1984 Legislative Session: 2nd Session, 33rd 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)

TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1984

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

4607 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Education Statutes (Fiscal Year) Amendment Act, 1984 (Bill 27). Hon. Mr. Heinrich

Introduction and first reading –– 4607

Oral Questions

Beautiful British Columbia magazine. Mr. Cocke –– 4607

Pornography. Ms. Brown –– 4607

Emergency aid for village of Ware. Mr. Passarell –– 4608

Education minister's speaking engagement. Mr. Rose –– 4608

Sale of Pacific Coach Lines. Mr. Passarell –– 4608

Increase in bankruptcies. Mr. D'Arcy –– 4608

Child abuse. Mr. Barnes –– 4609

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Universities, Science and Communications estimates. (Hon. Mr. McGeer)

On vote 71: minister's office –– 4609

Mr. Nicolson

Mr. Blencoe

Mrs. Wallace

Mr. Lockstead

Mr. Rose

Home Owner Grant Amendment Act (No –– 2), 1984 (Bill 24). Committee stage

section 10 –– 4627

Mrs. Wallace

Mr. Blencoe

Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No 1), 1984 (Bill 21). Committee stage

section 30 –– 4628

Mr. Passarell

section 35 –– 4628

Mr. Nicolson

Human Rights Act (Bill 11). Third reading –– 4629

Elevating Devices Safety Act (Bill 15). Hon. Mr. McClelland

Introduction and first reading –– 4629

Labour Code Amendment Act, 1984 (Bill 28). Hon. Mr. McClelland

Introduction and first reading –– 4629

Appendix –– 4630

The House met at 2:02 p.m.

MR. REE: Mr. Speaker, in the gallery above you today we have

the pleasure of having eight students from Lewis and Clark College in

the beautiful city of Portland, Oregon, under the guidance of Donald G.

Balmer, a professor of political science. I ask the House to welcome

the students and their professor to Victoria and to this House.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, in the members' gallery today

are two legislators from the state of Washington. They are here to

liaise with us regarding Expo 86, and we had a very productive and

informative meeting this morning. I would like the House to welcome Mr.

J. Vander Stoep and Mr. Roger Van Dyken, congressmen from our

neighbouring state of Washington.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the House to please extend

a welcome to Jessie Lundahl and her daughter Susan, who are old friends

of mine from Coquitlam visiting in the gallery this afternoon.

MR. CAMPBELL: Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today is a good

friend of mine from Kelowna, Norman Holmes, and I would like the House

to make him welcome.

Introduction of Bills

EDUCATION STATUTES (FISCAL YEAR)

AMENDMENT ACT, 1984

Hon. Mr. Heinrich presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor:

a bill intituled Education Statutes (Fiscal Year) Amendment Act, 1984.

Bill 27 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on

orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House

after today.

Oral Questions

MR. COCKE: Before I address a question to the Minister of

Tourism, I'd like to address you, Mr. Speaker, as to where all those

ministers are who should be here to answer questions. Absolutely

ridiculous! Shameful!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where are your guys?

BEAUTIFUL BRITISH COLUMBIA MAGAZINE

MR. COCKE: Possibly they haven't questions to ask.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to address this question to the minister. Beautiful

British Columbia magazine is now in the hands of the Jim Pattison Group, through

its division Mainland Magazine. Is the minister now prepared to stop hiding

the contents of the agreement for sale regarding Beautiful British Columbia

magazine, so that the public may be aware of the rights and responsibilities

of the parties involved in this whole question?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: The contents of the contract will be made public in due course.

MR. COCKE: Does that mean that the minister wishes to make

that contract public in due course? Is he actually going to do that in

due course? Because I can help him; I have the contract, and I'll make

it public if the minister doesn't.

Is the minister aware of the contract provision which would limit the rights of the Jim Pattison Group to dispose of Beautiful British Columbia magazine, along with its assets, and will he explain the behaviour of his hiding these facts from the taxpayers?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Yes, I'm aware of the contents of the contract.

PORNOGRAPHY

MS. BROWN: My question is to the Attorney-General. In 1976

and again in 1980 companies owned by Mr. Jim Pattison — Jim Pattison

International — were convicted in Ontario under

section 159(

l) of the

Criminal Code of Canada for distribution and possession of obscene

written material. In view of this record, will the Attorney- General

advise why he continues to promote a self-policing model for this

pedlar of hard-core pornography?

HON. MR. SMITH: It is somewhat amusing to hear a spokesman

here for the rights of citizens under the justice system — people to be

presumed innocent, people who require legal assistance — and to hear in

this chamber, as I do day in and day out in connection with legal aid

and other contexts, how you should not in any way judge what someone

may have done in the past, and then I have a question posed to me with

that kind of

preamble: because someone owns magazines in some part of

the country, and the corporation is found to have distributed obscene

magazines, therefore that's relevant to their conduct here today.

That's really a double standard.

MS. BROWN: Maybe the Attorney-General will tell us how it

will be possible for criminals — offenders under the Criminal Code — to

be expected to write their own laws and to police themselves and at the

same time be expected to protect the public interest.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members.

HON. MR. SMITH: One would have hoped that a bit of credit

would have been given to Mr. Pattison for trying to bring about some

reforms in an industry which appears to be dominated by blanket

contracts of distribution so the distributor has to take Hustler and Penthouse in order to get Ladies' Home Journal . That's why we have such a proliferation of Hustler and Penthouse in some cases: because everybody wants to buy Ladies' Home Journal .

Mr. Pattison has tried to do something about this. He's tried to bring

about some consensus on the part of church groups and women's

organizations to recommend that we have a review panel. I welcome that

recommendation. I don't think it matters whether the review panel is

set up, and whether it is set up on a voluntary basis or whether we set

it up. What does matter is

[ Page 4608 ]

that we can find a way of a policing system working without a lot of regulation and bureaucracy. I would support that.

MS. BROWN: The Attorney-General continues to misrepresent Mr.

Pattison's position in this House. Mr. Pattison has made it absolutely

clear that the industry is not qualified or capable of policing itself.

Mr. Pattison has called on the Attorney-General to take come

responsibility for this task. Now that the Attorney-General knows

exactly what Mr. Pattison is asking for, and bearing in mind Mr.

Pattison's previous convictions on this particular issue, is he

prepared to take an active role with this review panel in terms of

dealing with the continuing proliferation of hard-core pornography in

this province?

HON. MR. SMITH: I am pleased to see that you are taking such

an interest in what Mr. Pattison says and are representing his point of

view here so well. I, too, have been in touch with Mr. Pattison on this

issue, and his recommendation to have a review panel does not preclude

that review panel being a panel composed of other than government

appointees and representatives. There are many ways that that can be

brought about. I think it's a good recommendation, and I'm going to

give it close attention. But, you know, you are not the representative

of Mr. Pattison; indeed, you certainly aren't when you go into his

previous record in Ontario.

EMERGENCY AID FOR VILLAGE OF WARE

MR. PASSARELL: I have a question for the Attorney-General,

Mr. Speaker. Yesterday the Attorney-General said he would look into the

matter of famine and disease among the Kaska-Dene people of Ware. Has

the Attorney-General decided to investigate the low level of

compensation by B.C. Hydro for the flooding of trapping, fishing and

hunting grounds of the Kaska-Dene people and is he aware that only

$37,000 was paid by B.C. Hydro to the Kaska-Dene for the destruction of

their aboriginal land?

HON. MR. SMITH: No. Not being the policeman of the federal

Indian Act, I'm not aware of it either, but I will give an answer to

your question of yesterday. The answer to your question of today is no.

EDUCATION MINISTER'S SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, while browsing through a tabloid known as Christian Info ,

I noticed that the Minister of Education is scheduled to address a

fundraising event for Coquitlam Christian School in my riding on May

19. That is published here, and I wanted to ask the minister whether he

could confirm that he expects to be on hand for this fundraising event

and whether or not he would also be available for fundraising events

for the financially strapped public schools.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, I'm not aware of that

particular invitation, and when I reviewed my calendar for the balance

of May I don't recall that coming up. So you've got me nonplussed. I'm

sorry, I can't answer that question.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, I always believe what I read in a

Christian newspaper. It says definitely that you are expected to show

up there on May 19. I wondered, if you are, if you would also be

prepared to assist the public schools in a similar fundraising event.

I'm planning a dunk-tank in two weeks to raise money for the Coquitlam

school system in Coquitlam Centre, and I wonder if the minister would

care to come and offer himself as a target.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I would imagine that the member is

prepared to increase the surplus from $1.1 million to an even greater

amount with his efforts. I repeat that I'm not aware of that particular

invitation. I certainly am not aware of making a commitment to be

involved in a fundraiser for any particular school system.

[2:15]

MR. ROSE: The minister has raised this phony issue, the

spectre of some sort of surplus because of the good management of the

school board in Coquitlam. He keeps raising that, but he fails to admit

that the surplus is less than 2 percent of their total budget;

furthermore, that no school board can be expected to budget closer than

2 percent, nor can this government. I congratulate that school board

for doing that well.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I have said on a dozen occasions.... I've

offered my congratulations to the school district for coming in with a

surplus; and in response to your earlier questions during this session,

Mr. Speaker, I have so advised the member.

SALE OF PACIFIC COACH LINES

MR. PASSARELL: I have a question for the Minister of Human

Resources, who is responsible for the sale of PCL. On several

occasions, most recently on April 30, 1984, the minister promised to

table the agreement of sale of the Pacific Coach Lines to various

buyers. Why has the minister failed to table these documents?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: In answer to the member's question: because they're not ready to be filed yet.

INCREASE IN BANKRUPTCIES

MR. D'ARCY: My question is to the Minister of Consumer and

Corporate Affairs. National statistics show that B.C. continues to have

the worst record in Canada for personal and business bankruptcies,

which is the dubious distinction we have had ever since the government

brought in its economic package nearly a year ago. Further, these

bankruptcies continue to rise in British Columbia while they're falling

in the rest of Canada. Has the minister decided to make an

investigation into this alarming increase in business bankruptcies in

British Columbia? Can he tell the chamber what steps he and the

government intend to take to improve the business climate in British

Columbia?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, first, with regard to the

positive side of the business community, I could advise the member that

there are a considerable number of incorporations that take place every

month in this province. Rather than look at the negative side all the

time.... There is activity out there, and companies are coming

onstream. I'd

[ Page 4609 ]

also refer the member to the comments made by the

Premier of this province just in the last two days with regard to the

economic strategy of this government in order to assist for a future

economic development in British Columbia.

CHILD ABUSE

MR. BARNES: Question to the Minister of Human Resources. The

ministry's annual report of 1982-83 shows an alarming 94 percent

increase in reported cases of child abuse over a three-year period. In

view of this rather alarming increase, has the minister decided to

reconsider her decision to eliminate child abuse assessment teams, to

terminate family support workers involved in the child abuse therapy

and to slash contracted services to agencies dealing with child abuse?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, there are several misconceptions in the question posed by the member.

First, the increase in child abuse is reported as an increase in

child abuse, but I'd like the member to understand that it's an

increase in reporting of child abuse, and there is a difference. It is

only in the last four years that we have had proper and detailed

reporting of child abuse instances. It is the sophistication of the

reporting that has improved. Frankly, we have nothing to compare it

with five years ago or six years ago or seven years ago. Our history of

reporting child abuse only began in this province in the last, frankly,

40 months. The increase is due to the increase in awareness.

I'd like to give credit to our staff. The money spent by this

government in public awareness, our Helpline for Children and the kind

of advertising.... That has given that awareness to the public which

makes it not only possible but mandatory under our legislation in this

House to report child abuse. That, too, has only been going on for a

short time in this province.

Are we ready to reinstate the child abuse team? The child abuse

team, as I have explained, Mr. Speaker, was a small unit. None of them

was involved in direct services; all were involved in training or

secretarial work for those people who were called the child abuse team.

Only 13 members in all served the Vancouver and lower mainland region;

they were not throughout the province. That is one of the specialized

teams which have been cut out because their services — or the dollars —

could be best used elsewhere, and they will not be reinstated.

There are 900 social workers in British Columbia, all looking after

and attending to child abuse programs throughout the province. They

will continue, and any consideration at all that the child abuse

program in this province is in any way diluted or poor is a

misconception that should not be given throughout this province or this

nation, or even throughout this city, because it is entirely untrue.

The child abuse program in this province is the best in the nation.

The other program which the member has asked about is the family

support worker program. That program, which is about four years old, is

the largest program discontinued because of a decrease in revenues to

government. It will not be reinstated at this point in time, because

the dollars flowing to government have not been reinstated at this

point in time.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, for the little good it does, it

strikes me that a filibuster in question period by that minister, who

didn't even refer to the question asked, is most uncalled for. We

missed you when you were away, Madam Minister.

Hon. Mr. Brummet filed answers to questions standing on his name on the order paper.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF

UNIVERSITIES, SCIENCE AND COMMUNICATIONS

(continued)

On vote 71: minister's office, $127,518.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, before adjournment the minister

responded to a question I had put to him on whether we should take an

optimistic view for British Columbia — that is, that British Columbia

does have a future. I asked him what his remedy would be for that

future. Would it entail supporting the concept of post-secondary

education? The minister replied by saving that if indeed post-secondary

education led to economic success, we would be enjoying economic

success today because of the education programs of the past. Then he

got into a very lengthy economic debate and brought us some of the

predictions of the Salomon Bros.

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: Kaufman, yes, Certainly those fears are ones

that are echoed by many others. I share with the minister the very same

fear: that is, that Mr. Kaufman is probably right in his fear about the

return of high interest rates. However, to blame our current economic

malaise on...and say that education obviously isn't the answer, as the

minister seems to imply by pointing to our current depression.... One

has to remember that the economic indicators are weakest here in

British Columbia. We have been placed lower than just about any other

province by the Conference Board of Canada and other independent

institutions. At best we rank about eighth among provinces in Canada

and at worst we rank tenth out of ten. We rank very poorly in terms of

the fact that economic recovery has not been coming to British Columbia.

Some of the things we have to look at.... The minister didn't say a

word, though, about monetary policy in terms of supporting the Canadian

dollar. Should we be supporting the Canadian dollar? Should Ottawa be

borrowing foreign funds in order to keep the Canadian dollar up around

80 cents? I wonder what the minister's response to that is.

HON. MR. McGEER: Obviously debates of this kind in our own

Legislature are nothing more than hot air, because the government of

Canada and the federal Minister of Finance are going to make their

decisions, I'm sure, without consulting either myself or the member

opposite. We are, of course, in Canada on the horns of a dilemma. If we

try artificially to support the Canadian dollar, then we're building in

a problem that has to be solved at some future time. What you're doing

is alleviating the present and exacerbating

[ Page 4610 ]

the future. Really, when one thinks about it, the

most important thing that we can do in Canada is get back to the

business of producing things which the world wishes to buy.

Unlike many countries of the world, Canada per capita trades for a

larger percentage of its gross domestic product than any other nation

in the world. Something like 32 percent of our gross product in Canada

goes for foreign trade, compared with a country that many believe is an

international terror — Japan — which trades for something like 4 to 6

percent of its gross product. What this means, of course, is that we're

going to buy many of our goods from abroad — computers, television sets

and automobiles. You all know the broad range of products that you

enjoy as consumers that are built in foreign lands. It's part of our

standard of living. If we wish to enjoy that, obviously we are going to

have to produce in this country things which people wish to buy in

those other jurisdictions.

Jobs are something that come behind — and I'm talking about the vast

majority of jobs that our society provides — that fundamental

requirement of the economy. It seems to me that our great mistake in

this Legislature, and particularly in the national government of

Canada, is that we don't recognize that there is a hierarchy to jobs.

Those at the top, the pinnacle, are the ones related to primary

production, particularly in a nation like Canada which must trade

abroad those goods that can meet the test of foreign competition. At

the very bottom of the pyramid are the kinds of things that governments

provide: make-work projects, service jobs, all of the things that

people here are demanding we do to create jobs. In my view it's

nothing.... I see the wan smile on the former Attorney-General, who is

the first to stand up and demand this sort of thing. It's not economic

reality at all. We can produce as many jobs of that kind as they can in

Newfoundland or any depressed jurisdiction. The difference is that

there is more primary production in British Columbia to support that

kind of thing than there is in the relatively poverty-stricken

Maritimes.

[2:30]

MR. MACDONALD: Is teaching a make-work job?

HON. MR. McGEER: It's a make-work job when you get down to 15

to 1. It's a make-work job when you triple the number of

administrators. It's a make-work-job when you pay a school

superintendent more than the Premier of the province. That's not

related to primary production, is it?

MR. BLENCOE: How's your tenure?

HON. MR. McGEER: I don't believe in tenure; I've told the

member that many times. I don't believe in tenure in universities,

because the good ones don't need it and the bad ones shouldn't have it.

I don't believe in tenure in the teaching system. I don't believe, as

the members opposite believe, that there ought to be tenure in the

civil service.

MR. BLENCOE: So give your tenure up.

HON. MR. McGEER: I don't need any tenure, my friend. You

might have, when you worked for the city of Victoria. In fact, with the

record of that member, I would have struggled hard for it anyway. But I

don't want to be distracted from what otherwise would have been a

serious discussion.

The members opposite, of course, do differ from the members on this

side of the House as to what constitutes a valuable and necessary

approach to economics in our society. This means getting behind the

people who really produce in this country, because the rest of us ride

like pygmies on their backs. When you undermine those people with your

ideas of making work and paying school superintendents more than the

Premier of the province, you undermine the ability of those people to

compete in world markets and destroy the very economic basis of our

society, taking away the privileges that you wish to hand out. None of

those socialists over there have been creating genuine wealth-producing

jobs. No, they take away from that segment of society, punishing the

resource industries. That's what they did when they were in power: they

punished the resource industries, taking away real employment so that

they could give more work for civil servants and tenure in the civil

service. That's what you people went for. No wonder the province was in

economic trouble when you were in power.

MR. BLENCOE: How's the mining industry today, under you?

HON. MR. McGEER: I can tell you that the socialists, the

twentieth-century alchemists, the people who can turn ore into rock

with their policies.... That's what they did when they were in power.

They created despair in the mining industry at a time of record world

prices.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, just a moment. It's getting just

a wee bit noisy in here. We are in committee. All hon. members will be

allowed to participate if they wish, but only one at a time.

HON. MR. McGEER: I find those....

MR. MACDONALD: Is lawyering make-work?

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, I've said many times — and I say it

with some apologies to the member, a veteran and learned member of the

Law Society — how much better it is for a country to educate engineers

who can invent and build things in the world than to train lawyers to

give legal aid to the unemployed. The member well knows that the

province of Ontario alone has more lawyers than the whole country of

Japan. Perhaps one of the things we might think about is putting more

effort behind engineering in Canada so that we will be able to compete

in the future. After all, this is what we did in encouraging the

commencement of two new engineering schools in British Columbia, one at

Simon Fraser University — engineering science — and the new engineering

program at the University of Victoria. A few years down the road those

programs will encourage industry, wealth, opportunity and income, and

all those things that the socialists like to have so that they can

spend.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, I guess the minister and I share a

different view of the purpose of estimates. I feel that the purpose of

estimates is to seek information. I sought to ask a very closely

defined question about the minister's philosophy on monetary policy for

Canada. He launched into a rather full-fledged sampling, I suppose....

We were

[ Page 4611 ]

treated to a sort of smorgasbord of estimates. I

didn't know if I was in mining estimates or just what. This morning I

outlined that last year in the faculty of engineering at UBC only eight

out of 32 in chemical engineering graduates had jobs at graduation

time. When I checked in April, only six out of 42 in chemical

engineering had jobs. I have asked the minister: are we to take an

optimistic view and encourage people to still take engineering and

other professional courses? I want to engage in some sort of a

philosophical discussion.

If we want to talk about the economic ills of this country, I think

we should look at monetary policy. This particular province is

contributing to the maintenance of a high Canadian dollar by embarking

on projects such as the northeast coal project. Is the minister aware,

for instance, that the success of North Sea oil exploration by Britain

led to an increase in the British pound of some ten percent and put

workers in the Wedgewood pottery factory and in other intensive

manufacturing out of work because of that high currency? The very

success in one sector of their economy caused problems in another. Is

the minister aware of the fact that even if northeast coal is a

success, it might create tremendous pressures, as that kind of

investment tends to buoy up the Canadian dollar? First of all, we're

borrowing foreign currencies, bringing them into this country. That

immediately has that effect. The fact that we're increasing our balance

of payments — if we are increasing our exports — also happens to buoy

it up.

All of those things are going on when, at the same time, we also

want to become part of a technological society in which there is a role

for engineers, in which there is a role for other types of

professionals in a highly developed society, in which there is a need

for people with a university education, whether it be in engineering or

whether it be in fine arts. We are going to need actors, writers,

sociologists, lawyers, teachers and everything else in the future if we

are taking an optimistic view.

I really want to know where this minister stands. The concept is

this: how do we really get started into this technological game? Do we

somehow beg and coax and get a firm such as Dynatek to locate here in

Sidney or do we create a dollar environment in which it is economical

to produce things here? Is that the way we come to reality in British

Columbia — by having a realistic dollar? And then we start to produce

things here in British Columbia because we are in tune with the rest of

the world economically.

HON. MR. McGEER: There are three separate questions that are

posed in what the member said. I'm going to separate them out, answer

each one of them and avoid the temptation to respond to interjections

here.

The first of these is with respect to resource developments in our

province and in Canada. Historically, the way we have opened up our

country is to locate areas in which a rich resource exists in a

relatively confined geographical space, which makes it economically

viable to build the infrastructure to provide a general community and

civilization for our people. We could go on the rest of the afternoon

naming examples of that kind. This is really what has happened in

northeast British Columbia. It has happened because a great many

jurisdictions have shifted from oil to coal as a result of OPEC

demands. Therefore it gives us an opportunity to take that resource,

something like eight billion tons of coal, and to provide an

infrastructure that will allow the resource to get out, people to go in

and a community to arise. There's not the slightest doubt in my mind

that over the long term this will be regarded as another hallmark

development in our province. Many other areas of British Columbia will

emerge in much the same fashion. The whole of the northwest of British

Columbia, as the member for Atlin well knows, will one day experience

that kind of development — looking primarily to copper ore and power

potential of the Iskut region.

The member may or may not agree with that — that's just a prediction

— but we've still got that quarter of British Columbia which is lying

fallow. We've got a region, which I've described in the House before,

which I call the great inland empire. South of Highway 16, less than

250 miles from this very building, it is larger than half the countries

of western Europe, without any habitation at all because there are no

roads into it — nobody lives there.

MR. PASSARELL: I live there. A lot of people live there.

HON. MR. McGEER: Not in the region I'm talking about. It's

virtually deserted — country half again the size of Switzerland. It's

just another part of this province that will be opened up by

enterprising people in the future. It is going to require the

development of resources to do that. So that's one aspect, and that's

the first question.

The second one was: what are we going to do about our dollar? The

Canadian dollar fluctuates for two reasons. First of all, it fluctuates

because of our relative inflation rate. So we've experienced a steady

decline of the Canadian dollar, based on the fact that we pay higher

wages, give greater settlements — not related to total wealth. That

just forces the dollar down relative to other exchanges.

You say that gives us an advantage because we can now manufacture and export.

MR. PASSARELL: I didn't say that. It gives us a disadvantage if it goes down.

HON. MR. McGEER: It's a disadvantage to buy, it's an

advantage to sell, but it's really masked if all it amounts to is

inflation of the currency. That's one of the factors that we have to

face and one of the principal reasons why our dollar has dropped in

value. The other is really related to the movement of capital. When the

Canadian dollar was $1.06 American — members can remember that in 1975

— that was when Canada was still regarded as a good place for

foreigners to invest.

We've fouled our nest in Canada. Not because of anything that's been

done in British Columbia, but as a result of the National Energy

Program and other federal initiatives, Canada is not regarded

internationally as a good place to invest at the moment, and so capital

doesn't come here. We're struggling to maintain in Canada the capital

that we've accumulated. Therefore we don't have the benefit of capital

movement in our favour, and the dollar goes down. That's the second

thing. Do you want to make the dollar go up? Just say yes or no. He

doesn't know. If you want to make the dollar go up, create a good

investment climate in Canada. People will send money here from all over

the world, because we're stable politically. I'm not going to get into

the history of elections this afternoon, I promise — if you don't tempt

me.

The third question is one related to how we are going to develop

high technology in this province. We're going about this in a number of

ways, but all of these are directed at two

[ Page 4612 ]

things: (1) to develop the genius of our people,

believing that our greatest resource is not minerals, trees, oil or

gas, but people; and (2) putting in place, where there is a lack, those

necessary industrial skills for areas of great opportunity in terms of

new markets. The whole essence of high technology can be described as

being in a situation where people sit around the swimming pool with

straws, because the market is that big, and the capacity for any one

manufacturer to take a

section of it is so small that the market seems

almost infinite. That's the circumstance you're in if you start first

of all to come along with mini-computers having the capacity of former

mainframe computers.

[2:45]

The difficulty with established resource industries is that if

you're shipping lead and zinc ingots, and suddenly everybody is making

smaller cars, or they're not buying cars at all, and therefore you

don't need the batteries, the demand for lead and zinc goes down. If

mortgage rates increase, and people aren't building homes, the demand

for 2-by-4s goes down. In many of these resource industries, we're the

supplier of last resort. We top the market up, particularly in the

United States. Therefore technology makes us competitive, but it

doesn't influence the market. The market is saturated all the time. If

you're going into something new, like next generation computers,

there's a vast market out there. Because you can move into a vacuum,

the opportunities for industrial expansion are enormous. But one must

remember this: we may not have the skills that are required for an

industrial opportunity of particular significance. How do young people

learn it at the universities if there isn't a professor out there who

has the slightest idea about it? Of course, you can't get anywhere if

you don't know what you don't know.

We have moved into those areas where there is a conspicuous

deficiency in a high technology field with enormous opportunity. We

tried to seed those skills into British Columbia, because if people can

gain their experience industrially, then you have the opportunity to

form new industries in a spinoff fashion. The number of high technology

firms in the Silicon Valley area, near Stanford University, has been

going up geometrically. It goes up at that rate because the new

industries there are learning from the old industries. They say the way

to get a new job in that area is to turn into a different driveway in

the morning. Much of the basic groundwork was supplied by the

incomparable engineering school at Stanford University, but that became

only part of the mix. As more and more firms moved in and developed

their own technology, they were spinning off their own industrial

offspring, if you like. You can't begin to get that spinning off of

industries until you reach a sufficient critical size that the

necessary industrial skills exist in your community. Part of it we can

do through our own existing industries; part of it we can do through

our universities; but part of it we must do through recruitment of the

necessary industries. They don't have to come here. The high technology

industry doesn't depend on resources. By definition, it can go anywhere

in the world. Therefore, if you want it to be here, you'd better

provide an attractive home and climate for that industry. Otherwise,

you don't get it.

We're competing now, not with Quebec or Newfoundland or some other

part of Canada; we're competing with the world. It's something that is

not unheard of in western Canada; since Confederation our industry has

been built on world competition. In terms of foreign exchange, we carry

the rest of Canada on our backs. We make it possible for the protected

industries in Ontario to survive as branch plants. Competing

internationally is something that western Canada understands, so why

don't we take that next stage and try to foster some of these new high

technology industries? As a group, these industries are now about the

fifth-largest industrial sector in British Columbia. The firms are

growing, on average — as far as we can tell — at a rate of about 20

percent per year during this recession. We have now begun to feel the

impact of the policies we introduced three or four years ago. There's

an acceleration there. I've said — and I still believe this to be the

case — that if we persist with these policies, high technology

industries will be our major employer in British Columbia by the year

2000. In California the major wealth of that state is carried by a

relatively tiny segment of their industry and their population, and we

will have that here in British Columbia. However, it won't happen

overnight. I think all we could have wished for in British Columbia is

that we had started doing this ten years ago.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave of the House to make an introduction and welcome some guests.

Leave granted.

MR. HOWARD: We have in the gallery today a group of students

from grades 8, 9 and 10 of Thornhill Junior Secondary School near my

home town. They are here visiting the gallery, along with Mrs.

MacDonald. I wonder if the House would welcome them.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to hear that the

minister is quite willing to give up his time. I'm sure the university

will be extremely pleased to hear that — a useful bit of information.

I want to relate a little bit today to an institution that's very

important in the community. It's one that I was to relate to not only

in terms of constituency work, but of course an institution that I have

attended myself and where my wife is also involved in post-graduate

work — the University of Victoria. The University of Victoria is indeed

a very important institution in this community, one that is

overwhelmingly supported. Most recently, when a petition was done,

within a half-hour in the downtown area over 7,000 people indicated

their deep concern over the current direction of the government in its

policies and the implications for that institution. I want to really

get a feeling from the minister today what is going to transpire down

the road, because if the current funding policies continue, it's my

understanding that that institution, which I know the best — I cannot

speak for others — is going to be in serious trouble. There is a

distinct possibility, Mr. Chairman, that a complete faculty at the

University of Victoria will have to be eliminated because of the

serious funding cuts to that institution.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not engineering.

MR. BLENCOE: Engineering is not a factor, I know, and I have

already indicated in this House that the government has made a good

move in that area. It's the other parts of the university that I'm

talking about, like computer science, which the minister is talking

about in terms of the future. Those kinds of faculties or endeavours

are indeed jeopardized by the current direction of the government.

[ Page 4613 ]

The portion in the provincial budget is indeed decreasing steadily

not only, of course, for the University of Victoria but for other

post-secondary facilities. Like, I think, many in British Columbia we

have to join those who really deplore that kind of direction. It's

certainly my belief, Mr. Chairman, that support for post-secondary

institutions, particularly those post-secondary institutions which now

are more and more coming in tune with the common direction of society,

joining the community and participating in the community and training

people to find a meaningful place in society not only as a citizen but

also as a fully employed person contributing to the community.... I

have to indicate that I think it's false economy for us in British

Columbia and for this minister. He can talk all he likes, but what his

fine rhetoric is hiding is the fact that of the western provinces

British Columbia now is one of the worst off in terms of support for

post-secondary education. Mr. Chairman, in my estimation and I think in

the estimation of many people, it is false economy; it's short-changing

our younger people and it's not looking to the future, because the very

thing the minister is talking about.... There's no question that

society in the industrial world is changing dramatically. We've got to

have the institutions and we've got to have the support for our younger

people to be able to find employment and to compete in that changing

world.

For instance, in the University of Victoria we have seen since 1972

a 30 percent drop in operating grants per weighted full-time-equivalent

student. Now that is having a dramatic effect on that fine institution,

an institution that has turned out excellent graduates in a number of

areas. Mr. Chairman, there is no question that those who are

responsible for that university are ringing the emergency bells for

this government. There will be havoc. There's no more fat in that

institution, and we're looking at damaging that institution in the long

term. I'm not talking about the engineering at this time; that's

another issue. That is a 30 percent drop in operating grants per

weighted full-time-equivalent student in the University of Victoria

since 1972. I want the minister to try and respond to that, because

it's having a dramatic impact on that institution.

I also have to indicate, Mr. Chairman, that one of the principles

that we certainly support and I think the majority of Canadians support

for their children is the ability of our younger people to acquire a

university education at a reasonable and affordable cost. We know that

in some parts of the western world.... The part that I know very well

is the United Kingdom, where it is indeed very much an elite that

manages to achieve a post-secondary education in many regards; there

are some exceptions to that. But in Canada I think the direction has

been to try to find an egalitarian philosophy whereby our young people

can achieve a university education. Now, Mr. Chairman, in the last five

years the fees at the University of Victoria have doubled, and a

full-time student, say, in the arts and sciences next year will be

paying $1,170 per-year- that's just fees. Then for those who don't live

in Victoria or the environs, there is the additional expense of finding

accommodation. It is becoming a very expensive business to achieve what

I believe is virtually a right: British Columbians at least having the

opportunity to achieve a post-secondary education. Affordability is

becoming an issue, and I am very scared that we are going back to the

days when only those who have private sources of income or who have

parents who have the ability to support one or two children in the

university system will be able to attend university. It is an issue. It

may not necessarily be an issue for some of my constituents, who happen

to live in Victoria and can stay at home, but I know it is an issue for

the constituents of many of my colleagues who come from rural areas,

and I think we have to be very careful. Already those rural areas don't

always get the best things in terms of services, education and support.

It is the urban areas that often get the best kind of services. I

really have to put in a plea for that issue — affordability.

The president of the University of Victoria has gone on record and

stated quite categorically that because of the slippage in terms of

funding and support, and being able to entice, if you will, or

encourage the best people in the particular faculties either to come or

stay, certainly at the University of Victoria we are now losing some of

the senior experienced people. It is my understanding that in the last

six weeks there have been a number of people that have left the

university because they are being attracted to other parts of Canada.

After discussing this with people at the University of Victoria, it is

my understanding that people in computer science are moving on because

they are just not getting the support that they can get elsewhere.

[3:00]

My concern for British Columbia and for the University of Victoria

is that we are going to become second-class institutions in terms of

the kind of people that we attract. What happens is that because you

have major financial restraints, you hire the younger — which is okay —

inexperienced people to replace those who have years and years of

background, not unlike the minister himself, who has all sorts of

skills in certain areas. We bring in people who can't offer depth to

the inexperienced student, and therefore depth to our province in terms

of giving us some direction and sense of future, and the president of

the University of Victoria is very concerned about that. He even said

on April 21 of this year in the Times-Colonist : "The perception

is that the B.C. university system is disintegrating." I am sure they

can get by this year: they'll have to get by, but the bells are ringing

and the warnings are there.

I certainly do not only have an interest in post-secondary education

because I happen to have attended university at an undergraduate and a

graduate level. I happen to know that we do need better support for

that kind of facility. We have abandoned that knowledge and the ability

to give our younger people the best training in all these areas that

the minister is talking about — the technological and industrial

development areas that are galloping so fast. If we get off track we

will be in serious trouble in the province of British Columbia.

One of the other areas that has come to my attention in terms of the

cutbacks, Mr. Chairman.... We do get research and development support

from the federal government, and often the prerequisites of federal

support for research and development.... The University of Victoria has

many areas that are becoming nationally and internationally renowned.

One of the prerequisites, however, is that there be some financial

support from the university itself in order to receive that federal

money for research and development. It is now becoming extremely

difficult for the university to be able to come up with its part of

that agreement for research and development funds. The very thing that

the minister was talking about in terms of British Columbia getting on

the wagon for the technological revolution that is happening, or the

post-industrial society that is being created.... Because there is no

question: we are in a new

[ Page 4614 ]

industrial revolution, Mr. Chairman. It has been

talked about for a long time, but I think it is just slowly coming home

to politicians. If we don't back up institutions like the University of

Victoria, which I think has started to grapple with the new industrial

revolution.... There is one area whereby the federal government still

maintains research and development funds, but if the university itself

does not have the mechanism to participate, we're going to miss another

boat. It's another issue that I hope the minister will address.

The other concern, of course, is the question of rising fees for the

young people of British Columbia seeking to achieve a university

education. It's getting further and further away for many of them;

either that or they go into a huge debt to get there. There are some

Socreds who believe that you should come out of university with a

$20,000 debt, because it makes you a better person if you've got a debt

on your back.

Interjection.

MR. BLENCOE: "It builds character." I don't support that

philosophy at all. I think they should pay a reasonable fee, but I

think we're getting into the position now where it's becoming extremely

onerous. It's too high. As I say, I think it is the right of every

British Columbian who so desires to achieve a post-secondary education.

Postgraduate is another thing. The issue, not only with fees, is the

whole question of student aid. I won't go into details, but the

minister knows exactly what I'm talking about. That whole area has been

changed dramatically.

The student aid system has been reduced dramatically, and there's no

question but that many of our younger people are going to go into

serious debt to achieve an education in order to try and get a job that

the minister says will be there. If we don't have the support for these

institutions such as research and development, so that we can get into

that new technological age, it's a short row. I think it's creating

great frustration and consternation. We are not being fair; we're being

somewhat hypocritical. I'm very disturbed at the process of student aid

and the way it has been changed around and the regulations set up. I'm

not going into the details, because I think the minister knows

exactly.... He'll have a rationale for it, I'm sure. But it's something

that we have to address. I don't like the possibility of a young person

having to attain a $15,000 to $20,000 debt for a four-year degree in a

particular faculty. There's the distinct possibility they won't have a

job, Mr. Chairman. We've got to address this problem.

We've got a philosophy by this government that government must

remove itself from being capitalist in terms of the future industrial

development of this country. Privatize. It's the private sector that

must do things. Mr. Chairman, I have given many speeches and documented

clearly where government and the public sector has been involved for

hundreds of years in stimulating the economy and being a capitalist and

a creative change agent. That word "creative" change agent.... We don't

talk about creativeness in this Legislature enough. Government can be

creative. Unfortunately, we've got those in power in government,

particularly in this province, where the thought of government being

involved in the economy or helping young people is an ugly word. It's

very sad. If you know your history and what government is all about and

why it's there.... It's not just there to check the cash register. It's

important, I agree. I was chairman of finance for the city of Victoria

for a number of years, and I know that that's important, but there are

other things involved. Our province has to have a government that

believes in those younger people and that can give them a start, a

lift. Oh, sure, initiative is important, and that's what the minister

will be talking about — the rampant free enterprise kind of system,

whereby if you don't have your bootstraps big enough you'll fail and

fall apart. I don't know what those jungle days have created. I suspect

one of the reasons that we're in so much trouble today is because

predominantly we have that jungle mentality. We've had that so-called

approach to our society. One of the reasons, I think, we're in so much

trouble today is that we haven't maintained that.

Mr. Chairman, I started talking about the University of Victoria.

The minister has gone in a philosophical and conceptual approach.

Obviously this issue does revolve around a philosophical approach.

Suffice to say that the University of Victoria, like other

institutions, is in serious trouble. There is a distinct possibility

that we will see the elimination of one complete faculty and, of

course, we're not sure what that will be. I think that could be just

the start. I'd like the minister to respond on where he is intending to

go with the whole question of post-secondary education, particularly

for the University of Victoria, because there is great frustration on

the part of those who are working in that particular facility — and in

other facilities. As I have said, some of the best people are packing

their bags.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, it would be a wonderful thing

if the member from Victoria and I could remake an ideal world. But it's

populated with human beings with all their assets and liabilities, and

neither he nor I will change the world. I wish there were enough money

so that fees not only didn't have to be raised but could be eliminated.

But that's not the circumstance. We don't have enough money to go

around. The circumstance that we have to consider is what is fair and

what is best when you're faced with the reality of an economy which at

the current time cannot support the salad days of the public service

which characterized the seventies and the early part of the eighties.

The students today, odious as the increase in fees may be, are only

covering about 14 percent of the cost of operating the university, and

the rest is paid by the taxpayer. Our fees in British Columbia are far

from the highest in Canada, and when you compare the fees in Canada

with other parts of the world, they are a downright bargain. So

wonderful as it would be to reduce or eliminate fees, just occasionally

there is the harsh reality of economics, which creeps into this whole

matter and can't always be avoided.

The member should recognize, however, that the greatest deterrent to

a student attending an institution is the cost of withdrawal from the

labour force. During periods of unemployment, people quite

appropriately go back to institutions, because there is no longer that

tug: "Do I go out and try to earn $20,000 to $30,000 this year or do I

become a student earning nothing and paying a few hundred dollars in

fees?" If there were any doubt about what the greatest deterrent

actually was, that doubt should have been removed by the experience of

the last couple of years. What it really says is that for a young

person making a decision, whether or not to forgo that period of

earning and get a university degree is the great decision they have to

make. If you're going in for something like medicine, the seven years

you spend you can earn back in a single year. It's a good investment.

There are other areas where they say the marginal cost will never be

recovered.

[ Page 4615 ]

One of the things that we try to do here, for good

reason, is give opportunities for people to get their degree without

having to withdraw from the workforce. That's why we encourage

cooperative programs and evening and weekend courses. This is why we

established the Open Learning Institute and the Knowledge Network — to

make it easier for people in that circumstance. But don't ever think

that fees are the thing that stand in the way. No, it's the beckoning

of the workforce and the opportunity to learn. That's the thing that

you really have to think about.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

Now I would say to the member that I'm kind of an insider in this

university business, having tenure. So I'm less likely than many to be

persuaded that the university system is disintegrating in British

Columbia. You don't honestly believe that. We have a recession. We have

reduced the size of our workforce in government by about 30 percent. We

did have a great big demonstration on the lawns last year, but not from

the people who were receiving the services — they never said the sky

was falling in. It was the people who were delivering the services who

said the sky was falling in; they were the ones who demonstrated.

Listen carefully to the people who are receiving the services.

Remember, the idea of putting money into education isn't to make the

educators wealthy; it is to give the students an education. The

objective of our health system isn't to make the doctors wealthy; it's

to treat the sick. The idea of giving assistance to the poor is to

alleviate their suffering, not to make social workers wealthy. So what

you've got to separate all the time are the self-serving statements of

those who deliver the service, rather than those who are on the

receiving end.

[3:15]

I looked very carefully at this matter of universities

disintegrating and faculty members deserting by the trainload. Baloney!

They've never had it better than today in British Columbia. When you

consider the relative circumstances of those who are not fed by tax

money but who have to go out and earn, and cut it in the marketplace,

what a wonderful place to be. No, a single tenured person.... We've

been through this one before. That's for being there six years. Oh,

yes, you have to pass a few standards.

MR. BLENCOE: Publish or perish.

HON. MR. McGEER: I wish it were that way, because I think

we'd have more productive people. It's not that way at all. There may

be exchange of faculty. There always is. It's the good faculty who are

the hardest to retain, no matter what the circumstances.

MR. BLENCOE: Oh, come on!

HON. MR. McGEER: No, I'm saying this very seriously. Listen

carefully: the way you keep your outstanding faculty is to pay them

more. You reach the marketplace. I say to the person who's the

president, about anybody who has a bona fide offer from another

institution: "Make the choice. If you want to keep him, give him a 20

percent raise. If you really don't want to keep him, shake his hand and

say 'Good luck.' " What percentage of your faculty would be in that

circumstance? Everybody knows that only a very small percentage have an

international reputation. We've got plenty of money in our university

system to support the excellence. The problem is, can we support the

mediocrity? I say to our presidents: "If you're worried about losing

that brilliant professor, pay him more. That's the way you should do

it. Wait until there's a bona fide offer, and talk."

MR. BLENCOE: What do you pay him with, though?

HON. MR. McGEER: If you could pay a university quarterback

$40 million to sign for a Los Angeles football team, why shouldn't a

faculty member who is a brilliant international scholar be paid in six

figures? Why shouldn't he be paid more than the president of the

university? When you pay the president of the university $120,000 and

give him a house and car, if the star of the faculty is earning an

international reputation for the institution — if he's a Nobel

prizewinner — should he be paid less than that? I don't think so. I

don't see what's wrong with paying him more, if he's that good.

The trouble, of course, that one has in recruiting in a university

is not the problem of tenure or of salary, but of trying to bring a top

man into a department of mediocrity. He doesn't want to be there.

Tenure is not a way of keeping people; too often it's a way of

deterring them — that is, if you really want to have the great faculty

stars. So I say that the way to keep your outstanding faculty is to pay

them what they're worth; that is, the good ones. There are others who

are going to be paid according to the faculty standards.

So there are many ways, even in times of restraint, that our

institutions can build academic excellence and strength. Some of the

things I'm saying here you may regard as heretical, but I've lived

inside universities for most of my life, and I think I know their

strengths and weaknesses pretty well now.

Despite all of that, of course I wish for the same things that that

member wishes for: that there were an infinite amount of money, or at

least a generous amount of money that we could give them. Today that's

not possible. When the economy of British Columbia improves, the

universities are going to get more than their share; they always have.

But right now everybody has to tighten their belt just a little bit.

The private sector has had it in about six notches; the government has

taken it in about three. I don't think it's out of line if we ask the

universities, just for a year, to take it in one.

MR. BLENCOE: I give you five out of ten for a reasonable

coverup on what's happening in universities in terms of faculties. Not

bad. However, if he wants to make a phone call tomorrow to the

University of Victoria computer science department, one of the

departments that is on the cutting edge in terms of what the minister

is saying about the direction in which British Columbia is going, to

see what's happening in that department.... You're good, but we've got

problems. There's not as much money as you would think there is to

continue to pay these extra people. Certainly at the University of

Victoria, where they are stretched, they are now seriously considering

eliminating an entire faculty.

I'll just give you one example in the computer science department. A

number of resignations — going off elsewhere.... They're losing senior

people who could be giving our young British Columbia students this

particular area of expertise in high-tech. We're losing them.

I have one comment to make about where the money is to come from. I'm going to ask the minister a question. Maybe

[ Page 4616 ]

he'll be straightforward about the answer. We all

know that politics is about priorities, assessing those priorities and

trying to achieve priorities that reflect what British Columbia will be

in 25 years hence. I happen to believe that post-secondary education is

something that we have to support more. I want to ask the minister: did

he support the nearly half-billion-dollar bailout to buy up the debt of

BCR this year?

Interjection.

MR. BLENCOE: It's not. Mr. Member, when you react like that,

I know we've got to you. Half a billion dollars to a railroad,

basically to bail out the B.C. coal.... That's a priority. When

economists on all sides criticize....

Don't rule me out of order, Mr. Chairman, because the minister was

talking about economic direction, interest rates, deficits and

everything else, and I'm getting to that very thing right now. This is

the nitty-gritty of this particular issue: the priorities and the

direction of where they're going to go in this province. We have a

government that is trying desperately to rationalize the attack of

economists of all persuasions who could not understand what the

Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) did in terms of half a billion

dollars in one year to that particular institution in this province. It

was money that could have gone to British Columbia young people this

year to save the computer science department, to get us into that

high-tech field that the minister keeps talking about. It's a debt

that's not going to mature for a number of years, and the economists

are wondering what....

You're asking for order, but earlier on before lunch the minister

was talking about the economy and the banking institutions and what was

happening. I'm talking about that very thing now. Where are the

priorities of this government? Where is the priority of this minister?

Did he support that half-billion-dollar bailout? It was money taken

away from the university students of this province. Did he support it?

HON. MR. McGEER: We leave it, by and large, to universities

to set their own priorities and decide what programs are in the

greatest public interest. We give them an enormous block fund, which

they can spend as they choose. It's done that way in most provinces in

Canada; the one I'm thinking of is Ontario. Some years ago the

University of Waterloo, in a comparable circumstance, I would say, to

the the University of Victoria, decided that computer science was where

the future lay. If you go to the campus of the University of Waterloo

today, you see one absolutely enormous building. That building is the

mathematics and computer science building. It's a small university, in

a small Ontario town, with the largest mathematics and computer science

department in North America. They're world-famous. One of my sons took

advice from me only once. I said: "Go into computer science, because

there'll always be a demand for people." He did. I suggested he go to

Waterloo, and he did.

MR. BLENCOE: That's two pieces of advice — misleading the House.

HON. MR. McGEER: Yes, that is. But the point that I'm trying

to make for the member is that the University of Victoria could have

made that same decision years ago. If they had, they would have the

strength, muscle, reputation and future that you see at Waterloo

University.

We have a very fine president at the University of Victoria. He came

from Waterloo, but he came after the kinds of decisions that were the

making of Waterloo University had been made. They were made by the

board of governors of that day. I have said to the president of the

University of Waterloo, "I'm your number one fan and advocate," because

I think they took their public dollars and got their priorities for the

future right. It's paying off for the university, it's paying off for

Ontario, and it's paying off for Canada. There would be nothing to

prevent the University of Victoria from making many of those decisions

today, and I would support them.

If you're going to emphasize one thing, what you're going to have to

do, of course, is give up the alternatives to someone else. No

institution can be all things to all people. But if the University of

Victoria wanted, as the member wishes, to concentrate more on computer

science, their strongest factor in British Columbia would be myself.

But there's only so much money. If they're going to put it into that,

they have to decide not to put it into something else. That's their

free choice. We could urge them....

MR. BLENCOE: Half a billion dollars? Where's the railroad. You were talking about the railroad before lunch. I've asked you a question.

HON. MR. McGEER: He's anxious to go on to railroads, and I'm

happy to go on to railroads too. But it is the members opposite who

have correctly pointed out that what you're dealing with here is a

bookkeeping entry for the government. You are either going to take that

money and apply it to the debt — borrowed money that is already on the

books — or take the same amount of money and buy more debt with it. The

decision really isn't how you want to do your bookkeeping entry with

B.C. Rail; your decision is whether you want to borrow $500 million

more this year. It was more than $500 million, wasn't it?

MR. BLENCOE: It was $470 million.

[3:30]

HON. MR. McGEER: So the decision really is: do we want to go

$470 million more into debt? There are many debt instruments that you

could use, but you would be abandoning the principle of cash flow in

order to borrow money. It's the decision of this government — rightly

or wrongly; the people will decide at a future election — that we

shouldn't go more into debt; we should bring the books into balance.

We're unique in Canada in that respect, but we think we're correct. We

think the public are supporting us, and I don't know how you people

read the polls.

MR. ROSE: We don't have any polls.

HON. MR. McGEER: You don't have any polls? Well, Broadbent

has polls. It was one of your own former members who analyzed, I think

correctly, the problems of the New Democratic Party, because he said

that on the three great issues in Canada the New Democratic Party has

had nothing to say. One of these issues was bilingualism. Well, why, if

you've got no base in Quebec? I can understand that, and it's

excusable. The second was inflation, because the remedies of the NDP

have historically not been ones to cure inflation but to exacerbate it.

I'm not offering this as my analysis; I'm

[ Page 4617 ]

offering it as from one of yours. Do you want to hear the third issue?

MR. ROSE: Yes.

HON. MR. McGEER: This is from him. This guy has more credentials than just being an ex-NDP member.

MR. BLENCOE: Like being an ex-Liberal?

HON. MR. McGEER: No, he's got real credentials — he's a professor.

MR. BLENCOE: Oh, no. Here it comes.

HON. MR. McGEER: It gets worse — a professor of business

administration. Now I admit that there is a paradox there, but he's

obviously a reformed character. He said that the third issue is that

the NDP had nothing worthwhile to say about decentralization. I think a

little bit of translation is required, because when he was questioned,

he revealed that this really meant smaller government.

So the NDP have not had anything to say about reducing the size of

government; they have not had anything to say about the worldwide

problem of inflation; and if you can't meet the major problems of the

day, is it any wonder that their popularity has slipped to 13 or 11

percent? I don't think it's got anything to do with Broadbent's

charismatic leadership; I think it's got to do with basic philosophical

thinking on the part of the party. Here is the chance to pick it all up

and start a new course of action for your party. Repent your sins;

acknowledge the necessity of business, the need for us to be

competitive, the requirement for investment — all of those things that

bring wealth and prosperity, as my friend from Omineca understands. Why

can't the NDP understand it? The public is deserting you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, before we continue, we seem to be

talking about almost everything except the estimate that's before us.

Now that we have discussed the B.C. Railway, I might suggest — if

you'll pardon me saying it — that we get back on track and discuss the

estimates.

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, you will perhaps permit me one

short comment on the minister's last remarks. It was interesting to

hear him speaking about the things that the New Democratic Party had

made no statements about. I would say the number one problem here in

British Columbia is jobs and unemployment, and we had from his

government a throne speech and a budget that completely ignored the

whole problem of job creation. Not one mention of the words

"employment" or "unemployment" in the whole budget — nothing. So if the

reason our party has slipped at the polls is because we haven't dealt

with the issues, then I would suggest that his party must be really

slipping drastically. That is the one big issue out there and yet his

government makes no mention of it in any of its budget material or its

throne speech.

I want to deal with the minister's estimate and his responsibilities

for universities, science and technology, and communications. He's the

minister who has been doing a lot of talking about high tech, about

Dynatek. He mentioned as a glowing example the situation around the

area of Stanford University, where great things had been accomplished

and jobs were to be had just by driving into a plant. There is one side

of the high-tech industry that I have not heard him discuss, and I have

not heard it discussed on the floor of this Legislature. I think it's

critical that we get into the record some of the other side of the

high-tech industry. I'm basically talking about what that high-tech

industry involves in the way of hazards, both in the workplace and to

the community. We have had no mention of that from this minister. I

don't know if he's even aware of it, but there are two areas that I

want to raise with him today.

In the Silicon Valley, one of the first instances that sort of

brought the thing to a head was a field in the San Jose Valley. Instead

of being the beautiful agricultural soil that it is, over a period of

time it developed a red, mucky colour and consistency. That was the

first time anybody realized what was happening. The high-tech industry,

Mr. Chairman, is a high user of chemicals. Trichloroethane, one of the

main chemicals used in the high-tech industry, is used to clean the

chips. It is stored underground in great quantities because of the fire

hazards involved with storing it above the ground. In that area around

Stanford University, a residential and university area, there were 49

underground tanks storing trichloroethane. As a result, they discovered

that the red soil leak was a leak from those tanks. When they started

to investigate, they discovered that 36 of those 49 tanks had been

leaking for a period of years. That extremely hazardous chemical had

seeped not just into the soil but it had seeped into the wells and the

water system. Residents had been consuming that water over the years.

There was one particular instance by one company — I think it was

IBM — where it cost something like $200,000 to clean up the damage that

they had created, and they had appealed to be forgiven from any further

cleanup. That is just one example of the things that have been

happening and are still happening in the Silicon Valley.

Some of the comments that have been made, and mostly by attorneys

who became involved in dealing with these problems as a result of the

high-tech industry there.... Armanda Hawes, a San Jose attorney who

specializes in lawsuits against companies accused of spilling hazardous

chemicals, said: "It is completely crazy, this rush by everyone to

hustle high-tech. People are falling all over themselves to give these

companies what they want, but you don't see anybody stopping to ask

what some of the problems are." Another attorney who heads a coalition

that sprang up as a result of the situation there said that it was

"absolutely nuts" to allow this high-tech industry to move into the

area without sufficient research, knowledge and safeguards to ensure

that it was the clean industry it is supposed to be. When you can't see

that smoke coming out of the smokestack, you assume it's a clean

industry. But perhaps the smoke out of the smokestack is a lot less

hazardous than the exposure to the kind of chemicals that are used in

the high-tech industry.

It's not isolated just in the Silicon Valley; it has been a problem

in other areas. It's been a problem in Massachusetts, where, in fact,

there is a fringe area along a highway near Boston where high-tech has

grown up. The same kinds of problems have developed, and there is waste

from those chemicals. Those companies have been dumping massive amounts

of waste into the various areas provided — and not properly provided,

incidentally.

Your colleague the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Brummet) is

presently trying to work on some kind of a safe waste disposal

facility. But it was those hazardous waste

[ Page 4618 ]

dumps in California and Massachusetts where all the

problems were created and where a lot of the waste was coming from the

high-tech industry.

In the California situation they finally had an audit and it showed

that 58,400 gallons of waste solvents, including 13,000 gallons of the

trichloroethane could not be accounted for. They were just lost — gone.

The points I'm making, Mr. Chairman, are certainly for the edification

of the minister and to stress the need for research, for water-tight —

or should I say chemical-tight — agreements with high tech, with

Dynatek, whatever industry is coming in here. And Dynatek poses some

very definite concerns in that it's coming to an island. How do we get

those chemicals onto the island? What do we do with the waste? How do

we dispose of it here? Are we going to run it into the sea? Surely not.

What safety precautions?

[3:45]

If the local town planners in the Silicon Valley area had had any

idea, any forewarning, of the things they were facing when high tech

came into the valley, there certainly would have been some precautions.

What they found was that their legislation was not adequate to control

it. They have introduced a bill down there — it was passed, I think, in

September 1983 — which strengthened the control of underground storage

of chemicals: the storage, the type of facility, the monitoring, the

whole thing relative to this. It didn't get too much into the waste

disposal, and I'm not sure that they've resolved the problem. Surely we

can learn by the experiences of the Silicon Valley and experiences in

Massachusetts to ensure that we have proper precautions before high

tech comes into this province in any extensive way.

There's another aspect: that is, the health of not just the

community.... I'm sure that the members of the community who had

well-water polluted with those chemicals must be very concerned about

their health.

I want to read you an excerpt from the Sunday Times , July 31, 1983. The title is: "The World's Cleanest Industry Can Damage Your Health."

"When Mary Lou Lujan went to work in California's

Silicon Valley making microchips for the Fairchild Camera and

Instrument Co., she was told what the various chemicals used in the

production process would do to the chips. What she was not told, she

says, was what exposure to the chemicals might do to her. The early

symptoms were bad headaches, drowsiness and an almost constant thirst

which frequently sent her to Fairchild's drinking fountain. Then, while

she was in the early months of pregnancy, she began to notice 'horrible

spots around my mouth; my mouth went very cold.'

"Her child was born on June 15, 1981, with a

perforated stomach. He died after five days. Six months later,

Fairchild discovered that a chemical called trichloroethane had been

leaking from one of its underground tanks and had contaminated the

local water supply. 'I can't say for sure it's their fault, I can't

prove it yet, ' says Mrs. Lujan. 'But in myself I know my baby died

because I was exposed to those chemicals and because I drank that

water.' "

There was a long period of time after those high-tech companies

first began in California when they did not realize the need for

adequate ventilation. Employees were all experiencing drowsiness, but

it wasn't recognized that that drowsiness was being caused by the

exposure to chemicals.

Acids are also employed. The tetrachloroethane is used to clean the

chips. This is an excerpt from a little book that was published: Silicon Valley — Paradise or Paradox? This is again a quote from an assembly-line worker. This is at Siliconix, Santa Clara:

"We work with acids. One woman was asked when she was

hired if she knew anything about acids. She said no. The supervisor

said: 'Good, then you won't be scared by them.' Also it's crowded and

things aren't organized. Just recently a bottle marked, 'acetone' was

filled with waste acid, and a woman poured it and it all started

steaming. The vapours are very dangerous to breathe in and are caustic.

We work with solvents, too, which are dangerous. I get headaches from

all this, as do other people."

From a machinist who worked there: "Since I've been

at Lockheed I've been laid off a total of five times in nine years, for

a total of three years. Layoffs are real severe problems...." That's a

separate issue; it doesn't relate to safety. Those are the kinds of

issues which are being raised.

When the industry started in California, it was certainly a new

industry; it's still in its relative infancy. There has been an

opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others. We have to ensure

that the dangers to the health of workers and the dangers in the

community are circumvented, that before high tech establishes itself in

British Columbia in any extensive way we have legislation or

regulations in place to ensure that we are not faced with the kinds of

problems that were faced in California.

A little information on trichloroethane. It's known to cause liver

damage to humans. It's very possibly the cause of birth defects and

miscarriages, because of the fact that so many of those occurred at the

time of the leakage in the valley. Also, there is a problem with

caustic burns from working with the chemical. Arsenic is used. It's a

documented carcinogen and is used in the makeup of the chips.

I hope that the minister takes note of what I have said. We must

prevent the kinds of occurrences in British Columbia that have taken

place in California and other areas of the United States. We must learn

from their mistakes. We must ensure that we have complete and thorough

research and that we have adequate and extensive safeguards in place

before we expose British Columbia workers and citizens to the kinds of

hazards that have been experienced in Silicon Valley.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I think I can deal with these matters very quickly.

We have in British Columbia extensive experience with handling toxic

chemicals. On Vancouver Island, for example, every community of any

size outside of Victoria has got a pulp mill. One pulp mill would

handle more toxic chemicals than you would find in the whole of the

Silicon Valley area. We have faced the chemical industry and its toxic

products, not the broad realm of experience, for many years in this

province in far more significant measure than have most places in North

America.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I don't know about the industrial solvents. It sounds to me like the

material that's used in every dry-cleaning establishment. If you want

to send me what it is, I would be quite happy to look at it. But I

think this is what you find is used to

[ Page 4619 ]

get the grease spots out of your suit, and we see a lot of that, too, around British Columbia.

With respect to knowing about acids and materials like acetone,

we're trying to get high school science upgraded. It may be that this

sort of thing is not sufficiently taught to people who are not going

through the university stream. What is underway now with my colleague

the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) is trying to make grade

11 general science compulsory. If we can get most of our high school

population up to at least the grade 11 level of science, many of these

perceived difficulties that are written about by journalists, who

aren't up to that primitive level of science, would disappear. I really

think that scientific literacy is a must in our society. It was one of

the things that was abandoned during the years when the basic program

in our secondary school system was abandoned, producing people who

haven't the slightest idea about the simplest things in science, so

they get all worried about things they don't understand, which they

really should understand. I don't know what more I can say than that.

With respect to Silicon Valley itself, the way we have got converts

from the worst skeptics.... I can only advise the member to do

likewise. Go down and see it, and say: "Would I like some of that in my

community?" We have never taken a single person down to that area, to

see it with his own eyes, who hasn't come back and said: "Please, can

we have some?" That includes people who are far to the left of the

member who has just spoken. I can only say: go and see it for yourself,

and look at the problems we have in our communities right on Vancouver

Island. None is more severe than in the member's own riding, where

obsolete mills are closing down and people are unemployed. You can

leave them unemployed forever or you can begin looking for

alternatives. If you want to find an alternative, take me anywhere in

the world that will show you anything more attractive in the way of

industry. That's why when we take people down there, they never come

back making speeches like the member opposite. They come back, saying:

"Get me some of that for my community."

MRS. WALLACE: The grade 11 science course is not going to

ensure that the companies coming in here to produce high-tech equipment

provide proper ventilation, properly installed tanks for the chemicals,

provide proper monitoring and handling of those chemicals, and proper

safeguards in the workplace for the workers. No grade 11 science

course, no matter how knowledgeable the workers, is going to cause a

company to provide those things. I'm asking the minister to ensure that

when high tech comes to B.C. it is under terms that are good for all

British Columbians and not just for the high-tech industry.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Chairman, I have a couple of questions for

the minister. I might add that it is quite rare that I get up under

this particular ministry and ask questions. However, this question

relates to a constituency matter. I don't think it should take too

long. I wonder if the minister knows a Mr. David J. Saxby?

HON. MR. McGEER: You bet I do.

[4:00]

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Just to give you a bit of background.... This

is no earth- shattering matter. Mr. Saxby, as well as being the former

president and current executive trustee of Discovery Parks Inc., is

also president of a private company called Aqua Foods. I wonder if the

minister knows that Mr. Saxby previously operated his private company

from his office at Discovery Parks, and that he now operates this

company from the office he occupies as the president of Pacific

Isotopes and Pharmaceuticals. It would appear to be — and I'll tell you

why in a moment — a bit of a possible conflict of interest; I'm not

sure. But I'll get into a couple of details just to clarify it for the

minister.

The conflict is presented by the fact that Mr. Saxby is the largest

oyster leaseholder in a place called Trevenen Bay in my riding, near

Okeover Inlet, which is some 20 miles north of Powell River. It is one

of the prime aquaculture sites — certainly for oyster-growing — in all

of British Columbia. Aqua Foods Ltd. is the largest leaseholder in the

area at the present time, although a large Chinese company called

Wonder Resources has applied for six huge leases in the area. Two have

been granted and four more are being considered and will almost

certainly be granted, which is fine. Mr. Saxby has applied for four

more leases in the area apart from the Wonderfoods leases. Hopefully in

the future we should have a flourishing oyster and aquaculture industry

in that area and provide a number of jobs for people living there.

However, the Discovery Foundation, through their Nanaimo research

and development office, has acquired the surplus forestry station at a

place called Finn Bay, very near Lund — a very beautiful site with

large acreage and good buildings — as a research and development

centre. Once again we find the strange anomaly of Aqua Foods Ltd. being

the sole occupier of that facility, although we have the situation

where there are a number of smaller leaseholders for oyster culture in

the area as well paid for at government expense through this ministry —

the Discovery Foundation.

It does appear to me that there could be the possibility of a

conflict of interest, and unfair advantage to a person who is directly

involved in the Discovery Foundation and other agencies funded by this

ministry. Mr. Saxby could in fact enjoy a preferred position. In terms

of research and development that may take place in that facility, that

other people, who are not aware that the facility is available to

them.... I don't know whether it is or not. One of the questions the

minister could answer is: will that facility be made available to other

private companies as well as to Mr. Saxby, who is currently running his

private business out of foundation offices funded by government and

ministerial funds?

I don't want to make a big thing of it, and I'm sure it's not, but I

raise this question because there has been concern — and the minister

is probably aware of it. He or the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing

(Hon. Mr. Brummet) must have received correspondence on it over the

possible conflict of interest, where we have a senior person, an

official who is working for or at least indirectly and directly being

funded by this ministry, taking advantage of the situation. Perhaps

he's not taking advantage of the situation. I shouldn't put it that

way, because I really don't know, but it would appear.... And certainly

there is some concern, particularly from the smaller leaseholders for

oyster culture in that area, who will now have access to those possible

leases denied to them in the future, because the areas are obviously

going to be leased out.

I would like to clarify one point: the people living in the

surrounding area are not averse to research and development. I think

that facility at Finn Bay near Lund is a fine facility for

[ Page 4620 ]

research and development, and I think people will

generally agree with that. Because of the peculiar nature of that area,

one of the finest areas in British Columbia for oyster-growing and

culturing and other aquaculture pursuits, the industry should be

encouraged. Let's do it fairly. I'm expressing this concern not to

embarrass the minister, Mr. Saxby or anyone else, but it is a concern

that may be legitimate, based on some information I have received from

other lease-holders in the area. Perhaps the minister would care to

respond to some of the queries, if he can.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, David Saxby is not a full-time

employee of the Discovery Foundation and Pacific Isotopes. It's been

recognized by the directors that he works part-time in those duties and

then part-time in his own business. As I understand it — although I've

not attended the meetings — all of the holdings have been thoroughly

disclosed to all the directors of the foundation who have at least

satisfied themselves that there is no unfair advantage, no government

subsidy and no time belonging to Discovery Foundation or Pacific

Isotopes used by Mr. Saxby. I'd be quite happy for the member to meet

with those officers of the foundation. If people have complaints,

please air them and we'll look into them thoroughly and give them a

report. But this isn't something that was done without anybody's prior

knowledge. In other words, Mr. Saxby was, as far as I'm concerned, a

very honourable man who made quite certain that all the people in the

foundation knew exactly the circumstance before any arrangements were

entered into. So everybody did this with their eyes open. Perhaps if

that has not satisfied some, we should go back and look at it. I'd be

quite happy for the member to....

Having said that by way of explanation, I'd like at the same time to

pay enormous tribute to Mr. Saxby, because he had done a fantastic job.

He doesn't work for the government; Discovery Foundation, as you know,

is an independent society, although my ministry does give annual

support to it to help it to get high-technology industry going. One of

the particular things that Saxby has championed — and I think it might

be of particular interest to the member — is the whole idea of the

aquaculture industry in British Columbia. Perhaps because he's a

participant himself, he's been a passionate advocate. The Minister of

Agriculture and Food (Hon. Mr. Schroeder) knows something about this.

We have difficulty selling so many of the foods we produce in British

Columbia on world markets. We can't sell our eggs, turkeys, lettuces —

well, we've had the discussion, Mr. Minister — because they're not in

demand at the prices we're able to provide to the world market.

Our fish products are in a different circumstance. We sell our

salmon and all the food from the sea in international markets. The

opportunities, particularly for salmon farming, are absolutely

enormous. The reason we have set up these research stations on the

coast, away from our university campuses, is that if you're going to

learn how to farm oysters or salmon, you've got to be where you're

going to raise them. That's why these research stations have been set

up in the ridings on Vancouver Island and in the riding of the member

on the coast. I would think that because of the high potential and the

high unemployment that exists in many of these coastal ridings and on

Vancouver Island, this is an area you might take an extremely keen

interest in. If we could establish salmon farms all up and down the

coast — or oyster farms or other seafood farms — it could be a very big

export industry for us, but it's got to be done properly. But if there

is a problem here, which I don't believe there is, I'd be quite happy

to look into it with the member.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Chairman, the object of getting to my feet

in the first place was not really to discuss — and I agree with the

minister — the aquaculture potential we have here in British Columbia,

which I think is enormous if properly pursued. In fact, Mr. Saxby and

Aqua Foods Ltd. may be of great benefit to the community in the future

— I don't know those things at this point — but that wasn't the reason.

I'm not even implying, as the minister said, that Mr. Saxby is not an

honourable gentleman; I don't know the gentleman. I've never had the

pleasure of meeting him, but I hope to, since he is apparently going to

be operating in my riding on a large-scale basis in the future.

The only reason I got to my feet was that I would like to see every

oyster lease applicant or owner and operator in the area have the same

access to the research and development at that centre. I do agree with

the satellite research and development centres. I think they're very

good, particularly in an area that has the potential the Okeover Arm

area has in British Columbia. So I'm saying: equal and fair access. Let

people know that this facility is there and that other companies should

have equal access to that facility, which, I'm told, they don't have at

the present time.

Further, for example, when you phone Aqua Foods Ltd., the phone is

answered as Pacific Isotopes and Pharmaceuticals, and it's obviously

the same office. You must admit that if you were another leaseholder in

that area and phoned Aqua Foods, and the person answered, "Pacific

Isotopes" — which is tied in with your ministry — you would be a bit

suspicious. I'm sure you'll have a look at it, Mr. Minister.

HON. MR. McGEER: What we should do is have the member come to

Victoria, meet with the member and satisfy yourself. If we need to do

more, we will. No problem.

[4:15]

MR. ROSE: I always enjoy the debates of, and with, the

minister. I understood earlier that there was some disposition to get

through these estimates with greater alacrity, but the minister seems

determined to filibuster his own estimates.

HON. MR. McGEER: By mutual agreement, shall we bring it to an end now?

MR. ROSE: Well, I would have no objection to that, but I'm

afraid that my colleague, who is sitting here with a veritable fistful

of issues — a mailed fist — would object strenuously. I can hardly

suggest that we leave it, even though we want to use our time more

efficiently and productively.

I can hardly let go the minister's assertions about some outstanding

NDPer making certain kinds of charges as to the so-called failure of

our particular party to attract a great deal of interest across Canada.

One that he mentioned was the lack of a great commitment to

decentralization. I think that's hardly fitting, especially from a

government that's just made every effort to centralize — certainly in

the educational field — and put total control in Victoria, as opposed

to having autonomous districts and college boards. It's all right to be

self-righteous, but you also have to be a little bit credible on that

ground.

[ Page 4621 ]

Furthermore, I'd like to suggest to you that in terms of

productivity and size of government, the government of Alan Blakeney

had, per capita, the fewest civil servants at the time. It could have

been outstripped by all those recent so-called advances — taking

government off the backs of the people — recently undertaken by our own

government here. I'm not certain about that. The minister talked about

those people who are the consumers of public services. They weren't

parading; only those people who were losing their jobs were parading.

You might call that enlightened self-interest.

My second point is about inflation. Yes, we've expressed some

concern, as a federal party, on the matter of inflation, but we haven't

become preoccupied with it because we were preoccupied with protecting

people from the ravages of inflation. We felt it was unfair, if they

were faced by 12 and 13 percent inflation rates and a 23 percent

interest rate, that their salaries shouldn't be adjusted accordingly.

We didn't go through the double-think such as this government did: that

the only way to hold down inflation is to put a lot more people out of

work and make certain there are zero-percent increases in wages. We

didn't think that wages were necessarily the cause of inflation, but

that inflation was frequently imported. It wasn't as a result of

rapacious demands on the part of working people.

My third point is bilingualism. We had nothing to say on

bilingualism — not recently. But just ask Howard Pawley; he still bears

the scars on that score.

Another point I want to raise has to do with this business of the

high school science program. We're now considering changes in the

graduation requirements. The minister put forward the proposition that

improved science courses might make people more environment or safety

or waste-disposal conscious. I'm not certain that that's so, but the

fact that high school science courses need to be improved is not a new

thing. The science teachers in this province have been calling for it

for at least five years that I know of. The fact that it's going to be

inserted for all students, at the jeopardy of fine arts programs such

as music and drama and other things — because you're decreasing the

number of electives — I don't think is a fair trade-off. It would be

much better to produce a better science program in the elementary

schools, and to be prepared to equip it, which the government has not

done now. Dr. Stuart Smith, a member of the party that the minister

once belonged to, said that he didn't blame the teachers; it was the

wrong kind of science programs. The science programs in the high

schools now were of the type that prepared people for university

science, and that wasn't the reason the kids weren't taking science.

They were not taking science (1) because many schoolteachers weren't

trained in it — agreed — but (2) the science programs in high schools

and universities, as presently constructed, were of little relevance to

them. Maybe, such as we have in the music programs, we could

introduce....

Paul De Kruif, who wrote The Hunger Fighters and The Microbe Hunters ,

encouraged me to be interested in science, because in his two or three

books he dealt with what amounted to — or was the equivalent of, in the

fine arts program — a science appreciation program. What did Pasteur do

and how did that benefit us, and what did other people, such as

Wassermann do and how did that benefit us? Or Leeuwenhoek? That is the

kind of program that is needed for many people, not the

university-bound science program. That's why we have lots of problems:

everybody takes piano lessons but nobody learns to play the piano,

because the piano courses have always been directed to the one out of

every 10,000 who might become a concert performer, and that was the

fare for all. Okay, that deals with those things, I think, attempting

to elaborate or rebut the minister's assertions of a few moments ago.

The member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) is back, looking at his watch as

usual and making interesting and witty ripostes to put us off our train

of thought across the hall here. I suggest to him, if this is

fantastically boring to him, that he go back to his reading, and I will

try and lower my voice so he will remain undisturbed as he usually is.

Mr. Chairman, a little actuality from the UBC faculty of education,

just a little one. They were dropped this year over last year $1.5

million in their operating budget. That's 8 percent, the largest of any

faculty. Now that could be justified perhaps on the basis of the

minister's priorities. The university has decided to make a science and

mathematics and computer centre perhaps; I don't know. Maybe there are

no jobs for teachers, so that's a good thing. But the results of it may

not be so good even in the short run, because what's happened at UBC

and one example of what's happened in the college of education

alone.... The special education department included 14 people. About

half of them are on leave or retired or sick; that leaves seven.

Because of their being at half-strength, they have to suspend the

program in special education. Now this is one of the outstanding

programs in western Canada, if not the outstanding one in all of

Canada. It is a contract program. It serves, as does the vet school in

Regina, the four western provinces. If you cut that faculty down the

middle because you can't replace the people who have left because you

have a hiring freeze, what's going to happen? It isn't just the same as

when you abolish or suspend another program. You suspend a five-year

program, a five-year degree Bachelor of Education special education

program, not just for British Columbians but for all the people who are

interested in that training for western Canada. This is a very serious

matter.

The obligations continue, because once a person starts the program,

if he's in second year, he thinks he has every right to continue. They

have not been able to do that. The best UBC has been able to do in that

program, because of the cutbacks, is to make certain that the

fifth-year people are allowed to complete their program in order to

qualify. The others are going to be transferred into other programs

which may or may not be equivalent but probably are not. They're not

necessarily generic equivalents. They're probably less specialized and

less the kind of thing we need.

This is what you do when you start cutting university programs

without warning, not phase-outs without warning. That might be

something that merits the minister's attention. He should talk to the

dean about this and what he might be able to do, because the dean is

stuck. What's he going to do? He's got a hiring freeze.

The other thing that I wanted to mention at this point was the

general mood at the universities. The minister said that he understands

universities; he's been in them all his life. I think that he may exist

in a somewhat rarefied atmosphere. He is not kicking his feet under the

table with all the rest of the faculty — you know, the drones. He

occupies a relatively lofty position; a special position, I would

suggest. He might not know the feeling, the general morale of faculty

people. But apparently there is an air of uncertainty. This requires

people, I think, to think about their futures and consider offers from

other places. The minister's solution to that is that

[ Page 4622 ]

if you want to keep these people — there are only a

few outstanding ones anyway — why don't you just pay them more? Well,

how do you pay them more if you've got a budget freeze or a budget cut?

You break your contracts with those other members, the mediocre ones

that the minister talks about? I don't know how you find money to

lavish on a few to pay them more, because they're not just the one or

two in each faculty that are going to go. There will be more than that.

Sure, I think they're worth more than hockey players, except that they

don't have the same market value. They don't have the same ticket

potential. So I think that we have to look around at how we're paying

people. The marketplace doesn't operate at universities in quite the

same way. I'm not suggesting that it does not operate at all. The

marketplace operates at the university as it does in other spheres, and

no one denies that. But just simply to pay them more....

Anyway, the business faculty has lost I don't know how many at UBC,

because they are quick and able to move. Again, it's similar to the

University of Victoria. Computer science is a hot item. Those people

may not necessarily –and don't know them — be outstanding people. But

they are in demand because they are rare people, and they are

considering offers to move.

Education. There are two of them, and possibly another of

outstanding international renown. It isn't just a case of their being

there and contributing and providing the leadership. They bring a great

amount of national research funds into the university that aren't

provided by this government. That is a concern I have.

One of the things the minister asks when he talks about universities

and why we can't do more.... Yes, in the salad days we had all kinds of

money. But now that we don't have any money, the question is always

asked: "Where is the money coming from?" My colleague suggested there

might be a little mine of money in the railroad bag — I don't know

about that. The minister doesn't know about that either, but he shakes

his head intelligently.

A better question is: "Where has the money gone?" Post-secondary

budgets have been cut $27 million this year from last year, and that

has caused a lot of things to happen. Enrolment is cut, ceilings are

put on enrolments and there are cuts in loans and grants — at least the

grants. Where has the money gone? I was interested in where the money

had gone since a member of the minister's former party, the Minister of

Finance, was out here about two months ago and made what I regarded as

some pretty profound assertions. He said that the EPF money that would

normally have gone to health is up this year over last year by $100

million. Further, he said that the EPF money earmarked for

post-secondary education — I don't want to go into all this business

about block funding, because everybody is sick of that anyway, but it's

a mixture of cash and tax transfers — increased the Ed budget by $27

million this year over last year. If you've got $27 million extra, why

is it necessary to cut university and post-secondary funding by $27

million, making a gap of something like $54 million? That is what has

caused your courses to be cut, teachers to leave, classes to be

enlarged, grants to be gone and fees to be hiked. That's what I think.

It's not "Where is the money coming from?" It's "Where has the money

gone?"

I asked the Minister of Finance this question, and he said: "You're

wrong. I've got my own figures. I'll provide them to you." He did.

After a lot of teeth-pulling, weeping and wailing and all this stuff, I

finally got them about a month or six weeks after. He said: "No, that's

not right. According to our figures the funds have only gone up $108

million, not $127 million." In other words, I'm out $19 million — or

Lalonde is.

Let's do it proportionately. Let's say that we've got $90 million

more for health. Does that mean we need to continue user fees and add

an 8 percent health tax, or is that just another form of tax in

disguise? Supposing we didn't get $27 million extra, that we only got

$20 million extra. Does that mean we have to raise the fees, put

ceilings on the enrolment and do all these things that causes us to

lose profs, when we only got $20 million more? In addition, we cut the

budgets by $20 million. So it's $40 million instead of $54 million. So

what! The principle is the same. The reason we don't have the money for

the things we'd like to have, as we had in our salad days, is that

we're diverting it into other priorities. That's it pure and simple,

and I don't see how anybody can deny it. Not only do I have Lalonde's

words and figures for this; I have the Minister of Finance of the

province of British Columbia saying: "Oh, no, you're wrong. We only got

$108 million more." It's like the story of the Alberta hospitals making

money and having large surpluses and at the same time wanting to

increase fees. What fraud! What utter nonsense!

[4:30]

Another problem having to do with post-secondary education is the

ability of rural students to get there at all. My colleague is going to

discuss the problems of loans, grants, access, room and board and all

these things that make it more difficult. Something like 8 percent of

rural students in British Columbia are getting a university education,

whereas there might be closer to 17 or 18 percent from the urban areas

where universities are located. I was thinking of the member for

Vancouver-Point Grey just nipping out there to the university from his

Lord Byng or Magee, or wherever it was he went. How much easier it was

for him than it was for this poor little rural type from Mission, who

had to board to get there. He couldn't go out with the gang. He had to

ride the streetcar and all these things, while the minister breezed out

there and went home every night. He didn't have any homesickness, none

of those emotional problems. Rural students have a tougher time. What's

the response of the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) to this?

He's got a list for junior colleges. Here are local program priorities.

That means these can be continued or cut by the colleges. Then we have

another list called provincial priority programs, and these must be

offered.

I'm not going to read the list. I used that another time. But I'll

tell you one of the last ones. As a matter of fact, it was even

forgotten and had to be penciled in on the list I have. The last one is

university transfer; that is, if the colleges have to cut anywhere,

they are even encouraged to cut university transfer programs. I

wouldn't have thought that would be possible. I would think it would be

a priority of the province to have university programs as widely

available as possible to rural students through their local colleges.

That's not the case. It is no longer a provincial priority. You might

want to look into that if you don't know it already. Then I began to

wonder: why is this? Maybe we don't want so many of those rural

burnpkin kids going into the colleges, like the member for

Coquitlam–Moody was. Maybe you really don't want them. I don't know.

But I will assert this: all the things that must be offered —

biological science, aquaculture, forestry, even dental assistance,

early childhood ed, programs for the

[ Page 4623 ]

handicapped.... Terrific! I have no objection to

that. But why on earth would you start cutting university transfer

programs? You say: "Well, we're not starting to cut them." You control

the boards, because you appoint them all. What you've said to the local

colleges is that you don't really have to do this.

In British Columbia we've got one of the lowest participation rates

in Canada in post-secondary education. How that is consistent with the

high tech revolution I don't know. I'm suggesting there are some

serious things that the minister should examine. He has the power to do

something about it. If he fights for the universities, if he gets into

cabinet and fights for these things, then we're going to preserve the

universities. I'm not suggesting that they're going to disappear or

disintegrate overnight; I think that's perhaps pejorative, exaggerated

a little. Nevertheless, the funds are there, and I think they should be

employed. I think this is the kind of thing upon which our future is

built. We Canadians have spent too long importing our financing, our

investment and our skills. I think it's bloody well time we got down

and made an honest effort to do more of it here.

HON. MR. McGEER: To respond to the member in a number or

ways, I'll go back in reverse order. First, we revisited the budget

briefly here. As the member knows, the government is still running a

deficit in cash flow. Let's not talk about B.C. Rail, which is a

bookkeeping entry. One isn't going to persuade a government of our

philosophy that it's desirable to continue building up a debt. You can

do that pretty easily at the federal level. But we take a different

view, as we've expressed many times. However, within that constraint,

if the member opposite can persuade anybody to give up expenditures and

see it directed towards the universities, I'll buy him the best dinner

in British Columbia. Obviously one would like to see more directed to

them.

With respect to high tech and participation rates, we have to strip

off a certain amount of rhetoric and baloney and get down to some hard

facts. Those aspects of our university programs that bear on industrial

development, particularly high technology, are a very tiny portion of

the whole thing. It could be bigger; I wish it were bigger. But to

suggest that it's a major part of it, and that all the programs of the

universities are central to this is absolutely incorrect.

When you get to rural students, it's this dilemma of how you produce

a range of program offerings in every community in British Columbia.

Once you go from the major size down to the next size, like the

Coquitlam area or greater Victoria, you're into communities that are so

small that from their own commuting range, they never produce

sufficient people for even the barest kind of university programs. This

is why we set up the Open Learning Institute and the Knowledge Network:

to provide a vehicle through which a variety of programs could be taken

to every small community. My new deputy and I have recently met with

the Universities Council, the Open Learning Institute, the Knowledge

Network and all of our universities to set up a comprehensive program

whereby a person taking one of these credit courses can have it apply

in the other institutions — in other words, a program of banking

credits for all distance-learning programs in British Columbia, so that

we genuinely can take this smorgasbord of opportunities, if you like,

into every small community. It's really a problem of numbers and

delivering a broad quality to small numbers in any given location.

Now the member drew attention to the faculty of education at UBC and

the fact that the administration there had decided on an 8 percent cut

for that faculty. That perfectly illustrates the dilemma that the

government and the public face, because that faculty — I'm talking now

in terms of students — dropped about 35 percent with almost no

reduction in the numbers of faculty in the institution. Therefore when

students, quite properly, vote with their feet and decide they don't

want to be in the surplus teacher pool and should maybe be going into

engineering, although there are problems of jobs when they graduate

there, and when the enrolment drops and the faculty remains at very

high levels, as it has done....

MR. ROSE: No, it hasn't. They've cut their staff.

HON. MR. McGEER: How many did they cut? I'm going back now

four or five years — eight faculty when your student population drops

by about 800. It's when you don't make these adjustments that the

difficulties occur, because you carry on funding year after year after

year for programs that have vanished, because students shift. We don't

attempt, within the university, to set their priorities, but if a

faculty or a service at the university can't make it internally with

their own allocations, they don't have a great deal of sympathy from me

by complaining to the public. You can't have it both ways. If you want

your institution to be autonomous, then the people who live within that

institution have got to accept the priority determinations that are

made by that institution itself. If they decide that the least

important thing is two extra people in the Crane library, that's their

decision. If they decide that the special education program is the

least important program, with $12 million worth of public money in the

faculty of education, that's a decision the people in that program must

accept. The problem is, of course, that they don't. They don't want to

admit that their own institution, which received $170 million of public

funding, has decided they're the least important.

Now maybe the institution has made a mistake. Maybe you and I could

find other things that were less important. I know that the member for

West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. Reynolds) thought maybe the tennis

bubble was less important and the subsidy to the faculty club was less

important.

MR. ROSE: Do you belong to the faculty club?

HON. MR. McGEER: Automatically. It goes with tenure.

I don't agree with the subsidy, but I honestly would like the member

just to consider this, Mr. Chairman. He and I may disagree with what

the priorities ought to be, but I think that he would want to agree

with me that the institutions themselves should be the ones that

establish those priorities. Again, I would like to see more money go to

the universities, but I don't think the universities are being asked to

make sacrifices that most others in society have had to make. You may

point out that the schools haven't made equivalent sacrifices, and I

don't think they have. The colleges haven't made equivalent sacrifices.

The doctors certainly haven't made equivalent sacrifices, but people in

the civil service universally have and those in the private sector

certainly have and are paying the bill. They're the ones that pay the

taxes. They've certainly suffered a lot more. So maybe the universities

haven't been the best treated. I wish they had been, and

[ Page 4624 ]

I think over the years they have. Certainly they're

not the worst hit. We have to have a little bit of balance, and we

might disagree as to where that might come. But if you can persuade

anybody that the universities ought to have a little more, count on

that big dinner from me.

With respect to the science programs in our schools — and we don't

want to revisit the Ministry of Education estimates — I agree with you.

We shouldn't be trying to teach people in high schools university-level

science if they're not going on to university. On the other hand, what

you must try to do, it seems to me, is give people some scientific

literacy, because what separates us from Third World nations is our

abilities in technology.

[4:45]

If you leave people, having gone through the school system, not

understanding even the rudiments of the technological society in which

they live, you really have left them permanently handicapped. They

don't understand the language that they read in the newspapers —

anything technical — because they don't know the meaning of the words.

They don't understand what they hear on television. They don't

understand the new advances that are taking place, because they don't

know the foundation upon which it's laid. They become terrified, and

they go into the media and write anti-technological and ill-informed

articles about how our society is going to hell in a basket and the sky

is falling in. I take that as a failure of our high school science

system.

I think media people should be forced to learn a few of the

rudiments of science. I hope they never attend these debates. I hope

they're listening up there in the press gallery. I think it's a problem

that can be overcome with a good science-appreciation course. I think

it's fundamental. I don't think you are making an unfortunate tradeoff

if you say it comes before fine arts. I think it's fundamental, every

MR. ROSE: I would just like to say that I hope the dinner

that the minister has promised me will take place, hosted at the UBC

Faculty Club, where he is a member. We will both benefit by the subsidy.

I'd like to clarify one thing. I'll be very brief about it. I don't

think the faculty of education was wailing — or snivelling, as it might

be put — because some priority of the university downplayed their

contribution. The problem was because of the policies, an accident of

policies, where they had a lot of people on leave, sick or retired that

they couldn't replace and who couldn't complete their contractual

obligations. It wasn't that they were concerned only with the fact that

they had been somewhat ignored and people weren't voting with their

feet. The stu