1990 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 34th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1990

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

9467 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Ministerial Statement

Agriculture stabilization plan. Hon. Mr. Savage –– 9467

Mr. Barlee

Oral Questions

Purchase of computer equipment. Mr. Lovick –– 9468

CGA reaction to budget. Mr. Clark –– 9468

Government advertising of budget. Mr. Sihota –– 9469

joint committee on Robson Bight. Mr. Long –– 9469

Tanker traffic in Burrard Inlet. Mr. Jones –– 9469

Government advertising of budget. Mr. Sihota –– 9470

Toxic waste disposal. Ms. Cull –– 9470

School Amendment Act, 1990 (Bill 11). Second reading

Mr. Vant –– 9470

Mr. Harcourt –– 9471

Hon. Mr. Weisgerber –– 9473

Mr. Rose –– 9475

Hon. Mr. Brummet –– 9479

School Amendment Act, 1990 (Bill 11). Committee stage.

(Hon. Mr. Brummet) –– 9483

Ms. A. Hagen

Hon. Mr. Michael

Mr. Sihota

Ms. Smallwood

Appendix –– 9496

The House met at 2:03 p.m.

HON. MR. SMITH :

Mr. Speaker, we have in the members' gallery today His Honour William

Diebolt, chief judge of the Provincial Court of British Columbia. He

has been chief judge since October 5, 1989, and he is leading a very

dynamic court, with many changes being made. I would ask all members to

join me in making him welcome.

HON. J. JANSEN : This

week is Nurses' Week in British Columbia. On behalf of all British

Columbians, I ask this House to acknowledge and to express our warm

appreciation to the men and women who represent the heart of health

care in our province: the nurses of British Columbia.

the House today, representing the RNABC, are the president, Margaret

Neylan; Jean Myhill, president of the Victoria chapter; and Lynda

Thornton, also a member of the board. Would you please make them

welcome.

MR. GABELMANN : On behalf of the official

opposition, I'd like to add our welcome to the RNABC delegation and to

thank them very much for lunch.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS :

Mr. Speaker, in the galleries this afternoon we have a very

distinguished British Columbian, a man who is distinguished by his

military career, outstanding contribution to business and significant

contributions as a volunteer with several community health

organizations. He is also a strong representative in forestry interests

in British Columbia as a director of Wildlife Habitat Canada for the

first five years of its operation. He was the respected volunteer

chairman of the Nature Trust of British Columbia for 19 years; he was

the first chairman of that foundation. Since 1971 he has fashioned a

most impressive record of conservation –– 170 projects involving 26,000

acres, with expenditures of $13 million. I would like the House to

welcome Mr. Bert Hoffmeister, who has recently retired as chairman of

the Nature Trust of British Columbia. We will be throwing an honorary

dinner for him tonight in Victoria.

With Mr. Hoffmeister

are Mr. Ed Moul of Vancouver, the new chairman of the Nature Trust; Mr.

Ron Erickson, the executive director; and Mr. Rod Hoffmeister, Bert's

son.

MR. HARCOURT : I too, on behalf of this side of the House, would like

to extend similar greetings to Mr. Bert Hoffmeister, who is a distinguished

Canadian in many areas. He's not only interested in the Nature Trust, but

was one of the early pioneers in the movement in Vancouver to preserve neighbourhoods

and to bring about a different way of running our cities. To his colleagues

also I would like to extend greetings and thank you for your visit.

HON. MR. PARKER :

I'd like to ask the House to welcome today two distinguished citizens

from the northwest — two people who have served long and faithfully in

various roles in our communities. Nancy Orr from Terrace has served as

chairman of School District 88 and has been on the board of School

District 88 for almost 20 years. In the gallery as well is Andy Burton.

He's an alderman in Stewart, has been on the municipal council for a

number of years and has lived in Stewart 32 years, I believe. Both are

long-serving people of their communities. Would the House make them

welcome.

HON. MR. FRASER : Mr. Speaker, on your

behalf as well as my own, I would like to welcome to the House Mr.

Sunny Khurana and his wife Jagdish. I welcome both of you. I had the

great pleasure of attending their wedding recently, and what a handsome

couple they make. Would the House please make them welcome.

MR. SIHOTA :

In the gallery today is a good friend of mine, who for the last nine

years has served admirably as the regional director for the largest

unincorporated area in British Columbia, the area of Langford. That's

Rick Kasper. I'd like to ask all members of the House to join me in

welcoming Rick Kasper, who has intentions of becoming a member of this

House, in that he is now the nominated NDP candidate for the new riding

of Malahat-Juan de Fuca.

MRS. McCARTHY : On behalf of

the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Ree), I would like to ask

the House to welcome the grade 11 students from Handsworth Secondary

School. They are accompanied today by Mr. Jim Adams, their teacher, and

some of the staff members from Handsworth Secondary. I'd ask the House

to give them a warm welcome. As they so do, I would like to also add my

welcome to Major-General Hoffmeister, who has been an outstanding

citizen of my city.

Ministerial Statement

AGRICULTURE STABILIZATION PLAN

HON. MR. SAVAGE :

I rise to make a ministerial statement. I would like to take the

opportunity to lend the support of our government to the position taken

by our Premier and the other three western Premiers at the recent

meeting in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba.

in British

Columbia take note of Ottawa's moves to provide financial aid and

support to the people of Canada's Atlantic provinces, and I refer to

the fisheries announcement made yesterday. British Columbia fishermen

and farmers feel a real sense of kinship with Atlantic Canadians who

have been traditionally dependent on a primary resource — the

fishery. We recognize the severe stress being experienced by these

fishing communities whose economic

[ Page 9468 ]

hardship has been caused by national and international forces which are largely beyond their control.

Our

Premier is demanding recognition from the federal government that

British Columbia's diversified agriculture economy is also adversely

affected by recent world trends. The projected 1990 agricultural

shortfalls are a direct result of international trade subsidies. As

such, this deficiency must be addressed by the federal government. Our

tree-fruit industry in particular needs both short-term income support

and long-term assistance to restructure and reposition itself according

to global standards of competitiveness.

Provincial

treasuries are simply not equipped to take on the treasuries of the

United States and the European Economic Community. Western Premiers

have demanded that the federal government offer $450 million in

assistance to Canadian grain and oil seed producers, and that $50

million in assistance to other agricultural producers should be paid

immediately and without any strings attached.

B.C.

advocates the goal of trade liberalization and solutions to the

international subsidy wars at the current multilateral trade

negotiations under GATT. These are crucial to the survival of western

farmers. However, the Premiers were unanimous in declaring that the

federal government has not adequately represented western farming

interests in these GATT discussions. We in British Columbia strongly

support our Premier and Premiers from Alberta, Saskatchewan and

Manitoba in urging the federal government to act upon Its previous

commitment. There must be full provincial participation in these trade

policy negotiations and discussions.

Substantial changes in

federal agricultural policy and financial arrangements will be required

to meet the income needs of our producers in B.C. and also to address

the long-term viability of this industry. We are demanding that a

long-term stabilization plan be in place by this fall.

fully appreciate the problems in the Atlantic fishery, but there are no

strings attached to the announcements that were made for the Atlantic

fishery, and there should not be any strings attached when it comes to

helping farmers in western Canada and agriculture in general.

MR. BARLEE :

Mr. Speaker, I am astonished by that statement. Here's the Minister of

Agriculture, who speaks for the government of British Columbia. His is

the only ministry that suffered a drastic reduction of 11 percent, and

that is not support of the farmers.

Not only that; good

management is saving money, but not when your ministry needs it. That

minister left $3.3 million on the table last year, unspent, from the

very ministry that needed it most. That absolutely astonishes me.

After

ten years of inactivity, the same government is hiding behind the

Lusztig commission. They haven't done a good job for the farmers in

this province, and I think they'll realize this when the polls come up

this fall.

Oral Questions

PURCHASE OF COMPUTER EQUIPMENT

MR. LOVICK :

My question is to the Minister of Government Management Services. Can

the minister confirm that the $10 million in personal computer

equipment, purchased hastily, about which I asked her colleague the

Minister of Highways (Hon. Mrs. Johnston), is presently sitting unused

in seven-foot piles occupying several hundred square feet on the fourth

floor of the Greater Victoria Public Library?

HON. MRS. GRAN : Mr. Speaker, the answer is no.

MR. LOVICK :

I have a new question to the same minister. Given that Surrey and other

school boards have recently gone to referendums because they didn't

have sufficient funding for supplies and computer equipment, among

other things, I wonder whether the minister has advised her colleague,

the Minister of Transportation and Highways, that perhaps she ought to

transfer that $10 million of equipment to the Ministry of Education.

[2:15]

CGA REACTION TO BUDGET

MR. CLARK :

A question to the Minister of Finance. Peat Marwick Thorne and the

auditor-general have made the case that the budget is not balanced. Now

the certified general accountants have said that the budget is not

honest; it is "smoke and mirrors, and not really balanced." I note by

the minister's campaign leaflet that he's a member of the Certified

General Accountants' Association. In light of these scathing comments

by the president of that organization, has the minister decided to

resign from the association?

MR. SPEAKER : The question is out of order.

HON. MR. COUVELIER :

Notwithstanding the fact that the question is out of order, I just feel

that I can't resist the temptation to tell the hon. member that he's

wrong. I can't resist the temptation to tell the hon. member that he is

wrong on both counts. Number one, I am not a member of the Certified

General Accountants' Association; and number two, the budget is

balanced.

MR. CLARK : Can the minister explain why his biography and his campaign material is less than truthful — if I can say that —

by saying that he is a certified general accountant? And if he is not a

member, can he confirm to this House that he has absolutely no

accreditation from any recognized accounting profession in British

Columbia?

MR. SPEAKER : The requirement for question

period is to deal with a matter of urgency, and since the general

election took place some four years ago, the Chair is having some

difficulty determining the

[ Page

9469 ]

urgency of this particular question. However, the minister may wish to reply.

GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING OF BUDGET

MR. SIHOTA :

My question is to the Provincial Secretary who is the minister

responsible for literally tens of millions of dollars in government

advertising, which is done mostly through the public affairs bureau.

Could the minister tell the House what process he has in place to

ensure that these publicly financed ads and publications are both

accurate and truthful?

HON. MR. DIRKS : A very effective process.

MR. SIHOTA :

I have a question to the minister responsible for women's affairs in

British Columbia — given that response from the Provincial Secretary.

There

is an ad right now that runs on TV which says: "There is pay equity for

women in government, expanded day care and a pension plan for

homemakers." Can the minister responsible for women vouch for the

accuracy of those statements in the ad and explain whether pay equity

programs and a pension plan for homemakers are in place provincially?

HON. MRS. GRAN : The first thing I would like to clarify is that I am not Minister Responsible for Women's Affairs. "Programs" is the word.

What

I can confirm to the hon. member is that pay equity in the public

service will be dealt with this year, and that a White Paper will come

out for the B.C. pension plan.

MR. SPEAKER : Supplemental question?

MR. SIHOTA : No, a new question to the Provincial Secretary.

MR. SPEAKER : Well, if you have a new question, I have another member to be recognized.

JOINT COMMITTEE ON ROBSON BIGHT

MR. LONG :

Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Parks. Yesterday the minister announced

that a joint federal-provincial committee will be studying the impact

of humans on the killer whale habitat of Robson Bight and Johnstone

Strait. Can the minister explain why the committee's background report

is not expected until next winter, and whether the ecological reserve

has been studied previously by this ministry?

HON. MR. MESSMER :

I'd like to thank my colleague for the question. Robson Bight was

established as an ecological reserve back in 1982, so as you can see,

it's fairly young. A report was done in 1987 and updated in 1989. The

Parks ministry had a scientist on site for the year 1989 and has

renewed that contract for the year 1990.

We're very pleased that the federal government has joined with us in forming

this committee. We have done a tremendous job, even though it's an ecological

reserve, in that the environmentalists, Mac-Blo and Tourism — being the government

— have promoted the killer whales in Robson Bight. We do know that 90 percent

of the whales sighted in Johnstone Strait go into Robson Bight. The purpose

of the committee is to study the interaction between the killer whales and the

whale-watchers, loggers, commercial fishermen, sports fishermen and, of course,

tourists. The committee has been set up to enable them to view the situation

on the site this summer and report back to us by this fall.

TANKER TRAFFIC IN BURRARD INLET

MR. JONES :

I have a pressing and urgent question for the Minister of Environment

regarding increased tanker traffic in Burrard Inlet. I am sure the

minister is aware that there has been an increase of some 2,000 percent

in the amount of petroleum products through Burrard Inlet since 1984

and that tanker traffic could triple with the planned industry

expansion. Has the minister decided to join with the city of Vancouver

and the municipalities of North Vancouver, Burnaby and Port Moody in

calling for a moratorium on the increase of tanker barge activity until

a sustainable level of such traffic is determined?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS :

I would remind the hon. member across the floor that his party was

against the pipeline, which would have eliminated all ships from

Burrard Inlet a few years ago. It was his party whose leader got up and

asked us to put one tug on the ships in Burrard Inlet when we already

had four going through the Second Narrows, two through the First

Narrows and one all the way to Victoria.

Interjection.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS : Yes, we have a tug through the Strait of Georgia; it was there six weeks before you asked for it.

also have three ships on standby in case there are any problems. There

has never been an oil disaster in Burrard Inlet. I want to assure the

member that we are on top of the situation. Everything is being looked

after in that area. We do not support the moratorium, because we want

to make sure that British Columbians can keep on getting oil until we

have a better solution.

MR. JONES : I can't believe

the Minister of Environment thinks a natural gas pipeline is going to

affect in any way tanker traffic that carries petroleum products in and

out of Burrard Inlet. The minister appears very unconcerned about the

increase in tanker traffic, although I'm sure he's aware than an

Environment Canada study predicted that within the next five years

there would be an oil spill that would be some 40 times that of the

February spill, which was a disaster for that area.

To the Minister of Environment. Given the clear and present danger of increased tanker traffic, is it

[ Page 9470 ]

the

policy of the government to encourage such tanker traffic in Burrard

Inlet, or is he just going to leave it up to the petroleum corporations

to determine what happens in that ecologically sensitive area?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS :

I would inform the member on the other side that the pipeline I was

discussing was not the gas pipeline. He was also against that, and it's

saving 300 tankers a year from crossing the Georgia strait. The oil

pipeline was recommended years and years ago, and his party was against

that, and the Leader of the Opposition was against it. It's not a gas

pipeline but an oil pipeline that would have eliminated the oil tankers

from Burrard Inlet. Your party was against that. Now they want to do

something else.

Interjections.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS :

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asked me and talks about a leak or an

accident in Burrard Inlet over the next five years. I would ask him

where he is getting his Ouija-board from.

GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING OF BUDGET

MR. SIHOTA :

This question is to the Provincial Secretary. In light of the fact that

the Minister Responsible for Women's Programs (Hon. Mrs. Gran) has

indicated there is not a program in place dealing with pay equity or a

program in existence for a provincial pension plan for homemakers, and

given the fact that the minister says he's had a very effective process

reviewing the accuracy and truthfulness of ads — which obviously

failed in this regard; maybe Eli should be gone — and given the

fact that this ad now contains untruths, will he agree to pull the ad?

HON. MR. DIRKS :

I think if the hon. member would review those ads as carefully as we

review them and evaluate the whole process, he'd find that he is in

error.

MR. SIHOTA : It's obvious that the Provincial

Secretary, who can't think that quick on his feet, can't even listen to

the Minister Responsible for Women's Programs and understand what she's

got to say.

There is another ad which runs on TV and says:

"Some of B.C.'s best financial experts are giving top marks to the B.C.

government's balanced budget." The Provincial Secretary should know

that this is not an accurate statement, in that no less than three

financial experts in the past few weeks have said that the budget is in

a deficit situation.

My question to the minister: is the

minister prepared now to run an ad on TV which says that some of B.C.'s

best financial experts are giving the government a failing grade for

their failure to balance the budget? Is he prepared, in the name of

balance and fairness, accuracy and truth to run an ad along those lines?

TOXIC WASTE DISPOSAL

MS. CULL :

To the Minister of Environment. just over two weeks ago I asked the

minister to open all eight provincial toxic waste depots at convenient

hours. Yesterday the minister announced that a toxic waste disposal

site in Victoria will be open for only three days over the next six

months.

Can the minister explain why he is forcing

municipalities to open separate sites for a very limited duration

rather than providing regular, well-publicized access to his ministry's

existing depot on Cloverdale Avenue?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS :

I thank the member very much for the question. She is absolutely wrong.

This agreement was made.... We're not forcing anybody. The Capital

Regional District came to me after we announced our policy of having

hazardous waste days around the province. They are working with the

provincial government and are paying half the bill. It's a

well-publicized program, and in three days of this year we

expect — and so does the Capital Regional District; you can talk

to Murray Coell, the elected official in this area — we will

eliminate most of the hazardous household wastes in the Capital

Regional District.

[2:30]

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. STRACHAN : Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 11.

SCHOOL AMENDMENT ACT, 1990

(continued)

MR. VANT : I am very pleased to resume the very important debate on Bill 11. Just before lunch I was quoting the Williams Lake Tribune , and it had to do with the second member for Cariboo (Mr. Zirnhelt) and his previous role as chairman of School District 27.

referred to new wages for the teachers — and of course, he had no

pecuniary interest in that — that would lead to the hefty increase

in taxes. The poor, hard-working taxpayers could just take it or leave

it.

But

thanks to the wisdom of this government and the Minister of Education

(Hon. Mr. Brummet), whose heart is obviously in the right place —

very concerned about the children in our school system — we

have this opportunity to have a referendum on what I would call the

"extra extras" in spending for our education system. I'd like to

mention that because the referendums are for those extras, what is very

important in this is the basic education funding provided by the very

generous block funding.

Indeed, I was somewhat confused by

a statement made by the second member for Cariboo last Friday, May 4. 1

quote from the Blues. He said: "A basic needs budget cannot be taken to

the people in a

[ Page 9471 ]

referendum."

He went on to say: "It's a terrible oversight." If I interpret that

correctly, it seems to me that the second member for Cariboo is

advocating -perhaps as is the case in some American states - that all

of the education funding be subject to referendum.

Well, I

can assure you, Mr. Speaker and this House, that is not the intention

of this government nor of Bill 11. The referendum is not for the basics

in education. It is for what I would term as not just the extras, but

the extra extras.

I say that because, first of all, the

basic block funding is very generous. Also, as recommended by the

Sullivan Royal Commission on Education, that block funding can be

adjusted from year to year, based on the capacity of the government to

responsibly support the necessary public spending. That capacity is

very properly and responsibly determined by what the taxpayers can

reasonably provide.

So the very generous block funding,

which is based on historical basic funding levels for each school

district in the province, will be adjusted each year based on price

inflation and on public and private wage settlements. I think that's

very important.

Also, this year alone the government has

very generously allowed no less than $140 million for the royal

commission programs. This is in addition to that basic block funding.

The royal commission programs include such things as continued

development by educators of every aspect of the education system, from

the primary right through to the graduation programs; expanding teacher

education programs; and development of methods by which schools and

school boards can provide their communities with more comprehensive

reports on how the students are progressing, making that system

learner-centred and more user useful.

Often in debates I've

listened to in this Legislature, when it comes to education, there's

not enough focus on the children who must, above all else, benefit by

the system.

Recently the B.C. Teachers' Federation mentioned —

and I quote from their Issue Alert of February 13, 1990: "Requiring

referenda to fund educational services is disastrous. Denied stable,

reliable tax revenue, school authorities are unable to budget with

confidence."

find that statement somewhat outrageous,

given the very generous block funding which has been put into place.

It's very predictable. Each year it's adjusted very responsibly. On the

contrary, since I've become an MLA— as I said this morning just before

lunch, and the hon. opposition House Leader didn't hear me — every

year the funding for education has been increased. That's

according to the estimates which were debated and tabled in this

Legislature.

Contrary to the B.C. Teachers' Federation

Issue Alert, the government has ensured stable, predictable, sufficient

and historically equitable financing for education. Being historically

equitable is very important because, as was noted quite some time ago,

the funding varies considerably from district to district.

was pleased that in School District 27, the Cariboo-Chilcotin district

centred in Williams Lake, the per capita amounted to $6,155. At first

glance that seems to be considerably over the provincial average. Well,

there are certain historical reasons for that, because it is one of the

largest school districts in the province. In order to get the pupils

from the rural areas to school, naturally they have a vast school bus

system, which is very expensive to operate. So the funding program is

historically very equitable.

The referendum allows

democracy to take place rather than what was the previous case, where

school boards got carried away with their supplementary budgets and had

as much as a 112 percent increase in one year. Now, at least, those who

have to pay have a chance to voice their opinion on these extras. Apart

from the $140 million provided for the royal commission implementation,

there are many other aspects of school funding that are in addition to

the very generous provincial block funding.

Indeed,

as I

mentioned earlier, my constituency office door is always open to all of

those involved in the school system. Recently a couple of

schoolteachers visited me, and they kept saying that somehow they

thought there were cutbacks in the system. I don't see that, with the

continual increases we've had in recent years. Also, from 1980 to 1989,

teachers' salaries increased overall by no less than 73 percent;

whereas in that same period, inflation increased 57 percent. At the

same time, private sector wage settlements increased 51 percent. So in

relative terms —and I think very properly so — the

hard-working, dedicated teachers have had substantial wage increases.

The

basic funding is firmly in place. There have been attempts by certain

interest groups in the province to compare apples to oranges and to

somehow equate our very generous educational funding system with that

of other jurisdictions, particularly the States. But we are not going

to subject to referenda things like school construction costs, which

are very necessary to implement the Sullivan royal commission. It is

without hesitation that I strongly support Bill 11, because it ensures

good funding in every school district throughout the province for a

very important education system.

MR. HARCOURT : I

rise to speak on Bill 11. We regard this as a sad day in British

Columbia politics, particularly because it has turned our children's

education into a political football. Our schoolchildren are suffering

through this pilot project that we have watched unfold over the last

few weeks, culminating in the nine referendums that took place on the

weekend.

The project has failed; it has specifically failed

the children of this province. We are urging this government to listen

to the nine school boards, which are unanimously saying, "No more, " to

this experiment. We don't want to have to go through this again: the

expense and the start of a two-tiered education

[ Page 9472 ]

system

throughout this province. Very simply, we are saying to the minister

and to the government: "Withdraw Bill 11." Then let's talk about the

education of the most important asset we have in this province, our

children. The members of the nine school boards— seven of which had

referendums defeated; two of which had successful votes —

were unanimous: "Don't do this to us. Don't do this, more particularly,

to the children in our district. Withdraw this legislation. Do not have

us go through this exercise again."

Let's look at what some of the referendums involved, starting with the school districts where referendums were defeated —

seven of them. Before we headed into this referendum, Abbotsford

already received $662 per pupil less than the provincial average. In

the referendum, they wanted $1.69 million for library books and to help

integrate special-education students and upgrade old schools. Those

aren't frills. Those aren't items that you put onto a discretionary

list. Those are important. Like pencils and blackboards, books are an

integral part of the education system. That is what this is about. It's

about integrating special-education students into the system. It's a

good goal to get the special-needs and disabled children of this

province out of institutions and into ordinary schools with children

from all over the community. But you have to have the resources to do

that. That's what the Abbotsford school board was trying to do. But

that $1.6 million request for books for students with disabilities and

to upgrade old schools was voted down.

Another example.

Coquitlam School District 43 wanted $4.5 million to maintain current

levels of staffing, to purchase equipment and to renovate classrooms.

Those are the normal operating expenses that any organization requires:

replace old equipment to keep your plant in good shape, and to have

current levels of staffing, which, as we know, have been substantially

reduced over the last seven to eight years. And the Coquitlam voters

said: "We've had enough of underfunding and of the overtaxing of the

property taxpayers." They voted down that very modest request.

Prince

George — to go to the north — School District 57 wanted $2.3

million to reduce some of the class sizes and to acquire portable

classrooms — not

to build new schools, but to acquire portable classrooms because of the

growth of population back into Prince George after the depression. It

was a no vote, three to one— again, for the same reasons.

[2:45]

The

Queen Charlotte Islands, School District 50, wanted $32,500 to maintain

the current continuing education program for adults to deal with some

of the aboriginal people, the 60 or so loggers who haven't found

employment since South Moresby was created. No steps were taken to help

those loggers and their families find new economic opportunities Those

are the kinds of people who would be included in that $32,500 for adult

education programs. That was a no vote. Five hundred people turned out.

The Surrey School District No. 36 sought $4.8 million to develop a school lunch

program for hungry schoolchildren, to expand the programs for learning-disabled

students and gifted students, to integrate special-needs children into the regular

classrooms, and to improve ESL programs — all of these important challenges in

the modern school system which are being underfunded by this Social Credit government

and are causing problems for teachers and for children.

Here

are some other programs that were in that $4.8 million request in the

referendum in Surrey: improved programs for the hearing impaired,

expanded adult literacy programs, more library books and classroom

equipment, upgrading of school and playground facilities, and improved

health and safety standards. Those are the sorts of modest proposals

that were contained in that referendum request, which was voted down

64.6 percent with a 15 percent turnout. And the Premier calls that a

triumph of democracy? I call it a triumph of the minority.

That

is not democracy in action, because Surrey receives the second-lowest

per-pupil funding of any school district in B.C. And it is one of the

fastest growing school districts. Even before Vancouver's successful

referendum, Surrey students received $700 less per pupil to spend on

education than the Vancouver school district. Those children do not

deserve to get second-class funding.

Those children do not

deserve the overcrowded conditions that I have seen, for example, in

Ocean Park. Ocean Park, which was built down in the Crescent Beach area

when I.... It used to be a place for summer vacations. It's now a very

fine community. It was built for 300 students, Mr. Speaker, when we

were going to school in south Vancouver. Three hundred students were

supposed to be in this school. This school now has 300 students in the

main building and 450 students in portables. There are more kids in

portables on school grounds, on the playgrounds, without washroom

facilities, without offices for the counsellors and the other special

needs there, without proper gym facilities. That is not acceptable.

There are 108 portables — the equivalent of eight schools —

in the Surrey School District, and you wonder why the citizens there

are getting uptight about growth. This is an example of citizens

saying: "No more. Unless the provincial government takes a leadership

role in dealing with the effects of growth, the overcrowding in our

schools, the traffic jams on our roads, the lack of recreational and

cultural and park facilities, we're going to say no to more spending on

our property tax."

What did that no vote amount to, Mr. Speaker? The news reports in today's Vancouver Sun

make it very clear that what the school board in Surrey is going to

have to do now is as follows: "Gifted and special-needs students were

among the losers Monday as Surrey School Board chopped about $3.5

million from its 1990-91 budget after failing to win a weekend

referendum." That's what happened in Surrey when they had the gun put

to their heads by this government. They didn't have any choice. To say

that they had a choice is an abuse of the words democracy and citizens'

choice. There you have some examples

[ Page 9473 ]

of the school boards that had referendums turned down.

Let's

look at the two school districts that had successful referendum votes,

that had the majority of citizens voting for it. Let's look at

Richmond. The Premier, after introducing this exercise in democracy,

intervened and urged all his fellow citizens in Richmond to vote

against the referendum. To show you the credibility that the Premier

has in his own riding, 57 percent of those who turned out disagreed

with the Premier and voted for it. That shows the credibility that the

Premier has in his own riding— let alone the rest of the province. A

voter turnout of 14 percent — that's the tyranny of the minority,

not a victory for the majority and democracy. It isn't democracy at

all, Mr. Speaker.

In Vancouver, School District 39 requested $7.7 million, divided equally into two parts: operating and capital budgets.

MR. WILLIAMS : How did they vote in the downtown east side?

MR. HARCOURT :

The downtown east side, the poorer area, voted yes. I may say that I

was disappointed in my own poll around the Point Grey mini school, that

barely a majority of people came out and voted no for those children in

the downtown east side. I may say that when I looked at the material on

the plebiscite that people had to vote for, I was appalled and offended

that matters such as earthquake-safe schools, emergency-exit lighting

in the case of fires, and pesticide- and insecticide-free playgrounds

were on there for a vote. Our children's health and safety were being

voted on, when those things should be taken care of as a matter of

course The health and safety of our children should not be on a

plebiscite, a referendum. A government and a minister that tempt fate

with the health and safety of our children are tempting their own fate

in the next provincial election, I can assure you of that.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier called the results a great exercise in democracy —

voter turnout of between 12.5 and 32 percent in nine districts across

the province. Seven losing school districts now have to redirect money

from education programs to pay for the cost of staging this

referendum — over $500,000 in the city of Vancouver alone and $60,000 in Surrey. The opinion is in. An editorial in the Province ,

after the vote, was titled "What a Mess: A Bad Way to Run an Education

System, " and: "Richmond kids now have access to programs that Surrey

youngsters don't. Coquitlam teachers can only dream about Vancouver's

new programs." The editorial concludes: "...referendums are not the way

to finance school boards."

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

think the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Brummet) has had this

referendum system foisted on him I may say that we on this side

welcomed the tabling of the Sullivan commission recommendations that

the minister carried through. We did have some disagreement with the

tabling of the 2000 document. We felt that it was too hurried in terms

of the grades 4 to 10, and 11 and 12. The School Act was brought in,

and we thought it should have added provisions for citizenship, for our

young people to become fully participating citizens.

think the minister has tried to make up for some of the terrible

neglect and demoralization in the education system, but bringing

forward the referendum system has severely harmed those positive steps

that he introduced— some of which we disagreed with, which we

expressed in that spirit. It has severely harmed the relationships that

were starting to develop between parents, children, educators,

legislators and the people throughout this province.

We are

urging the government. They've had their pilot project. They've had

their political push at this question in the hopes of getting something

going for a spring election. That's off now. The nine referendums are

in: seven went down; two were approved. To anybody but some members of

this government's caucus it's a failure. Listen to what the people of

British Columbia are saying and withdraw Bill 11.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER :

I'd like to spend just a few minutes to talk about the School Amendment

Act. First of all, it's probably worthwhile recognizing that the Leader

of the Opposition must be improving. His speeches are good enough now

that six members on his side stayed to hear him speak. At least, Mr.

Speaker, you didn't have to ring the quorum bells this time. Some

things do improve over time.

I want to spend a few minutes

this afternoon talking about the effect of Bill 11 on my constituency

and on School District 59 within the constituency. Block funding,

referendums and supplemental homeowner grants have all been very well

received in my constituency.

The

reason for that became

very obvious when my constituents received their property tax notices

in 1989. School taxes had increased by 35 percent. Many homeowners in

Dawson Creek, Chetwynd and Tumbler Ridge faced increases in property

taxes as a result of residential school taxes in excess of $400 a year.

Some of the more expensive homes — and in that part of the world

$150,000 to $200,000 is considered an expensive home — saw school

tax increases as high as $700.

make matters worse, the school district had advised residents at that

time that they could expect an even larger increase in 1990. That would

have meant that the owner of a house in Dawson Creek with an appraised

value in the area of $150, 000 to $200,000 anticipated a $1,500 school

tax increase in two years. There was some real concern in that part of

the world about runaway spending by school districts.

With

very short notice, a group called the South Peace Ratepayers'

Association was formed and attracted in excess of 600 people with about

two days' notice of a meeting in Dawson Creek. Local governments were

concerned. Municipal governments and

[ Page 9474 ]

regional

governments asked me and the local school board and representatives

from the ministry to meet with them to talk about what they considered

to be a crisis in residential taxation in that constituency.

[3:00]

The

two regional districts hired a consulting firm called Peter Adams and

Associates to investigate funding and taxation in School Districts 59,

60 and 81. Mr. Adams, in his report back to the regional districts,

noted that supplementary budgets in School District 59 had increased by

284 percent in 1989. That was the cause of the substantial tax

increases that we saw in 1989 and the reason for the predicted further

increases In 1990.

The next significant happening was the

visit by the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Couvelier) and the then

Minister of Municipal Affairs, along with Mayor Marilyn Baker and a

task group to look at the whole issue of property taxes. Constituent

after constituent came to the microphone and asked for controls on

school district spending. You might translate that to mean referenda.

Again, speaker after speaker asked for the province to involve itself

in funding all aspects of education within the school district. I guess

you might translate that to mean block funding. Many, many people asked

for some kind of relief from taxation. I suppose you could equate the

supplemental homeowner grant to that request.

constituents — from one end of the constituency to the other — were

seriously worried and concerned about the issue of school taxes. They

saw labour settlements — teachers' settlements in particular — within

the school district as causing expenditures that were beyond their

ability to fund. They questioned seriously whether we as a government

were spending enough on education, whether we were funding enough of

the cost of education in a school district like ours that has a limited

ability to raise taxes. There was no question that people in South

Peace, in School District 59, wanted action and wanted it quickly.

I'm

pleased to be able to stand here today in support of Bill 11, School

Amendment Act, 1990, which deals with the specific issues that my

constituents brought to the Minister of Education, the municipal

government, the regional government and their school districts; that

they went to the regional districts and hired a consultant to

investigate and recommend on; and issues that my constituents brought

to the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and that

task group.

This legislation, regardless of what those

folks across the way may say, is exactly what the people of South Peace

River wanted in terms of relief from what they saw as burdensome

taxation and runaway spending by their school district. These fellows

across the way protest and protest. But I think, seriously, if the

members across the way were to put partisan politics aside for a few

moments and ask their constituents what they think of the amendments

and changes that have been brought in to the School Act....

Interjection.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER : You will see quite well, Mr. Member, what they think of me next time round.

This

is the kind of response that voters look for from government. When they

go and speak to the various levels of government, the various

ministries within the provincial government, and delineate a real need

and a concern, they expect action from government. This bill is the

kind of action that they were looking for and which was very well

received, not only in South Peace River but all over the north and, I

suspect, all over British Columbia. When tax notices come out, when

homeowners and ratepayers see that there is more money being spent on

education and less of the cost of education being applied to

homeowners, this bill will receive the recognition that it should

receive, that it should have received from the members across the way

and has received from members on this side of the House.

MR. MILLER : Nobody likes it.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER :

The member for Prince Rupert says nobody likes it. I think the member,

if he were to check with his own constituents, would find that many of

them like it.

Perhaps what I should do now is read a letter

into the record. It's a letter from the South Peace Ratepayers'

Association, dated May 4, 1990. It's addressed to the Premier, and it

says:

"Sir:

"The South Peace Ratepayers' Association was formed

in June of 1989 to control school expenses and runaway taxation. The taxpayers

faced a potential 55 percent increase in school taxes alone for the 1990 taxation

year. The association was represented at the task force meeting held in Dawson

Creek that was chaired by the Hon. Mr. Couvelier and the Hon. Rita Johnston.

We were also present at the disclosure of the Peter Adams and Associates review

of taxation for School Districts 59, 60 and 81. The association gave unanimous

support to this document when presented in Fort St. John.

"Our association fully supports you and your government

in the introduction of block funding and referenda. It is without question that

ratepayers in District 59 will receive taxation relief. We commend the stance

and direction that you and your government have taken in addressing concerns

of the taxpayers of British Columbia. On this issue you have our support and

backing, as exhibited by the enclosed newspaper clipping.

"Sincerely yours,

Peter Englisch,

Secretary,

South Peace Ratepayers' Association"

I think it's worth noting, in conclusion, that Mr. Englisch

is a former school trustee. I'm not certain of his politics, but he has

certainly not been hesitant about criticizing this government on many issues

in the past. He and the 600 members of the ratepayers' association — and

I suspect the vast majority of ratepayers in South Peace River — support his

statement, and in turn support the Minister of Education with the legislation

that he has brought in with Bill 11.

[ Page 9475 ]

I'm

very pleased and satisfied with the response from the Minister of

Education, and I want him to know that he has my support and the

support of my constituents.

DEPUTY SPEAKER : Just before we continue, hon. members, the second member

for Saanich and the Islands has asked leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. HUBERTS :

In the House with us today we have a grade 10 class from St. Andrew's

High School in Saanich with their teacher, Simon di Castri. I'd like

the House to give them a warm welcome. It's certainly an appropriate

time for them to be here, as we're discussing Bill 11.

DEPUTY SPEAKER :

Members have been admonished from time to time during this session

about referring to other members by name. I didn't want to stop the

hon. minister when he was in full flight with his speech, but I would

like to bring to your attention that reading a name from a paper or a

press release is in a sense circumventing the rule which applies and

says that members will not be named in the House. So I would just ask

members to remember that as they speak from now on.

MR. ROSE :

My comments are that in some legislatures, Mr. Speaker, names are used

all the time; so I guess it's just a matter of the customs and the

traditions around this place.

I was very interested in the

member from Dawson Creek's little peroration about how difficult things

are for the poor burghers of Dawson Creek, and how the expenses have

gone up. I wonder just how many $150,000 houses there are in Dawson

Creek. Has he chosen just one particular extreme figure? I don't know.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE : It could be.

The

figures I've got are that property taxes over the past eight or ten

years have gone up approximately 75 to 79 percent, and school budgets

have gone up 11 percent. I doubt whether you can blame the school

districts for the property tax increase. I think it has more likely

been confiscation. We've seen, through corporate taxations and

everything else, that large segments of society escape taxation; you

load it onto others.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE :

Yes, but I'm still alive, and you're dead. You're dead in the water,

that's what you are. So what's happening here? You've suddenly found

your voice again. You getting your confidence back?

What I

wanted to emphasize is their systematic confiscation of the property

taxes — commercial and industrial. There have been large loopholes and

escapees there,

whereas the school tax referendum was based on the 8

percent of the total school budget which comes from the property tax.

That's all we've got to tax, and I think that whole thing is just

nonsense.

Mr. Speaker, I voted for the referendum. I held

my nose and voted for the referendum, and unlike the members from

Surrey, I stayed out of it. I did not interfere in Coquitlam — like

some of the members of the Social Credit Party did.... They are just as

loud in their ridings as they are in the House.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE :

Look, it's very difficult, Mr. Speaker. I know that the member for

Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale (Mr. Reid) is a bit upset and tense. How

would you like to be an albatross and have that member hanging around

your neck? I know how sensitive he is about certain things like that.

was here from 1983 to 1986, and I know how the school districts were

savaged during that period. I watched it. I watched how systematically

this government, in spite of their decentralization plans, took over

more and more of the functions of the schools. It used to be the

functions of the local school districts. I was here. I know about those

things; I watched all this. Ultimately we had a 1982 interim financing

act that put a lid on spending. That's when the government stepped in.

It was called restraint. Then 1983 came along, and this became

permanent for three years. Then it was renewed in about 1985 or 1986,

and now we've got it back again — the lid on school spending.

They've

given the school districts the right under Bill 19 to collectively

bargain with their workers the right to bargain. Surprise, surprise:

these people all became unionized in every district. Now they've capped

it, so what a meaningless charade for collective bargaining. I was

here. I watched for a while.

We're talking about all this

money that's spent on the schools. My figures indicate that in 1983 the

percentage of the GNP spent on education in Ontario was 6 percent. The

Canadian average was 5 percent, and British Columbia was 3.4 percent.

Guess what it is today? In 1988-89, it's 4.2 percent in Ontario, down

from 6 percent. Five percent of the GNP is the Canadian average. B.C.

is 3.5 percent or virtually the same thing.

So in terms of

what we're spending in terms of our total wealth, it hasn't increased

that much. Yes, it did increase under the present minister; I don't

deny that. According to my figures, it's now 5.9 percent, but that

includes post-secondary. Post-secondary went up 33 percent, so that

accounts for your figure. It's been relatively level in terms of the

gross provincial product.

Where are we here? In 1982-83,

British Columbia was second across Canada in all the jurisdictions in

terms of its educational spending. It ranked second. You know what it

did in 1985? It was down to sixth, and today it's fifth. So our kids

are standing fifth or sixth....

[ Page 9476 ]

Interjection.

MR. ROSE :

We know what happened to California: they had Proposition 13. People

left the state, and they left teaching. Guess exactly what happened?

The Californians came up here and recruited our teachers because we

fired 3,000 of them, or early-retired them.

[3:15]

MR. REID : They're all back now.

MR. ROSE :

They're not all back now. Unlike the Social Credit Party, they learned

in California. My daughter was one of them that had to go down there.

She went down there for three years, and in her district there were 15

Canadians.

Do you know that in the next ten years we're

going to grow by approximately 600,000 or 700,000 people in British

Columbia? Do you know how many teachers we're going to need? We're

going to need about 6,000. And if loudmouths like the one across the

hall have his way, we won't get them, because teachers are not going to

go into a profession to be bashed right, left and centre.

That's

not the most important point at all. The most important

part is really

what's happening to our youngsters. If you've got spending like that,

then it's bound to trickle down and effect people sooner or later. You

may be able to cut out your capital budgets and your fixing of the

roofs and all these things for a while. But ultimately, it catches up

to you. As a solid businessman who believes in capitalism and profit,

you should know that. And because teachers, or any other group, want a

decent income for their services, the member ought to be able to

understand that.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE : It didn’t. The ex-minister is as wrong about that, as he is about most things.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER : Order, please, hon. members.

MR. ROSE :

I'm very grateful to that member over there. Between '83 and '86 — he

wasn't in the cabinet then — we sometimes had to get up and speak for

40 minutes, and without him I never would have been able to make it.

So he was a great help to me.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE :

I know that the minister over there hungers for statistics. I'll give

you some that will probably be to his credit. I can show both sides of

it. I'm fair and objective and gentlemanly and refined and all those

good things.

In '85 there was no real increase in school budgets, but the inflation

rate was 4 percent. In '86 we dropped 5.5 percent, and the inflation rate

was 4.1. In '87, by gosh, we won the election and had a new minister. We

were up 4 percent in educational spending in British Columbia. Guess what the

inflation rate was? It was 4.4 percent, so we lost again.

wasn't until 1988 that we got a 6.2 percent raise — or if you consider

inflation at 4 percent, you got about a 2.1 percent raise. This year,

'89, 4.3 over 5, which is a 4.3 raise because the budgets went up about

9 percent last year. I'm not talking about this year, I'm talking about

last year.

We still rank eighth across Canada in terms of

what we spend per pupil. Costs are higher here; everything's higher

here. Certainly they are in the lower mainland than in other

jurisdictions, except perhaps Toronto or the golden triangle, so I

would think that maybe the figures would indicate that our children

were being shortchanged.

I watched the teacher layoffs and

early retirements and the flight to California and I predicted this

teacher shortage, and I think we're going to have one. We're going to

need 6,000 teachers in the next ten years.

HON. MR. BRUMMET : Not if we get an NDP government.

MR. ROSE :

I'm pleased to see the hon. minister is interested in what we would do

as an NDP government. I am sure that if he is no longer a minister we

would be very pleased to give him a job teaching. We'll freeze his

salary too and we'll take away all his power so he doesn't have the

right to do anything else in society but maybe go to his little

classroom and teach and when he goes home after a long day's work, his

wife will have ready for him, as she usually does, some warm milk and

some cookies. That will be his favourite time.

We're going to need 6,000 teachers at least in the next ten years....

HON. MR. BRUMMET : I've got to do the cooking and have it ready for her.

MR. ROSE : Well, if you do the cooking like the Finance minister cooks the books, I feel sorry for you.

What

we've got here is a return of the school wars. We go back to the

conflicts that we had between '82 and '86. What has happened here?

Cutbacks amounted to 23 percent in real terms between '83 and '86.

That's about $350 million a year. Everybody's saying: "Oh my God,

you've been so generous with school budgets." Well, if we've been so

generous with school budgets — and we have been more generous, I don't

deny that — look at the money you sucked out of the system for about

four or five years. That was so we could develop again. But it's a

spurious argument really. Everything else went up. Your budgets went up

for highways and everything else. The only budget that really didn't go

up during restraint was the education budgets.

The

pupil-teacher ratio in 1986 was at 1972 levels. There were cuts in

assistance. Local boards were not free to set their own budgets. Why

have local boards now? What's the purpose of them if

[ Page 9477 ]

they

don't have any power? If you've destroyed local decision-making, what

is the point of having a local board? They're going to be rubber

stamps; that sounds like the Canadian Senate. They might as well be in

the Canadian Senate.

Then we had all this pork-barrel

stuff. Do you remember that? Do you remember all the special funds, the

excellence funds? I was in here one day and there was something like

$300 million to $500 million promised for excellence funds — little

pork-barrel things for the minister to give to the various school

districts. I don't think that money was ever spent. They're just

nonsense! It's like the BS fund we have with the Minister of Finance.

Well,

I'm quite sure that most of the members on the opposite side do not

really want to hear me reel off statistics. I guess the statistics will

show that when the minister in the last couple of years, on his "repair

agenda" trying to get things back in shape after the mess that was left

by his predecessors in terms of the cutbacks.... Yes, he looked pretty

good, and he didn't even like referenda. Other people have quoted — I

don't need to repeat it here, but I will — that he didn't like them, he

didn't believe in them, he didn't think they worked. And he was right.

MR. MILLER : What did he say?

MR. ROSE : Well, I don't have the quote here. I could paraphrase....

MR. PETERSON : There's no logic behind your argument, no logic whatsoever.

MR. ROSE :

Is that your final word on that subject? Good, then keep quiet! What

we've got is a return to the school wars. It's not just about money. I

don't think it is even mainly about money. It may be in certain

districts. Of course, it's always been mainly about money in certain

districts...if you happen to be in a high-growth district. The

Coquitlams will pay $250 extra above the homeowner grant on their

property taxes, where the Keremeoses and the Armstrongs will probably

get $150 credit. It's always been unfair that way. I know the minister

is going to say: "What are you going to do? Are you going to raise all

the homeowners grants and make it even more discriminatory?" I haven't

suggested that, but the minister suggested that I was suggesting that

at one time. I'm not doing that at all.

What it really is

about, as far as the teachers are concerned — and I will get to the

pupils in a minute — is pride. It's about being valued for the work

they do. When you do something like this and bash teachers and say that

they are responsible — not inflation, not house prices by flippers, not

things that have to do with the economy in general, but teachers

only.... They have to face the same realities of the economy as

everybody else. I know you don't get anywhere or score many political

brownie points by defending teachers, but unless their pride is there,

unless they feel that what they're doing is worthwhile, they're not

going to perform as well as when they feel they have the support of the

authorities and the pride of the community. You take that away from

them, and you've taken everything. Certainly you've taken away the

desire to go into teaching or to continue in it. That's what happened

between '82 and '86.

The minister went a long way and made the right moves to restore that pride. But this is taking it away again.

was speaking in Chilliwack, which is hardly a hotbed of socialism, and

a teacher at the dinner said: "Once upon a time you would seldom ever

see a teacher in Chilliwack who would take a political position." I

don't know why — I was politicized in Kelowna. I don't know why they

wouldn't take that position, but they wouldn't. But now he says they

all will in the staff room.

So this government has

politicized the teachers. You had a lot a friends among teachers. You

know, some of your best friends were teachers, Mr. Minister.

MR. PETERSON : We still have a lot of friends among teachers.

MR. ROSE : Are you alive again? Oh, you're there. Are they all teaching in Langley?

MR. PETERSON : You bet.

MR. ROSE :

The trustees. I'm not sure that it's about money so much as it's about

autonomy. What is the purpose of being a trustee today? You're a paper

shuffler. You don't have any choice of.... What you could do is scatter

the peas around under the walnuts, but by and large that's all you can

do. You don't have any control over the pea crop, not at all.

It's

about local control. Our whole tradition of education in North America

has been one of local community control. Where's the control if you

take that away and everything is handled from the centre? It sounds to

me like the Russian bureaucratic system where everything was controlled

from the Kremlin. So here's the czar of Education controlling all the

educational spending. It didn't work there, and it's not going to work

here.

As my hon. friend from Vancouver East, the first

member (Mr. Williams), said this morning, it's probably only a one- or

two-stage thing anyway. What you've got to do on this spurious kind of

bill is protect your big property owners, who've got all kinds of

money, from higher taxes in Shaughnessy, while the poorer people down

below will pay the bill. That's what's happened in education. So you

are favouring your special-interest group.

Why not a tax on

all those flippers in Vancouver? Why don't you tax them and pay some

money for education or provide young people with housing? That would be

more like it. Sure, it's a serious matter, a constant escalation of

property taxation, but if you constantly keep dumping more and more on

the property owners — up 72 percent since 1988 — sure you're going to have

a tax concern and a tax revolt. But that's what I think you want. You

just want to

[ Page 9478 ]

blame

somebody, and that's the kind of vindictive approach this government

has taken. Not this minister. It's about centralization; it's about

local control; it's about an insult, I guess. When the Premier comes

out in Richmond and says he's going to vote against the referendum, and

urges everybody else to do it....

Interjections.

MR. ROSE : I didn't interfere in my riding. I went out and supported it. I held my nose and voted.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE : Talk about ratepayers! Who are those ratepayers?

Interjection.

MR. MILLER : Oh, did you hear what he said? The referendum's no good because only a few people voted.

MR. ROSE :

We know the referendum is no good. Other people have gone through this

exercise. Did you have a referendum, for instance, on the Coquihalla?

Of course you didn't. You went ahead and spent the money. Rather than

taking away the autonomy of the school boards, if they are autonomous — and they should be; it is part of our tradition — why don't you do it

the same way as for the provincial government? If you don't like your

local politician, as one of ours found out the other night, you get rid

of him. You vote him out. If you don't like the increase that these

profligate school trustees are involved in, then you get rid of them at

the next election. You don't do a Big Brother over their heads; that's

no way to run a railroad.

You don't do it in

municipalities, do you? Oh sure, you have a little bylaw occasionally,

but you don't do it this way. And you don't put a cap on municipal

spending.

[3:30]

MR. LOENEN : You don't trust people.

MR. ROSE : You don't trust people. You want to control everybody. You are a centralist. I think you're a Stalinist even.

Do you know what you're accusing the school boards of doing? Frittering away our money on children.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE : As a matter of fact, you're making so much noise you didn't even hear me.

you know what kinds of ads went in from so-called ratepayers in

Coquitlam? A picture of the school board chairperson and a little girl

and a bicycle. "This woman doesn't want me to have my new bike." Isn't

it an obscenity that that kind of ad would be in there in opposition? I

could have got involved in that, but I didn't. I thought it was their

business, and I stayed out of it. But your party didn't. You were in

there with both feet — with both snouts.

MR. LOENEN : That's leadership.

MR. ROSE : That's not leadership. Call the election. Come on, you guys!

They

feel betrayed; the trustees, the teachers and the children have been

betrayed by this kind of thing. I repeat, it's not just about money.

It's about the ability of an autonomous group to run its own show. It

has everything to do with the pride of a professional group, once they

have been given certain responsibilities, as they were in Bill 19, and

being able to proceed with their lives. They want to teach; they don't

want to fight all the time.

If there are certain programs

for children that are needed, earthquake-proofing, fixing roofs and all

the rest of it, the local board should be in a position to determine

that. It's not for the bureaucrats in Victoria to determine whether

Coquitlam, with the third-largest district, should be $600 less than

Vancouver per pupil. Why? We are a tremendously growing district, as is

Surrey, and growing districts have special problems. The minister knows

what they are. I don't need to tell him, but I will anyway. I hope

he'll listen.

HON. MR. BRUMMET : Oh, I'm listening intently.

MR. ROSE : Are you writing any notes? Or have you heard all this before?

HON. MR. BRUMMET : Everything new that you're saying I'm putting down.

MR. ROSE : And you haven't written anything, right? I think that's a bit sarcastic, and it shows contempt for parliament.

district went in for restraint and had its fiscal house in order.

Because of that, they feel they have been penalized. New schools are

needed; new principals are needed. That can't be part of the

pupil-teacher ratio anymore, because Bill 19 took them out of the union.

HON. MR. BRUMMET : That's not correct, and you know it.

MR. ROSE :

A higher need for management.... I had a member of the Surrey School

Board over here the other day, and he said that Surrey was forced into

a lot of managerial positions because of Bill 19. That's an added cost.

Portables, and the moving of portables, are an added cost. These are

things that happen in high-growth districts. If you have to remove

asbestos from old schools, that's an added cost. All of these things

need to be recognized. The opening of new schools, new managers....

Here's

the score in Coquitlam: "After subtracting the ministry's growth factor

of 5 percent funding, an increase of only 5.2 percent is provided for

inflation. That is 1 percent less than the ministry's own esti-

[ Page 9479 ]

mates

of inflation for next year. The result is a funding shortfall for our

district of $1,282,352." There is something wrong with your formula.

It came from the framework. Until 1983 we didn't have a framework. Now

we've taken the framework, we've rolled it all together, and we call

that block funding. By some magic, determined only in the minds of the

minister and his officials, it is somehow infallible. Well, if it's

infallible, how come you were running around here just before the

referendum giving extra money to certain boards? You didn't to

Coquitlam. You know that this is a politically dangerous issue for you.

After making all the progress you did as the new broom, I'm surprised

you are doing it.

I wonder why you are doing it. I know you

had several meetings of the advisory council. They suggested block

funding; you went for that. They suggested a number of other things,

such as the fiscal framework; you didn't go for that. Then all the

groups favouring block funding had a meeting in January. Everybody

agreed. Then you sprung the referendum on them.

What

happened to you? There's lots of speculation about what happened to

you. The consequences were told to you. They tried to have it dropped — all the stakeholders. The minister lamented on his first day here,

when he opened this debate, that not one school district phoned him up

and said: "My gosh, Mr. Minister, you've done a wonderful job with this

referendum." Not one. Why should they? He's cut the legs out from under

them and taken their power and their autonomy; why should they thank

him?

If the WCB requires asbestos to be removed for the safety of the children, it's not in the formula. It should be.

Why

did he do it? I don't know. I think he got caught in the crossfire

between the Premier and the Minister of Finance. I think he got caught

in a crossfire, and he lost.

In '86 to '89, a repair

agenda, so things begin to look better. Then what happened? The four

dissidents who left the sinking ship began to swim back to it, which is

an unusual experience — rats swimming towards a sinking ship. The

difference is, you've got the Premier and.... His dissidents, including

the member for Vancouver-Little Mountain, are back. Things have changed.

You can go back to your old tough ways again. That's what I think

happened. The repair agenda is over.

The other thing is

that there's a lot of defence of a particular suggestion made by the

department that we all have to look after ourselves and defend the

decisions we've made. I think there are some things that are badly

wrong in terms of how certain districts have been treated. The problem

with it is that now there's really no means to fix it up; although I

guess these things will be reviewed as our experience with this grows.

But I don't think we'll have this again. I think this is a one-election

wonder. Then maybe he'll just get rid of all school boards, or you'll

let them continue to be autonomous groups and organizations and

institutions, such as we have in the councils.

Nobody is

ever going to be happy about school funding; it's impossible. Unless

you had one teacher for every pupil, in some people's view there would

never be enough money spent on it. Society has to make that judgment.

You've done that, but we would have preferred you to have done it in a

way which recognizes the traditional and valid rights and powers of

local boards. You've taken that away and centralized it in the Kremlin.

You know that hasn't worked in other institutions and other countries,

and I don't think it's going to work here.

The best

decisions are those that are made closest to the people affected.

You've just done the opposite. You've just gone in the wrong direction.

Wrong-way Brummet.

DEPUTY SPEAKER : Hon. members are advised that under standing order 42 the minister closes debate.

HON. MR. BRUMMET :

It's been an interesting few days, where member after member on the

socialist side has implied that if they were in power there would be no

limit to the amount of money available to education, and at the same

time they somehow say it would not affect the taxpayers of this

province. I don't know where they would get all of this money for

education. But I guess when you are not in a position to deliver or to

have to take responsibility for your promises — as the socialists are

not likely to be — then you can make all kinds of promises to anybody

and suggest that everybody else is wrong.

In their

knee-jerk reaction to try and politicize every single thing that goes

on in this province, they have distorted the information, they have

misused the information, they have been selective about what they have

used in the information, and they have repeated it for several days,

one after another. I suppose it's guerrilla warfare or socialist

tactics that if you repeat it often enough, maybe somewhere along the

line people will think that there must be something to it.

MR. ROSE : Would you say it was a big lie?

HON. MR. BRUMMET : Yes.

MR. ROSE : Oh, that's unparliamentary.

HON. MR. BRUMMET : Well, it was your idea.

It's

the big-lie approach, where you keep saying the wrong thing repeatedly

in the hopes that someone will believe that there must be some

substance to it. As Marshall McLuhan said, enough mud gives the

impression of depth. I guess that is one of the things they have been

trying to do.

I could respond to many of the accusations

that were made. The member for Surrey-Guildford Whalley (Ms. Smallwood)

accused me of having done everything possible in my term as minister to

scuttle education in this province. I could take personal affront at

that, but I guess, when you consider the source, you let it go at that.

The opposition critic, in

[ Page 9480 ]

leading

off the debate, made a great point of how little notice was given that

the bill would come before the House. They had been told right from day

one that as soon as the throne speech and budget speech debate were

finished — and they managed to prolong the latter unnecessarily for

about two or three days — this bill would be the first before them. But

absolutely no notice, they say.

That member said that I

regret this legislation. What a bunch of nonsense! The member said that

the public objects. What I gathered was that the teachers object

because it affects the amount of money that might be available to them.

The trustees object because it does not give them a blank credit card

which they can then send to Victoria for payment; they now have to ask

their taxpayers for it. The NDP objects, and many of their friends

object to this. But wherever I have gone in this province, I have had

so much response from the public saying they are glad that there's a

curb on the 15, 20 and 30 percent spending increases each year, while

the economy is running at 5 or 6 percent.

Who is this

public? A great deal was made by the Leader of the Opposition about the

small turnout on the referendums. What about the small turnouts for the

election of school trustees or in by-elections for trustees? A small

number of the populace turning out and electing the trustees is, to the

opposition, paramount to giving them licence to spend any amount they

want and apply it to the taxes. But if the taxpayers decide through a

referendum vote with a small turnout.... Somehow or other that takes on

a significance beyond parallel with anything else — it's a minority

making the decision. I'll tell you, it's a lot bigger minority making

that decision than trustees who, once elected by an even smaller

majority, then feel they have the right to expand the budget to any

lengths they wish.

[3:45]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

There

have been a lot of questions about why referendums have been applied

to school board funding. I wonder if members on the opposite side of

the House — and a lot of other people — are aware that when every other

ministry in government gets its budget approved by this House, it has

to be accountable for the amount that has been approved in their

budget. Yes, there are special warrants, overdrafts and so on. But that

ministry has to be accountable for the amount approved in the

provincial budget. When it came to supplementary spending, when it came

to the school boards' authority, this was the only ministry in

government where, after the provincial budget had been set and approved — at a generous level compared to the rest of the country — the boards

could expand that budget to any extent they wished and then blame the

province for not coming up with 100 percent of it. That's the only

ministry in government — through the locally elected school boards

-that can expand its budget to any length.

I was even

willing to accept that. For three years I said to them: "If you want to

make those kinds of additional expenditures, then please take the

responsibility for them. I think your position is defensible." Instead

of that, one after another, every single one of them said: "The only

reason your taxes are increasing is because Victoria is cutting

spending on education."

We were cutting spending on

education, according to those socialists over there, when we came up

with about a 12-percent increase three years ago, in order to pick up

some of that supplementary spending of $172 million that the school

boards had put in place, over and above what had been approved by the

province. And lo and behold, having picked that up into the budget and

added an increase for inflation, by the time the smoke settled, the

increase had gone up another $162 million in that one year. So what

happened? We picked up that spending of $172 million and added to it,

and they didn't even say thank you. They simply added another $162

million, put it on the local taxpayers and then blamed us for not

funding education.

The next year we increased spending by

about 10 percent, with an economy running at 4, and the opposition

said: "That's not enough. You're cutting spending in education." The

next year we increased it by over 8 percent — I'm not talking about just

the operating budgets. And that wasn't enough. The economy was running

at 4 or 5 percent, but it wasn't enough. This year we have increased it

by 9.9 percent on the operating budget. It wasn't enough. The

opposition would give more. There should be no cost controls on

spending, according to them, absolutely none.

Whereas the taxpayers,

the public of this province, I think, were saying: "Hey, we can't keep

going at this rate, "

You can pick any period you want.

Over the last three years we have increased the operating budgets for

education by 28.4 percent. The average increase in Canada was 16

percent. And it's not enough.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BRUMMET : Because your statistics are old.

AN HON. MEMBER : No, they're not.

HON. MR. BRUMMET : Yes, they are.

have separated the school district operating budgets from the capital.

The capital is above that. Computer funding is above that. The royal

commission implementation money is above that. We have said that the

amount in this province for the operating budget by itself is $5,259

per student on average. But when you add in those other items that we

have put in, it is now over $5,900 per pupil, and that compares very

favourably with any jurisdiction in this country.

You talk

about playing politics, but this has been typical throughout. They pick

one figure selectively from this, and then they make a big case around

that, because their whole orientation has more to do with

[ Page 9481 ]

politics

than it ever does with education or a concern for kids. The only time I

hear that opposition concerned for kids is when they can score some

political Brownie points out of it.

We've had a lot...and

I'm just going to use a few examples. The new NDP member for Oak

Bay-Gordon Head (Ms. Cull), who was chairman of the Victoria school

board and then decided to go into the bigger field, made a big

production of how responsible the Victoria school board was. Well, let

me tell you about last year, the year before. They had put together a

budget and gone to the people — and had done quite a responsible job in

that — and said: "This is what we need, along with what the government

is providing to us, to run a quality education system in this district.

Unfortunately, it generates a 10.5 percent increase in your taxes, but

we think it's necessary." And their people supported them.

When

we came out with the provincial budget, we had changed the formula to

try and do some more equalizing for the larger districts, such as

Victoria and Vancouver. We had raised the base from 55 to 57 percent.

That generated an extra $2 million or more for the Victoria school

board. So what did they do? They did not go back and say: "We can now

lower your tax increase to 8 percent, because we've got $2 million

more." They said: "What the heck, we told them it was 10.5 percent.

We'll find a way to spend the other $2 million." And, by golly, they

did. Then they try and build it into their next base.

We've

had accusations that they are forced to take money away from their

schoolchildren, from their school programs, in order to deal with the

asbestos program in the Victoria school system. They needed $75, 000 to

remove asbestos from some of the schools. They had been given over $1.5

million in minor capital; they had plenty of money there to do it. But

they didn't do a thing about it. Then when the Workers' Compensation

Board came down on them, they said: "Well, the province won't give us

emergency funding." Why the heck would I approve emergency funding of

$75,000 when I had approved $1.5 million that year and $1.3 million

the year before, which they had and they could have done the job with?

That's the kind of political crap that we get, so we're not going

to.... That is the sort of thing these series of referendums....

MR. SPEAKER : Order, please. I must ask the minister to withdraw his unparliamentary language.

HON. MR. BRUMMET : I'm sorry. I don't recall what I said, but if it offends the Speaker, I certainly will withdraw it.

MR. SPEAKER : It offends the standing orders which indicate which language is permitted in the House and which isn't.

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER :

I would ask the member for Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale (Mr. Reid) to

restrain himself at all times and especially during the time the

Speaker is making a statement. Would the minister continue.

HON. MR. BRUMMET :

You have some examples there of the type of thing we have been facing

in this debate. I feel it's up to the people what they want to approve

in a referendum or what they don't want to approve, but on the other

hand I think boards should feel an obligation to give the correct and

full information to their taxpayers.

Last Thursday and

Friday we heard comments from the Vancouver and Surrey board people —

and I guess some others — who said quite openly and candidly: "Of

course we are approaching only those people — the teachers and some of

the parents — that we know might vote for the referendum. We would be

stupid to try and make everyone else aware of what's going on." I was

under the impression that the elected trustees' main function was to

represent their taxpayers as well as their school district and not to

beat the taxpayers in some way by whatever method they could. Now I

hear them saying, after the weekend is over and the referendum vote is

over: "The only reason that we couldn't really inform all of the rest

of the people is that the ministry didn't give us enough time. They

only gave us a week." Mr. Speaker, I announced on January 31 that

anything above the block allocation would have to go to referendum, and

there was a great deal of publicity.

There are so many

examples of what can be done. Let me deal fairly quickly with some of

the things that were in referendum. The Leader of the Opposition made a

point of talking about playing political football with the children.

That is the member who last year sent out to the student councils in

this province with his approval to please invite our NDP members into

the schools, and we'll tell you how rotten Social Credit is. That is a

member who says: "We wouldn't play political football. Withdraw Bill

11." That's his biggest contribution to the one day in a week that he

has been in this House: he comes in here and says, "Withdraw." Because

he hasn't had time to read it, I guess he would like us to withdraw it.

What is he recommending? Open spending?

He touches on the

Abbotsford referendum for library books and integration. Every district

gets some money for supplies, library books and funding for integration

in the block and in the programs above the block.

Coquitlam — maintain staff. At least they're honest; they don't need to

maintain staff. I think it means they want to increase staff, because

to maintain staff they've got all of the funding that they got last

year plus an inflation increase.

Purchase equipment. Once

again there is an equipment account. They have a minor capital account.

There's a shared capital; there's all of that.

Repair

classrooms. They get $1 million a year for repairing classrooms. Prince

George, portable classrooms. It has been made abundantly clear that

portable classrooms will now be funded from the capital project above

the block funding, and this year we

[ Page 9482 ]

move

the minor capital from $50 million to $75 million, so all the money

that's needed for portables Is above the block and available to school

districts as needed for portables. Yet they are going to referendum to

purchase portables. How do you believe that? At least Prince George was

honest. They said: "We want some money to reduce class sizes."

Queen

Charlottes, maintain adult education. It's in their budget. It's there,

and we have in this ministry in the last few years said that any adult

who takes a school program in the secondary school, as long as it's a

school program, counts as that much of an equivalent. If they're taking

two courses instead of eight, they get funded at two-eighths in the

block. Then somebody over there — I guess it was the Leader of the

Opposition — stood up to say: "There is no money for these people to

take courses." Post-secondary has courses. We have courses. We fund

them. There are all kinds of opportunities. It's not that the people

are turning down these programs that they've gone to referendum for,

but they are smart enough to know that that would be double funding

because it's already available and there.

In Surrey we have the programs for special needs. That's in the block,

and if they have more special needs pupils, they get more money for that.

ESL programs. They show us ESL students, they get funded at the ESL level.

Hearing impaired. These are special students and there is extra funding for those in the block.

Library

books. Again, Surrey says they have to have money for portables. Did

they tell their taxpayers that the money for portables is over and

above the block, or that they don't need to go to a referendum for

that? Did they tell their taxpayers that last year they had quite a bit

of money for moving and setting up portables in their fiscal framework?

We left that in there; we didn't even take it out. So they had that

money left over, plus new money for portables, and they say they have

to go to a referendum for portables, and then blame us.

The

Leader of the Opposition says that the gifted and special-needs

students are losers. More money has gone in each year for gifted and

special-needs students. It's in the block and in the increase to the

block.

[4:00]

I hardly need to

repeat that the ballot from Vancouver.... The Leader of the Opposition

said: "My goodness, they have to go to a referendum to put emergency

exit lights in some of the schools!" Did they tell their taxpayers that

they have almost $4 million of shareable capital in the block for those

types of things? Did they tell their taxpayers that they already have —

for minor capital, out of the $75 million — a couple of million dollars

a year beyond the block to repair classrooms and to do those kinds of

things? Did they tell their taxpayers that they were sitting on a $10

million capital reserve, while they couldn't find $500,000 to do an

earthquake study? That's what bothers me.

I notice that the

chairman of the Vancouver board is upset that I mentioned this

information publicly. I also notice that in no way has he denied that

it exists. When I said that they got $2.7 million for computers in two

years, and they still had $2 million of it in the bank, and the kids

were doing without computers, they said I shouldn't be releasing that

information: "We'll get around to spending it." For two years those

kids have done without the computers. I can understand, as the Leader

of the Opposition says, that the people in the East End of Vancouver

want their kids to have computers. They say: "We don't have any

computers in our schools, so of course we'll approve it in the

referendum." They didn't need to. The money was sitting there already,

but they just didn't get around to buying the computers.

The

elimination of pesticides on school grounds — there's plenty of money in

their capital. What's that got to do with extra programs? I guess the

main point is that everything that was on that referendum ballot in

Vancouver is either in the block or provided for above the block. It is

available, and the money is there to fund it. So I don't know why they

are going for that.

Perhaps I can bring back to.... I don't

know whether it's even worth trying to explain again, because the

opposition members just can't seem to get it through their heads — like

many other people. What is block funding? They say — and so do the

boards — that they accept the concept of block funding, apparently

without any comprehension of what it means. It means a block of money

to be distributed in any way the school board sees fit, a block of

money to fund the education program in that district.

MR. ROSE : We know that.

HON. MR. BRUMMET :

Well, it doesn't show. If you know that, it certainly doesn't show. The

impression I get from the opposition and particularly from partisan

school boards is that block funding is a starting point on which to

add. If you take the change to the block funding system which is

recommended by Sullivan.... I guess that's what was bothering me. The

opposition House Leader managed to distort that. He said that I said:

"None of the boards thanked me for going to a referendum." I did not

say that. I said: "None of the boards seemed to appreciate the fact

that there was enough money there to fund the educational programs."

When

we went to block funding, the concept was that there would be a block

of money that would fund the educational program In the district. Then

there was a discussion about adequacy: how big is the block? We agreed

that if we were going to start it without creating any wars in

education, we would acknowledge all of the spending we had approved,

plus the $238 million that the boards had added last year, and we would

say: "That's the starting block." In other words, all of the actual

expenditures on education are in the block. That seems to be acceptable

to everyone.

Then we said that we would increase it by a

reasonable figure, in line with the economy — because it has to

expand — and we would allow for

[ Page 9483 ]

increased

enrolments. When we added that up, it came to a 9.9 percent increase

over last year's spending — admittedly, about 3.6 or 3.7 percent of it

was for enrolment increases. They say: "You have not allowed for

growth." We have provided for all of the dollars spent last year, plus

6.2 percent, in round numbers, plus 3.7 percent for projected enrolment

increases. I would say that is accounting for enrolment increases.

When

you look at the comparison to other provinces, you have things like....

The highest increase of any province, including enrolment projections,

is Ontario, at 6.4 percent. It is 3.5 in Alberta and 3.6 in Nova

Scotia. An average of about a 4 percent increase, including enrolment

increases, across Canada this year from all of the Education ministries

and all of the governments, and in British Columbia 9.9 percent, and

those people have the audacity to say: "But it's not enough." After two

good years, then a really good year, and it's not enough.

Could

I reiterate, please: block funding means that there is a bunch of money

available — a total amount available; that's the block — and that that

block is adequate, and therefore that should fund the education

programs.

Then it was a case of okay, leave it at that —

cap it. Because after all, if you got all the money that you've been

spending plus the increase that you need, that should be it. But no, we

said there may be other reasons, and if boards use them intelligently I

think there could be places where both the board and the taxpayers do

agree that some additional funding is necessary. So we opened the door

and said: "Do you want to go above that? Convince your taxpayers and we

will have a referendum."

All of the focus has been on

referendum, and again the contradictory arguments that I hear from the

opposition and many other people of the socialist stripe.... It seems

to be: "Look, we have every evidence that the majority of the public in

this province supports far more spending than you're willing to put

up." Before even the referendum they were saying: "The people of this

province support far more spending than the government has allotted."

And then they turn around in the next breath and say: "That's why it's

so unfortunate we're having referenda, because the people will never

vote for more spending than what is being provided." How ludicrous!

They kill and defeat their own argument.

Education is and

has been a priority of this government. It's interesting to note that

with all of the changes that I've made.... I've even been accused by

the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley (Ms Smallwood) of doing change

for the sake of change and creating confrontation for the sake of

confrontation. I have tried for three years, but the BCTF executive's

political agenda would not allow peace in this province. They kept

attacking me. Even when I refused to argue with them they still kept

attacking and attacking this government publicly. When you are

continually attacked.... Their agenda was to attack, attack, attack,

and of course the opposition certainly goes along with that, because

when you've got $1 million or $1.5 million that the BCTF spends in your

election campaign and you don't even have to show it as election

expenses, it's not bad. And they talk about us, accusing our friends....

MR. SPEAKER : Thank you, hon. minister. The time has expired. I must now ask you to move the motion.

HON. MR. BRUMMET : I move second reading of Bill 11.

[4:15]

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS - 30

Brummet

Savage

Strachan

Gran

Reynolds

Dueck

Parker

Weisgerber

L. Hanson

Messmer

Michael

Reid

Vant

Huberts

Chalmers

Dirks

S. Hagen

Smith

Fraser

J. Jansen

Pelton

Loenen

McCarthy

Peterson

Bruce

Serwa

Long

Mercier

Crandall

Davidson

NAYS - 17

G. Hanson

Rose

Harcourt

Gabelmann

Clark

Blencoe

Pullinger

Barlee

Smallwood

Lovick

A. Hagen

Miller

Cull

Perry

Zirnhelt

Sihota

G.Janssen

Bill 11, School Amendment Act, 1990, read a second time and referred to a Committee

of the Whole House for consideration forthwith.

SCHOOL AMENDMENT ACT, 1990

The House in committee on Bill 11; Mr. Pelton in the chair.

section 1.

MS. A. HAGEN : Mr. Chairman, it's good to be in committee where we can get at the nuts and "block" of the referendum.

Because

this is a very significant bill, it's rather good that the very first

section we're going to be dealing with is a

section on

definitions. I

am sure that if anyone was reading the bill for the first time and read

about annual capital allowances, annual capital projects, capital plan

expenses, capital plan projects, local capital expenses, and so on,

they would throw up their hands and say: "This is somewhat confusing."

want to zero in particularly on the block. The minister has said a

number of times that big capital spending is outside the block. To put

that to rest, we

[ Page 9484 ]

know

that if you're going to build a school, it's not a part of block

funding. There will be the same method we've had in the past where big

projects will come over to the ministry to get approval and have to be

passed by a bylaw of the board, and those will be shared through debt

services. I want to put that to one side so we don't get into that

debate. I'll try to stay with what is within that block.

find as I look at these terms — they sort of resonate in my head; I

probably don't always keep them as clear as the minister might — that

there are two aspects of this new set of

definitions that I want to

take a look at.

One of them is an annual capital allowance.

It's my understanding that this annual capital allowance is now in the

block in the amount of money, on a per pupil basis, that the minister

says will be available to school boards. What determines this annual

capital allowance under the block?

I'd like to propose a

thesis, and the minister can perhaps clarify it for me. It appears to

me that the amount of this annual capital allowance that is in the

block is based on past expenditures. In other words, if the board had a

certain amount of money that it paid for a lot of what we normally

think of as capital expenses that has been rolled into the block — I

believe this may be what we used to call non-shareable capital.... The

actual amount that's available to school boards at this time is in fact

an amount that is based on what they have been spending in the past,

rather than any kind of objective criterion about what might be needed

in that block.

Mr. Chairman, one of the tasks that we're

going to have at this stage of the game — just to give some indication

of the line of questioning that I want to follow — is how we get at a

block that's going to be a block that works, that's credible, that's

fair, that's equitable, because the block is what we're building on for

this whole system. If we build, as we so often say, on a foundation

that's rocky and hasn't been cemented together, then we're going to

have problems.

What we'd like to deal with here is getting

some understanding of how that block has been developed so that the

principles of the block — which the minister has said will be stable,

predictable, accountable and fair — can be demonstrated as being in the

block funding.

If the minister could give me some

indication of that annual capital allowance and how that amount of

money was determined in terms of what goes into the block, then I want

to pursue a little line of questioning, once I get some confirmation

that this annual capital allowance in the block of any school district

right now is likely to be pretty close in the amount that might have

got rolled in to what they spent last year in non-shareable capital and

in, perhaps, one function of the fiscal framework. I don't know which

one it is. What's in the annual capital allowance, Mr. Minister?

HON. MR. BRUMMET :

There are two ways that the school board can deal with capital

projects. One of them is by capital approval: major and minor capital

approvals are provided from the ministry on the basis of need and the

submissions that districts put in. Also in the block is an amount of

money that is available to boards to spend as they need to for minor

projects: that is the annual capital allowance, as it says in the

definition, which is not included in a board's capital plan bylaw. That

money is determined by a formula which takes into account the value of

the buildings in a district, the age of the buildings, the amount of

space in effect per square metre.... So it is as much as possible an

objective, fair formula for that portion.

MS. A. HAGEN : So there is, then, some kind of formula that determines the amount that goes into the block.

Mr.

Chairman, might I ask the minister, given the history of the years of

restraint that we've been through, and given the fact that I think the

minister would acknowledge that during this period, one of the ways in

which school districts managed to balance their budgets and to continue

their programs was to cut back on much of the maintenance and repairs —

the kind of long-term planning that keeps many of the old schools able

to continue to be used for education.... Given that history, is it fair

to say that in this block there may be still residuals of that

restraint?

There has been a rolling average, as I

understand it, of capital funding available to boards, based on a

three-year average. If boards hadn't been spending on maintenance and

ongoing upgrading — not big projects, but the kind of stuff we do to be

sure that roofs don't leak, and that the carpets are replaced, and that

furnaces and heating operations are kept in good repair, and that

equipment is replaced.... Really, a lot of that stuff was not done,

particularly in the period from 1982-83 to 1986. Is there some residual

effect, in the minister's view, on the block, as a result of the

budgeting practices of boards at that time, as they tried to manage

with very limited amounts of money and cut back their capital spending?

HON. MR. BRUMMET : I would suppose that in any situation where something

was neglected and then left neglected for a time, there would be a residual

effect — if that is the question the member is asking. But during the restraint

program, there was local autonomy; it was by choice that boards cut back on

salary increases, maintenance or... That was a local choice.

The

rolling average is for maintenance operations, not for capital. I think

that whatever residual effect was there has been more than looked

after. We have increased the minor capital funding considerably, as I

said, from $25 million to $50 million to $75 million this year. At the

same time, we also incorporated into the fiscal framework, before we

moved to the block system, around $23 million or $24 million for those

types of things that school boards can do. That's been apportioned

according to the age of the building. So

[ Page 9485 ]

there

has been an opportunity for people to catch up. If the member is trying

to ask whether everybody has caught up equally, I don't know. Where did

they put their money? Where did they put it last year?

MS. A. HAGEN :

Mr. Chairman, we must not go back too far in history, but I can't

resist a comment to the minister that during the period of restraint,

wages were restrained as well as board budgets. The period of

restraint, as the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose) noted in his

comments earlier, was such that in one year there was no increase in

board budgets, and in another year there was an actual decrease in

board budgets. The only way in which those boards were able to operate

was to cut back on maintenance.

The thesis that I want to

put forward, Mr. Chairman, without belabouring this point — we'll come

back to it — is that what is in the block, in the snapshot for each

district, is the basis on which that district is going to be budgeting

for a number of years. We have been told that there is a variation in

the per-pupil average cost per district, and we recognize that has ever

been thus. But within that range, there are questions that we really

need to get answered. I think that one of the theses that we'll be

bringing forward is that the minister should in fact be prepared to

demonstrate that the block that he has delivered to school districts

does provide a level of equity for districts in this area for capital

costs. We'll be looking at it in the broader sense when we come to look

at actual block funding.

It's probably very fair to say at

this point that the block that the minister has delivered to school

districts this year is more reflective of past expenditures for capital

projects than it is reflective of the costs that they might quite

legitimately need to undertake to keep their buildings in reasonable

shape. I know there are districts, for instance, that have been trying

to move from a 20-year equipment replacement to a 10-year equipment

replacement. There isn't enough in their budget this year for them to

do that; yet that's a reasonable kind of aspiration for boards to have,

especially when you're looking at shop equipment computer equipment or

any of the kinds of equipment that most of us know is obsolete probably

in five years, let alone 10 or 20.

[4:30]

know, too, that districts have been facing very major costs for keeping

their schools up to snuff. I know that the minister has been looking at

the issue of minor repairs that do that job. I would contend that this

block probably institutionalizes some of those inequities. The point

that we will be making is that that block should not be frozen so that

those inequities are enshrined from now until — dear knows when — we

get to be government and can look at this in a little more rational way.

Let

me turn to another definition — that is, the definition of local

capital expense, which is something that comes out of totally local

decisions. It's not a part of the block; it has to come from the

board's reserves if it has reserves, or it has to come from referendum.

The board's allocation can come from that. It may also come from other

allowances designated by the minister. I have two questions. What are

the other allowances that may be designated by the minister that would

provide resources for a local capital expense? Are these from some of

the special projects, such as funding for the Royal Commission on

Education, where there may need to be modifications to school buildings

or classrooms in order to deliver the kind of education system that is

anticipated under the royal commission? Or are there some other

allowances that the minister is talking about? Is this something that

comes from capital funds but doesn't require a bylaw? I'd like to have

the minister explain what that might refer to.

HON. MR. BRUMMET :

I guess we're going to play yo-yo, point by point by bitty point here.

I would hope that the member might put her questions together so that

we don't have to play yo-yo all afternoon.

The other thing

is that I'm somewhat enthralled by the member reading to me what it

says and then saying: "Now tell me what it says." If we're going to

play that game — word by word, clause by clause — it says: "'Local

capital expense' means a capital expense with respect to a project that

is (

a) financed from the board's local capital reserve...." They had

some money of their own, if you like. So if it comes out of that

reserve, that is a local capital expense, because they're spending it

from their local money.

It says that if it's "included in

the annual budget of a board and financed from local revenue" — where

they might have some sources of revenue at the local level, it doesn't

cut into the provincial budget, or if they had gone to referendum, for

instance, to say: "We want to build a new school-bus garage, and it's

going to cost $60,000; we've gone to referendum, and the taxpayers

have approved it" — the whole $60,000 is paid for that bus garage this

year. It's probably more like $600,000 at the rate garages cost

nowadays. The point remains that in the board's allocation, the

provincial block, other than its annual capital allowance or other

allowances designated by the minister.... So in the block, the money

that they have had in place at the local level was added to their block

and is part of their block and theirs to do with as they see fit. So

it's local money.

MS. A. HAGEN : I'll just leave the

question with the minister, and perhaps he would care to answer it when

he yo-yos again. This is, I might note, a particular clause made up of

little bits and pieces, and it seems to me that the easiest way to deal

with it is to ask specific questions and to get quick answers.

still would like to know the source of other allowances designated by

the minister, which was my question. If he is able to answer that,

fine. If not, we'll simply consider it to be another special fund that

the minister has discretion to use where no one knows what it might be

or where it might be coming from.

The other point I want to make around this issue is that local capital expenses may be raised through

[ Page 9486 ]

school

referendum taxes. The minister just used an example of a school garage,

presumably for buses. Referendums are for annual expenditures. In fact,

they are for expenditures within the calendar year in which those taxes

are raised — not for a school year.

One of the problems

that boards are going to face around going to referendum for capital

expenses is that they either have to raise all the cost of a particular

project within a single calendar year even though the tax isn't

collected until July of that year — or else they are going to risk not

having a referendum pass the second time around, because we can't have

multi-year funding. We can only — through the referendum system that

exists — ask the taxpayers for money that is coming for that one year.

recognize the boards could ask for that money; let's say it was

$100,000 for a particular project. They have the discretion of phasing

that

project in over a couple of years and putting the money that has been

raised through referendum into a surplus account for that purpose. But

from the point of view of referendum being the means by which that

money is raised, it means that all that money has to be raised up front.

That's

not the way the minister builds schools. When the minister builds

schools, he amortizes the cost of those schools over 20 years. I think

a problem for boards trying to deal with the referendum system — an

annual budget item — is the fact that they cannot get approval for

multi-year funding out of two tax years. I think it's a real problem

for boards who are looking for ways to make local decisions that are

taken out of consideration for the needs of their district — and having

that work.

I would like the minister to comment on the

rationale here for there not being more discretion with the referendum

system — which, as he knows, we don't like — that would allow boards to

plan for capital projects over a reasonable lifespan, in the same way

as we plan for the building of schools and paying for them over a

longer span than a single year.

HON. MR. BRUMMET : I

don't think it's a problem for boards. It seems to be a comprehension

problem for the member, in that this is no change from the past. Boards

have never been able to — on their own, out of local capital — commit

the taxpayers to ten years of expenditures. They're not going to be

able to in the future. That kind of project is in our major capital,

and that project...

As I have indicated, we have moved from

$110 million to $200 million to $275 million of major capital in three

years, and those are the projects they put in that are prioritized and

are handled through the other plan.

The referendum is not

to build schools; the major capital program is to build schools. The

referendum is if they want to build — and I use the example of a garage — and their local taxpayers say: "Yes, we will put up $600,000 to

build a garage." And we say: "You can't commit the taxpayers for next

year and the next year and the next year in a referendum. You commit

them for this year." So the taxpayers have to be taxed to raise the

whole $600,000 this year.

I'm not concerned — because it's

a local matter — whether they finish the garage before December 31 or by

next spring. But the money for that garage — for that particular item — has to come in. Surely the member is not somehow suggesting that a

board should be able to go to a referendum — to its taxpayers — and

say: "We're going for $200,000; that's what we want you to fund this

year. We forgot to mention that would generate additional taxes of

$400,000 a year for the next ten years."

No, they've got

to put it up front. It's up front. It's funded this year. It is

intended for the minor projects or special projects that the districts

want. The other projects — the long-term projects — are still in the

major capital, so they're not in this at all.

MS. A. HAGEN :

I think the minister has made the case: $600,000 in lots of districts

is a fairly significant amount of money. In Kitimat, for example, which

was going to referendum for $650,000 until the minister found some

money for that district that it should have had, that amount of money

up front may be an impossible thing to get through referendum.

The

point that I'm making is that the referendum basically means boards

cannot plan for long-term local capital expenses, because they are at

the mercy, if you like, of taxpayers who each year are going to be

asked to deal with these issues.

If the board, as a locally

elected board of responsible trustees, decided that it was going to

deal with a project that needed to be a multi-year project, then it

could do some of that decision-making. That's the kind of thing we feel

is reasonable for a more flexible and responsive system to have in

place. The referendum, in fact, precludes that kind of planning,

because if anything is multi-year, we have to go back again. I think it

will become more obvious when we're dealing with programs and with

capital costs, because capital costs tend to be one-shot items,

whereas

program costs are, of course, ongoing ones.

I wanted to

raise some of those issues around the first section, and that concludes

the questions I want to ask on

section 1 — unless there are some other

members in the chamber who may wish to raise a question.

Sections 1 to 4 inclusive approved.

section 5.

HON. MR. BRUMMET : Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment standing In my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On the amendment.

MS. A. HAGEN :

The reason I'm standing is that I thought I had checked amendments....

That's fine. I just wanted to be sure this was the amendment I was

expecting. This is the one that deals with the fact that Vancouver,

under the special charter, had been excluded on the technical amendment.

[ Page 9487 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN : I believe this is the only amendment in the bill.

Amendment approved.

section 5 as amended.

MS. A. HAGEN :

Sorry, Mr. Chairman, I'm just wanting your direction here. We're now

beginning to deal with

part 8, right? Sometimes, with all of the

different numbers we have with amending bills, it takes.... Sections 1

to 5 of

part 8 are repealed and the following are substituted. What I

want to address now is

section 124. With your assistance, I'll know

when I'm on track there.

MR. CHAIRMAN : That should be dealt with right now, hon. member.

MS. A. HAGEN : That's what I thought.

This

and the following two or three sections are key to the bill, because

these sections establish the basis for the block funding. I think

perhaps what I'll do is begin by asking the minister if he would not

give us his standard speech on what's in the block — because I've heard

that on many different occasions — but elaborate a little bit and give

some information on the basis of what criteria the minister will use to

determine the average per pupil amount.

[4:45]

I'm aware that this year the minister has stated that that amount

has been arrived at by taking the sum of all of the operating budgets

of school boards, dividing it by the number of children who are in the

system and arriving at the block. That was the basis.

want the minister to elaborate a little bit on the criteria that he is

using for this block, because that's simply what I call a snapshot.

That block has been determined by taking something that exists, and the

number of students in the system, and arriving at a figure. It means

that built into the calculation — into that block — could very well be

inequities or deficiencies within a system that are going to be

replicated and magnified over time.

If the minister could

not just tell us how he got to the block, but the criteria that are to

be used in the block, I have some questions that I want to go with once

I've heard his discussion.

HON. MR. BRUMMET : I think

the

Section is fairly clear. The block of funds will be the amount per

pupil. We went that route by breaking down last year's expenditure into

an amount per pupil so that we automatically build in enrolment

increases. It would be the amount per pupil times the number of

full-time-equivalent students. We have committed that the announcement

will be made by February 1, so the boards will be informed what the

amount is. As to determining the amount, that will carry on in the same

way it always has in the past, by the funding available.

going to block funding, the government has accepted the principle of,

the block plus an economic adjustment factor each year. This year we

have a block of $2,660 million which was derived by coming up with all

of last year's expenditures plus an increase of 6.17 percent. That's

from the operating block. We have said that next year's block will be

this year's block plus the economic adjustment factor. That will be

determined by the economy, and it becomes a budget matter.

Each

year the government has announced to the school boards what the fiscal

framework funding would provide. In future, each year the government

will announce by February 1 — which is quite early, considering when

the budget generally comes down — the amount of the block and the amount

of the increase that the economic adjustment factor provides that year.

That is how it will be determined; that's the basis of block funding.

You can go to a block and just increase the block. We have chosen to

convert it to an amount per pupil and then multiply it by the number of

pupils. If you get 3 percent more pupils, you automatically have that

plus whatever economic adjustment factor.

It makes good

sense, and that's what I mean: it's stable, it's predictable and it

allows for long-term planning. School boards can next year look at what

they have in their block this year, and when they can tell long before

we announce it on February 1 what the economic indicators are, they can

get a pretty good idea what to do, and by February 1 we'll tell them

what decision has been made.

MS. A. HAGEN : Two

issues here, Mr. Chairman. First, is the block on which this new system

is going to be built fair? Secondly, do we have some good indication of

a fair means of increasing it?

I want to talk about the

first matter now. Is this block fair? I understand the basis the

minister has used in establishing the block, but a snapshot of any

board budget in any particular period of time is almost certain to

provide some problems and some difficulties — again, some principles

that we would all agree should be reflected in that block. Certainly

you've heard and I've heard of concerns that boards have about matters

that were not reflected in the block. In fact, the minister has

rectified about $4.8 million in the block that should have been there

and was not. That's just a first indication that the block is something

that wasn't perfect when it was devised, and probably isn't close to

perfect at the present time.

Let me just ask some very

specific questions about whether the block acknowledges some of these

very real costs of districts. I don't anticipate that this list will be

in any way comprehensi