1985 Legislative Session: 3rd 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)

THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1985

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

5683 ]

CONTENTS

Oral Questions

Price of beer. Mr. Passarell –– 5683

Mr. Macdonald

Education minister's meeting with New Westminster School Board. Mr. Cocke –– 5684

School counselling. Mr. Rose –– 5684

Okanagan College board. Mr. MacWilliam –– 5684

Chinese investment in forest industry. Mr. Howard –– 5685

Legal contracts. Hon. Mr. Smith answers questions –– 5685

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Education estimates. (Hon. Mr. Heinrich)

On vote [7: minister's office –– 5687

Mr. Mitchell

Mr. Hanson

Hon. Mr. Gardom

Medical Services Amendment Act, 1985 (Bill 50). Hon. Mr. Nielsen

Introduction and first reading –– 5694

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Education estimates. (Hon. Mr. Heinrich)

On vote 17: minister's office –– 5694

Mr. Michael

Mr. Rose

Mr. MacWilliam

THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1985

The House met at 2:03 p.m.

MR. REE: In the gallery above you, Mr. Speaker, is a young

couple — actually, they're in their young eighties — who have driven

from Ottawa to Vancouver to attend the Commonwealth Games annual

dinner, which was held in Vancouver last week. They have since toured

Vancouver Island and are now visiting here. They were actually hoping

to drive up into the Yukon, to Whitehorse. They are Warren — commonly

referred to as Monty — and Jean Montabone. Mr. Montabone is a special

individual, I think, in Canada. He participated as a hurdler on behalf

of Canada in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris and in the 1928 Olympic

Games in Amsterdam. He was also present to follow the Chariots of Fire

run in the Paris games of 1924. He's advised me that the movie is very

much on point. I'd ask this House to welcome the two of them to British

Columbia, to Victoria and to this House with a very warm welcome.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, we have three special guests in

your gallery from the Sooke School District. They are here very

conveniently — the minister will be speaking on the Sooke School

District. I'd like the House to welcome Marg Jacobson, Margaret Fleming

and Elizabeth Stewart.

MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, I notice in your gallery this

afternoon trustees Anne Bailey and Beth Colpitts. I would ask the House

to bid them welcome.

MR. REID: In the gallery today are some very special people

that have arrived from Seattle today on the inaugural run of the

jetfoil. Some of them came to witness the Legislature today. On behalf

of the Legislature and you, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to welcome those

people from Seattle.

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today are three

residents of Cowichan-Malahat who are extremely interested in

education, including the president of the Cowichan District Teachers'

Association, Mr. Denyer. I would like the House to welcome them.

HON. MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery today are a

group of teachers from School District 42, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows,

and a school trustee: Wendy Hale, Jane Denton, Drusilla Wilson, Nel

Joostema, Cathy Brugge, Howard Brown and Barbara Andreasen. I would ask

the House to make them all welcome please.

MR. ROSE: I am told that there is a delegation of parents,

teachers and members of the college in North Vancouver. I would like to

welcome Mrs. Henis, Maureen Buhler, Walter Stewart of Capilano College

Faculty Association, and Jessie Rybchinsky and Andy Krawczyk of the

teachers' association, as well as Verna Smelovsky.

MS. BROWN: Six people visiting us from Burnaby, Mr. Speaker, are also

interested in education. They are Mrs. Beth Colpitts, a parent; Mrs. Nancy Anderson,

a parent; a school trustee, Mrs. Anne Bailey; two teachers, Mrs. Linda Shuto

and Mrs. Sharon Freeman; and a member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees,

Local 379, Mr. Bill Harper. They are here to strike fear and terror into the

heart of the Minister of Education, and I hope the House will join me in bidding

them welcome.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery this afternoon is

a very active entrepreneur from the Clayton area of Surrey. It is our

hope that he will soon be able to proceed with the neighbourhood pub

application that he has for development of the community, and I would

ask the House to please welcome Peter Loewen.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, with the greatest of respect, the

Chair has, during the introduction period, been most lenient in

advising members that the introduction period should be kept brief.

Certainly, simple introduction is all that is necessary. I would

commend to all members that we adhere to some basic proprieties at

introduction period.

Oral Questions

PRICE OF BEER

MR. PASSARELL: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of

Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Under this government the price of a

dozen beer has doubled in three short years. Does the minister agree

that this price is too high?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, the price of beer, of course,

is determined not just by government in regard to taxation or markup,

but also by the manufacturing level, which institutes price increases

from time to time.

MR. PASSARELL: Mr. Speaker, a new question. A box of beer

costing less than $3 to produce now costs $9.60, plus deposit, when

sold. What action is the minister taking to bring the price of beer

down to a reasonable level in this province?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, I'm not contemplating any action.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, the minister says that the price

of beer is set at the manufacturing level. Would the minister agree

that following the Goldberg report to Mr. Hyndman, his predecessor, and

the right of the breweries to advertise their beer freely, the prices

increased in lock-step every six months or so from $4.95 on April 1,

1981, to $9.20, and that the big three — Labatt, Carling and Molson —

always come around to quoting the same price and there's no competition

there whatsoever?

HON. MR. HEWITT: No, Mr. Speaker, I don't agree.

Unfortunately I don't have in front of me the spread of prices with

regard to various brands of beer, but I believe that there is a price

spread of approximately $1 to $1.20 between the highest-priced domestic

beer on the market and the lowest-priced. Those prices have been

established by the manufacturers after they were allowed to set their

prices freely rather than have the government regulate them.

MR. MACDONALD: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. The prices should

be known to the minister. They're all here. They go up.... You go at

any stage, whether it's $5.51,

[ Page 5684 ]

$5.61, $5.61 — all the same, right across the page,

every day. Does the minister not realize that he's been hoodwinked, and

the breweries are acting in cahoots, and that accepting that Goldberg

report and deregulating has meant that you've given away the key to the

breweries? You're fattening eastern breweries' profits; they're going

up like the suds in a glass, and the beer-drinking public are hopping

mad. You've let them down.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, is that a play on words — hopping mad?

First of all, having the prices in front of him, I of course

question the member's asking the question. Secondly, there are a number

of factors with regard to the price of beer: there is the federal

taxation; there is our markup, granted; and there is the price that the

manufacturer places on his product. The combination of those three has

increased beer prices, as the member for Atlin (Mr. Passarell) says.

Would you rather have a tax on milk, Mr. Member, as opposed to a tax on

those products that do create social costs for the province of British

Columbia? I have no objection to the taxes on beer, wines, spirits,

cigarettes, etc. In my opinion, those are luxuries and should be

heavily taxed.

MR. MACDONALD: A supplementary to the same minister. The

minister mentioned what is received by the government; that's fine.

It's been going up, up, up. What about the brewery profits going up?

You never disclose what's made in B.C. What about the contribution that

the breweries make to the Social Credit Party — is it going up, up, up?

I ask the minister this simple question: is it?

Interjections.

MR. MACDONALD: It's all there. The simple question is: why

are you sitting on the Goldberg report? We had a draft of it a little

while ago. Will you get up in your place now and say that you'll table

that report?

Interjections.

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

EDUCATION MINISTER'S MEETING WITH NEW

WESTMINSTER SCHOOL BOARD

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I'll direct a question to the

Minister of Education. Will the minister advise why he has failed to

show up, or has refused to honour the request of the New Westminster

School Board for a meeting? They've been asking for some time.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact on reasonably short

notice I put it in my

schedule some time in January or February — I can't

remember the exact month — to attend the New Westminster School Board. I think

there was a couple of days' notice; I was advised by the school board that

they would need much more notice than that. I found it somewhat difficult, because

when I was traveling around the province many of the boards were quite prepared

to meet on reasonably short notice.

What happened on that particular day was that because of the weather — flying was

difficult, as well as driving — I couldn't get to one particular school district

in British Columbia, and I said I would go to New Westminster. Unfortunately

I was told that that wasn't convenient to them. They have recently sent

a telegram, I think within the last couple of days, asking to meet with me.

I also received a letter from them within perhaps the last month, and I will

visit the New Westminster School Board and all other boards.

[2:15]

AN HON. MEMBER: When?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Well, I've been up your way.

Interjections.

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

MR. COCKE: Precisely 16 hours' notice, they were scattered

all over the face of the earth, and there was no way they could get it

together. In the afternoon the day before for the morning of the next

day — that's precisely how much time. Mr. Speaker, all I want from the

minister is really — I think I got it — that he's going to meet with

them, I hope, soon. Will it be soon, Mr. Minister?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I will meet with the New Westminster School Board as well as other school boards as soon as I am able.

SCHOOL COUNSELLING

MR. ROSE: I have a related education question. I was going to

ask when the minister intends to deregulate the school boards, as we've

done recently with the big breweries, but that really isn't my question.

I'd like to ask a very serious question. It concerns the delinquency

problems in Surrey that we've heard a great deal about, mainly caused

by a lot of young people who have been school dropouts and failures in

that system. I'd like to know whether the minister is aware that in

Surrey there is a ratio of one counsellor to 1,460 pupils. That's

appalling when you consider that the guideline for counsellor-student

ratios is something like one counsellor for every 315 students. Is the

minister aware of this situation? I know the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr.

Smith) wanted to put on more police as a solution, and I think that

that's been happening. Is the minister aware of this problem of

counselling and the rotten ratio, and if he is, what's he prepared to

do about it?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I am not aware of that particular problem. I suspect

the member received that information sometime today, because when I left at

noon there was a delegation — who I believe are in the gallery now — who left

some information with me, and it may very well have been within that brief.

I talked to them for probably the better part of an hour, and people from Surrey.

I will take that particular question as notice, because I am not aware of the

statistics I which the member advances.

OKANAGAN COLLEGE BOARD

MR. MacWILLIAM: I have a question for the Minister of

Education. Since last fall there have been three vacancies on the

Okanagan College board. My office, as well as the office

[ Page

5685 ]

of the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. Michael), has submitted names for

replacements. My question to the minister is: when will those replacements for

the three vacancies be coming forth? Will there be replacements in the near

future?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: In the fullness of time. Many members from

that particular area who are interested in Okanagan College, and there

are a number of ridings.... There are two or three vacancies, and I'm

filling them up over a period of time. I'm sure that the member will

find out, I hope before too much longer, that the positions have been

filled. I might say I appreciate that the member has been most

interested in this and has advanced to me the odd name.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Supplementary. The minister did in fact

mention just a minute ago that the vacancies were being filled up. But

the latest information that I have available is that none of those

vacancies has been filled. Names have been submitted as far back as

last fall. The last letter that I got from the minister himself said

"if a decision is made," and that leaves in question whether the

minister intends to fill the vacancies at all.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I should have used the word "will." The answer is yes.

CHINESE INVESTMENT IN FOREST INDUSTRY

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I had intentions of asking a

question relating to the Kemano completion project of the Minister of

Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. Rogers), but I see he's

not here, nor has there been any indication as to why he's absent. But

I would like to ask the Minister of Forests a question based upon his

recent visit to China. He apparently came back with no orders for

products that we produce in this province but did make a statement

about the possibility of the Chinese investing $100 million in a pulp

mill in this province. I would like to ask the minister whether he was

able to identify whether BCRIC's subsidiary, Westar mill at Prince

Rupert, is being considered for sale to the Chinese.

HON MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, to the member, personally I think perhaps

if he were to phone the office of the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum

Resources, he could find out the fact that the member is absent and where he

is. I'm sure the ministry would be very happy to oblige in that matter.

I have no knowledge of dealings between Westar and the Chinese. Mr.

Speaker, I did not announce that the Chinese are considering investing

$100 million in a pulp mill in British Columbia.

MR. HOWARD: It's terrible when the minister gets misquoted so

badly. Can the minister indicate where this $100 million will be

invested in British Columbia? Or is he denying that?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: When I returned from China as a matter of fact,

when I was in China — I spoke to reporters in British Columbia, and I advised

them that the Chinese had expressed great interest in joint venturing with a

British Columbia company in one of the two pulp opportunities that are currently

being offered by the province of British Columbia. These opportunities could

lead to the establishment of new pulp facilities in British Columbia, probably

thermo-mechanical pulp mills, and I suggested that probably the lowest price

to put one of these mills into production right now would be around $100 million.

The Chinese have expressed interest in learning which companies in British Columbia

would be interested, and they would like to contact them and then pursue the

possibilities of joint ventures. This is the nature of the comments I made,

Mr. Speaker.

LEGAL CONTRACTS

HON. MR. SMITH: I wish to respond to oral questions that were

put to me in the Legislature on April 12, Mr. Speaker. These were

questions concerning legal contracts.

The member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) asked me:

In March of 1984 when Bud Smith, principal secretary to the Premier,

was making his decision to come down and serve in the government in Victoria.

did the department suddenly take two legal contracts away from lawyers in Kamloops

... and give them to one Daphne Smith of the firm of Mair Janowsky Blair?

That was the question.

Then he subsequently asked me a followup question: in October 1984,

when the new woman lawyer came to Victoria, did the Attorney-General's

ministry

... having issued temporary contracts to that point, take legal

work worth about $4,000 a month away from three Victoria firms and give it

to the firm that Daphne Smith joined, which was the Hutchison and Gow firm? Do

you know whether that happened too?

Mr. Speaker, these questions stem from an

article that appeared the week of April 11 in a tabloid called Monday Magazine

— an

article which contained a romance novel about private firms with

public friends. That information, when it was published last week, was

a year old. It was one of the stalest stories in the corridors. Many

times last year I was questioned in the corridors on those allegations,

and none of the working press in the Legislature, save for the author

of the romance novel, chose to print it. I think it'll be apparent why.

Now it is correct that Mrs. Daphne Smith was, until May 31, 1984, a

partner of the firm of Mair, Janowsky, Blair in Kamloops; also, that

she is married to Mr. Bud Smith, a matter which is well known, and that

he ceased to be a partner in that firm on March 31, 1984. The Mair,

Janowsky, Blair law firm has done contract work for the provincial

government, starting in 1973 –– I can't remember who was

Attorney-General at that time, but I have a dim recollection that it

was in fact the asker of the question.

Daphne Smith joined that firm in 1976, and since 1979 she has acted

on a number of family law matters for the provincial government — work

under the Family Relations Act, the Juvenile Delinquents Act, the Child

Paternity and Support Act, and the Family and Child Service Act. She

has done that, as has that firm, for Kamloops, Salmon Ann, Chase,

Merritt, Lytton, Lillooet and Ashcroft. So the firm has done the work

for a long time, and she has done it for about four years.

These contracts generally expire at the end of the fiscal year and

are renewed or revised annually. In March 1984, when the contract was

drawing to an end, a member of my staff had discussions with other law

firms and committed to

[ Page 5686 ]

give some of this work to two other lawyers; that

would involve the work in Lillooet and some other work being done by

other than the Mair, Janowsky firm. When I reviewed that in April it

did not seem to make any sense in either dollars or efficiency, because

it meant that the Mair, Janowsky firm and the other lawyer would both

be traversing the same route and duplicating the same ground, and it

was going to cost us more money. So after two months we cancelled those

contracts and left the work where it had been before — it wasn't a new

assignment — with the Mair, Janowsky firm, which has been doing the

work efficiently for some years.

Mrs. Daphne Smith did move to Victoria. She came down here, I think

sometime in the summer or the fall. In April of last year we had the

Young Offenders Act proclaimed in Canada. We had no idea at that time

how much additional work the new legislation was going to generate, so

as four Victoria firms were interested in doing it, what we did was

give each of them a piece of the work on rotation. We told them at the

beginning — in April — that it was a temporary assignment and that we

would be consolidating later when our experience indicated how much

work there was. In September we did consolidate, and two of the firms

that got it — one was the Mah Ming, Chaperon firm, the other was the

Smith, Hutchison and Gow firm — ended up doing all the work. The work

amounted to contracts for $2,000 a month per firm to do young offender

work.

Mrs. Daphne Smith joined that firm and does do that work, and I can

say that I'm delighted she is doing the work. She is a very

well-thought-of counsel in the bar of this province, with a wide range

of experience in family law. She has taught family law; she has been

active in the Kamloops community as a director of a number of societies

working with young people. She's been director of the Civil Liberties

Association. She's been the chairman of the Kamloops Regional Law

Centre Society. She's been actively involved in legal aid for some

years. She served without remuneration on the Task Force on Public

Legal Services. She's a superb barrister, and she takes her public

responsibilities seriously and does public service without remuneration.

So I'm very proud that we employed her, and I can assure the member

that we will continue to employ her despite these veiled attacks upon

her by the member for Vancouver East, whose question can only suggest

that he objects to her because she's married to Bud Smith.

I'm really ashamed of this member for doing this, particularly

during the week in which the equality

section of the Charter of Rights

is coming into force, because it's guilt by spouse identification.

[2:30]

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

HON. MR. SMITH: Oh, sure it is. Come on. A barrister who is

good in her own right should get work regardless of who she's married

to. I'm ashamed of him. I know that the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms.

Brown) is ashamed of him, and she'll tell him what the Charter of

Rights means.

Now I will just speak about the other person, Mrs. Loretta Chaperon, who he mentions in his question:

... does the acting Attorney-General know, however, that the

Attorney-General managed in that reshuffle of the work to keep a third of the

work for Loretta Chaperon, who is his active and faithful campaign worker in

Oak Bay?

Well, strangely enough, Mrs. Loretta Chaperon was also hired by that

member when he was Attorney-General. In April 1975 she went to work for

the Attorney-General's ministry. Her husband, Barry Mah Ming, also

worked for him. He hired her as a prosecutor. He knew good people when

he saw them. They continued to work for the government for many years.

Long before my tenure as Attorney-General they were doing family law

work. That firm has done since 1978 — with one or two years excepted —

the protection of children work, the child paternity and support work,

and the juvenile delinquent work, and in April 1983 they successfully

bid in Victoria for a new family law contract. They received that

contract and they now do work, including the young offenders work, for

$3,500 a month.

Mrs. Chaperon, I'll tell the member, also has a distinguished

background in family law. She's the chairman of the family law

section

of the Victoria bar. She has been on the Legal Services Society and

still is, and she was on the Task Force on Public Legal Services. Her

husband has a long background of criminal law and juvenile law.

The last question that was asked to me was the question that was

asked by the member for West Vancouver-Howe Sound (Mr. Reynolds). His

question was:

When he's checking on this information for the member for

Vancouver East, can he ask the Attorney-General to report to the House how much

work Mr. John Brewin is getting in the Victoria area, also?

Well, I've done that, Mr. Chairman, and....

Interjections.

HON. MR. SMITH: Well, yes, it's very interesting, you see, because Mr. Brewin's firm....

Interjection.

HON. MR. SMITH: Well, I think he's known to the member for

Vancouver East better than he is to me, but his firm have been doing

family law work for us since 1981 by contract, which consists presently

of all the work under the Family and Child Service Act in Victoria.

They received for that work $5,800 a month last year...

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

HON. MR. SMITH: Yes.

...and $6,300 a month this year, for the amount of $75,000. I don't

know that firm as a firm that notoriously supports this government. I

could be wrong, but I don't know them as a firm that normally does. So

you see you can only come to one conclusion in all this, and that is

that we don't have a political litmus test.

Interjections.

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

Orders of the Day

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

[ Page 5687 ]

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

(continued)

On vote 17: minister's office, $179,543.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, at this point I defer to my colleague from, Esquimalt-Port Renfrew.

MR. MITCHELL: If I could kind of rehash what we were doing to

begin with, I was speaking and the minister was answering some of my

questions before the noon-hour break. I don't intend to go over the

15-20 minutes of debate that we had this morning, but I would like to

review a few of the facts that I brought forward to the minister. Also,

he failed to answer my questions.

As I mentioned earlier today, certain guidelines for the

pupil-teacher ratio have been established by various groups within the

education fraternity. One set of figures that I use, which has been

well established in British Columbia, shows that the pupil-teacher

ratio should be based not on some fictitious figures based on

principals, superintendents, etc., but on the number of children in the

classrooms and the teachers teaching them. The figures I gave earlier

were for grades 4 to 12, where there should be a maximum of 30. In

primary schools there should be a maximum of 25. In kindergarten the

figure is 20, and in special classes it's ten. It has also been

established — and I believe the minister himself would support this in

some of the issues that he mentioned — that where there is a split

class these figures should be reduced by at least five. I think the

only figures we can go on when we quote figures are the actual figures

of kids in classes and teachers who are teaching them.

I mentioned to the minister that 82 classes or 48 percent of the

elementary class schools in the Sooke district are in excess of those

amounts. When you go into the split classes, 85 percent of the split

classes are in excess of the figures recommended by the teaching

fraternity; 95.2 percent of these figures are in the primary grades and

75 percent are in the intermediate grades. The split classes are in

excess of the guidelines. I also mentioned that 40 percent of the

kindergartens in Sooke School District are in excess of recommended

guidelines.

It's easy to take figures and say that his set of figures shows that

a majority of them are in the.... When we start changing the goal-posts

in education, we can bring in any sort of figures to justify the

situation. The situation that is being brought out by all levels of

government, parents and educational support groups is that there is a

slow erosion of what's taking place in our school system.

When you get into secondary class sizes in Sooke School District,

there are over 122 classes that have been identified as being oversize.

These range from 25 to 26 in the industrial classes up to 40 in band. I

know there are a lot of people who say, "Well, bands are not

important," but they are. They are part of the culture of getting

children out into the community. It's part of the growing process, and

actually an important part of what's going on in the world.

Some of the reasons given by the school board.... The minister and

the government have been saying that this erosion is only taking place

because there's been a drop in the number of pupils. I don't know what

set of figures they use in Sooke, but in the last year there has been a

drop of 263 students in the Sooke School District; at the same time

we've had a drop of 54.8 teachers. The information I received yesterday

is that another 14 will be dropped. When you take any set of figures,

the amount of teachers we are losing in the Sooke School District,

compared to the drop in pupils.... Every teacher we lose is represented

by five students. With all of the ratios that have been used.... When

you lose one teacher for every drop of five students, there is

something definitely wrong in the financing of education in British

Columbia.

One of the big problems in the whole concept of education is the

difference in funding. There has to be flexibility. We all know that

some communities are smaller than others, that some communities have

different problems, but the important

part is that there has to be a

commitment by this Legislature, by the government, that the educational

needs of students be met. We can't afford the pleasure of continuing to

move the goal-post, continuing to bring in new guidelines.

What really happens is that a lot of courses that I think our

society needs, courses that have evolved over the years and that many

parents have come to expect, are being cut out. Go through the courses

that have been eliminated or reduced: as I mentioned earlier, bands,

French, library, enrichment and learning assistance. These have been

cut back, eroded or eliminated. To say that this is not important, to

throw out another set of figures and another set of percentages, is not

going to be accepted by the people of British Columbia. The public is

looking seriously at the priorities: what are the priorities of the

government, what are the priorities of the minister?

Another one that has been cut back severely is libraries. It's easy

to say that libraries are not important. It's only a small percentage

of the number of teachers who are involved. But if the program of

library training is taught properly, if it's taught well, it's

something that stays with children throughout their adult life. We have

millions of dollars invested in the library system. If students — and

it doesn't matter if it's this year's or last year's or next year's

students — miss the opportunity to have proper instruction, they go

through life never knowing how to utilize the vast investment that we

have in the libraries throughout the province. We can't afford to keep

cutting back on needed programs that are going to affect the group of

children going through our school system today.

[2:45]

It's easy to say that down the line we'll do this, down the line

we'll do something else. It's the students going through our system

today who must be protected. There are all kinds of recommendations

about the ratio of librarians to students — one set of figures that I

would like the minister to comment on. The figures say that for every

100 to 400 students there should be anywhere from half a librarian, or

the equivalent, to one. For every 400 to 700 students, there should be

anywhere from one to one and a half librarians. In the Sooke School

District all the librarians have been reduced in one way or another.

Out of the 16 schools, only two — the Ruth King school and the Sooke

school — have full librarian service to the standard as recommended. We

have librarian assistants that vary from 72 percent of the standard

down to 40 percent, 12 percent, 0 percent, 30 percent. There are not

the proper library assistants or enough librarians to give the vital

training that is needed.

Maybe you averaged it; maybe you threw in the two schools that have

enough librarians, so that you would put the average up. What happens

is that those students who happen to live in one community for one

reason or another —

[ Page 5688 ]

because that is where their homes are, or that's

where their parents are employed — are being denied the needed

education to understand how to use libraries. I feel that we just can't

afford to keep wiping this under the carpet, changing the guidelines

and cutting back on services.

One of the programs that I personally, because of my involvement....

Cutting back on learning assistance to students who are in need.... As

I said, I remember many years ago, when I was working in police and we

had kids who were dropping out of school, kids who were causing

problems in our society. We thought they were bad kids, but they had

dyslexia. A lot of us on the beat in the police force really didn't

understand what it meant. It wasn't until I went into the schools, when

I went to talk to some of the teachers, that I understood the problem

that these kids were suffering from and that they could be cured — the

children could learn to master their problem if they had the proper

teaching assistance.

When you look at what has happened in Sooke.... There are

guidelines. For up to 175 students there should be at least one half of

a teacher's time for work on learning assistance in the school. From

175 to 350 students there should be at least one teacher who is working

on the kids who are in need. What has happened in Sooke School

District? There are only four schools that have full-time learning

assistance teachers allocated to that particular problem. All but three

of the other schools are operating below the recommended guidelines.

This is an important part of what's going to happen, because the

cost.... These particular groups of students.... I've gone through all

the displays. I've talked to the teachers who are involved and to the

parents of kids who are suffering from dyslexia. Why are these small

problems, which are not affecting a lot of people...? The cost down the

line, if training is not given, is going to be horrendous. I know from

my own experience that a lot of these children will end up in the

criminal justice system, and that the cost will be a lot more than the

extra amount of money needed right now — the extra amount of money that

must be put into the system.

I ask the minister if he will cover these subjects when answering questions.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to take my place in

this estimate debate. There are serious concerns in the region that I

represent about the way this minister has managed education for our

children. School District 61, as the minister is aware, encompasses a

large part of Esquimalt, Saanich and Victoria. I would like to make

some comments specifically about the conditions faced by that school

district and its students.

First, I would like to make a few general remarks about the way this

present government approaches education. Clearly they do not recognize

education as an investment in our economic recovery. In every advanced,

progressive society education is seen as an investment in the future;

the technological and educational training given to each successive

generation is seen as something that will benefit all of society and

will certainly benefit the economy. That is not the philosophy of this

government, and I think that everything that has been said so far by

our side of the House supports the claim that Social Credit does not

see education as something worth investing in for our future.

Also, there's a disturbing trend towards providing educational

opportunities for those who have the wherewithal to pay for it. In

other words, those who can pay for various kinds of educational

opportunities — for example, lab equipment, field trips, various kinds

of athletic activities and so on — are benefiting most. Certainly

regional districts and school districts where the real estate value is

high and the wealth is there are benefiting more than the regions that

do not have a high tax base.

One of the other general themes about education under Social Credit

is that it's not accessible to all students from B.C. In quality terms.

Small secondary schools cannot offer the same range of courses that

larger school districts in metropolitan areas can. Certainly it has to

be the philosophy of a progressive and modem democratic society that

the best educational opportunities should be available throughout the

province to the best of our ability rather than seeing remoter areas

really cut hard and people denied a quality education. When I say

regional, I don't mean off near Bob Quinn Lake in the riding of Atlin;

I mean that just out of the lower mainland the quality of education

falls off very substantially.

So programs have been cut because of the government's preoccupation

with providing all of the revenues that should be available for

education and health care, putting them into Expo, into megaprojects

that will have a short-term economic impact and really not offer the

citizens of our province the opportunities that they should have during

this economic downturn to upgrade their skills and to ready themselves

for the future. Clearly we're going to have to compete with adjacent

jurisdictions, and we're going to have some difficulty doing that.

In its education policy Social Credit has created a pervasive

climate of uncertainty, so that not only trustees and faculty but the

students themselves really don't know from one year to the next what

situations they are going to be confronted with and what conditions the

school system is going to operate under.

I'll just give you an example. The school district here had to face

enormous cuts, and they are certainly trying to the best of their

ability to ensure that students get the best possible education they

can, given the dollars that this government will make available to

them. But constituents come to me and say: "I don't understand why my

child comes home from school every day and seems to be oblivious of the

fact that he's sitting in the house and won't take his coat off." The

fact is that that child goes to school at 8 o'clock in the morning and

from then until he leaves the school at 2:30 or 3 o'clock sits with his

coat on because the school district doesn't have funds to activate the

boilers at a sufficient level that the students can feel comfortable in

their own workplace, in their own school. I think anyone who has worked

in any clerical capacity.... I don't mean working outside, fully

clothed with work clothing, but sitting down and trying to concentrate

that classroom cold enough that you can't really perform properly. That

is the situation here in our school district.

A report was produced by the school district that looked at some of

these things. I'll just digress for a moment to talk about.... They

were faced with the choice of firing teachers or reducing the heat, and

in this case they reduced the heat. Of course, the boilers can't come

on after May 15, and they can't go on before October 15; there is no

heat in the schools at all during that period. But I'm talking about

the reduced temperatures after October 15. Here's what the school

district administrators said about that — from the

[ Page 5689 ]

superintendent. He said that the lack of heat,

particularly in elementary schools.... These are children between the

ages of 5 and 12 years, going to school with sweaters and bundled up,

sitting in the class, trying to learn. "The lack of heat, particularly

in elementary schools, is perceived to be related to increased

absenteeism of both staff and students." In other words, the

temperature is sufficiently deleterious, destructive and disruptive in

the classroom.... This is not an option that they've had to take

lightly. They had either to fire more teachers so that the ratio would

rise to the point where they couldn't manage the classes, or reduce the

heat. So they've got increased staff time off, increased absenteeism,

increased sickness among the children. Isn't that great?

Secondly, there is decreased productivity in cold working

conditions. Also, it is very damaging in terms of the work environment

and the emotional environment, and creates anger and dispirited staff

and students when the school is cold. This is a fact. I think it is a

disgrace.

That's just one. The grounds aren't properly maintained. They can't

use them any more in many respects. The public can't use them. There

isn't adequate funding for water systems, for looking after the

playgrounds. They are now regarded as dangerous. They're so pitted with

holes and so poorly maintained that they can't be used, so there can't

be sports. Those are just a couple of the non-teaching dimensions of

this government's policy.

Let's just look at the general situation with respect to teacher

reductions in the schools. I might point out that school services in

British Columbia — and School District 61 is no different — have been

cut by 25 percent over the last three years. We know there's been

inflation in addition, so 25 percent is the reduction in school

expenditures in 1985-86 over the last three years. What is the result?

[3:00]

Let's look at teacher reductions. There are significant increases in

primary class sizes. Seventy-one elementary school classes exceed the

recommended 25 per class. As you get more students in a class, you are

impairing the ability of the teacher to deal one-to-one with the

students. I think everyone understands and accepts the idea that if

students need help they're going to get less of it as the class size

gets larger.

The teacher reductions at the secondary level have resulted in

significant increases in class size. The number of science labs, home

ec labs and industrial education shops with more than 24 students in a

class has increased significantly, causing concern for the safety of

students. For someone who is teaching industrial arts — say carpentry,

with saws, that kind of thing — the class size is larger. The teacher

has to be more vigilant and more wary of safety procedures at all

times. Is it a good idea to have industrial classes larger so that

students are at risk? That's the philosophy of this government. It's

more difficult for teachers to keep students on task in a larger class.

There are fewer teacher-student academic contacts in large classes.

There are fewer teacher-student personnel-related contacts.

My colleague the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose), our debate

leader in Education, has indicated the ratio of students to counsellors

in Surrey. It's the same situation here. I looked at the numbers. Some

of them are 1 to 1,500 or 1 to 1,700. If you have a problem and have to

make your way through 1,750 other students to get to the counsellor,

there's less likelihood that you're going to see that person, who I

imagine has a booking, a schedule, and has severe problems, perhaps

children suffering from depression, problems at home because of

marriage breakdown, other kinds of things that are affecting their

emotional and academic stability, and they need to see a counsellor.

They might be crying out for help in their own way, but those

counsellors are not accessible. Those counsellors are too few in number

because of Socred educational cutbacks. Elementary school counselling

service has been reduced significantly. Those are just a couple of

things.

Let's just take, for example, a child with learning disabilities. We

all know that if a learning-disabled child is diagnosed early enough

there are all sorts of remedial help that that child can get so he can

then begin to learn and function properly and have good esteem and good

study skills and ways of dealing with the problems that he may have.

But what's happening to the learning-disabled child as a result of

layoffs? It creates shuffling within the district so that students for

whom continuity is especially important may have two or three teachers

in a year. It causes inappropriate teaching placements due to seniority.

For example, we know that a grade 9 math teacher was assigned to a

special-education class without training. So you ask someone whose

training is to effectively communicate the concepts and methodologies

of mathematics to teach learning-disabled children when that teacher

has no training. That's demoralizing for the teacher. He feels

inadequate, and the child doesn't get proper training.

The reduction in the number of teachers available with the proper

skills necessitates an overall decrease in courses offered. Often these

courses are the ones in which the learning disabled student realizes

the most success. Learning-disabled children, we know, do well in

drama. They need reading labs. They enjoy music — that's helpful — and

resulted in significant increases in class size, both at elementary and

secondary levels.

MR. COCKE: I call quorum, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It has been brought to the Chair's attention that a quorum may or may not exist. Let me count and get it right.

Pursuant to our standing orders, I'll ring the division bells.

Quorum is satisfied, hon. members.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Chairman, this morning I heard the very

profound, ringing words of my colleague the hon. Minister of Health

(Hon. Mr. Nielsen), and by virtue of his statements I am moved to make

a few observations during this debate on the estimates of our good and

kindly Minister of Education.

As did the Minister of Health, I wish to refer my remarks very much

to the general public, to the parents, to the students within the

system, and certainly to the media, and I would like to make three

points.

The first one is whether the grid system is the best, most effective

process of determining teachers' or principals' salaries. Some people

feel that this system is perhaps a throwback to or a continuation of

the system that was brought in during the rather dark days of the

Depression in our country in the thirties. The grid system pay levels,

as you well know, Mr. Chairman, and pay increases under the grid

[ Page 5690 ]

system, which are also subject to the arbitrative

process, are very much dependent on the scholastic achievement of the

teacher and years in service, both for levels of pay and for automatic

increases — more for an MA than a BA, more for a PhD than an MA, and so

forth and so on.

But the question I think does have to be asked: is a person

necessarily a better teacher of students because he or she is a

higher-level academic? Certainly some are, but I would venture to say,

Mr. Chairman, certainly some are not. An effective response to that

question cannot come from a politician; it has to come from the

teachers themselves, and, I'd say, more importantly from the students

and perhaps their parents. Where do most of these higher-ups in that

particular kind of a scale end? Usually and regretfully, out of the

active teaching capacity into some form of administration. I think you

just have to ask the students and the parents what they want, and what

they want are the best teachers in the system teaching in the schools,

not being upgraded to administrative levels and deprived of their

capacity to further and better educate the youngsters in our province.

Working in a classroom, as a teacher said to me, is where the action

should be. He said: "There are too many chiefs. There are too many

admirals, vice-admirals and rear-admirals. There is too much fat at the

top." This, I think, is a lot of the difficulty with our educational

system, not only in the province of British Columbia but throughout our

country.

The second point I would like to mention, Mr. Chairman, is about

some thought being given to providing some incentive, some type of

increased support, something extra for those teachers who are really

doing the job, a recognition for merit. The students can identify these

people; the teachers in the school system can identify them; the

parents can identify them. I'm talking about all of those teachers, who

indeed are the majority of teachers in our province — and I'm sure the

majority of the teachers in our country — who do not fall into the

category as being defined as "3:30 drop-outs." That's how the students

describe those other teachers. But it's always the same pay, the same

consideration, without recognition of merit, of merit pay or of merit

benefit. I say that there is ample need at this point in time in our

history to give more full consideration to that concept.

A teacher achiever, Mr. Chairman, is a person who in my view should

be more specifically recognized instead of just lumped in with the

rest, or, indeed, with those the pupils know might well fit within the

lowest common denominator.

I have a third point, and the last one that I will be developing,

Mr. Chairman. The newspapers say — and I suppose if the newspapers say

so, there is no doubt that there is an overwhelming presumption that

what they're stating is correct — that the B.C. Teachers' Federation

have launched or will be launching a court action claiming a right

under

section 15 of the charter, the equality provisions under the

Canadian constitution, to bargain not only for money but to bargain for

conditions of employment, class size, working conditions, hiring

practices, etc.

I just wonder, Mr. Chairman, whether or not in that lawsuit, or perhaps in

another lawsuit,

section 2(

d) of the charter might be given some consideration

by the court as well.

Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

reads as follows: "Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms,"

and (

d) is: "freedom of association." I'm just wondering whether

that issue will be considered as well, because it is my information — I may

be incorrect, and if I am, I certainly hope that I will be so advised — that

a teacher cannot teach in a B.C. public school unless he or she is a member

of, and pays dues on a check-off basis to, the B.C. Teachers' Federation.

This freedom of association issue and membership in an organization

of employees being required or mandatory in order to work has been

considered in other jurisdictions with findings to the contrary.

Whether that conclusion would be a provident or an improvident

conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I will leave to others with sagacity beyond

mine to determine. But I would volunteer the observation that it will

be very interesting to see if that issue of freedom of association

under

section 2(

d) of the charter will or will not be raised in our

courts by any people, be they teachers or trustees or interested

parents who may be inclined to do so.

[3:15]

MR. HANSON: After listening to the Minister of

Intergovernmental Relations, one would think that B.C. was paying its

fair share into education. On a Canadian average, the numbers indicate

that it certainly is not. The Canadian average is 5 percent of the

gross provincial product invested in education. In British Columbia

it's 3.5 percent. School board services have been cut by up to 26

percent over the last three years. College instruction services, under

this same minister, will be cut 43 percent in 1988-89 over 1982, if

inflation averages 5 percent over this period.

Here is a statistic that that minister certainly refuses to

acknowledge: fewer young British Columbians go on to higher education

than in any other province in Canada. How do you like them apples?

HON. MR. GARDOM: It's children.

MR. HANSON: That's right: it's children. Your government puts

less money into post-secondary education, in terms of access and

availability, than any other government. That's a shameful record.

Interjection.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

MR. HANSON: Maybe we should cut it further, says the member

for Omineca (Mr. Kempf), recently promoted to principal secretary to a

cabinet minister.

British Columbians qualifying for maximum student assistance will

owe $22,000 on graduation with a bachelor's degree if they have to

borrow money. In Ontario $5,000 would be the debt. We have the poorest

loan and grant system in the country. Here we are in this province,

richly endowed with wood, minerals and other precious resources, yet we

have the poorest system of anywhere in this country for providing

grants, bursaries and loans to students.

Our party has a plan. It's a school reconstruction plan. Here are

some of the things that we feel should be done. For the 1985-86 school

year, programs should be funded at their 1984 level plus inflation. We

should assess the damage caused by Social Credit's abandonment of

"equal educational opportunity" and develop an orderly program of

mitigating the worst effects of the current government's policy.

We should publish a new school act and refer it to a select standing

committee of this House, with the mandate to tour the province and

consult British Columbians about education governance.

[ Page 5691 ]

This government stripped away authority from local trustees, locally

elected people. They don't believe that they can handle the job. Well,

we believe they can. We believe they are closest to the situation, and

that they know their local needs best.

We should develop a funding mechanism that reflects a commitment to

equal educational opportunity for all children in British Columbia,

which means equal access to educational services; local participation

and autonomy where, within a framework of provincial goals, boards of

school trustees have the right to set budgets that reflect locally

determined educational needs; that the tax burden be based on ability

to pay; that the New Democratic Party accepts the report of the McMath

commission, which recommended that 75 percent of operating and capital

costs should be funded from general provincial tax sources and 25

percent from local tax sources.

We also have a plan to reconstruct our community college system.

It's at the community college level where we have the closest link

between educational and career and vocational and job-related training.

If we're going to have something at the end of the school system for

our young people, other than welfare, or sweeping up around the

computer, or working at McDonald's, or selling hotdogs at Expo.... If

we want people to have meaningful, positive employment possibilities

that excite their imagination, that strive for academic and

intellectual excellence, or give all citizens a chance to achieve what

they wish to achieve, educationally and vocationally, then we must

provide and properly fund our community colleges. Community colleges

are the central part of our post-secondary education system.

The NDP proposes a four-part plan to revitalize our college system.

One is to fund colleges at the 1984 level, plus inflation. In other

words, no cutbacks and no rollbacks. Make education a top priority,

which it should be. If we say people matter most, then we mean it.

We'll fund our children because — and I've said it before in this House

— there's one thing all citizens of this province, no matter what their

political persuasion, no matter what party they vote for on election

day....There's one thing that crosscuts all those individuals: they

want their children to have a quality education and a fair chance at

the future. Most people want their children to have a better education

than they've experienced themselves. I think all members recognize

that. Yet this government continues to deny proper funding for

education.

Put the "community" back into community colleges by restructuring

college boards so that the majority of board members are elected by the

voters in the communities served, not appointed by the minister in

terms of whether they'll have their chain yanked and be quiet little

dogs when required.

Restore to the community college boards the authority to set budgets

and deliver a comprehensive range of university transfer, training and

continuing education programs. College costs should be met in the same

way as school costs. We don't believe that education should be funded

on the basis of the value of real estate in the region. We believe that

the quality of education should be determined and paid for out of

general revenue to the largest extent possible, so that if people are

living in Kamloops, Cranbrook, Valemount or wherever, their children

get the best possible education available. So we believe that you want

to put local community people back in the driver's seat in terms of

being responsive to local needs.

We also believe in a universities reconstruction plan. Social Credit

is increasingly involved in university budget allocation, and we've

seen the exodus of academic talent that we should be benefiting from

here in our province. Now we see them leaving for jurisdictions that

appreciate them and recognize the value, not only educationally and

culturally but also economically, of their presence. Sometimes one

world class academic can make an innovation or generate some kind of

research which will create employment and generate all kinds of

economic activity. We're losing that. We're very rapidly becoming a

substandard academic jurisdiction. As I said, our children have the

poorest chance of going to university of any in Canada.

As a first step the government should make four commitments:

(1) that funding be available to the Universities Council to maintain

services at 1984 levels; (2) that federal funds received under the

established programs financing arrangements and earmarked for education

— and this is the most shameful thing, that the government has taken

federal money coming in earmarked for education and deflected it away

from the universities — be used for that purpose; (4) that the 7.5

percent increase in federal government funding....

AN HON. MEMBER: You've got the wrong ministry.

MR. HANSON: Fine, I recognize that, but we believe that

education is a lifelong process and that it must really be looked at

from K to postdoctoral degrees — which are in abundance on that side of

the House, I have been made aware by recent articles and surveys. But

if the House doesn't want me to refer to universities under this

estimate, I realize the Universities estimates will be coming before us

in the near future. So we'll discuss it at that point.

But let me just reiterate that we believe that education is a

lifelong process. Access in and out for skill upgrading and retraining

is impaired by this government because of their narrow, bottom-line

focus that does not appreciate that a dollar spent in education will

come back as an investment in a citizen who understands and values

British Columbia, understands and values academic enterprise and

academic excellence, and benefits all citizens. Unfortunately, all of

these messages fall on deaf ears. This government fails to recognize

that. We're going to have to pick up the pieces after the next

election. Our priority and our emphasis will be to give quality

education opportunities for the citizens of this province, no matter

what their aspirations, no matter where they are situated in the

province. We regard their ability to learn as an asset and an

investment in the future.

MR. MITCHELL: I was hoping that the minister would get up and answer some of the questions I put to him earlier.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: As I recall, the questions raised by the

member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew were about the levels of service. It

seems to me he was making reference to librarians. Under the service

levels, which I'm sure he must have a copy of, you will see that in

each case for both elementary and secondary the funding which is made

available is one librarian for each 400 students.

Another thing. The member has kept referring to moving goalposts. My

comment on that is short. In 1983 we presented to all school boards a

framework, a set of service levels, and budgets for three years. The

only moving goalpost that occurred was the result of increasing the

amount of

[ Page 5692 ]

funding by approximately.... I think it was around

$35 million. That came about because of the discussions which we have

had with school boards, MLAs, officials — superintendents,

secretary-treasurers. The improvement of the system, which obviously on

being introduced a first time is going to contain some problems.... It

was not perfect. But I just know this: I have yet to find anybody

telling me that it was not a significant improvement over the method of

funding which had occurred in the past.

I think it would be fair to say that school trustees for the first

time really have — other than those who have been on boards for a

number of years.... But let me refer to recently elected trustees — and

you know there's often quite a change. They have seen exactly how

funding is allocated to their school district and the reasons for it

and how it is applied. Better still, it gave to trustees an opportunity

to be accountable. There's nothing wrong with that.

[3:30]

The last speaker on the opposition side, the first member for

Victoria (Mr. Hanson), made a comment about an investment in the

future. He and I agree on that comment about an investment in the

future. But it seems to me that a public institution, no matter how

large, is really no different than any other type of institution,

public or private. They're all providing a service. During some

difficult times, we have all had, and taken advantage of, an

opportunity to streamline the system and to determine whether or not

there's a better method of delivery — and also to check the costs.

I can go back to first principles. We all remember what was

happening with the residential taxpayer in 1981-82. We knew what was

coming down the pipe with respect to a potential property-tax revolt.

Then it was seriously compounded. It was compounded in the area of

non-residential — that is, commercial and industrial — taxation. The

drift was moving in a certain way. We had to check that drift,

otherwise all elected members — I don't care what party they come from

— would never be able to resist what the people were telling them. That

is, we just can't afford to continue to pay what is being asked of us.

It seems to me that the responsible thing to do was to inject into

public education a method of funding which now has general acceptance.

The comments made to me were: "Well, look now. We're 90 percent of the

way. Can we get the next 10 percent?"

With respect to the Sooke School District, the number of teachers in

1984 — and I think I made reference to these numbers this morning — was

398.7. The funding which we provide will accommodate 397.5. In other

words, there is a differential of one teacher. The question then comes:

how are the funds allocated by the boards? That's their responsibility,

not government's. If they wish to have by design a particular class

which has 30 or 32 students in it, or more, that's up to them.

You know, I went into two schools last fall. It was, I believe, in

the month of October. I learned a great deal. One was a junior

secondary school, grades 8 to 12, about 540 students. The other was

close by; it was an elementary school, kindergarten to 7. It was one of

the best weeks I spent in the ministry, The playgrounds were fine. They

were busy as can be before school started, at lunchtime, during the

physical education classes and after school. I don't recall seeing the

potholes that the first member for Victoria (Mr. Hanson) was referring

to. I was running around on the playing fields with the kids as well.

But I also learned something else, because I was as concerned as

everybody was with respect to the allegation on class sizes. So I asked

for a copy of the timetable. Now that's the most revealing document you

will ever find when you go into a school, because what the timetable

contained was the list of all of the teachers down one side, then the

blocks that the teachers were responsible for. Contained within the

block was the actual subject description, whether it was social

students in each one of those blocks.

The reason I was concerned about it is that I'd been hearing some of

these stories about large class sizes. But when you looked at the

average, then you found out why I find in elementary the average may be

23 or 24 and in secondary it could be the same. They vary one or two

either way.

Now I didn't find, really, at either of those particular schools any

major problem. I talked for literally hour upon hour upon hour in the

staff rooms with teachers, and the only message I got from those

teachers was this: "We'd like you now to go to an inner-city school."

This morning I made reference to some of the problems. I thought it was

an excellent program — the second one I've seen on public television.

When they referred to the problems in inner-city schools, they said:

"Now look, Heinrich, this is fine, but you better get over there." Now

I haven't been yet, but I'm going.

When we talk about the problems with respect to unwanted

pregnancies, lack of parental interest, alcohol and drugs, and fear of

failure.... Those four items were the major concerns of the inner-city

school, and they're all our concerns. Some of the interesting things

which are being done in major areas, where I guess there are some

serious problems, if we look into the big cities in North America,

because that's exactly where most of the focus of the program was

going....

There was also the point about the cost of a particular type of

inner-city school which was set up — totally unrelated to the other

school but integrated, so that some of these kids who have problems

find that people do want them and care for them, and, after they regain

some confidence, get back into the public schools as we know them.

I'm only going to make one other comment, because I gather that the

member for Okanagan North (Mr. MacWilliam) wishes to speak, and no

doubt he is an expert in this area. The first member for Victoria made

a comment with respect to funding of post-secondary education. The

funding which has gone in over the years has been of extraordinary

significance. Yes, last year it was 31/2 percent down. This year they

expected 95 percent of the previous year's budget. They are all pleased

with the amount of money which was made available this year. I

mentioned that to the members of the House before.

As for electing college boards, I searched across this continent to

find out if this ever existed, and I can't find a junior college or any

form of college or institute in Canada where they are elected in the

manner which was advanced.

AN HON. MEMBER: Break new ground.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: No, I'm not going to break new ground, and

I'll tell you why. The other thing which the member mentions is this:

that they should have carte blanche authority with respect to funding.

The member, I think, made an error when he said that it's funded

through property

[ Page

5693 ]

taxation for colleges. Colleges are 100 percent funded by the two senior levels of government.

The reason the changes were made is that I believe that school

districts have enough to do now. Those who were sitting on school

boards before were either elected trustees, then placed on the board,

or the board would make an appointment and put on a college board. I

see what happened in the lower mainland. There are a number of liaison

committees set up between the schools and the colleges.

The cost of going to the colleges has not been that significant

really, when you look at constant dollars — '71 dollars — and compare

the tuition. The tuition which we have in British Columbia is not out

of whack with the rest of Canada in any of the post-secondary

institutions.

One comment in my concluding remarks: the member for Esquimalt-Port

Renfrew (Mr. Mitchell) was concerned about some of the problems in the

area of learning assistance. In special education alone, your school

district is the recipient of something like $2.66 million to look after

these particular problems. If you recall, we as a government kept the

special needs fund here and would allocate it so it would not become a

political football with respect to school boards. I think that's a

fairly significant amount of money.

Can I go back to the original point here? One, in the framework in

the funding level, 1 librarian for every 400 students, How the board

wishes to allocate those funds, how they wish to use them, is entirely

up to them.

MR. MITCHELL: As the minister said, the school system has a

lot of unfairness to it. I have to agree with him. I'd just like to

bring to his attention, and I think we all must realize, that when you

have communities throughout a semi rural area, and you have blocks of

residents and schools that have evolved and have grown within that

community, it's easy to say 1 in 400. If the communities are spread out

in such a manner that there isn't an opportunity to spread one-quarter

of a librarian from Sooke to Colwood, what actually happens is that the

students in that school district are not being properly taught.

Also, when you get down to the actual dollars, the minister throws

figures back and forth, but the Victoria area — and I take in Victoria,

Saanich and the Sooke School District....They are fairly relative. But

when you go through the per-pupil costs on the southern end of

Vancouver Island, if Sooke School District had gotten the same amount

of money that Saanich got, there would be another $498,000 that would

have come into the area — if they had gotten the same per pupil grant

in Saanich compared to Sooke. If they had the level of Victoria, there

would have been another $725,000 — roughly three-quarters of a million

dollars. If they had had the provincial average, there would be

$938,000 — nearly a million dollars. So there are different guidelines

or different ratios, and there are different problems.

[3:45]

The thing that the minister keeps on missing is that children in

that area are going without. It's easy to say that the government has

given grants for teachers, that there is only going to be call for a

layoff of one teacher, I take it. There is a difference. But, you know,

fifty-odd teachers have already been laid off since this restraint

program started; and there are 14 more, if my information is correct,

coming down in the next few days.

What I am trying to get through to the minister is that we have to look at

the districts and the students who are involved.

To say that Sooke School Board is maybe not handling their funds

properly.... I think that if you go back over many years, Sooke School

Board has run a very tight, economical school board. They were not one

of the high spenders. They kept it cut to the bone. What happened is

that when restraint came in there was no fat in Sooke School District

to adjust. This is one of the reasons why I think it shows up that

there has been a certain misrepresentation of the cutbacks and what

happened.

I was quite intrigued when the Minister of Intergovernmental

Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom) carried on the same type of attack as the

Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen), picking on the fact that maybe

teachers shouldn't be in their association. Well, as I said earlier,

every piece of legislation we have on the books that requires teachers

to have certain qualifications, to have certain standards and to be

members of certain organizations is on the books because this Social

Credit government demands it. So to try to run a red herring across the

educational estimates — that it's either the high cost of system

superintendents or the need for teachers to be in an association — has

nothing to do with a serious debate on education.

I don't want to go off into tirades either for the teachers or

against the teachers, or against the association, any more than I would

go after the legal association. I wouldn't attack the legal association

because they say lawyers have to be members of the bar. I have run

across a few people who would like to practise law, but because the Law

Society said they could not join their particular association, they are

not practising law — and some of them shouldn't be practising law

either. So you can't use that as an argument in an education debate.

The main issue we have to look at is the educational opportunities

of the future citizens who are going to be here when we are finished in

this Legislature and when some of us will be collecting our pensions.

We have to make sure that the students who come out of our system this

year and next year and every year are going to get the maximum

educational opportunity they need. This is the one thing I would like

to get through to the minister.

I've prepared all these notes, and I can't help but end.... Some of

the parents from Sooke School District came and asked me to ask the

minister a few questions. One of the things they mentioned was that

three years ago the parents' groups were raising money in the community

to send children down to the Legislature on educational junkets —

things that dealt with the culture — and they were happy to

participate. Last year the parents were out raising money for

computers. Well, a computer is not something that can be compared to

the cultural needs of the community. A computer is something that is

going to affect the lives of every one of us because of the need to

learn how to run a computer. The parents are not out raising money for

computers now. This year parents in Sooke School District are raising

money for reading kits for those who are in need of special assistance.

So there is deterioration of the standards. The minister says they

haven't moved the goal-posts, but they have moved the goal-posts in one

way or another, because the standards are going down, the teachers are

going down and the students are going down.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I couldn't help but think of a statement

that I had written down that the Minister of Education himself said

back in December 1984. He said: "Our schools have always been gateways

to opportunities." I say to

[ Page 5694 ]

the minister: let's keep that gateway open. Let's

keep those opportunities and that training for the children of all

areas, not only my riding but for children from all school districts.

Let's make sure our priorities are placed in the proper perspective.

Let's not take cheap shots at superintendents or at teachers or someone

else — should they belong to this association or not. Let's make sure

that whatever studies are made, they are made by competent people in

the educational academy.

I say that a lot of us, no matter how versatile we may have been in

our various occupations.... It is very important that education be

maintained. It's not something that we can jump into or make political

speeches on, but it is something that has to be given a lot of

consideration. There has to be a lot of thought given to it, and the

important part, that gateway, must be kept open because every child

should have that opportunity.

The House resumed; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Introduction of Bills

MEDICAL SERVICE AMENDMENT ACT, 1985

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

a bill intituled Medical Service Amendment Act, 1985.

Bill 50 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.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

(continued)

On vote 17: minister's office, $179,543.

MR. MICHAEL: I have listened to the debate in the assembly

here, and I've listened to the members from the opposition. Mr.

Chairman, you would almost think that the government over the past few

years had reduced the amount of money going into education. I'm sure

that if members opposite would do a study such as one I did in my area,

they would find that that is just not true. There is more money per

capita going into education today than there was four, five and six

years ago. I did some studies in School District 89, Shuswap, and I

found that between the years 1980 and 1984 the money being spent by the

district increased by 43.08 percent. During that same time, Mr.

Chairman, I checked with the Canadian consumer price index to do a

comparison, and I found that the consumer price index during that

period rose 37.6 percent. So during that four-year period School

District 89 actually enjoyed a net gain of dollars to spend of 5.48

percent, approximately 5.5 percent more real dollars than they had in

1980. In other words, the budget went up from $12.9 million to $18.587

million.

Mr. Chairman, in looking at those figures, the only thing that could

distort them, to give the school board or the education fraternity a

case, would be if school enrolment had gone up by 5.5 percentage points

or more. So I went back to the school board and asked some questions

about enrolment, and found that rather than going up between 1980 and

1984, in fact enrolment went down — from 5,670 students in December

1980 to 5,458 students in 1984. It was very simple then to do an

analysis of the average pupil cost in 1980 and compare that to 1984.

The average pupil cost in 1980 was $2,291; in 1984 it was $3,405. The

interesting figure here is that the average pupil cost — the amount of

money that the board spent on pupils — had gone up 48.64 percent in

relation to that cost of living figure of 37.6 percent. So on a

per-pupil basis, with the enrolment going down and fewer teachers

needed, the school board had a net gain during that four-year period of

slightly over 11 full percentage points in relation to the cost of

living.

I listen to the debate of members opposite and look at these

figures, and I don't really believe what I'm hearing. I'm confident

that if members opposite would go to their school boards and ask

questions — go back three years, four years, five years and pick any

number they want, do some statistical analysis, gather the facts — they

would find that their school board figures are similar to what has

occurred in my area of Shuswap.

Another interesting point: in looking at the hue and cry about the number of

classes in British Columbia that have in excess of 30, 31, 32, 33 students per

class..... I did an analysis of that and it's very interesting: the vast

majority of classes with more than 30 students are from the music and recreation

area. But we don't hear that mentioned very often in debate. We should perhaps

look at the point mentioned by the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew (Mr. Mitchell).

He talked about fewer people working and laying people off. If there are less

students, there should be less teachers. It's logical that we should be

reducing the number of teachers, and it's the policy of this government.

[4:00]

It was well known by the electorate in the last election that it was

the intention of this government to reduce the number of people in the

public sector, but the members opposite refuse to look at the facts:

that despite the reduction of people in the public sector over the last

year and a half or so, there were more people working in December '84

than in December '83. There were 20,000 more people working in British

Columbia than in the previous year. If you look at the statistics for

February 1984 to February 1985, there were 29,000 more people working

in British Columbia than 12 months earlier. An interesting statistic

that I received just a few days ago is that as of the end of March

1985, 40,000 more people are working in British Columbia than were at

the end of March 1984. But you don't want to talk about those. You

don't want to talk about the amount of people entering the workforce in

this province, migrating from other provinces. You never mention that.

You ignore those statistics. You ignore the fact that there are more

spouses entering the workforce than ever before in British Columbia.

Look at the bottom line: 40,000 more people working at the end of March

than there were the year before.

I think we treat our teachers fairly well. I know there's quite a

lobby going on throughout the province. We all know — those who read

the papers — that there's going to be a very strong lobby over the next

year. The Teachers' Federation has budgeted millions of dollars to

lobby people throughout British Columbia and try to make this

government look bad. But I think we treat our teachers fairly well. As

a matter of

[ Page

5695 ]

fact, in looking at the average teacher's wage in

my school district, I don't feel ashamed of the meagre wages we pay our

teachers. If you take the average wages, benefits and pensions all

together, in my school district they receive $42,050 a year. I don't

think that's all that cruel.

I think the pension fund is very generous indeed. This government

put in excess of $104 million into the teachers' pension fund in the

last fiscal year. I think that's fair and very generous. That's an

average of $3,700 a year. If you look at the indexing of the pensions,

the benefits and the wages, I think we treat our teachers fairly. I

think the vast majority of the teachers feel and think that we treat

them fairly. It's the politically motivated few, mainly the leaders of

the B.C. Teachers' Federation, who are making all the noise. But in

talking to the average teacher in the street, I think they're very

happy. I think they're very happy with the Minister of Education. I

think they're very happy with this government, and I think they will

continue to be happy.

We know there are going to be some reductions. Let me tell you, Mr.

Chairman, there have been reductions throughout the private sector in

any area you look at. Go talk to the pulp mills. Go talk to the IWA.

Talk to the sawmills in the area. They've had tremendous reductions in

their workforce. Technology, automation and things like that are

happening throughout the province of British Columbia and, indeed,

throughout the world.

I think the Minister of Education has done a very good job. I think

the fiscal framework.... Perhaps it could use a few more alterations. I

know he's made over 20 up to now; he may be making more in the future.

But by and large I think that the system is good. I think that he can

stand up and protect and encourage further development of that fiscal

framework, because I think he's on the right track. It's certainly a

far cry from what it was a few years ago, as far as the management and

administration of school and education funds go.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I'm the debate leader here. I know you run

everything else in the province in education, but as far as being the

debate leader here, I'm the debate leader.

I'm certainly glad that the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr.

Michael) is supportive of the Minister of Education; I'm glad someone

is.

I was quite taken with his little talk until he said how satisfied

and happy all the teachers were. Then he blew it. He was just gone. The

fair-haired boy of the Shuswap....

MR. LAUK: White-haired.

MR. ROSE: Yes, the white-haired boy.

I happen to have a copy of the member's facts that he put out in his

newsletter. I have no doubt that in most cases he's factual.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, I don't have the thing before me, but if you like I'll get it in a little while, as long as the minister doesn't object.

I think the important thing, Mr. Chairman....

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: One at a time, please.

MR. ROSE: I'm about to defer to the second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk).

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The answer is no. Please proceed.

MR. ROSE: He's trying to get on the record. With his record, he doesn't need to add to it.

I've no doubt that the member is factual in most cases. I'm not

particularly concerned about his facts but about what he's really

trying to imply from those facts. I think the member's objectives are

as obvious as his assumptions. I think his newsletter was largely

propaganda, designed to protect the minister and to leave the

impression with the voters that these things were happening —

especially with those voters without children, who constitute something

like 62 percent, I'm told, of the voters. It says that school budgets

were out of control, that school costs exceed inflation — therefore

teachers are greedy — and that the pupil-teacher ratio hikes talked

about by some of the parent groups and coalitions that appear here as

so-called lobby groups.... By the way, those lobby groups really are

following the democratic process. They come unarmed, except with facts

and their own concerns. So they're taking

part in a democratic process

to change the minister's mind and the government's policies.

Incidentally, I saw a little newsletter that recently came out

talking about the government's policies, but I've lost it again. I

don't really know what those policies are. I've never heard a statement

of policy, except to cut costs.

"Education costs too much in B.C." And, finally, the fifth one: "The

BCTF is a fat, overstuffed, left-wing organization, and teachers' salary

demands would be less if their union dues were more modest." I'd like

to deal with each of these in turn.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, the minister is asking me about my

rather extensive notes here. He asked me from which set of papers I'm

reading. I am a poor unarmed person here. I don't have a coterie, a

troika of experts behind me. One of yours was obviously imported from

the Mafia — the hit-man in the dark glasses over there.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. That is unparliamentary.

MR. ROSE: I apologize.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, please proceed. To the estimates of the Minister of Education.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, in my own defence I must say that my

original statements here were.... I had to go through a great deal of

across-the-floor heckling back and forth even to get into my basic

remarks. So I don't really feel that I have been the most offensive in

terms of being out of line or out of order. I say that in all due

respect, in my own defence.

[ Page 5696 ]

The member fails to remind the people of Salmon Arm and other places

in that riding that school budgets were set by arbitration according to

the laws of the land. That's why they are what they are between 1980

and 1984 — not because of excessive or greedy demands by a particular

group of individuals, whether they be CUPE workers or teachers. They

were set.

As far as those boards were concerned, they had to accept those

arbitrated awards as legally binding and entirely beyond their control.

So don't give the impression to the voters up there that these awards

were somehow as a result of school boards who, as the Minister of

Universities (Hon. Mr. McGeer) claimed, were spending money in 1980-84

like drunken sailors — and those were his words — and that that is the

reason that people such as the minister now have to come in and hammer

the boards down to a point where they can become more compliant.

The pupil cost in Salmon Arm is $3,405.62. The B.C. average is

$3,346. So what is Salmon Arm's school cost? The average for British

Columbia. They were so average, as a matter of fact, that they neither

lost nor won in the minister's new budget allocations, as a result of

their fiscal framework. They didn't get an increase in their budget,

nor did they lose anything. That's how average Salmon Arm is.

How would the voters like to compare the cost with Edmonton, at

$3,688, or Toronto at $4,340 per pupil cost? I don't think the citizens

of Shuswap are that badly done by.

Now the member talks about school costs that may have exceeded

inflation in 1980-84. Housing costs did too. So did property values.

Even so, those school costs were not controlled by either the teachers

or the boards but by independent arbitrators.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Independent arbitrators, hired by the teachers and the school boards. That's what happened.

Inflation provincially so far in the last six years has exceeded

decline in enrolment — far exceeded it. The inflation rate has been an

average of 9 percent per year in terms of school board budgets, and the

decline in enrolment hasn't been much over 3 percent per year. So when

you cut the school budgets by 20 percent when the enrolment has only

declined 10 percent, you can't just blame it on decline in enrolment.

There's some other factor working there as well.

Anyway, the teachers' average salary is about $36,000 a year. When

you're talking about the average salary of an MLA or anybody else you

don't count fringes. The average salary for a family of four in '83 —

not '85 — was $36,000 a year. So the average teacher in British

Columbia makes an average salary. I'm not saying it's not a good

salary, but they are, after all, professionals with up to six years of

education, and they aren't — in terms of "average" — average in terms

of their education or their investment in that education, which I think

should be respected, not demeaned by the kind of scapegoating that

they've been getting over the last two or three years.

They're going to go higher, too, those average salaries. You know

why? Because the less expensive teachers at the bottom of the teachers'

salary scale will be terminated. I've got a list of where they're going

to be terminated all over the province. So when your lower-paid

teachers are terminated and your higher-paid teachers are left on the

staff, then naturally the average salary is going to increase, not

decrease. That has some profound implications for school budgets,

especially when tied to increments. I'm not saying they're all at the

maximum, but a good number of them will be. But the others will be

getting increments, so that will play on the total budget, regardless

of what Mr. Curtis has to say.

Rural areas are not necessarily going to have higher PTRs. Sometimes

they don't have enough in a particular area, without busing miles and

miles, to fill those classes — again with declining enrolments. The

question is: how many split classes are there there? I'm told that in

the elementary school there are at least 500 Shuswap children in

classes of over 30 in number. That's elementary school, exceeding the

guidelines — over 500 children.

The member in his letter to his constituents didn't mention that the

local PTR is about right on — 16.9 — compared with Alberta and

Saskatchewan. But I don't think that that indicates that the board is

squandering its resources, because if it's a rural board it has some

special circumstances to contend with.

[4:15]

I think saying that the costs of education are too high in B.C. is

deliberately misleading. I think the member tried to tell the people of

Shuswap that the cuts had been fair and equitable. That's what the

minister is trying to say too. What we're saying is that compared to

other provinces with equal resources, we're not giving education a high

priority. We can't compare ourselves to a Third World country. We're

not comparing ourselves with Turkey or some place like that on

education costs.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, I think we can do that quite favourably.

Their budget for education went up 30 percent two years ago. If you

want to talk about Manitoba some time, we'll devote a whole day to it.

The provincial average is exactly what you saw it gets. Despite

that, they've had to make substantial cuts. They've neither received

extra funding nor have they been cut. But what has cut them is about 13

percent inflation in terms of real dollars over the last three or four

years. What does that mean? It means that 25 teachers have been

terminated, and 35 aides and 28 special workers have lost their jobs.

The other matter is the assertion that somehow the BCTF is

overstuffed, fat and requires too many union dues. After all, BCTF

membership is required by the provincial government. It's part of the

school law that every member of the teaching profession in British

Columbia belong to the BCTF As a matter of fact, the BCTF might be

described as a creature of the provincial government.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Somebody said: "We're going to fix that." Well, we'll see if you're going to fix that. That would be fine.

Anyway, I think it's important to keep up the fight for quality

education, Mr. Chairman. I don't think that it's good enough to just

say that it's not popular, or that certain teachers are not popular, so

therefore we shouldn't be entering this debate. Nor do I think it's

fair to say that there's some great conspiracy out there, as the member

for Richmond (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) said this morning. I don't think we can

stand idly by and have trustees browbeaten, teachers scapegoated and our

[ Page 5697 ]

kids chiselled. What are you trying to do — discredit education in order to privatize it? What are you after? I don't know.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: No, I wouldn't say that about the minister. He's originally from Mission.

I could give some other information, but the member for Okanagan

North (Mr. MacWilliam) would like to get up. I didn't want to let the

member for Revelstoke-Shuswap (Mr. Michael) go without letting him know

that other people read his propaganda too, and that there are

possibilities of sound rebuttal to some of his assertions. That doesn't

make him wrong and me right. It's a matter of opinion — where your

priorities lie and where you think our government dollars should be

directed.

Let me end with a quote by Eric Downton, who is a freelance writer

specializing in international issues. This is from the Vancouver Sun for April 12, 1985: "To See Ourselves as Our Partners See Us." That word "partner" is a good one — I like that.

MR. LAUK: That's history, not Eric Downton.

MR. ROSE: Well, I think it's Eric Downton who writes this.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: No, but you haven't got the proper accent for

Burns. You are bastardizing and distorting Robbie Burns. Just because

you are Chairman doesn't permit you to get away with that. Withdraw!

Mr. Chairman, let me quote from this article:

"Do Premier Bill Bennett and his cabinet in Victoria

really understand the nature of the challenge they face, on the

threshold of the twenty-first century, around the Pacific Rim? In

various forms, that question has been encountered by several travelers

from Vancouver on recent visits to the 'economic miracle' states of

East and South-East Asia — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and

Singapore.

"Doubts and puzzlements arise, particularly from what

is seen by politicians, bureaucrats and academics from those countries

as the B.C. Social Credit government's negative, even regressive,

attitude toward education. The travelers were surprised by how much

seemed to be known about the problems and discontent in this province's

schools and universities."

Then they go on and talk about how education is considered a sacred

trust in some of these countries. Phenomenal technological, industrial

and economic success is ascribed largely to two factors: the high

priority given the education system, and — I quote here to be fair —

"the intensively competitive examination procedures and the assiduous

applications of the fruits of that policy to a nation's practical

affairs."

It closes by saying that "education is a holy word in that most

remarkable city-states, Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew, the man mostly

responsible for the island's progress, who has been Prime Minister for

the entire 26 years...regards educational improvement as crucial for

the tiny republic's future."

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

MR. MacWILLIAM: I'm not about to make a speech, but the

member for Shuswap-Revelstoke made some remarks that I do think bear

taking issue with. I would like to dispense with those and then

hopefully, without getting into repetition, bring out a few of my

concerns in terms of where education is heading today, and the local

concerns, certainly in the North Okanagan area with respect to School

Districts 10 and 22, and of course Okanagan College, which is also part

of my constituency.

I did find it rather interesting that earlier today one of the

members spoke, and now the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke has spoken at

great length targeting out a specific group in our provincial

community, seemingly taking direct aim at that group, and attacking

that group in no uncertain terms. I find this concerted effort to

discredit these individuals rather unsettling. When we entered this

chamber earlier in the year, we entered with a spirit of cooperation

and consultation in mind. It disappoints me to see that certain members

on the other side are forgetting about that feeling in the House and

the feeling that should be developing throughout the community of

British Columbia.

The people of British Columbia have grown very tired of this

constant batting around the ears, of being kicked in the shins time and

time and time again. They're tired of it. Yet the member for

Shuswap-Revelstoke takes direct aim at the teachers again and makes a

target out of them. I really believe that what I'm seeing is the

establishment of an agenda that will lead to a pre-election target,

using a specific group in our society as a scapegoat. I want to point

out to the member, Mr. Chairman, that over 80 percent of the people

polled in British Columbia are tired of this confrontational nature

that has been a fact of life with this government. They're tired of

being kicked around. They're looking for a spirit of cooperation, and

the member certainly has not displayed it. It's rather disappointing.

Some statements to the Minister of Education made reference to the

fact that I would like to speak on the subject because I'm an expert on

it. Well, it's true, Mr. Chairman; I have been involved in the

education field. I don't consider myself an expert. I don't think any

of us are experts in any field. We're all students in this game of

life. When we start to think of ourselves as experts, I think we take a

fool's path. We're certainly all students in the game, and all learning

along with one another. But I have spent a number of years in the

system, and I feel I have some valid concerns of a firsthand nature as

to what has happened in education throughout British Columbia in the

past few years. After all, one of the reasons I'm standing here today

is because of my very deep concern with the directions taken over the

past few years. I've watched education in this province be continually

compromised as this government has set its sights on other priorities.

The pie is only so big. I've watched education continually take a back

seat, to the point where we're compromising the educational and

professional futures of the children, the young people of this province.

The minister earlier made remarks in regard to the accountability of

school boards, challenging them to be more accountable. My question to

the minister is a very simple one. It's very difficult for the school

boards to be accountable when virtually all of their decision-making

powers have been stripped from them; their autonomy has been stripped

away.

[ Page 5698 ]

Yet

you're asking the school boards throughout British Columbia to make

decisions when they don't have the power to implement those decisions.

So in many ways it's a rhetorical question.

I sympathize with the minister. He has an extremely hard task in

dotting the i's and crossing the t's in terms of balancing the

educational budget in this province. The task has been made even more

difficult because of the misdirected priorities that this government

has had in terms of continually squeezing the education budget as it

funnels money into other projects — into the megaproject economy that

this province has revolved around for some time. The pie is only so big.

Interjection.

MR. MacWILLIAM: It's quite all right, Mr. Chairman. I can remember when I had my first beer.

The minister had earlier made remarks in terms of class size; that

he'd been to many schools and found that the class size was not

unacceptably affected. I want to tell the minister a personal

experience of mine. I was in charge of biology 11 and 12 classes and

science 10 classes earlier this year, before I entered the House. My

class size was extremely large. In one class I had 47 children in a

class which could comfortably seat only 30. They were sitting on the

lab benches to the sides. There was no room for them to work. They were

on the floor; there were no chairs.

You rightfully made the comment that there are blips: there are some

classes that are frightfully overloaded, and there are some classes

that are underloaded. I don't disagree with that statement. But I think

one of the reasons for that is the continual squeeze on the education

budget; and in order to accommodate students in a tighter curriculum,

with less flexibility available, we're getting into that problem.

That was a personal experience that I had: 47 children in a science

lab, where really 30 should be the maximum. There was no way I could

teach that class. We did manage to level things out somewhat. But I

want to tell the minister this: for a month and a half I found that the

education of those students was being severely compromised; I simply

could not teach them properly. You cannot personally meet the demands

of every student in that environment, when you've got 47 kids in your

class.

As I said, what has happened in a lot of ways is that we have

restructured the curriculum somewhat. We have lost, in terms of the

pupil-teacher ratio. We have been squeezing more and more students into

the academic courses, and those courses are being pressed to the limit.

There are other courses that are underloaded. I think the

administration made very good efforts to level things out. But even

after they were levelled out, Mr. Minister, those class loads were

still unacceptably high. I had an overall class average of around 200

students over...I think it was seven classes. If you want to do the

arithmetic, that's a pretty high class size. That's a direct

experience, and I just wanted to bring it to your attention. Those are

very unacceptable limits in an academic course, in the science

discipline.

The minister made the statement that there are blips, but on the

average things don't look too bad. Well, that's kind of like the guy

that's got one foot in boiling water and the other in freezing water,

but on the average he's not too badly off.

[4:30]

AN HON. MEMBER: We heard that two days ago.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I don't know if it was mentioned a couple of days ago, but I thought I would bring it up.

Just to reiterate some facts that I consider salient in the

discussion.... The member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. Michael)

mentioned a number of other facts. We can play the numbers game all we

want. But the real issue here is that the quality of education — and I

do speak from personal experience — is unquestionably being compromised

as a result of the funding squeezes. The morality of the individuals I

worked with in the profession is very low. They are very tired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Morale!

MR. MacWILLIAM: I'm sorry. Thank you. Oh boy, that was.... If I may withdraw that remark and rephrase it as, 'morale."

HON. MR. HEINRICH: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I think

if it is possible to have those comments struck from the record, I

would agree with that, because it is putting a professional man in a

very difficult position. If possible, I think it should occur.

MR. MacWILLIAM: As I was saying, the morale of individuals

working in the profession is at a very low ebb, and that doesn't augur

well for the quality of education delivered. A person can't do a good

job when he's feeling all the time that he's been kicked around.

I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but I'll mention it again.

British Columbia has among the lowest expenditures in education

throughout Canada. Relative to personal income, B.C. spends less on

education than any other province; B.C.is the lowest spender for

post-secondary education, along with P.E.I. B.C. has the lowest

participation rate in post-secondary education in the country,

excepting Newfoundland.

Interjection.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Those are the figures that I have available. You may wish to rebut them.

In terms of post-secondary students in the interior, the study has

shown that the chance of those students getting an education, compared

to a student, for example, at a college or university down here at the

coast, is significantly less — about 40 percent less. It's difficult

for them to get access. I think what's happening with the cutbacks,

which I'll be mentioning, in terms of Okanagan College is that that

situation has been made even worse. We are denying the students in the

interior the opportunity to receive a decent postsecondary education.

MR. CHAIRMAN: One minute, Mr. Member.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Oh, that's right, I have a shorter time. I'm new at this game, so I do make a few mistakes. Thank you.

The member for Shuswap-Revelstoke had earlier mentioned — and this

is where figures become so confusing — that we are spending more and

more on education. But when you look at the budget allocations from

1982 through to 1985-86, the fact is that when you consider an average

5 percent inflation, we've dropped about 23 percent from

[ Page 5699 ]

where we were in 1982. Those figures may have

changed slightly from when I researched them, but I think they are

probably fairly close. We are squeezing down on the whole education

system, and the effects are undoubtedly being felt throughout the

province.

I will defer now to my colleague, and I will have a few more points to make in a minute.

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is a point, I believe.... You're sitting,

are you, and your colleague is rising in his place? It's not a

deferral? The member for Coquitlam-Port Moody.

MR. ROSE: It's difficult for the Chairman to understand when

the hon. member is sitting down, and it's hard for people to understand

when I'm standing up. But do I have the floor now?

MR. CHAIRMAN: If the member understands he is standing up, he does have the floor. The member for Coquitlam-Port Moody.

MR. ROSE: I hope, Mr. Chairman, that people in the galleries

don't feel that we're trivializing this whole debate. It's not that we

are not serious; it's just that we have been locked into this kind of

deadly embrace for some time now — not too long now; this is only the

third short session. I guess you can't stay mad all the time. As Sydney

Smith once said in the seventeenth century when he had nothing better

to do: "Do not think me foolish because I am facetious, and I'll not

think you are wise because you are grave." I think maybe we can have a

more pleasant kind of debate this way.

It's not that we don't hold our views dearly, but I wouldn't want

anybody to think that we didn't care about this, because most of us

care deeply. The debate is really a matter of philosophy, of how one

envisions a school system and what kind of services we expect from a

school system in a democratic country.

I was going to make a few comments about class size while my

colleague got his notes together. I have some information here, and I

think it is important to go over the class sizes according to the BCTF.

Their recommendations of class sizes are as follows. I think it is

important, though, that the minister agree that his class size

projections in terms of his PTR are pretty well square with the BCTF's,

and maybe sometimes even smaller in terms of numbers.

I think it is also important to remember that while there is, I

suppose, not uncontroversial evidence that in all cases children in

smaller classes learn better, I think that anybody who has ever done

any teaching knows that to give special attention to individuals is

certainly much easier to do in small classes, as is individualized

assistance of various kinds.

So I think it is an important concept that is sometimes glossed

science and math and some of the others with up to 500 students. I

think there are times when you can do that. I'm not sure you can do

that down in the primary system as effectively. I think the idea would

be to group as many children together as possible and work with many

groups — to individualize, with the teachers addressing themselves to

the particular needs of the children.

But anyway, here's the regular elementary and secondary class sizes

and the percentage of classes in violation in September 1984. But I

promised — I got sidetracked — to at least give the listener and also

the Hansard reporter an

opportunity to know what these class sizes are. For kindergarten,

they're 20; primary — that's grades 1, 2 and 3 — 25; intermediate —

that's 4, 5, 6 and 7 — 30; secondary — 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 — 30; K1, K

and grade one split classes, 15; primary split classes — that is, more

than one grade in one class — 20; and intermediate split, 25.

According to the information that I have — and I should give my

source: the January 1984 Metro Education Association publication — the

Burnaby elementary system has 47 percent of its classes over the

maximum. Just going down the list in elementary: Coquitlam, 44 percent;

Delta, 38 percent; Langley, 55 percent; Maple Ridge, 50 percent; New

Westminster, 44 percent; North Vancouver, 35 percent; Richmond, 36

percent; Surrey, 37 percent; Vancouver, 65.5 percent. Now that's not

due just to numbers. Sometimes it's due to the number of split classes.

Anyway, this is what they published. West Vancouver, 40 percent....

Imagine! A community like West Van, probably the wealthiest community

in British Columbia, has 40 percent of its elementary children in

violation of the numbers.

Here's the secondary: Burnaby, 16.7 percent; Coquitlam, 23.6

percent; Delta, 23.7 percent; Langley, 19.8 percent; Maple Ridge, 23.2

percent; New Westminster, 20.4 percent; North Van, 16 percent;

Richmond, 7.4 percent; Surrey, 16.4 percent; Vancouver, 37.3 percent.

In addition, those Vancouver classrooms have literally hundreds of ESL

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: I'm going to give a whole little speech — I know

you can hardly wait for it — on the ESL condition in Vancouver, and the

funding. However, if the member for Vancouver South would like to get

up and intervene and make his own speech, instead of trying to

piggyback his onto mine, when I sit down I would be delighted to yield

the floor to him.

Let me just say in conclusion that I can give you

chapter and verse

for practically every district in the country, as can the minister. I

don't think it's acceptable or educationally sound or desirable to have

those numbers in those classes. It isn't just a matter of ideology,

it's a matter of how much people can grapple with, how much people can

handle before the discipline goes all to pieces in the school or the

teacher burns out in a state of exhaustion. So I won't say any more on

class sizes. Levels of service have declined. There's no escaping it.

Quality education cannot persist and continue if you have a constant

decline and erosion in levels of service and increases in class sizes.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: You know, I think we're going to go around

in circles, Mr. Chairman, when we start firing out these numbers. As a

matter of interest, perhaps I ought to just quote to you, for the

record, the average class size provincewide. I can go into each of the

districts. You talked about Burnaby. You know that I have the average

class size in the secondary school and in the elementary school. In

Vancouver.... I'll just leave that alone for the time being.

In kindergarten, the provincewide class average is 19.6;

kindergarten to grade 1, 22.8; grades 1 to 3, 24; grades 4 to 7, 26.7

on average provincewide. Let's go into grade 12 classes alone. The

reason I wish to make reference to this is because the member for

Okanagan North (Mr. MacWilliam) made

[ Page 5700 ]

reference to a very undesirable situation that he

was confronted with. Provincewide, if we look at averages.... I'll take

these particular subjects: algebra in grade 12, 29.4; biology, 27.5;

25.8; Spanish, 14.7.

1 don't think we're going to accomplish anything by firing out these

figures and these averages throughout, but one issue which constantly

concerns me is this: if the allegations are going to be continually

made that we're concerned about quality of education, then perhaps

there ought to be some recognition of what the government is attempting

to do, and in my view what in fact has succeeded to some degree.

When I first came on board with this portfolio, I had been hearing a

number of concerns expressed by the community, and when I mention the

community I mean the teaching community: those who enrol classes, those

who are in front of the classroom, and those who are doing a great deal

of the work in the school district. One of the concerns they had been

giving to me is that with the decline in enrolment, if more

certificated staff are coming on board into every school district, why

is it that the size of our classes — that is, the actual number of

students in each class — is not declining? The number of people coming

in had been increasing substantially.

[4:45]

What was happening is this. It would appear that while the PTR would

drop from 19.1 to 17.1.... Being a layman, I would look at that and it

would tell me that surely the real class size would drop. But in fact

the real class size wasn't dropping by that amount. It was dropping by

a fractional amount. In most cases it was under one or pushing one.

Therefore the bell rang. What we were finding was that as enrolment was

declining, more and more administration seemed to be coming into play.

Where is this administration? In one particular school district it got

so high that something like 36 percent of the certificated staff within

that particular school district were not involved in actual instruction

in the classroom.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Surely, as a government, if I wanted to try to bring equity between

districts, then my objective should be to get the money in front of the

classroom. That means we have got to look at where all of that

administration was located. We found it often assigned to the district

office, or excessive administration within the school system and in the

schools themselves. By applying pressure overall, I think we have

succeeded in putting the emphasis where it ought to be: with the

teacher who enrolls the class.

I don't discount for one moment that there are times when you

require additional administrative support out of the district office.

But it seems to me that it just got a bit out of hand. The interesting

point about it all.... At least this is what I'm given at first hand

from boards and their officials: "All right, we recognize this fact;

coming to terms with it is where we're having some difficulty." In

1983-84 there weren't anywhere near the layoffs that were projected. In

the transitional 1985, absolutely minimal. Now we're into'85-86, and

that is when it's getting a bit tight in some areas. I concede that

point.

What I really want to say is that we can talk about figures and we

can spit them across the floor at one another for ever and ever. The

philosophy of what we're trying to do, and what I think we have

succeeded in accomplishing, is trying to zero in on the classroom and

the teacher. After all, who do you recall when you're in school after

you've put in all of those years? It's the teacher. That's who I

remember; I'm sure everybody else does. It's the level of instruction

we got from that teacher which I think we all remember too. That's

where I want the money. That's where the government wants to put it.

One point which a previous speaker who's not in the House right now

raised.... He was drawing a comparison between three school districts.

The districts he referred to were Victoria, Sooke and Saanich. He

wanted to know why the cost per student is different. It's easily

explainable.

When you look at the average teacher's salary within the district,

you look at the level of negotiated non-statutory benefits, because

they vary widely from district to district. In Sooke, for example, we

have one of the highest in the province with respect to non-statutory

benefits. The average in most school districts is about $600 to $650,

which we made an adjustment for under the framework, but in some areas

it's extraordinarily high. Special-education demands vary from district

to district, and there's a distinction between those three particular

school districts, which is where the demand is in those three areas.

Transportation costs in some school districts are negligible; in others

they are very significant. It's all reflected in the per-student costs.

Another factor comes up when we talk about maintenance of buildings,

whether they're new or old.

I just want to make the point that in any case where you find a

difference.... What we've broken it down into is not only the district

but the region and then the province — the average in each case. Each

is readily explainable. Because I myself have asked some questions. As

a result of traveling extensively throughout the province, I had some

difficulty understanding why two particular school districts in the

northern interior had such a distinction with respect to the costs and

the amount of money put out per student. The major factors usually come

out to three: (1) average teacher cost — district teacher salary;

(2) transportation; and (3) special education needs.

MR. ROSE: I'd just like to make a couple of remarks about

what the minister had to say. First of all, on the average of the PTRs

across the province, it doesn't really help very much for someone in

Vancouver or Coquitlam or Langley that the class sizes in kindergarten

or grade1 are much smaller in, say, Fort St. John. It's not

particularly helpful either to those pupils or to the teacher. The

average is no help at all. The thing is that when you have excessive —

and we have excessive averages.... The other thing is that it seemed to

be.... I'd better finish that sentence. Averages, again — I agree with

the minister — don't mean anything. It's what you're dealing with in

your own classroom, wherever you're teaching; it's not what the average

is. So averages, even when he spouts them, are not particularly

helpful. So you can't on the one hand condemn the use of averages and

then say, "Well, the average is low," because, again, that begs the

question.

The other thing that the minister seemed to be implying was that

when he came into his job he found the whole place just burdened with

administrative fat — that the new people coming into the school system

were doing things other than teach. It was his aim to get the bucks

where the kids were and

[ Page 5701 ]

where the teachers were — on the firing line, in

the classroom, and other little clichés. If that's the case, why are

the class sizes going up? Again, you can't have it both ways on that

one. Class sizes are becoming excessive and they're growing each year,

and I've got the figures to prove it. Again, figures, according to the

minister, don't mean a great deal. Nevertheless they're there, and I

don't see how he can beg that question. He may get some