepts that the former commissioner of education put forward

during his term of office.

These are three public documents stemming from the

activities of the commissioner of education. It isn't nothing,

Mr. Chairman. It's something infinitely more substantial than

the piece of garbage that the Minister put on the floor earlier

this week. I don't need to ask questions about the public

documents that Mr. Bremer was responsible for producing.

I want to ask, Mr. Chairman, for the Minister to tell us

whether or not there were any other documents from Mr. Bremer

that were given to her during that nine months that she hasn't

told us about. She denied the existence of anything last night

when she replied to the Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace).

Manifestly, these were important things, because they had been

made public. She referred particularly to the lack of any

performance with regard to the public school system. Now, Mr.

Chairman, I ask the Minister directly: was there anything more

from Mr. Bremer presented to you formally or informally that we

were not told about last night?

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to say again

that it would be nice to hear some response from the Minister, sooner or later,

and I hope she will.

Recalling the debate last night and listening to the Member

for Dewdney (Mr. Rolston), who isn't in his place this morning,

it's really fun to listen to the NDP Members speak about

education and other things because they're so full of words

like "innovation" and "input" and "survey" and "change" and

"task force" and "thrust" and "positive approaches" and "

purposes," but never once do they ever say anything

about action — all the fancy words that they're so full of, but

never any action.

The Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) has put it very

clearly that this Minister of Education in 18 months has been a

total and abject failure — 18 months of nothing. There's been

not one single piece of meaningful legislation in 18 months in

office by this Minister of Education. All we get in 18 months

is this fantastic little booklet. Even the Member for Dewdney

called it a little statement, and that's about what it is. All

this little booklet does is tell us all kinds of things that

everybody in British Columbia has known for years and years.

The wonder is that it took so long to get, when it could have

been written in half an hour.

It's like all those words that I mentioned before — the

"innovations" and the "input" and the "surveys" and the

"thrust" and the "task force." It's public relationsese. Either

this little booklet was written by a public relations officer

or it was an exercise by one of the Minister's grade 5

classrooms, because there's certainly nothing new in it, and

there's certainly nothing very startling in it and there's

certainly nothing very intelligent in it. Public relations jazz

is all it is.

The Minister has made some mention and the Member for

Dewdney made some mention about community colleges and all the

action that the Minister has taken. Yet we see that the

community college in the central Fraser Valley is now 18 months

or perhaps even a couple of years behind

schedule because of

the Minister's petulant actions when she first took office. The

school could have been in operation today if the Minister

hadn't had some knee-jerk reaction to the former government.

All of the time and money that was spent in Langley District,

taking questionnaires out to the people at the request of the

Minister, was time and money spent for nothing.

Mr. Chairman, it's not much wonder that the British Columbia

School Trustees Association has lost confidence in this

Minister, because she hasn't backed up any of her actions with

any kind of positive programmes. What we want in British

Columbia is some kind of programmes. When she finds herself in

the bind of not knowing what to do, what does she do? She tries

to place the blame on the school boards.

[ Page 1504 ]

In the fall of 1972, when the opposition warned that school

costs were going to go out of sight and out of control, the

Minister said: "Don't worry about it." But as soon as those

school costs started to go out of control, she made a public

statement about the irresponsible school boards. Never once has

she taken the blame and put it where it belongs — on herself.

Instead she tries to pass the blame on to the school

boards.

Even the British Columbia Teachers' Federation recognizes

that little play, and it's a little play that's becoming

prevalent with this government. Whenever they get in trouble,

blame somebody else. The Premier, Mr. Chairman, blames the

municipality when taxes go up because of his actions, and the

Minister of Education blames the school boards. Even the

British Columbia Teachers' Federation in their latest

newsletter — I'll read you just a brief quote. They're talking

about Surrey teachers who had to resort to a protest march on

the Legislative Buildings to express their displeasure, but

anyway they say:

"Education Minister Eileen Dailly and Provincial Secretary

Ernest Hall met the teachers' executive and later the entire

group at the legislative buildings, but Dailly tried to throw

much of the blame onto the school board."

Why do you want to pass the buck all the time? Take the

blame and put it where it belongs — right on the Minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: On the Premier.

Interjections.

MR. McCLELLAND: Don't try and pass the buck, Mr. Chairman,

onto the school boards and blame them for being irresponsible.

All they're trying to do is their job.

The other night, the Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder)

pointed out that the school teachers are pretty frustrated.

They had a dinner here in Victoria the other evening and

mentioned that they're pretty happy, the Minister's done pretty

well everything the teachers wanted. I mentioned when I spoke

on the budget debate that the Minister seemed to be falling

over himself to make sure that things were good for teachers.

But that's got nothing to do with being good for education, and

being good for students. Even the teachers the other evening,

the Teachers' Federation executive, told us that sure, they've

got everything they want. But this Minister hasn't done

anything to make it better for students. And that's what

counts, Mr. Chairman.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Order! Would the Member continue his speech?

MR. McCLELLAND: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm just waiting

for....

MR. CHAIRMAN: You may continue.

MR. McCLELLAND: It's been mentioned that we're expecting

some direction from this government in relation to independent

schools. Now the Premier, once again, Mr. Chairman, has said

that he's in favour of support for independent schools, but his

party doesn't like the idea. Yet on other occasions, he's

reversed himself and said: "You know, the party's in favour of

it but I don't like it."

But I think it's time, Mr. Chairman, that this government

came forward with a statement offering financial support and

legal recognition for independent schools. The Member for

Kamloops (Mr. G.H. Anderson) agrees with that because he's told

his papers in his community that he thinks he can convince his

party and his government that it's time for financial support

for independent schools. That's right, Mr. Member for Kamloops,

isn't it?

MR. G.H. ANDERSON (Kamloops): Yes.

MR. McCLELLAND: Yes, that's right, Mr. Chairman.

But it's time, Mr. Chairman, that this government came up

with a policy statement on independent schools, and you know

the present system won't fall apart. I'm sure it won't fall

apart just because a choice is made available. If the present

system did fall apart, then it's in a very sorry state if it

can't stand that kind of competition.

So, Madam Minister, I think all of us in this House,

including the Members of your side of the fence who believe in

support for independent schools, believe that it's time that

you came out with a very positive and definite statement on

your stand as education Minister in relation to support for

independent schools.

There's all kinds of evidence, Mr. Chairman, of the failure

of this Minister in providing the kind of thrust — if I can use

that word — in new education, programmes, all kinds of

indications of failure. The provincial budget is up 26 per

cent, and the Premier bragged about his fantastic new budget

based on a fantastic and growing new economy. Up 26.4 per cent.

You know how much more public schools got? They got 10.7 per

cent. What kind of growth is that?

During the eight-year period from '65 to '73, public school

expenditures as a proportion of the provincial budget did go

down slightly from 21 per cent to 19 per cent. But what has

happened in two years under the NDP? Now they're down to 16 per

cent of the total budget compared to 21 per cent a

[ Page 1505 ]

few years ago.

That's a pretty sorry record from a government who was

elected largely because of their policies for education, and

they've proved in 18 months to be a total failure.

I'd like to speak for a moment about one of the communities

which is located in my constituency, the school district of

Surrey. Now when this Minister took office, she promised us all

kinds of wonderful new ideas for education. One of those

wonderful new ideas was the concept of five-year budgeting. She

said, and rightfully so, that school districts couldn't operate

any longer on the kind of year-to-year budgeting that they had

been operating on. So she said, let's project it over five

years so that we can do some kind of meaningful planning. We

all welcomed that step. So did the school district of

Surrey.

So the school district of Surrey went and put together all

kinds of research people, sat down and did a very serious study

about the needs of the Surrey school district for the next five

years. And they thought that was fine. But you know what it's

turned out to be? Nothing but a farce. Nothing but a farce.

Totally phony.

It proves only one thing, Mr. Chairman, that this Minister

doesn't have any idea about what is happening in the school

districts in the province. She has no policy and she has no

direction.

She seems to be waiting for her many assistants to take some

kind of initiative, to come up with ideas. But even her

assistants don't have any ideas or any new directions for

change in the education system. What we're getting is a

non-education policy, perhaps with the idea that if you don't

do anything, you can't get into any trouble. Well, I can tell

you that this Minister sure won't get into any trouble because

she hasn't done a thing in 18 months.

You know that this wonderful new five-year budget that

Surrey so carefully prepared came to about $40 million for

construction and site acquisition. You know what this Minister

did, Mr. Chairman? She slashed that $40 million to $11 million.

That's a pretty good cut, from $40 million to $11 million. What

does that do to Surrey's five-year programme? It's a farce and

phony. Totally phony. The Minister never really meant it when

she said go out and budget for five years, because the first

time that anybody does it, she cuts their programme all to

pieces.

She says that she's doing it because of a dispute over

population figures. She's basing her educational budgeting on

the pill. She doesn't even understand that while the birth rate

is going down, the influx into very attractive areas like

Langley and Surrey will not stop because the immigration is

going to continue, partially because of your land policies,

because there's no place else to go but those areas which have

some land left.

I'd just like to read a letter from a teacher and a parent

and a taxpayer, all the same person, who is a school teacher in

Surrey. He says that in all of those categories — teacher,

parent, taxpayer — he is very dissatisfied with the current

state of affairs. He says:

"As a parent, I see my two children attending an elementary

school which at 600 students is already too big and which is

destined to become bigger and more over-crowded because the

powers-that-be in Victoria," and listen to this, Mr.

Premier, "have magically decreed sterility for our residents so

that the school population will decline."

That's an education policy on the birth control formula, I

guess it's called.

"As a taxpayer," this writer goes on to say,"I see a

terrific budget in Surrey to pay for our present inadequate

educational services. Our residential mill rate is already

extremely high because we have no industrial base to cushion

the cost. It can realistically go no higher, so we are stuck

with our stagnant if not deteriorating situation in

education."

He says: "As a teacher, I am depressed and demoralized to

find that I shall probably be unable to look forward to any

improvement in my working conditions and in the learning

conditions for my students. I find it ludicrous that our little

boss, our supposedly autonomous school board, must go cap in

hand to our big boss to beg for crumbs from this tin-cup

government so that we might be able to get some equipment and

supplies to equip our classrooms.

"Examples of such oppressive big-brotherism are becoming

more and more frequent and correspondingly more repressive, and

unfortunately big-brother is becoming a stingy 'censored

bleep-bleep,' when it comes to backing up its fine philosophy

with filthy lucre."

He says finally: "As a long-time NDP supporter, and not

incidentally voter, I am disenchanted politically, for although

I am pleased with much that is being done in Victoria now, I

bitterly resent the present discrepancy between ideology and

practice with regards to education. And on this one issue, the

issue which was primarily responsible for the NDP's ascension

to power, I am resentful enough to seriously consider a switch

in political allegiance next time around."

There is a teacher who understands the situation and who

knows very well that the school district of Surrey is being

short-changed by this education Minister.

In the matter of the college up in the central Fraser

Valley, in the matter of the tremendous

[ Page 1506 ]

growth rate in the School District of Langley, and the

Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) pointed that out briefly

that one-third, and I want this government to know very well,

that one-third of the total pupil increase in the Province of

British Columbia took place in Langley School District —

one-third.

There was a student increase of 2,583 in British Columbia in

1972-73 according to the Minister's own figures. Langley's

increase in that same period was 919 — more than one-third. It

represents 35.5 per cent of the provincial increase in one

school district, and I'm telling you, through you, Mr.

Chairman, to the Minister, that you'd better wake up to the

fact that high-growth areas require some special kind of

attention from the Department of Education.

Langley and Surrey and Abbotsford are those kind of

high-growth areas, and they're not getting the kind of

attention that they deserve from this department.

Your department hasn't got a clue to what is happening in

the Fraser Valley and that became very evident with your

petulant canceling of the college up in the upper valley. As I

mentioned earlier, now there's perhaps a four-year delay in

getting students into some kind of community college in that

part of the province, just because the Minister has once again

a knee-jerk reaction, and obviously some bad advice from her

officials. From her advisers, I should put it that way —

political advisers, that's right.

I want the Minister to know very clearly that in those

high-growth areas we're taking the brunt of the growth in this

province right now. We've all kinds of problems with housing,

and with education for sure. The brunt of this growth means

more kids and it doesn't matter what the birth rate is, because

the migration rate is increasing at a tremendous incidence, and

if you're going to have more kids you've got to have more

schools, and it's as simple as that.

I'd like to know whether or not this slash in Surrey's

five-year budget is the start of cut-backs in all of the

high-growth areas. Is that just the start, or are you picking

on Surrey because of some special reason? Is Langley next,

Abbotsford, Delta, Maple Ridge? Which district is going to feel

the slash next? That's the question we want to ask.

Many of the teachers in British Columbia, as I have

indicated in the letter that I read, or parts of the letter

that I read a few moments ago, feel — I suppose with a lot of

justification — that they were almost directly responsible for

your election, the NDP's election, in 1972.

I think they are justified in feeling that way. Why then

would this government and particularly this Minister want to

give those teachers the back of her hand, slap them in the face

by developing no policies and coming up with no ideas and

giving them no direction, and giving us not one piece of

meaningful legislation in 18 months?

You made a promise through you, Mr. Chairman, to those

teachers. You made a promise to the students in this province,

you made a promise to the parents and all we can conclude since

you didn't keep your promise is that the word of this

government isn't worth a plugged nickel.

You know I'd just like to go back for just a moment, Mr.

Chairman, to this so-called White Paper, and you just can't

help being disappointed in it. I heard a rumour around that

there was another sort of a paper prepared by one of the

Minister's special advisers, one Marguerita Reid.

We'd like you to tell us, through you, Mr. Chairman, who

Marguerita Reid is, who seems to be some kind of special

adviser? How much salary does she get? Where is she in the

budget and what about the paper that she'd prepared for your

committee that met with the school trustees, which dealt with

such things as provincial bargaining, and the structure of

school districts and school boards?

Maybe that's a better paper than this one, because this one

isn't much. Maybe you should table the one that Ms. Reid

prepared for you, because it would obviously be better reading

than this one.

What happened, Mr. Chairman, what happened to any

recommendations that might have come out of that Minister's

committee? I think it was called "The Minister's Committee on

Changes in the Public Schools Act ." Is that correct? I believe

that's what it was called. Where are the recommendations from

that committee? Maybe they should be put into a White

Paper.

[Mr. Dent in the chair.]

AN HON. MEMBER: The report was so bad, it defeats its

purpose.

MR. McCLELLAND: Well maybe that's right. Maybe the report

was so bad. I know they met for only five days and all went

home.

AN HON. MEMBER: They couldn't work on the basis of that

report.

Interjection.

MR. McCLELLAND: Well maybe, is that right? So maybe the

Minister should tell us, is that right? Was the report so bad

that the committee had to dissolve itself and go home in

frustration?

Is that right? Because if that's right what's the point in

bringing school trustees together? You know, I suggested in the

budget debate that maybe what the Minister's trying to do is to

develop bad policies or no policies and then bring the school

trustees over and meet with them for five days and then she can

go out to all those people in Peace River and Coquitlam and

[ Page 1507 ]

tell them: "Well, we discussed it with the school trustees

and they agree." But they don't agree. They went home in

frustration.

Why don't you tell us what happened in that meeting, Madam

Minister? Doesn't it bother the Minister, Mr. Chairman, that

the trustees, for the first time, in my memory, have come you?

That's a pretty harsh indictment.

AN HON. MEMBER: I'm going to go crazy.

MR. McCLELLAND: And you know what the trustees said, and I

think this should be put on the record. They said: "In view of

the Minister's decision not to act on the salary bargaining

issue, along with her other statements and actions, the

trustees of this province have lost confidence in the Minister

of Education."

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh!

MR. McCLELLAND: They made that public statement. Doesn't

that make you wonder whether or not your policies are

suspect?

AN HON. MEMBER: You don't know that.

MR. McCLELLAND: Or your lack of policies are suspect?

AN HON. MEMBER: You don't know that at all.

MR. McCLELLAND: You know what else they said? They said:

"When we consider some of the massive programmes which have been instituted by other Ministers of

this government — Mincome, Pharmacare, Autoplan, several key

corporate acquisitions, the take-over and integration of

Vancouver social services. the Energy Commission and the

Foulkes report, to name just a few, we are distressed at the

almost total absence of any significant legislation in the

field of education."

Doesn't that make you feel bad, Madam Minister, through you,

Mr. Chairman? Maybe you're sitting too close to the Premier.

You obviously don't have much influence on him because all

these other Ministers got all kinds of money from him for new

programmes, but you haven't been able to get anything from

him.

What have you got against your Minister of Education, Mr.

Premier? What have you got against her? Give her some of the

scope to have some new programmes too. Don't clap the lid on

her. Don't clap the lid on her for 18 months. Don't be so mean

to your Minister of Education.

You know, there are some other changes. The Minister

mentioned the other day the question that perhaps we'll go to

year-round schools. Well what are you going to do there? Have

you done any studies about year-round schools? Or are you just

saying: "Sounds like a good idea. We'll do it"? I'd suggest,

Mr. Chairman, that the Minister go and look into some of the

areas which have developed year-round schools, because they're

not too happy with them.

I was in California this year and talked to some teachers in

the southern California area. They don't like the concept of

year-round schools, but our Minister, true to form, she picks

up all these ideas that have been discredited in the States and

then institutes them in British Columbia. She's going to do it

again. I wonder if she has done any studying on year-round

schools. I suggest she should.

There are some things that might be looked at, Mr. Chairman.

I know in Alberta they are talking about moving school holidays

around over the next three years. There has been a suggestion

that the school holidays be moved back a week a year so that by

1975 the summer holidays will begin on May 28 and the school

year will begin on August 5. So school holidays on this kind of

a semester system will be June and July, instead of July and

August. Maybe that's an idea that the Minister should be

looking at.

You could do all kinds of things here, because this province

has such great weather they could have their holidays almost

any time — not like Alberta and the Cariboo where we have

winter about 9 months of the year and tough sledding the rest

of the time. We could do all kinds of things like that.

Why not more staggered school attendance to make better use

of the buildings we have? Why not have more staggered school

attendance, and better and broader use of our school buildings?

I agree that over the last five or six or seven years the use

of school buildings has improved immeasurably, but there is a

long way to go yet, particularly in the summer months when the

school buildings are almost empty. We have those great

buildings which are really a temple to the god of education

rather than learning. The Minister must recognize that there is

a difference.

Why not school on Saturday morning? What's wrong with going

to school on Saturday morning?

AN HON. MEMBER: The Legislature sits on Saturday

morning.

MR. McCLELLAND: That's right. We have had on at least one

occasion.... The only problem I see with having the

Legislature sit on Saturday morning is that the Premier would

have to be absent.

AN HON. MEMBER: He'd be out eating ham sandwiches.

[ Page 1508 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. McCLELLAND: All right. I'll go for that if you will.

MR. McGEER: When would we have rugby practice?

(Laughter.)

MR. McCLELLAND: Right. We would have to have rugby practice

on some other day but Saturday, and we would have to rearrange

the flights from the harbour. That's for sure. But what's wrong

with school on Saturday mornings? The Premier has made much

about UBC making better use of its facilities and going to UBC

on Saturdays and summer holidays. What's wrong with public

school on Saturdays? They go to school on Saturdays in many

parts of Europe.

Interjection.

MR. McCLELLAND: Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know there was a

deal.

Those are some of the ideas that the Minister might look

into. I've a few more comments that I'd like to make later on

in this debate — perhaps tomorrow morning. (Laughter.)

I just want to say in closing, Mr. Chairman, that I find it

difficult to say this, but the Minister is a

disappointment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. McCLELLAND: She is obviously not in control; she never

has been....

AN HON. MEMBER: Even the Whip is a disappointment.

AN HON. MEMBER: You're all flops.

MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Chairman, I'll have to repeat that since

Hansard may not have got all of the import of that

statement. The Minister is a disappointment. She isn't in

control of her department; she never has been. Maybe, as

someone else has said, the wrong guy got fired when they fired

Mr. Bremer. Maybe the Minister should stand aside and let

someone get on with some real education planning in this

province. Maybe it's time that the Minister stepped aside for

someone who can take control and can give us some directions

and can establish some policy.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: A short time ago the First Member for Vancouver–Point

Grey (Mr. McGeer) asked the Minister whether she had received documents or letters

or correspondence, whatever it might be, from her commissioner of education.

He referred to the statement made last night by the Minister where she said

in reference to the Member for Oak Bay's (Mr. Wallace'

s) statement and his reference

to the Bremer television programme yesterday:

The first point I want to make to the Members is that I

would very much like to see that presentation because I have

never seen it before. In the nine months that Mr. Bremer was

commissioner I had asked him to go out and evaluate the system

and report to me on an interim basis. I did not ask him for a

big, long, formal royal commission report but I certainly did

expect some interim recommendations and I am sure you, Mr.

Member, if you were the Minister, would wish to see something

concrete come forward. In the nine months, in reference to

public schools, nothing was born. I have not even a piece of

paper, Mr. Member, to show you that came to me from the

commissioner on the public school system. Nothing.

I would like to repeat the question of the First Member for

Vancouver–Point Grey because I would like to know whether the

Minister, indeed, received nothing from Mr. Bremer during that

period, and whether there were no reports of any sort to her,

and no correspondence.

I think it's important to get some indication of that

because we have heard statements made by the Minister when Mr.

Bremer was fired by the Premier which indicated quite clearly

that she was not expecting him to produce reports.

We've heard statements made at that time which indicated

his job was not to keep sending in reports to her, but his job

was to stir up discussion, arrange and organize debate and

public participation, which apparently he was doing and doing

fairly effectively.

If the grounds for dismissal have been changed from what

were originally given to no paper coming forward from Mr.

Bremer, I think it's incumbent upon the Minister to table

whatever correspondence or documents that she received from him

during that period because she has made a charge that nothing

has come forward.

I might add that in the final sentence of her

summary she

talks about,"The study groups will be charged with the

responsibility of issuing public statements so that the public

at large will be kept informed as to the progress and

recommendations coming from the study groups."

AN HON. MEMBER: That's what Bremer did, and he got fired for

it.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Yes, Bremer did that and so he wound up

fired. I think the reason he wound up fired was something a

great deal more devious than what we have been led to believe.

This is strictly a belief of mine, I can't say that I can

document it, but I believe that the bureaucrats in the

Department of

[ Page 1509 ]

Education hierarchy were very upset by proposals which would

reduce the number of their little empires substantially. Maybe,

indeed, put them out to work teaching instead of pushing paper

in government offices.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): That's a pretty scandalous attack

against people who have worked hard for years with the

government.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: The problem, Mr. Premier....

Interjection.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Oh, come, come, come! Here we go. The

Premier is leaping in again just as he did in the Bremer firing

causing trouble for his Minister. The fact of the matter is....

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: All I did was comment upon the Premier's

statements.

We can certainly see that we are touching a nerve, Mr.

Chairman. We can certainly see that we are hitting where it

hurts.

The question is whether or not Bremer was fired because of

the fact that he was too successful in his job of stirring up

discussion about the relevance or otherwise of the whole

hierarchy of the Department of Education. I think the only way

we can really get to the bottom of that is if the Minister of

Education tables some of the documents that did go between her

and Bremer and vice versa. The hon. Member for Vancouver–Point

Grey (Mr. McGeer) mentioned that there was a working paper on

universities, a working paper on colleges, a study of the

proposals on teacher training, a report of the Fraser Valley

community colleges and a report on continuing education. Maybe

not all of these were over the signature of Mr. Bremer, but

this was the type of documentation that was coming forward

during that period. She singled out public schools.

I would like to know if there was anything between Bremer

and herself — any references, any correspondence, any requests

concerning public schools. Did she ask him for a report or

recommendation on public schools? Did she ask him? Or was he

perhaps concentrating on other areas? After all, he can't do

everything at once and his commission did produce a number of

studies which I have referred to already.

W hat was the situation the re? Was it simply a case of the Premier making impetuous

statements on television, the Minister of Education initially defending her

Minister as if she did, according to the news reports and later on getting the

story straight from a cabinet Minister, presumably the Premier, and thus reversing

her stand.

Her stand last night was very different. Her reasons for

firing Bremer were very different last night from the reasons

given some months ago on January 10. I would like to know

precisely what were the true reasons because you can't have two

different stories floating around and call them both the

reasons, because, clearly, one has to be the predominant reason

and the other of less importance.

We've had nothing but a news story last night, a news story

which was based on a lack of correspondence. Yet she has done

nothing to table the evidence that would indicate whether or

not there was no correspondence or whether there were letters

and documents between the two.

I'd like her to answer the question.

HON. E.E. DAILLY (Minister of Education): Starting with last

night I tried to make a note of them starting with the Member

for North Vancouver–Capilano (Mr. Gibson), whom I thought asked

some very good questions. Unfortunately, with the passage of

the evening, I don't know if I'm going to be able to remember

all of them. If I've missed some, Mr. Member, you can certainly

pick them up in the votes.

You expressed concern about what is going to happen to the

mill rate of the school district. You asked that I give some

signal now as to what the situation will be. The problem is, of

course, that until we get the value of the assessments we can't

give that answer and until the school board's budgets are

finalized. That answer should be out by April 20 when they have

to levy their local mill rate. It's impossible for me until

those two factors are taken into consideration to give you that

answer now.

lnterjections.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: As you know, we're in the process. I'll

move on to that now. The supplementary grants are basically to

assist in the reduction of class sizes because we have made

that commitment. I think this would tie in with it to some

degree. You'll have to wait for the announcement of those two

to get the true picture.

If I can tie it together, that follows in with what the

Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) was bringing up when he

said, "What are we doing when it comes to the supplementary

grants for the reduction of the class size?" Basically this is

what we're involved in at this time.

As you know, the survey that we set up with the assistance

of personnel from BCSTA (British Columbia School Trustees

Association) and the BCTF

[ Page 1510 ]

(British Columbia Teachers Federation) has now been

completed. The budgets of every district are not fully

complete; they are being thoroughly analysed. The situation in

every school district varies, as it should, due to the fact

that the employment of teachers and their deployment, and in

fact their whole budget and how they use their funds is

basically the responsibility of that board. Therefore, after

reviewing the survey information with representatives of the

BCSTA and the BCTF we will develop a representation — I with my

official — for the Treasury Board showing the situation in

every district and the potential solution for each

district.

Specifically, dollars will be allocated, taking into account

the following variables: (

a) What the board has attempted to do

on class size in 1974 in their final estimates. In other words,

you were specifically saying to me: what happens to the board

which did put their neck out and put it in their estimates?

This is going to be taken into consideration.

(

b) The class situation that the board wishes to improve by

employing additional teachers. Those are the boards which

wanted to do it but were concerned about the impact on the

local mill rate.

(

c) The mill rate impact on the local taxpayers.

When the additional funds are approved, the boards will be

asked to revise their final estimates where necessary and

utilize the additional funds. On May 1, the boards will set

their final budgets and their local mill rate. Following that,

the board can start its recruiting programme for, teachers for

the ensuing September.

That is the machinery under which we are working now on the

basis of the most equitable way we can see to use the

supplementary funds for the reduction of class sizes. In other

words, there is an attempt to treat districts equitably, even

the districts, as I said before, which decided they would put

their necks out and would put in their budget estimates for

reduction of class sizes.

You put great emphasis on the early years and the money

which should go into the early years. I've always endorsed

that. I think the kindergarten expenditure is one signal of

that. I'm not satisfied; I feel there are still areas in which

we can put more resources in the early years. I think the

reduction of the class size in those years is vital, of

course.

The independent school question you and other Members of the

House asked. The party policy has been stated quite clearly at

the last party convention: there would be no financial aid to

independent schools. I think most of you have seen the

resolution, and I endorsed the party policy.

As far as textbooks, we have provided assistance and that

will continue.

I'm glad to see the Member for Langley (Mr. McClelland) here. I thought he

made a very sanctimonious speech about his own area. He was berating me as the

Minister for the way in which I may be treating — he wasn't sure — his district.

He was prophesying that I was not going to come through with the necessary capital

funds for his area. He berated me for the terrible situation there with the

increased growth and the fact that they were so terribly overcrowded. Yet that

Member represents the party of the former government which obviously held up

the acquisition of those school sites in the years when they should have been

bought, and it held up capital construction. That's why you are partly in the

mess that you're in today. To stand there sanctimoniously and berate this government

for the faults of your government I think takes a considerable amount of gall.

We are not going to hold against you specifically as an MLA

the fact that you represent the Social Credit Party. So I want

to tell you right now, and I think you should be aware of it,

that we never have any intention of allocating funds in that

manner. In the Langley school district we have already approved

emergency funding for school sites, Mr. Member, because we are

aware of the importance of finding accommodation for the

students in your area. I would appreciate it if you would have

those facts first before you make these accusations with

reference to capital projections and approvals.

You also made a very broad accusation that our whole

five-year planning was a farce because of the one incident that

has hit the press on Surrey.

First of all, I would like to point out that over half the

school districts of this province have moved very carefully

through the five-year projection and they have been approved by

the department. It's working very well. Unfortunately, when the

thing works well there's no press. Half the school boards of

this province have already done very well.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Hon. Minister of Education

has the floor.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: The matter of Surrey. To begin with, the

department officials and the Surrey school board have not

finalized those figures; the departmental officials have

further meetings with that board. I find it very interesting

that we have so much press on something as if it was the

accomplished fact that the department had cut. The department

has not cut, and they are quite aware of that. The meetings are

still going on.

The interesting thing is over the matter of the enrolment

figures. It was the municipality's figures which coincided very

closely with the department. We feel that it's very essential

for the municipality and the school board to get together. This

is the

[ Page 1511 ]

information we have. We don't want to get in the battle of

figures. We do know, however, that we are not coming to any

agreement at this time and that's why no definite policy has

been made with reference to the Surrey school board. It hit the

press before the government has finally said this is it.

Negotiations and talks are still going on.

We have no intention of picking out one district and

slashing it, I can assure you. If it's going to be cut at all,

it will only be cut in a very responsible manner after we've

examined the figures. Thank you very much.

MR. McCLELLAND: I'll just ask the Minister one further

question. Surrey school board submitted a five-year budget

which amounted to $40 million. Your department came back and

cut it to $11 million dollars. Is that true or false?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: (Mike not on.) Our department said at that

time our figures do not coincide with yours.

MR. McCLELLAND: Was my statement true or false?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: We see it at $11 million. You are

absolutely wrong because they are still meeting, Mr. Member. I

wish that could be explained more clearly: they are still

meeting.

MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to say that the

reason they are still meeting is that their budget was cut from

$40 million to $11 million. They thought they had a five-year

budget. Your department cut it and now they've got to go back

and meet and try and salvage a mess.

MR. McGEER: The Premier's having trouble with his 2.8 second

attention span today.

Mr. Chairman, the Minister has been asked some pretty direct

and vital questions by myself and by the Second Member for

Victoria (Mr. D.A. Anderson). We want answers to those

questions and I'll remind the Minister of what they were.

She stated last night that in the nine months that Mr.

Bremer held office as the commissioner of education, she would

have expected something to be produced. Did she or did she not

receive from the commissioner of education any proposals or

documents, formal or informal, on matters relating to the

public school system and other facets of educational change in

British Columbia?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I want to reiterate again that on the public school

system I have received no formal document at all. That's why I was quite amazed,

as I said last night, to hear about this presentation on television. There was

no formal document. There were some very informal discussions, but nothing in

them that I could have taken anything concrete out of.

As to the other activities of the commissioner, I'd like to

clear one thing — chairing of the university task force,

correct; and helping to organize the Fraser Valley community

college. As for working towards the Living Community Report,

which was recently tabled in the House, the commissioner was

not responsible for the work in that report.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, could I follow up on what the

Minister had to say? The Minister has flatly denied that she

received any concrete suggestions from the commissioner of

education.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: No formal presentations.

MR. McGEER: Formal presentations.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Right.

MR. McGEER: I have here a memo from John Bremer,

commissioner of education, dated October 10, 1973. It follows

up two earlier presentations the commissioner had made to the

Minister of Education. Here's one of them that was presented

last summer at a discussion to the Minister of Education.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: That's pretty formal.

MR. McGEER: Well, it's what's left of the commissioner's

notes. What it is, essentially, is a detailed plan of what

should be required. You will find on the notes in this

document, and the Minister was given them.... She said she had

no plan of any kind presented by the commissioner. She said

last night she was astonished by what appeared on television

because it was the first she had ever heard of it. The

commissioner laid a blueprint in the interview he gave which

was given in some detail to the House by the Member for Oak Bay

(Mr. Wallace).

In the notes of this particular meeting which was held last

summer, there are six different acts that the commissioner was

proposing. There's a flow sheet for how the universities should

be set up, how the regional colleges should be set up, how the

public schools should be set up, how Indian education should be

set up, how continuing education should be set up in the

province, and down at the bottom there's a note about public

philosophy — all presented orally to the Minister, all laid out

in chart form, a detailed plan similar to what was given on

television last night that the Minister of Education denied

that she had ever heard.

[ Page 1512 ]

HON. MR. BARRETT: Well, where's the formal presentation? All

given orally, huh?

HON. R.M. STRACHAN (Minister of Transport and Communications): How do

you present an oral chart? How did you make the chart?

MR. McGEER: The Minister must have a copy of this. If she

was too dumb to take notes she shouldn't be the Minister.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Just withdraw!

HON. MR. BARRETT: Ohhhh! Withdraw! Withdraw!

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the Hon. Member for Vancouver–Point Grey

be seated, please?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: First of all, I would like a withdrawal of

his remarks. Considering where it came from, I'm not going to

make an issue of it.

The second point I want to make is that at no time did I

receive even a copy of this document, and that's why I was

quite unable to recognize it when it was presented last night —

whatever it is.

MR. McGEER: I think that the problem the Minister has, Mr.

Chairman, is that the Minister is obviously incapable of

recognizing proposals when they're put forward. She claims she

hasn't seen something that was presented to her in essentially

the same form that it was presented on television right in her

office, where she was the only person there to appreciate it.

She had plenty of opportunity to learn from this, to develop a

programme and to set forward a course of educational change. I

might say that the little document referred to by the Member

for Dewdney (Mr. Rolston) — the little statement, the miniscule

statement — doesn't bear much relationship to the broad concept

laid out in the plan.

Then, Mr. Chairman, we've got a memo to the Minister, again

submitted last summer, which asks for changes in the

regulations and for a task force in the public school system to

be set up. I'll quote from it:

"The existing public school system carries out its work

through a social and administrative organization which partly

by legislation, partly by regulation and partly by custom

provides roles such as student or pupil, teacher, principal and

superintendent. These roles are in part set down in

Part VI and

Part VII of the Public Schools Act.

"The need both for flexibility and for a greater range of

educational opportunities suggests that the pattern of decision-making needs

to be re-examined. To give more local autonomy, as one example, means that roles

are being redefined since new and different people are involved in decision-making.

"Accordingly, it seems desirable to set up a task force of

the commission to inquire into the suitability and efficacy of

the existing social and administrative organization, to make

recommendations about changes in role definition and in the

overall structure.

"Since the crucial question is one of leadership, the task

force is asked to consider particularly the appropriate forms

of leadership which should be available in the public school

system and the relationship between educational leadership and

administration. The task of school administrators and

supervisors, like the task of students and teachers, has become

increasingly difficult and taxing."

I pause here, Mr. Chairman, to say that this was a very

clear request of the commissioner to establish a formal task

force on public school education, to bring forward details that

the commissioner was not himself unilaterally prepared to

bring down. The second part of this memo:

"It is possible for future appointments that we need to

consider the whole question of administrative tenure. So for

the coming year, the existing regulation 56 will be amended so

that all new administrative and supervisory personnel will be

given acting appointments only. This amendment will be reviewed

as soon as recommendations are in from the task force. "

Now, that appears to have reappeared in her own White Paper

as recommendation 4, but the point here is that the

commissioner of education first of all formally requested last

August that a task force on public education be established to

provide details of what the organizational and legislative

changes should be. This task force was to parallel those that

had been set up on university governance, and the community

colleges, and on other aspects of our educational system.

Secondly, he asked for a stay on administrative proceedings

with regard to appointments so as not to anticipate and

undermine the results of that task force.

Mr. Chairman, there was no reply from the Minister. That

memo was ignored. Now I read a memo from the commissioner of

education on October 10, 1973:

"I think it is useful to distinguish some different

activities which may lead to change in educational activity in

the province:

"

(1) Changes in legislation;

"

(2) General discussions which quicken and enliven local

operations;

[ Page 1513 ]

"

(3) Model and demonstration projects.

"The limitation of these three activities, all of which the

commission is involved in, is that they differ in translating

into operational activity.

"In reflecting over my experience in the last five months, I

would like to suggest that rather than responding to crises as

they arise, the Minister should take a very clear initiative

and identify. as publicly as possible a problem area which

should engage the energies of everybody.

"I would be willing to identify one or two such areas which

seem to me to be ripe for consideration. But regardless of the

selected areas I think the time has come for energetic,

operational leadership.

"The two areas I would suggest for attention are the

colleges and/or secondary schools, and I would be willing to

draft out a general strategy for dealing with either or both of

these problem areas if this would be of any service to

you."

Mr. Chairman, that memo, which was also ignored, pleads for

leadership from the Minister. This commissioner was not going

around British Columbia trying to set out policy for the

government, as the Minister said in her first excuse for

dismissing him. This memo quite clearly states that that man

was willing to do whatever the Minister of Education asked; and

he was pleading for her not to deal with crises as they arise,

but to show operational leadership.

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health): Last year you tossed

him aside and this year you want him back.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, please. I'm merely showing to that

Minister, through you, the difference between what the

commissioner of education was doing as evidenced by the memos

he was sending to the Minister, and what she has said he was

doing in her public statements regarding his dismissal.

First of all, Mr. Chairman, she said he was going around the

province setting policy at a time when she had in her

possession a memo from the commissioner pleading for her to

anticipate problems and provide leadership — offering to draft

for her strategy so that could be done by her. No memos? No

statements of any kind? No documents? Mr. Chairman, there was a

flood of them.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: That's your version. Hold up that formal

report. Hold up that formal report again.

MR. McGEER: Here are some. Here's the one, EDGE. Here's the

"Working Paper on University Governance." "Towards the Learning

Community." There was a plan she was given in chart form last

summer.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, get off it!

MR. McGEER: There was a teacher training proposal. There was

a report on continuing education.

Mr. Chairman, that's not bad for a year in office when all

the time you've been pleading with the Minister (1) to show

some leadership, and (2) to allow things to be done such as the

establishment of a task force in the public school system so

that people could be involved, and the kinds of decisions put

forward that would be acceptable to the general public.

Now, Mr. Chairman, if the commissioner of education is going

down a path which is totally unacceptable to the government,

then the government has reason to stand up and say: "The

commissioner is going down that road. We will not take

responsibility for implementing it; therefore we have to let

that commissioner go. He's competent, but his course of

direction is not our course of direction."

But Mr. Chairman, it is not satisfactory to dismiss a man

and say he's produced nothing when he's given a flood of useful

documents to the Minister and to the public. It isn't good

enough to dismiss him saying he's usurping the functions of the

Minister when he sent her memos pleading with her to take

leadership and offering to give her the sort of supporting

documents, in her name, that she would be able to act upon.

It isn't good enough to say you are dismissing someone

because you don't like his style. What the Minister has said

does not agree with the facts. And the Premier's role in all of

this is a pretty sad one. I don't think any Ministers of the

Crown should take a problem to the Premier. He doesn't solve

them; he creates them.

The Minister apparently had no intention of dismissing the

commissioner, because when the Premier announced he was through

because he was "a bit of a flop, you know," the Minister

hadn't any idea that that was going to be done. I'm not sure

the Premier had any idea either before he did it. His tongue

goes into gear before his mind.

The only way to correct the situation now is to admit you

were wrong, Madam Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman. Get that

commission operating again, do what the commissioner requested — establish a task force on the public school system —

[ Page 1514 ]

apologize to him so that he can regain his good name, and

let him get on with the work of charting for us educational

change in British Columbia.

A lot of people, I think, are now beginning to realize that

the man was doing a pretty worthwhile job, that he was cut off

in mid-stream, and that what we have left behind, judging from

"The Public School System: Directions for Change," is

going to be pretty pathetic by comparison.

I would ask the Minister to tell us whether there were any

other documents that we haven't yet brought out that she

received during that period she said she was getting nothing

from the commissioner.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports progress

and asks leave to sit again.

Leave granted.

Hon. Mr. Barrett moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 12:26 p.m.

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