1985 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 33rd Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1985

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

6255 ]

CONTENTS

Oral Questions

Log exports. Mr. Howard –– 6255

Hazardous wastes. Hon. Mr. Rogers replies –– 6256

Mrs. Wallace

Canadian lumber exports. Mr. Williams –– 6257

Medical Service Amendment Act, 1985 (Bill 41). Second reading.

Mr. Cocke –– 6257

Hon. Mr. Nielsen –– 6258

Division –– 6262

Medical Service Amendment Act, 1985 (Bill 41). Committee stage 6262

Third reading

British Columbia Transit Amendment Act (No –– 2), 1985 (Bill 38). Committee stage 6262

Mr. Gabelmann

Mr. Reid

Third reading

School Amendment Act, 1985 (Bill 35). Second reading

Hon. Mr. Heinrich –– 6265

Mr. Rose –– 6266

Mr. Veitch –– 6270

Mr. Gabelmann –– 6271

Hon. Mr. Heinrich –– 6273

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Industry and Small Business Development estimates.

(Hon. Mr. McClelland)

On vote 44: minister's office –– 6275

Mr. Howard

Mr. Williams

Mr. MacWilliam

The House met at 2:03 p.m.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, we have in the members'gallery

today His Excellency Ola Ullsten, Swedish ambassador, a former Prime

Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden; Mr. Ulf Walden,

Swedish consul in Vancouver; Mr. Lars Malmstrom, press attache from

Ottawa; and Mr. Hugo von Sydow, forestry attache from Washington. I'd

like the House to join me in welcoming them here today.

MR. MACDONALD: A word of welcome to our friends from Sweden, particularly my friend Ulf, who plays a very good game of tennis.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, it's not often that I have the

opportunity of introducing constituents from Columbia River. However,

today I am very pleased to introduce to the members Mr. Dee Ruparell of

Invermere. Unfortunately, I don't have his business partner's name

here; his business partner is from Africa. I'd like the members to join

me in welcoming them here today.

MR. MacWILLIAM: It gives me a lot of pleasure to introduce a

former resident of the city of Victoria and now a lawyer practising in

the jewel of the Okanagan, Vernon, British Columbia, Mr. Rick Buchan.

I'd like the House to welcome him today.

HON. MR. SEGARTY: Mr. Speaker, I have some guests in the

Legislature too, from the coal capital of British Columbia. Under the

direction of Lynne Fowler is the Elkford Secondary School band. I would

like the House to give a warm welcome, and to extend an invitation to

all hon. members to watch the band perform at Beacon Hill Park tomorrow

evening.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, in the gallery this afternoon are

two visitors from Detroit, Michigan. I would ask the House to please

welcome James and Beulah Johnston.

Oral Questions

LOG EXPORTS

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Minister of

Forests about the news that a couple of small logging companies have

been forced to close as a result of the process of block bidding, as

it's understood to be, by companies such as Doman Industries or Doman

Forest Products and CIPA lumber of Vancouver, blocking the process of

exporting logs, basically buying logs below the export price and

exporting their own logs, thus driving these two small companies out of

business. Will the minister advise the House what steps he is taking to

deal with these inequalities?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I'd be happy to advise the member for Skeena.

First of all, I must state that it is not the policy of this government, nor

of any previous government of British Columbia, to encourage the export of logs.

The criteria by which logs are approved for export require that they be offered

for sale on the Vancouver log market, that it be advertised in the media, and

if reasonable offers are made to purchase these logs, then approval is not given

for the export. From time to time bids are made which are not really realistic.

When that happens, an assessment is made by my staff and me as to whether or

not the bids are realistic. If they are determined to be unreasonably low bids,

and quite often even though an offer is made, we will approve certain logs for

export.

The one the member is referring to probably is the Coulson Prescott

application for export, and I did talk to Cliff Coulson about that and

I did a review of that particular request for log exports.

What happened is that there was a mixed bag of logs, of various

species and grades. Offers were made on these logs, and some of the

offers were reasonable and above the cost of logging and would have

provided some profit for the logger. These logs were turned down for

export approval. Another portion of the logs, the lower grade of the

quality spectrum, received bids that in our opinion were considerably

below the logging cost even if you were to average the value of the

logs in the boom and try to come out with an average cost. So what we

did in this particular case was disapprove those sales and allow a

certain portion of those logs for export.

It's a difficult problem. Some people call it block bidding, but the

person who is trying to get an export permit will probably always call

it block bidding. Quite frankly, in most cases it is simply a

legitimate desire and need of someone to use those logs in

manufacturing.

MR. HOWARD: Inasmuch as the whole process results in a couple

of companies going under and shutting down work for about 60 employees,

and inasmuch as this is not an isolated instance but a practice that's

prevalent, particularly because you use the Vancouver log market as the

base for it, will the minister agree to bring into the House a motion

to refer the subject matter, say, to our Standing Committee on

Environment and Resources so that an inquiry can be conducted into the

whole practice of the export log market and the deleterious effect that

it has on small loggers?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: No, I won't agree to such a request. I

think the member must be aware of the changes in log export policy that

were announced I believe on November 16 last, and I'm sure this new

policy will resolve most of the problems and perceived inequities that

exist with the current policy. Before finalizing such a policy I made a

point of checking it out with various people in the industry — with the

major licensees, with the market loggers and with the IWA — and each of

these groups agreed that the new policy would overcome most of the

problems that have been experienced in the past in terms of approvals

of logs for export.

But I must say again that there must be a very good reason before we

allow logs for export, and under the new criteria that reason will be

that it will make additional logs available at prices that can be

afforded by the manufacturing industry in British Columbia. At the same

time it will, if there must be exports, provide that the people seeking

exports and acquiring export permits will be able to deal effectively

in the export log market for those volumes of logs that could be

approved.

MR. HOWARD: Another supplementary. With respect to this new

policy, which, as I recall, is to come into effect at the end of this

year.... Inasmuch as it will permit the export of

[ Page 6256 ]

the whole forest now without even having to fall

and buck it and put it into water and go through this process of the

game on the Vancouver log market, does the minister think that that's

progress — to permit companies to export the whole forest and not even

go through the process of falling and bucking it?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the member for

Skeena should sit down with me so I can explain to him the policy,

because in no way will it allow the export of the whole forest. The new

policy that will be coming into effect will be fully implemented by the

end of the year, by which time the old policy will cease to exist. The

new policy will begin within a few weeks so that we can have a smooth

transition from the old system to the new system.

But I'll be very happy to sit down with the member, if he so wishes,

and explain to him in detail how the system will work, and the fact

that it will not allow for the export of the whole forest. It will only

allow the export of a percentage of the logs, so as to make other logs

more readily available to the manufacturing industry in coastal British

Columbia at a price that they can afford to pay and still maintain

economic viability.

[2:15]

MR. HOWARD: Another supplementary. If, under the new policy,

the process is for a company to be able to indicate that it's

uneconomic for it to fall and buck timber, and to get an export licence

for standing timber...? If that isn't permitting the export of the

forests, what is?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, if we were to simply blindly

accept those figures presented without assuring ourselves that they are

realistic cost figures and realistic price figures in terms of what can

be received for the logs, I guess people could perhaps make such a

request. Making such a request would not lead to an export permit. We

have a very well-rounded committee in place which will adjudicate such

requests. They include people such as Don Hammond, who has been many

years in the sawmilling business; Tommy Thompson, who is probably as

expert as anyone in British Columbia in terms of logging costs and

systems. That includes Garth Langford, who is a chartered accountant

and very knowledgeable about financial matters. It includes a gentleman

who is an economist employed by the IWA, who has a good overall

understanding of the economics of forestry matters. So I think we have

a well enough rounded and objective enough committee so that the type

of thing that was suggested by the member for Skeena will not take

place.

HAZARDOUS WASTES

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, yesterday my parliamentary

secretary took on notice a question for me that was addressed by the

member for Cowichan-Malahat, who seems to be involved in.... Maybe if

you want to listen, I'll try to answer the question you put yesterday.

You referred to a document; apparently in April 1984 the Minister of

Energy was informed that Hydro was being advised to delay their PCB

waste disposal because of the cost involved. I have been unable to find

that particular document, but I would like at this time to allay the

fears of the member and perhaps elaborate just slightly on the question.

B.C. Hydro was approached by a company in the United Kingdom who

offered the services of disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls. Under

the B.C. Hydro act we are required to put things to tender, and since

until that time there had not been a company offering those services, a

tender was drawn so that any company wishing to bid on the disposal of

PCBs would do so. However, the company that made the offer did not

actually bid on the work, and in fact the companies that did bid on the

work were not satisfactory in the eyes of Hydro in terms of their

ability to handle the PCBs.

One of the difficulties that we are presented with is that in the

waste disposal business there are many people who come along and

advertise themselves as experts. Some people find that satisfactory —

just to turn over your waste products to them — but unless you're

absolutely sure the companies are bona fide and have a legitimate

method by which to dispose of their goods, then you are only passing

your problem on to somebody else who may be somewhat less reputable

and, in fact, who may not be able to handle the product at all.

So while we have investigated the possibility of having PCBs

destroyed, and we have asked for those bids, we are not convinced at

the present time that there exists in Canada or in fact overseas a

satisfactorily located and operated operation that will destroy these.

We continue to hear rumours of companies that have the ability to

destroy PCBs, but I have no concrete evidence of their existence.

However, in the meantime the board of B.C. Hydro has authorized the

expenditure of half a million dollars to build a temporary but secure

storage facility in which the PCBs can be contained until such time as

adequate and safe and acceptable disposal methods are available.

MRS. WALLACE: Obviously he does have the correspondence that

I have; at least it would appear to be. A paragraph in a letter from

Chem-Security to the purchasing agent of B.C. Hydro, of which the

minister received a copy, reads:

"I therefore urge B.C. Hydro to reconsider any preemptive

and, therefore, costly move to solve their PCB waste disposal problem and delay

their decision until they can be offered the services of the Alberta facility,

and in the interim, seek the endorsement of the Ministry of Environment for

such an environmentally and fiscally responsible course of action."

I would ask him whether he recalls that, and whether or not he agrees that

that was an environmentally responsible course of action in view of the leaks

that occurred because those capacitors were left stored in open air, buried

under 20 feet of snow, and we now have that situation in Mackenzie.

HON. MR. ROGERS: No, I don't recall that letter. In fact, I'm

not referring to a letter. I have not got the correspondence. Obviously

I know the company you refer to, and now that you've told me the name

of the company, I will dig up the letter and find out if that's the

case. That is not the reason, as far as I know — and it was certainly

never by any intervention by myself or other ministers on the board

that the thing did not proceed. The reason it did not proceed, I am

advised by Hydro, is that no satisfactory bidder . no one exists who

has a satisfactory answer.

At one and the same time, Hydro has been working with other

reputable people. All utilities have this problem, and they all would

like to be able to solve it. The PCB problem is largely a problem for

electrical utilities. I think Hydro could

[ Page

6257 ]

have been more diligent in covering these capacitors at an earlier time, and

so, as a matter of fact, did the board. That's the reason they approved

this expenditure so that the construction could take place this summer. We were

anticipating the removal last year of these things to a satisfactory disposal

system. It didn't materialize. They were covered last winter, obviously

not adequately. We will ensure, at least for this winter — and for whatever

time it takes until we have a secure disposal system available to us — that

they are as securely stored as can possibly be done in this province.

MRS. WALLACE: Some time ago in the magazine Intercom, which

Hydro puts out, there was a little

article about two engineers at Hydro

who had almost perfected a process of destruction of PCBs. Will the

minister explain why those people have now been terminated'?

HON. MR. ROGERS: They're not terminated, and you haven't got

it quite correct. What they have developed is a method of separating

PCBs from oil, but not for the destruction of the PCBs. So it's a

concentrator that they have done at a pilot stage. In Ontario this same

project has now got to the actual mobile operating stage, and we have

authorized the expenditure of the necessary funds to create such a

device in British Columbia. It does not destroy the PCBs. It merely

separates them from the oil so the oil can be disposed of in a normal

way or flared off or whatever it is; we've concentrated the product.

But no, the research people who have developed that in conjunction with

Ontario Hydro are still in the service of the company.

CANADIAN LUMBER EXPORTS

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, a question for the Minister of

International Trade and Investment: as the minister is no doubt aware,

a growing number of U.S. congressmen and senators are moving to take

action in terms of blocking the export of Canadian lumber. That would

have a profoundly serious effect on British Columbia. Can the minister,

now that we have a new ministry responsible for trade, advise us what

steps he has personally taken on this matter?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, I must again caution that

open-ended questions of that magnitude are not permitted in question

period, but the member makes the statement in that knowledge.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the member's

question, my department had been working with officials in Ottawa who

have been working with officials in Washington, and I think everything

that can be done at the present time.... I have talked to my

counterpart, James Kelleher, the Minister of International Trade, who

has talked to Block, and it's a different situation this time than it

was the last time. It's certainly more emotional and more political

this time, and it has to be handled very diplomatically and very

cautiously. I would seek the cooperation of the members opposite in

ensuring that no mistakes are made in handling this deal with

Washington.

Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to make a special introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Speaker and members of the

Legislature, today is a very special day in the history of the province

of British Columbia and Iwate prefecture of Japan, and between our

capital city of Victoria and Morioka, in Iwate prefecture, in that this

morning the twinning of the two cities took place here in Victoria.

This is another show of relationships between our two great countries

of Canada and Japan, strengthening not only our industrial and economic

relationships but indeed our cultural ties. With a delegation of 47

people visiting from Morioka, in the Legislature with us today is His

Worship Mayor Ohta, mayor of Morioka, and Mrs. Ohta; Mr. and Mrs. Chiba

— Mr. Chiba is chairman of the city council; and Mr. Kawamura,

president of the chamber of commerce and industry for Morioka city.

Would the House please make all our guests welcome to our great

province.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, a point of order referring to

question period. I was originally going to ask that you consider

extending the time of question period this afternoon, on the grounds

that when ministers are not in the House and their aides have taken

questions as notice for those ministers, the opposition has always

given leave to the minister to answer those questions taken as notice

after question period. This afternoon we consumed approximately seven

and a half minutes of question period time on a question taken as

notice when the minister was not in the House. He would have been

allowed to answer that question by leave of the opposition. I therefore

would ask that in future — I'm not doing this for today — when that

situation arises again, and government members eat up the clock with

lengthy written answers, you extend question period time.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the rules are very clear and have

been for some considerable period of time. A minister may make a

statement in response in question period or at the conclusion of

question period. It is not for the Chair to determine what time.... The

difference is, of course, that when the response is made during

question period, it does allow the opposition an opportunity to follow

up with supplementary questions.

Mrs. Wallace tabled documents referred to in question period.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 41.

MEDICAL SERVICE AMENDMENT ACT, 1985

(continued)

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker. I spoke on Bill 41 this morning. I

just want to refer for a moment or two to the judgment that probably

created in the minister's mind the necessity for this bill. I contend

it's not necessary. In that judgment the supreme court judge ruled that

because of certain sections of the charter.... He referred to

section 6

(1): "Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and

leave Canada.

(2) Every citizen of Canada and every person who has the

status of a permanent resident of Canada has the right (

a) to move to

and take up residence in any province; and (

b) to pursue the gaining of

a livelihood in any

[ Page 6258 ]

province." The minister gets around that by

bringing in an intolerable bill aimed at new, young doctors, whom we

need desperately if we're going to rejuvenate and continue to

rejuvenate our health care system. He moves to circumvent this

judgment. That's not a very good idea, and it's not a very hospitable

situation in our province — and one that will cost us in the long run.

It will cost us the best brains in medicine, the new, young brains of

medicine.

[2:30]

Mr. Speaker, there are ways to do some of the things that that

minister is talking about. Those ways, as far as I'm concerned, are

clear. I outlined a number of them this morning. I outlined the fact

that he has in his agreement a capping procedure which in and of itself

tells exactly how much money the minister has to put into medicare. He

has a capping procedure. He has to get across to the rest of the health

ministers and the rest of the university ministers in this country....

If there is such a large output from medical schools, get other

jurisdictions as well as our own to cut back on the production of

graduate students in medicine. We've seen this kind of situation

before. We've seen ups and downs: there's a demand and then there's a

slowing of demand. But I contend that if we are to do the job in this

province that we want to do, if we're to get the medical profession out

into the regions, the remoter, underpopulated areas, then first and

foremost we should set up a rural medical corps. It was suggested long

ago. There is no unlimited demand for health care that people talk

about. What there is is a demand for health care when it's required. We

have ways and means of providing that health care.

If the minister would take this bill and put it where he put Bill

50, and get into some real determined negotiations, not only with the

doctors but with his fellow ministers across the country, then I

suggest that we would all be far better served. We are depriving

ourselves of the best brains, the new young brains that are coming out

of medical school. Because we're alone in this particular situation at

the moment, we're saying we are going to provide a sinecure for those

older doctors who could probably be well retired from the practice of

medicine.

We should have got together with them some time ago, because I know

there's a real strong urge within that association to provide a pension

plan. It should have happened a long time ago. It should still happen.

Under those circumstances, with a pension plan, there would be an

incentive to get out when one is the age when one should be getting

out. I'm not suggesting by that that there aren't doctors over normal

retirement age who are providing excellent care. But I am saying that

there should be the option, and that option is available, has been

available and should be available for the future.

I totally oppose this bill. I oppose anything that puts government

in a position where they can mandate where I live, how I act and what

I'm going to be doing. I believe that that is an essential loss of

freedom, and a loss of freedom that I don't countenance, for ordinary

people, for doctors or for anybody.

We have created the kind of system where the governments,

collectively, and those people paying premiums are paying for our

medicare system. If it's becoming increasingly expensive, there are

other ways of going about reducing the costs. One of the ways the

minister has already done in his negotiations, by capping his

contribution — that is, the collective contribution — into the payment

of medical fees.

Mr. Speaker, with that I suggest very strongly that the minister

should withdraw this bill; do the same as he did with Bill 50, start

all over again, and maybe get some sense into this whole question.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: My thanks to all the members who have taken

part in second reading on Bill 41. Some of what has been said has been

most interesting. Much of what's been said is really in no way related

to the purpose of Bill 41.

The members have concentrated much of their discussion with respect

to the distribution of manpower, as the BCMA refers to it. There are

two major problems with respect to the distribution of doctors in our

province. One is the lack of physicians in certain areas of B.C., the

other is the over-concentration of doctors in certain areas. Vancouver,

Victoria, parts of the Okanagan and others simply have too many

doctors. The cost is out of order. Far too much money is being spent on

certain areas of the province because of the heavy concentration of

doctors, to the detriment of the overall system across the province.

The answer is not to simply continue to offer billing numbers for more

and more doctors as they wish to come to B.C.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

A discussion took place with respect to the increase in numbers of

students in the UBC medical faculty. It was suggested, although not

directly, by some members that perhaps it should be cut back or

modified in some way, but certainly not increased. It has been

increased over the past number of years, and those are the young

doctors the member for New Westminster spoke about, those who are

coming out of graduate school. But we have been giving billing numbers

to approximately 350 doctors a year. Obviously well over two-thirds are

not coming out of school. They are coming from other areas of Canada,

other areas of the world. They are not necessarily the young graduates.

Many of them have been in the business for many years.

In Bill 41 we intend to introduce as method a system which we had in

place from September 1, 1983 without complaint from anyone — working

reasonably well. It was the result of what many members have asked for:

consultation with the health professionals, including the BCMA. In

fact, in

part it was the BCMA that asked us if they could be

represented on any such committee. They made recommendations that

representatives from PARI, the BCHA, the college and others be on the

committee, and the committee was functioning. The local manpower

committees were functioning. The provincial manpower committee which

acted as an appeal body was functioning. It was going along reasonably

well. We reduced the number of billing numbers in that year by about

one-third. We were not receiving complaints that there were not enough

doctors in those overpopulated areas. We still had problems in the

remote areas of the province.

The Canadian Medical Association, I am told, issued instructions to

the BCMA that they were not to take

part in such a committee, so they

withdrew, as did PARI. Fine. Asked them again if they would take

part

in a committee to try to work out the problem of manpower. The

legislation provides the structure of an advisory committee to review

the question. I can't stand by and have any such committee spend

another five years, another ten years, reviewing the same thing.

[ Page 6259 ]

BCMA officials were here a couple of weeks ago with my officials. We

asked them specifically to write down their alternatives that they've

been discussing for so long. "Write them down. Tell us what they are."

They said: "No, we won't put it in writing; no, we will not make use of

your secretarial service to put it down; but there are alternatives."

What are the alternatives? They assured us there were alternatives.

"Can you write them down so that we can look at them?" "No. There are

alternatives." The member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) and others

speak about the overall problem across Canada. Of course; that's a very

important part of the manpower problem. It is estimated that by the

year 2000 we will have a surplus of about 6,000 doctors in Canada. Same

problem right across the country.

We will be releasing a report presented to the ministers' conference

in Winnipeg last week which deals with manpower and makes some very

specific recommendations. Whether it's been released yet, I don't know.

That's up to the federal minister and others. It indicates about a half

dozen ways of trying to address the manpower question, and we

support.... In fact, the chairman of that committee works for our

Ministry of Health, and that information should be made public as soon

as the ministers feel it should be. I've been releasing the information

for the last eight months. I didn't realize they hadn't already done it.

So that is being addressed, Mr. Speaker, and if implemented I

believe it will assist us overall. Right now we have a real problem in

our province, and other provinces have similar problems. The minister

in Saskatchewan has a problem with too many doctors in Saskatoon and

Regina. The minister in Manitoba has a problem with too many doctors in

Winnipeg. The NDP minister in Manitoba, Larry Desjardins, said Manitoba

should have some way of regulating where physicians practise to ensure

that everyone has access to medicare. He said he was disappointed the

court ruled B.C.'s policy of regulating where doctors practise by

controlling their billing numbers.... I was assured by four ministers

last week in Winnipeg that if Bill 41 makes it through the courts, they

intend to put something similar in place.

It's fine to talk with the BCMA, PARI and the rest. Everyone seems

to have an idea or a feeling of how the problem can be resolved, but

they will not come up with a concrete proposal, one you can review. We

want to run their proposals past our legal people, and perhaps even

have a court review the proposition to see if it would fly in law. But

they won't do it. Wheel spinning; ten years of wheel spinning.

Mr. Speaker, incentives were mentioned by many members. I am not

faulting any members who may not be intimately familiar with the

incentive program in British Columbia. I've released the information

several times. I've written letters to the editors of the major

newspapers explaining the incentive program. Let me just offer a few

notes.

One of our incentive programs involves subsidizing incomes for

fee-for-service physicians who locate in underserviced areas. A subsidy

of up to $42,000 a year is paid to physicians locating in approved

communities. Some of the details: for each $2 in excess of $42,000 the

subsidy is reduced by $1, so that over time as the physician's practice

develops there is less of a subsidy. Currently there are five

communities approved for this incentive.

We have a northern and isolation allowance which is available in about 50 communities.

Depending upon the circumstances in the community, a physician can bill up to

15 percent extra on fees claimed from the Medical Services Plan. About 260 doctors

receive this allowance. It's been in effect since 1978. If 15 percent is

not enough, I would certainly consider 25 percent, 30 percent or 40 percent

— if someone wishes to put that proposal forward — if it would appear that it

would help resolve the problem. But the highest-billing GPs in B.C. are in relatively

remote areas now. So the incentives are there. As members would know, one GP

in Chase billed the plan for in excess of half a million dollars. So obviously

it is not the lack of financial incentive that keeps these people away from

some of these communities.

[2:45]

Interjection.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Relatively. The only doctor in the area.

Mr. Speaker, we're prepared to consider any custom tailored method

of providing medical services in any community in the province, as we

have done. We have a travel allowance system which reimburses

physicians for travel and living expenses while providing scheduled

services to certain remote areas. In Dease Lake, as the member for

Atlin (Mr. Passarell) would know, working with the College of Family

Physicians.... The remote location and small location would make it

impossible for a financially-viable private practice, so instead of

trying to find the physician who would settle there permanently, the

program recruits physicians who are willing to practice in Dease Lake

for short periods. We provide funding which enables the college to

recruit physicians, pay their salaries and travel and living expenses —

the clinic and the house used by the doctors — and provides a special

four-wheel-drive vehicle to help them make the rounds in that area. We

also make payments to doctors on either a sessional or salaried basis

to fill special needs — and, as mentioned today, the psychiatrists in

Prince George.

It isn't just trying to provide services in remote areas, it is

trying to overcome this incredible cost of overpopulation — of GPs

particularly — in the Vancouver and Victoria areas and certain other

areas. That's what Bill 41 is attempting to address.

Some of the notes from some of the members. There is a very strange

standard with respect to doctors. I don't know whether members are

afraid that one day they will need the services of a doctor, and were

he to hear that they had said something negative, they fear they

wouldn't get the right service. More than one member has said — in fact

just a few moments ago — "ordinary people and doctors." I suppose that

it's a common attitude that doctors are not ordinary people. They're

well trained, of course. They're well educated. That's what we expect.

That's what's necessary. But why are doctors so different from any

other person, professional or not? Doctors are licensed by the College

of Physicians and Surgeons upon an examination to determine if they

have the ability to practise medicine. They are licensed. They now have

the authority to practise medicine in British Columbia. We in the

Medical Services Commission provide them with a billing number which

gives them access to the public purse. It provides them with their

income- Other people, as the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr.

Davis), in speaking of engineers who are not on the public payroll

although nonetheless qualified.... But there isn't this common pool of

money they can dip into simply because they have a certificate. But

teachers, as an example — and it's

[ Page 6260 ]

been mentioned previously — obtain a provincial

certificate. They are now qualified to practise teaching in the

province. But they can't go to a school board in Vancouver and say:

"Here's my certificate, I want to be on your payroll." Vancouver School

Board would say: "I'm sorry; you're qualified, but we do not need you

here."

MR. COCKE: What school board?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Vancouver, Coquitlam, Richmond — wherever

it may be. "We do not need you. We don't need your services. Sorry."

Doctors, however, according to the critics should be able to go with

their piece of paper in hand and say: "I want onto the payroll. Here.

Whether you need my services or not, I demand to be on the payroll in

Vancouver or Victoria or wherever I choose" — even though you don't

need their services.

MR. COCKE: Are they salaried?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Some are salaried, yes. They demand access

to the public purse in the location of their choice — the only group of

people who have that right in our province. No one else can make such a

demand. The doctors take

part in medical manpower committees at the

hospital level. They take

part in determining whether a medical

practitioner shall practise in that hospital, based on the need of the

hospital for that individual's skills, expertise or specialty. But

doctors take

part in the committee. Why they will refuse hospital

privileges is because the service of that practitioner is not needed in

that hospital. I have no doubt that in time a doctor will challenge the

right of the hospital to refuse them privileges, based on the argument

that if they cannot receive privileges at a hospital, access to beds,

they cannot fulfil their profession. If they're a surgeon, they must

have access to the operating rooms and the beds, so why should not any

doctor then be able to demand access to Royal Jubilee Hospital in

Victoria or Vancouver General Hospital in Vancouver, simply because

they want to practise where they want to practise, when they want to

practise? We would have chaos in the system. But I would think it shall

be challenged, and possibly the court may order open access — all

doctors to all hospitals.

I might say that BCMA, when I suggested that to them, felt that it

was probably the worst thing that could happen. I can't understand how

they can take

part in restricting a person's ability to practise their

profession at the hospital level, but seem not able to even consider a

similar method of control at the provincial level.

Just to make it clear to those who made reference to the Dr. Mia

case, the case was based on a refusal by the commission to provide a

billing number for Dr. Mia. It was that refusal the chief justice

referred to when he made his decision, and his decision, very briefly,

was that we had no authority under the Medical Services Act to deny a

person a billing number. It was a 60-page judgment which covered a lot

of material, a lot of opinions.

It has been suggested that we look at Quebec's model, where they pay

new, young physicians 70 percent of the fee

schedule in certain areas —

overpopulated areas from a doctor's point of view — and some incentives

elsewhere for the first three years. Well, in many instances if a

doctor wishes to practise in a metropolitan area and he's starting off,

70 percent of the fee

schedule is not too tough to take for three

years, and then he's home free. But you can also modify that 70

percent, simply by increasing your utilization. So there need not

necessarily be a financial disincentive. And the Quebec model

apparently has as many problems as other provinces.

The Alberta model was mentioned. In part, the Alberta system demands

that doctors entering the system provide a couple of years, before they

get their licence, either in a revolving internship or residency or

family practice, and then perhaps they receive their licence for....

We're one year, they're two years. It doesn't really resolve the

problem; it delays it for one additional year. That's been considered

as well — one of the recommendations by one of the health professional

organizations.

The member for New Westminster and others mentioned a pension plan

for doctors. I think it's a good idea. I've discussed that with BCMA.

I've been told by BCMA: "No, thank you. Pension plans would mean we're

civil servants." That's the executive I'm speaking to. Individual

doctors, sure. BCMA — we've discussed pension plans. I think it's a

good idea. I think we should set up a pension plan. I'd like to see it

across Canada, though, so that we would not attract to B.C. doctors who

are about to retire. I'd like to see a Canada pension plan for doctors

if we could work it out. But I've been told that it would make them

more of a civil servant. Many of them are philosophically opposed to

it, until they try to cash in their MURBs and their HURBs and whatever

else.

MR. COCKE: That's a minority.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Well, it may be. But that's the voice that

speaks for the BCMA. Like all trade unions, you frequently only hear

from a minority. The former president of the BCMA sent a letter to

every doctor in B.C. and said: "Please petition your MLA about Bill 50.

We want it withdrawn, we want this, and here's a copy of an editorial

from the Vancouver Sun ." Of the 5,000 doctors who received the

letter, I believe we received approximately 100 letters, which

represents a minority. In Whitehorse last Saturday, there were a couple

of hundred doctors from B.C., and speaking with most of them I only

found two who had a complaint. A great many more said we were doing the

right thing — not officially, but certainly they said we're doing the

right thing. A couple were complaining. That's fine.

With respect to incentives, some members talked about bursaries

assisting young doctors to get through medical school, and in return

they would practise in a remote area. One of the problems is that you

can't enforce such a contract. The practice of medicine in B.C. is so

lucrative that if a physician qualifies, gets his licence, finishes his

internship and hangs up his shingle in Vancouver.... If he had some

type of a contractual obligation with whomever, he could buy that

contract out. He could pay the money that was forwarded to him quite

easily from his first year's income if he got into an established

practice of some kind. There is no serious obligation on his part to

follow through on that contract.

I don't know who would sue him. He'd buy his way out of the

contract. It was mentioned that the military had incentives. Sure. When

you're in the military or the RCMP, you go where you're told to go.

That's all there is to it. You don't say: "I only want to be on a ship

if the ship's in Vancouver." You go where you are told to go. You can't

do that with doctors. You can't tell a doctor he has to practise in

Terrace because

[ Page 6261 ]

you assisted him in his education. He can buy you out and pay his debt.

There have to be other incentives, I agree. We've asked for

suggestions for incentives. In Bill 41 we are asking all of these

organizations to take

part in an advisory committee, to come forward

with their ideas — not philosophical blips that occur once in a while,

but solid ideas. We wish to examine the ideas, run them past the legal

fraternity and perhaps even have the court of appeal review them to see

if they do not offend either the charter or some other law before

they're implemented.

Bill 41, as I said earlier, is not going to solve everything, but

it's a step, one step. Since I introduced Bill 41 I've heard from both

major organizations indirectly: "Let's talk." Okay, I'm prepared to

talk. We've been talking about it for four or five years. I'm prepared

to talk. Our officials are prepared to talk, now that we have their

attention. If they can come up with a better scheme, a better method,

we'll be very pleased to consider it and implement it as the

regulations for the issuing of billing numbers. But they haven't come

up with that. In fact, April 23, I believe, was the last time I had a

meeting with the officials of the BCMA executive to discuss

legislation. I don't believe I've heard from anyone since. There've

been news conferences and there's been indirect conversation, but I

don't believe I've heard from any of them since. So I look forward to

their taking

part in an advisory committee.

[3:00]

One of the problems, Mr. President.... Mr. Speaker. I was thinking of the Quebec Assembly, that's why.

Mr. Speaker, one very important point, I am advised by our lawyers,

is to avoid certain conflicts. It's not good enough to sit down with

the BCMA or others and work out an agreement to implement some type of

control over doctor distribution or the gross number of doctors without

having legislative authority to back it up. We had an agreement with

the BCMA and PARI and the others to work on such a committee. Somebody

went to court, and the court said: "You can't do it. You have to have

legislative authority to back you up or to back up a committee or

whoever may be in that position." So it's not a bargaining issue so

much as it is a legal question.

The member for New Westminster referred to the capping arrangement

we concluded with the BCMA. It's a partial cap. I think it's a good

contract. It allows for a 4 percent absorption by the BCMA members,

should the budget go over what's been allotted. I think it's a pretty

good safety valve. We're going to give it a year's try, anyway, and see

what happens. We don't know. That represents about $36 million. But

since the Dr. Mia case, the number of doctors who have received billing

numbers could equate to maybe $50 million or $75 million extra. So we

could go over the 4 percent. Doctors have had no increase in their fees

in the last couple of years. They're still about 30 percent higher than

the national average. But the recession really has not been felt by the

doctors very much — not in their practice, not in the moneys they have

earned from their medical services. Many others have felt the effects

of the recession in their real estate holdings and in other business

activities, but not from the services they provide as a doctor.

We are very concerned about the service to doctors in remote areas.

We're willing to accept any suggestion that may be workable. We would

like to use common sense, which is almost prohibited by the Charter of

Rights in many instances. To me, it would make sense in British

Columbia to be able to say to a young graduate: "If you are prepared to

service a community for a period of time, that would put you in a

preferred position at some time in the future to practise in a

metropolitan area — a preferred position. You've earned your points.

You've paid your dues." You can't do that. You can't give them

preferential treatment, because you're discriminating against somebody

who comes in from Edmonton and says: "I want to work in Vancouver too.

I'm qualified." You can't give them that, unless they're under personal

contract, which is not a bad idea.

We would like to build in certain incentives to encourage these

doctors, young or otherwise. In fact, it was the BCMA, years back, who

tried to implement such a scheme themselves, where new doctors coming

into B.C. might be required to service a remote area first. The courts

said: "You can't do that — discrimination." We'll solve the problem. It

will be solved. It'll take action at the provincial level, and it will

take action at the national level. As I said, a report will be released

soon with respect to national manpower.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of medical schools in our country,

one of which is at UBC. You should see the reaction around the table

when it is suggested that some medical schools be closed or reduced in

size. It's like putting in a group home: "Anywhere but our place,

anywhere but our neighbourhood." Nobody's volunteering. Ontario, a

couple of years ago, suggested: "That's no problem. Close UBC, and

we'll produce as many doctors as you need." It's pretty tough to get

anyone to say, "Sure, we'll reduce our medical school, " or, "We'll

close our medical school." One suggested that they would reduce it by

ten seats, but they don't want any reduction in funding. That may yet

occur.

There's discussion about offshore doctors coming into the country.

The federal government should review how many they permit into the

country — refugee doctors and others.

We are producing too many graduate medical students across the

country. B.C. is not producing too many on a per capita basis. We

certainly are across Canada. Even if the entire production of our

medical school were absorbed each year in the province, it would still

represent about one-third of the number of billing numbers we issue

each year. So it isn't the graduates who are creating the problem.

Mr. Speaker, very quickly, we are trying to do something to control

costs. We are trying to do something to come up with a better scheme.

My experience with the medical profession has been that they have a

tremendous capacity to talk. They have a tremendous capacity to review,

to establish committees, to discuss matters. I don't think they have

the same capacity to resolve matters; perhaps it's not their nature. I

will be asking them to join the advisory committee. If they can come up

with a better scheme to assist in resolving the manpower issue, we are

quite prepared to consider most seriously implementing such a scheme.

If it is found to be legally correct, as the regulations....

Interjection.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: That's a commitment I've made to them

several times. What I'm saying is that until that time we expect to

have the control Bill 41 will provide. Should they come up with a

better method, we'll certainly give it every consideration and

implement it. We have to do something, Mr. Speaker, and this is what we

plan on doing.

[ Page 6262 ]

Once again I want to thank the members for their keen interest in

this even though we were all over the block. Mr. Speaker, I move the

bill now be read a second time.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 28

Waterland

Brummet

Rogers

Segarty

McClelland

Heinrich

Hewitt

Richmond

Pelton

Michael

Johnston

R. Fraser

Chabot

McCarthy

Nielsen

Bennett

Curtis

Phillips

McGeer

A. Fraser

Davis

Mowat

Reid

Ree

Strachan

Veitch

Reynolds

Passarell

NAYS — 17

Macdonald

Dailly

Cocke

Howard

Skelly

Stupich

Lauk

Nicolson

Gabelmann

Williams

Blencoe

Wallace

MacWilliam

Lockstead

Rose

Hanson

D'Arcy

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House, with leave, now.

Leave granted.

Bill 41, Medical Service Amendment Act, 1985, read a second time and

referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration forthwith.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Mr. Chairman, I ask leave to make a short introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I'd like members to welcome to the House today 48

grade 7 students from Silver Star Elementary School in Vernon, within the constituency

of North Okanagan. Along with the students are two former colleagues of mine,

Mr. Al Hooper and Mr. Jim Inglis. I'd like you to welcome them to the House

today.

MEDICAL SERVICE AMENDMENT ACT, 1985

The House in committee on Bill 41; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

Sections I to 5 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

[3:15]

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report

the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Ree in the chair.

Bill 41, Medical Service Amendment Act, 1985, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, committee on Bill 38.

BRITISH COLUMBIA TRANSIT

AMENDMENT ACT (NO. 2), 1985

The House in committee on Bill 38; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

Sections 1 to 5 inclusive approved.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

section 6.

MR. GABELMANN: I wonder if the minister would like to clarify

her comments of the other day that all of these amendments were

proposed to the people at the bargaining table and should not have come

as a surprise to them. I wonder if she would like to tell us in what

form those indications were made and give us a little bit of detail

about her side of that story.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, I can say that it's not

just my side; it was obviously also understood by the union itself,

according to public statements made at the time the agreement in our

labour negotiations was completed. Mr. Colin Kelly, who is president of

ICTU drivers' Local 1, did make these comments — at least, these

comments were attributed to him in the press at that time:

"Kelly said he believes another reason for the change

is the pending legislation to merge MTOC with B.C. Transit. MTOC has

been responsible for operation of the transit in the lower mainland,

while B.C. Transit is responsible for planning and financing.

"He added he expects the government will put a,

management rights' clause in the merger legislation that will allow

transit management to implement new routes and schedules to mesh with

the new advanced light rapid transit system, which goes into service in

1986."

In addition to that, Mr. Chairman, I should share with the member

who has asked the question that, as I mentioned in discussion on the

bill in principle, during the contract negotiations — on February 28 of

this year — the union bargaining team was specifically informed of the

government's intention to include a management rights clause, and the

union was so advised. The bargaining team was asked by the management

bargaining team if, with that knowledge, they wished to continue the

negotiations or take time to consider their position. They agreed to

continue, and on the following morning, March 1, 1985, at 9 a.m., both

sides signed a memorandum of agreement. That memorandum followed the

agreed negotiations with the contents of this bill — well

[ Page

6263 ]

advised to ICTU at that time. It think that answers the question asked.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Chairman, as I understand the minister's

comments and as I understand what transpired in the bargaining, there

appears to be an agreement that what did take place was a discussion in

respect of management rights as applied to the establishment of ALRT

and the necessary changes that would come from that. That's not to take

any position one way or another on the correctness of this management

rights clause. But I think it's important that we sort out what was

said at the table and what we now have, because what was said at the

table, as I understand it — and I think the minister has confirmed it

by reading, and by implication agreeing with, the comments made by the

president of one of the locals — is that the management rights clause

was in fact to deal with the changes that would come about as a result

of ALRT.

These changes in

section 6 of the bill go far beyond that agreement.

That was the point that some of us were attempting to make in debate on

second reading. An agreement was reached at the table. There was an

understanding about some legislation that would come in. There was an

understanding in the first instance that there would be a merger of the

operations. There was an understanding that there would be a management

rights clause in respect of ALRT. We got that and much more. And that's

the concern that was being expressed on this side of the House the

other day. That's the concern that was being expressed in yesterday's

Vancouver Sun in the lead editorial; that's the concern that was expressed in today's Vancouver Province

in their major editorial — that, in fact, the government has gone

beyond what it said at the bargaining table, and has stripped from that

agreement certain provisions that were agreed to at the time.

Mr. Chairman, it's not up to us to predict results of certain

actions, particularly in these kinds of areas. But the government, in

doing this to a group of employees, is really inviting much more than I

think it wants to invite. We've made the point in second reading, and

I'm not going to belabour all of the issues here now, other than to say

that, hopefully, nothing untoward will result from these kinds of

actions of the government, but should it ever happen, the

responsibility is clearly and firmly and solely resting on cabinet's

shoulders.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, we can't let those kinds of

comments go unchallenged, because what the member is trying to do is

cloud the issue in two ways. I too read the editorials to which he

refers, and although I won't comment specifically on those editorials,

I can say that my remarks will hopefully try to clarify what has become

a murky situation at best in terms of the

interpretation of this act.

That has been helped along by the comments that were made the other day

by the members of the opposition.

The

section that has concerned the member for North Island has two items within

it, and I have responded to what I felt his question was: what did ICTU understand

in the bargaining process was management's concerns and what did they concern

themselves with in that deliberation? It was clearly understood by both sides

what the legislation would be. That's point number one. On the basis of

that understanding, there was an agreement made that morning and signed by both

parties which resulted in the pact between the two parties, management and union,

taking place, at which we were all pleased.

That

section has another part. The management rights put aside and

implied in the negotiations — in fact, well known in the negotiations —

are a matter of record. I know that the president of that union would

agree to that; in fact not only has he agreed to it, he even said so on

March 4, 1985, two or three days after the agreement was signed. He

said that he looks to the legislation to provide those rights. Talking

about management rights, I referred the other day to Mr. Joe Morris's

commission that was appointed to look into this labour altercation last

year, where he very clearly spells out that management not only already

had those rights and should continue to have those rights, but that

neither side should have the ability to void management rights. That

was clear.

It's interesting to think that we're even debating management

rights, because it's implied in every kind of social and economic pact

that there should be. There should be no question of management rights.

Management has to manage. That's implied in management's role and

responsibility.

The other part of this

section which the member now confuses with

that.... Let me just clarify. The other part of it is the contract with

the drivers and employees of MTOC. We are transferring them to the new

organization, but it is clear, and I have made it clear, that no

employee will suffer a reduction in salary, seniority, group insurance

or medical benefits by reason only of the transfer. Also we have

clearly stated that everything they had in the contract is going to be

intact and preserved, and clearly stated in this

section that we're

debating is that they will have their rights under that contract well

preserved and absolutely no problem at all in that regard. So these two

issues implied in this

section are well protected. On the one hand, it

was known to ICTU and to everybody who was negotiating that management

rights were to be brought in by this legislation. They were looking

forward to this legislation bringing them in. There was nothing done

that was untoward or through the back door.

Secondly, on the terms of the employees' protection of their

contractual agreement, we stand behind that contract. We always will,

and there has been absolutely no change whatsoever in that contract

between the union and management.

MR. GABELMANN: I won't belabour it, but the last comments

just indicate again why we get so frustrated on this side of the House

with the nonsense from the minister. I doubt that she's ever heard of

successor rights. You don't need to make a speech about the rights of

the employees when they're being transferred from one employer to

another. Those rights are protected in law. You don't need this

particular bill to protect those rights; they're protected in the

Labour Code. So you don't need to make a speech about how this

section

is all designed just to protect their rights. They've got those rights

under the Labour Code.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Then why did you question it?

[3:30]

MR. GABELMANN: I'm not talking about that; I'm talking about

the management rights. I'm not talking about successor status. I'm not

talking about the fact that the collective agreement that they have is

transferred from one employer to another. In fact, when you read it

properly, it's being transferred from one employer to several million

potential employers, under 6.3. Those rights are there. You don't need

[ Page 6264 ]

to make a speech about how nice you are to the

employees. They've got those rights under other laws in this province,

until you take those away too.

Mr. Chairman, for the minister also to bring Joe Morris into this

debate.... I mean, all she has to do is read Joe Morris's report to

understand what a flop that was. All she has to recognize is what

result there was as a result of his report last year. Did it resolve

the dispute? No way. I've made fairly severely critical comments about

my old friend Joe in respect to that piece of work, and I stand by

those comments. To support this particular

section based on Joe

Morris's report is appalling.

Talking about gall, Mr. Chairman, let me talk about Don Jordan. Will

the minister tell me: did Don Jordan, when he was asked what the

management rights clause would be, say that he was unable to provide

any details, but that he understood it was in respect of ALRT?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I'm given to understand that the words

which appear in the bill were the same words that were used in

discussions with the union. Those discussions were done by Mr. Jordan.

MR. GABELMANN: I'm going to let it go, because it's going to

get into a case of he said, we said, she said, they said, and nobody

can win that kind of debate. But I just want it on record that I

believe — and I wasn't at the table, so I can't know — that this

legislation goes far beyond what was understood to be under discussion

at the table, as was reflected by Don Jordan. I find that really

unfortunate and, as I said before, I think it will lead to difficulties

that we shouldn't have to put up with in this province.

MR. REID: I'd like to comment on

section 6 in respect to the

previous speaker and the requirement of Metro Transit Operating Company

and now B.C. Transit to have in this act the question of management

rights, because the problem that we had with the three-month unstrike

last year with the transit system was a result of the company not

having the right to manage the system on behalf of the taxpayers.

The system, on an average day, loses $300,000 currently. That's with

the limited ability the company currently has to manage. When the

company acquires the right to manage, the system will be more

effectively operated, the efficiencies will be there, a saving will be

offered, and we'll have a more effective service in the province as a

result of the right to manage the system, as management should have.

When a system has 260,000 hours of overtime in the lower mainland in

one year which doesn't provide one minute of service, but extra pay for

overtime because the company doesn't have the power to manage that,

there's something wrong. If you took those hours and divided them in

new employees, you'd have 135 more employees being paid the same amount

of money. But the company doesn't have the right to manage that,

because the schedules and services that are out there within the system

are offered and managed by the operators — the drivers — not by the

company itself.

There's something wrong with that, because if you want to provide the efficiencies

to the service and if we want to better rationalize the money that's going

into the minister's treasury for transit in the province, look at the additions

in service you can provide in those communities that presently don't have

it because of wastage — and I call it wastage. Any company that has a 10 percent

absentee rate out of 2,700 employees on average....

MR. GABELMANN: It shows bad management.

MR. REID: Because the company doesn't have the right to

manage; that's the problem. An absentee rate of 10 percent of the

mechanics in an operating company — that's absolutely ludicrous. No

business in this province that's run by a taxpayer, by private

enterprise, can operate with a 10 percent absentee rate. You know why?

Because he's got to raise the funds from the people that come in his

doors to get the service done. But when it's taxpayers paying the bill,

and these people on the other side say: "Well, you know, don't give the

operators the right to manage the system on behalf of the drivers and

the mechanics...." I'll tell you why they signed the agreement: because

it's always blackmail, that's why. It's always blackmail on behalf of

the unions that forces people to sign agreements they don't want to

sign.

MR. GABELMANN: No wonder they fired you.

MR. REID: They didn't fire me; I resigned. But I'll tell you

the facts, Mr. Man: for the four years that I was in charge of that

board we saved money each year and improved the service — millions of

dollars.

MR. GABELMANN: You had 10 percent absenteeism, eh?

MR. REID: Yes, and if we could have controlled that....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Direct all comments to the Chair. All members will have their chance to participate on

section 6.

MR. REID: Mr. Chairman, under

section 6 we're talking about

management's right to determine the employment level, the complement of

employees, the organization of employees and the opportunity to manage

those particular functions. This bill is going to create that

opportunity for the company, which it has needed since 1978. The waste

of taxpayers' money as a result of the present system, which has a

section G-400 in the collective agreement which does not allow the

company to manage the services, to change the schedules and services as

demanded by the elected officials in each regional commission, who have

to raise their portion of the revenue to pay the costs.... But if you

can save $260,000 of taxpayers' money in unproductive hours, Madam

Minister, I commend you for that — and put that saving back into jobs,

to provide part-time operators and further operators with the same

amount of money. If these operators in Metro Transit Operating Company

are sincere in wanting to provide an efficient, effective service, I

ask them to come forward and refuse to work overtime, because the

minute they refuse to work overtime the absentee rate would drop to the

normal 3 or 4 percent of any other business.

MR. VEITCH: How's that, Bill?

MR. REID: How would that happen? You see, the overtime is

presently covering the backs of the absenteeism. Absenteeism creates

the overtime. The overtime doesn't

[ Page

6265 ]

provide any bus service; not one minute of service is provided by overtime. That's the right to manage.

If those members on the other side want to take advantage of

management rights and taxpayers' dollars, which they're always so

concerned about, then I think they should ask why management rights

haven't been brought forward even sooner than now. As a previous

chairman of Metro Transit Operating Company, I can tell you that every

year $4 million to $7 million could have been left in the system to

provide better, more efficient service, and more bus rides for people

who currently don't have them because the company doesn't have the

right to

schedule buses according to the need. The present system

requires that the drivers agree to a schedule, and if they don't agree

to it, they veto the total change, so the service which has been there

forever continues to be there until the drivers agree. Until it becomes

a cushy run, they won't agree. That's what's wrong.

So, Madam Minister, I commend you for

section 6 — right to manage.

Sections 6 to 12 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

Bill 38, British Columbia Transit Amendment Act (No. 2), 1985,

reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Second reading of Bill 35.

SCHOOL AMENDMENT ACT, 1985

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Bill 35 comes about as a result of a

problem involving Bill 3 from a previous session. Bill 3 never had any

regulations brought in to support it. Interestingly enough, everybody

in the public sector was capable of entering into an exemption

agreement which had been approved by the compensation stabilization

commissioner. However, recently there were a large number of school

districts — I believe the number is 21 — where in fact no agreement

could be entered into, and without an agreement the school districts

were placed in an untenable position in which they could not terminate

or lay off any teachers for any reason whatsoever. You see, there was

no fallback position, because with the advent of Bill 3, the old

section 153 of the current School Act was deleted. In all other public

sector agreements there were fallback positions, and most of those had

been negotiated. In the case of public schools, I repeat, there wasn't

any. What happened was that the local teacher associations in each of

those districts were refusing to enter into an exemption agreement. By

refusing to do so they were, in fact, putting before the school boards

unacceptable positions, and positions to which the school districts

just could not agree. So we had no alternative other than to bring in

the type of bill we have before us today.

It's interesting to note that a number of the school districts that

have entered into agreements — and roughly one-third have entered into

those agreements — considered primarily seniority only. Approximately

another one-third entered into agreements where seniority,

qualifications and ability were considered.

This particular bill also contains something else. I was insistent

that we go to some lengths to ensure that there would be due process,

so that if any particular teacher felt aggrieved, there was an avenue

to handle that grievance which is most fair. Something which I think

many people have forgotten is that under the old School Act all that

was required to give teachers, if their services were no longer

required, was 30 days' notice. I find that to be rather difficult and

somewhat unfair, to be very candid. It seems to me that someone who has

given service to a district for a period of time is certainly entitled

to more than 30 days' notice. This bill provides for the notice, but

not only that, it provides for the appropriate severance, and it is

built in.

[3:45]

One of the issues which will be of some concern, but I think it's

evident and is required, is the expression "current demonstrated

ability." A number of school districts are interested in that

particular expression, and have incorporated within their agreements

language which may not specifically state "current demonstrated

ability, " but there isn't much question about the direction in which

they're moving. I have before me an example from the Greater Victoria

School District where they, together with their local teachers, have

hammered out an agreement. I make specific reference to articles 9, 10,

and 11 in that agreement. In particular,

article No. 11 makes reference

to definition of qualifications.

Other school districts, interestingly enough, have started in this

direction. As you know, the existing practice is to refer to reports as

either being satisfactory or less than satisfactory. I don't believe

that is really an acceptable practice, and it's not my idea; it's

obviously coming out of the school districts themselves. I notice that

in some school districts they have a number of categories. In one

particular example there are five: excellent, good, satisfactory, fair

and poor. This is already built into the agreement. It seems to me that

it's not a bad idea.

One of the concerns which we have had.... I recognize that this is a

start in that direction, in giving it legislative support and a thrust.

These changes, of course, will occur within school districts over a

period of time; it's not expected that anything will happen

immediately. It's interesting to note that a superintendent has the

authority to make decisions on a reporting basis, and can use a number

of categories. A principal cannot. A principal can use only the

expressions "satisfactory" or "less than satisfactory." I would hope

that as time goes on principals will be in the position to give an

appropriate report, and in some detail.

One of the concerns which I have had — and I think it's probably a

concern of all school districts, and it should be the concern of all

members of the House — is the number of reports which have been

submitted on teachers over a period of time. I've got before me what we

believe to be a reasonably accurate

summary of the number of reports

submitted, and by the districts. As you know, we're responsible in the

ministry for the certification branch.

[ Page 6266 ]

When you look over the list, you find for 1983-84 that one

particular school district had 70 reports done on teachers, all in

their interests, and then it can go into another particular school

district where there will be one. This was new to me. I would have

thought that they would have been updated, and it would be a fairly

current practice, but the evidence before me would indicate that it

hasn't been, in the matter of reporting, and that reviewing the

performance of teachers has not been carried on to the degree to which

I would have thought that it would have been.

I advised my critic that I would take about ten minutes only on

second reading on it. I would just like to capsule very quickly the

reason. There were no agreements on the number of school districts.

That impasse had to be brought to an end. Legislation was required.

There was no fallback position because there were no regulations under

Bill 3. The old

section 153 of the School Act had been deleted. We have

added into the bill something which I think has real value when

referring not only to seniority and qualifications but also to current

demonstrated ability.

The last item to which I would like to refer is that it does contain due process, so that everyone is treated most fairly.

You will also note that the bill does contain a provision that if

school districts are unable to enter into an agreement, the particular

bill has a

schedule attached to it, and that

schedule will become an

operative document. What I am hoping will occur is that a number of

school districts will provide leadership in this area. I can say that

now many have, and I think that a number of others should be following

suit and taking it into consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure; is now the time that I move that the bill be read a second time?

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, I guess the minister is not unlike most of us. We all try to clothe our actions in the noblest motives possible.

This is to prevent some problems he claims are caused by certain

teachers, by the information I have, refusing to come to agreements in

some 20 or 21 districts. He never says that one of the reasons we're

faced with this — just one of the reasons — is that there were no

regulations articulated in terms of seniority under Bill 3. Whose

responsibility is that? It certainly wasn't those teachers out there.

As a matter of fact, it was touch and go, and even North Van was

discouraged from signing an early exemption, merely because this might

set the trend and ruin the strength of the so-called restraint in those

days.

So it doesn't matter what this minister does. We have to endure

cutbacks because of decline in enrolment. He doesn't say that the

cutbacks amounted to 20 percent, or over $250 million, when the decline

in enrolment was about 10 percent. He doesn't say that when he's

cutting back in terms of the PTR, he's firing one teacher for every

drop in enrolment of 6.5 pupils, not 17, which is roughly the PTR in

some of the grades. So the cutbacks have been far more intense than any

decline in enrolment, and so have the cutbacks in terms of not only

staffing, but also funding.

The framework provides equity, says he. In other words, we have to

take one-third of the districts that are providing quality education,

service and staffing and take $250 million away from them and give it

to two-thirds of the districts — something like 50 or more which are

not providing the same level of service. To him, equity is lowering

everybody to meet his standards. The lowest common denominator. We

didn't reach the highest common denominator in public education, we

reached the lowest common denominator.

Curtis' directive, which puts into place — solidifies almost;

freezes — a certain number of jobs at a certain rate, was put in there

to save jobs. In other words, it was there to save the teachers from

themselves. He'd already fired about 2,500 — and my own daughter just

got her notice the other day, so this is not entirely impersonal with

me — not because of unsatisfactory performance, but because we had to

cut down. Why? Because of lack of enrolment? Not completely. Because of

a restraint budget? Not because the local district didn't want the

program. No, nothing. It's a punitive approach, a retaliatory approach,

but he clothes it in noble motives. "We had to have this because there

were no regulations under Bill 3."

Then he says: "We need official trustees to replace obstinate

boards." And what do they do as soon as they go in there? They add $7

million to the budget, which wasn't allowed to the trustees who were

there originally. I know he's going to argue that.... He doesn't write

the trustees, he writes the Vancouver Sun .

I think, Mr. Speaker, this is just another battle in the

government's continuing war against education. He's been bullying and

browbeating boards now for two years. He got them onside. When he first

came into office he was a loquacious, smiling Vander Zalm. Now he's

still smiling, but some of the boards that made agreements with him

under the sunset provisions of Bill 6, and also the ability and the

promise to shift the funds around within the functions, have found out

that all was not quite the same when they tried to do it, If you don't

believe that, ask Coquitlam. Just ask Coquitlam, because they tried to

save a few jobs; that's what they tried to do. But he wanted to

downsize the staffing, and this is more. This is more management

rights, so boards, if they have that frame of mind, can proceed without

any real check on their powers at all. Talk about management rights:

you've given it to them now. Only in one area though. But I'm getting

away from my notes.

Browbeating the trustees, scapegoating the teachers and chiseling

the kids: he'll go down in history for that. That's what his main aim

in life has been. We had a problem, so we need this Bill 35, but the

government's brought it all on itself in its attack on education.

Education has been singled out for cuts while other departments have

escaped. The budget for this year is up 14 percent, and education has

been cut. Why? Why can't that minister fight for education the way some

of the other members fight for their particular departments?

Now the arbitrations were allowed to continue. He dithered. All

during this year the arbitrations were allowed to continue at a cost of

$1.5 million. When the arbitrations continued, as the School Act

describes, directed bargaining.... Then they had to go to the

compensation commissioner to be ruled upon, and then the interim

finance act forbade budget increases and then when things got

really.... We got to the pressure cooker, because Mr. Peck was about to

award some 1 and 2 percent, but the minister said: "Oh, no, you can't

do that, because I've frozen the global budget." So all that means is

that we're going to hate the same global budget — that is, if you

aren't allowed to sell property in Richmond or Vancouver or some other

place.... So much again for equity, you know. Here we've got a

framework that's supposed to provide equity, right? It's so equitable

that you must leave it rigidly imposed all over the province, until you

get into trouble. Then you say: "Well,

[ Page

6267 ]

really what we need to do is spend a little bit

more money in Vancouver to make our official trustee look good." If you

want to buy off Burnaby and Coquitlam, you add a few little nuggets in

there, but his own board hasn't that opportunity. They never heard of

this before.

Anyway, here is the thing: we've got a School Act which directs bargaining,

a compensation stabilization commissioner who has to rule on these things, an

interim finance act which forbids budget increases.... Therefore if there's

any increase it's divided up among fewer teachers, and the day after the

convention of schoolteachers is all over, in comes Curtis on his white horse,

freezes salaries — whop, you're frozen; zap, you're frozen — into an

unfair situation. And it's terrible.

You take Kimberley, for instance. Enrolment since '83-84 has

declined 1.3 percent, and they lost 8.7 percent of their teachers —

equitable? Here's Fernie: according to Curtis they're entitled to 223

teachers. Do you know how many teachers they have? They have 205. So

how can they get up to the Curtis formula? Well, they have to get some

more money. And why can't they get any more money? Because "zap, you're

frozen" has frozen the budgets. Kamloops is 55 below what Curtis said

they could have. So this whole thing is, I think, you know....

When the boards discovered that because of Bill 3 and its removal of

section 153 — and it's a bit technical, Mr. Speaker, so I won't bore

you too long with it — they couldn't get rid of anybody.... There was

no power granted to terminate. Here comes the Minister of Education,

again on white horse, and says: "Well, we've got to have Bill 35,

because the teachers were recalcitrant. They were uncooperative. They

wouldn't bargain."

[4:00]

Mr. Speaker, this is a mess, one of a continued symphony of

dithering ad hockery. We've just gone from one screwup to another. I've

puzzled about this, because I think that the members of his government

are very capable, especially of winning elections. So I've always

wondered whether they were smart or dumb, and I thought, well, there

must be a master plan. But I'm beginning to wonder whether there really

is a master plan there at all. I really am, Mr. Speaker.

Any board who didn't knuckle under.... And you understand why we're

having these layoffs: we're having these layoffs because the minister

says that the boards no longer have the right, as elected officials, to

raise any money; they haven't had for three years, and probably won't

for another year. Anyway, the boards who didn't knuckle under to the

budget directives were either threatened.... Thirty-four of them

provided maintenance budgets. They were cajoled, and two were fired.

Why were they fired? I think it would be a good idea to examine why

they were fired. I think it would be necessary, again, to go into the

technicalities of the School Act. A little problem for boards that were

elected: they have to file a declaration. The declaration in

section 76

says in part: "I will faithfully perform the duties of my office and

abide by the School Act."

Mr. Speaker, I see you're fascinated by this. What does the School Act

say that the duties of the board members are? This will cause you a lot of sleepless

afternoons, Mr. Speaker. It says that, according to the duties of the school

board, each board in each school district shall — and I quote from

section 155

— "except as otherwise provided in this act, provide sufficient school

accommodation and tuition, free of charge, to ... all children" etc.

That's really the operative part.

What do they have to provide? They have to provide accommodation and tuition.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

If, in their conscience, they couldn't provide the proper kind of

tuition or, for that matter, accommodation with the moneys they were

allotted, what could they do? The minister comes along in the interim

financing act and says: "It's not just good enough that I can impose my

budget; you've got to vote for it. I'm telling you guys, you freely

elected people, how to vote." What gall! What outrage! And he's

surprised when a few of them say: "No, we can't do that, because we

have given an oath and signed a declaration that we would provide for

what we — not the minister — regard as adequate tuition and

accommodation." If they couldn't provide that, what could they do? Vote

against it; and if you vote against it you get fired or you resign.

This is behind-the-Iron-Curtain democracy; that's what it is. You vote

according to how the minister tells you to vote. I don't like the idea

that the minister can issue directives to an autonomous board. I don't

mind, though, so much the fact that he can do that, as long as he

doesn't order them to vote.

So what does he do? He comes along and he fires them. He fires them

under

section 79, the order-in-council

section of the School Act: "On

the appointment of an official trustee to conduct the affairs of a

school district, its trustees...." But what does it say in

section 78?

It says: "Where a new school district is created wholly or in part by

the union of two or more existing school districts or as the result of

a division of a large school district into two or more small districts,

then on trustees being elected or appointed" — blah, blah, blah, blah.

When we get new school trustees, then the minister may appoint a

trustee and terminate the offices of the old trustee. That's what it

says.

Those two should be read together, and they aren't. I think they're

the subject of a court case, but, not being a lawyer, I wouldn't know

for certain. The minister, I hope, has looked into that. I think that

on that very basis they were probably fired illegally. We'll see,

though.

They should be reinstated. Do they have to be fired forever? Why

don't you reinstate them? You go to elaborate procedures of how you can

reallocate or how a teacher can be rehired after he's been fired or

terminated. Why can't you do the same thing with trustees? "You didn't

vote the way we wanted you to or you were told to, so we fired you;

then we passed the budget. But you were elected to serve, so why don't

you come back?" There we are. I don't see why a board member, a decent

human being, should be put into conflict with his own conscience. At

least here, if we don't like the way something is, we're not told by

the federal government how to vote; that's precisely the parallel.

Shareable funds at the last minute: a death-bed conversion; not

available before that. What a sorry.... I think it's a sorry tale of

betrayals and obfuscation; it really is. "Oh, well, they knew all along

that they could do it." Like fun they could do it. Where is the equity

in all that?

How come, if the framework supplies enough for adequate education,

the official trustee was permitted to dig in and sell property to the

tune of another $7 million?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, one moment, please. We are on

Bill 35, which deals with school boards, teachers' associations and

layoff agreements. I wonder if we

[ Page 6268 ]

could stick to the principle of that bill, particularly layoff agreements dealing with school boards and teachers' associations.

MR. ROSE: I really appreciate your guidance on that matter. I

might have strayed somewhat. I got a bit discursive, but I was really

coming back to the main point. The main point is that if the minister

hadn't put a global budget ceiling or cap on Vancouver and other school

board budgets, then no layoff agreement under Bill 35 would be

necessary. That was the point I was trying to make, and how inequitably

this has been applied, including, Mr. Speaker, in your own district,

where they didn't have the non-shareable opportunity to proceed. I know

you must be extremely sensitive to this one. Anyway, I think it's a

sorry tale.

All right, this party believes in the boards' right to manage; it's

only the government that doesn't. We believe in the boards' right to

manage. We believe that the minister doesn't believe in the boards'

right to manage. What powers have they got left? First the minister

deleted budget control from the boards. Gone. There's your right to

manage. If you can't control your own budget, how can you manage?

There's the former chairman of Metro Transit. If you didn't have

control of your own budget, Mr. Member, I don't see how you could

manage Metro Transit.

Taxing powers, the right to levy taxes and fix a mill rate, gone.

Who's got it? The minister. He's got those powers now. Curriculum

choices: limited if not gone. And what are we left with now? Under Bill

35 we've given them the power to hire and fire. We've shifted that

right over to them to such an extent that they have powers they've

never had before. They enjoy powers to fire greater than they've ever

had before, far greater than anything contemplated under

section 153. I

think it's gone too far in the direction of management. There's lots of

prescription when it comes to curriculum and spending. The minister is

able to provide them with all kinds of details of frameworks of what

they can do, but he's not very prescriptive when it comes to what it

means by seniority, competency or current performance. What does it

mean, for instance, by qualifications? What are you talking about

there? Do you want those people with the most qualifications, and

therefore the highest salaries to be maintained, or do you want those

with the least? It doesn't say under

Schedule 3 at all.

Now the NDP also, and I want to make this perfectly clear — in the

words of Robert Stanfield, I want to make this crystal clear....

AN HON. MEMBER: That was Nixon, wasn't it?

MR. ROSE: Yes, I know, but Stanfield copied it from Nixon.

They're both right-wingers, but Nixon was far worse. Stanfield was a

rather decent fellow, but he used the same terms.

I want to make it perfectly clear that this party doesn't believe either

that the incompetent or lazy teachers should be protected. I think this bill

gives a board carte blanche, if they want it, on how to fire teachers. How do

you do it? First of all, you don't come to any negotiations with teachers.

Like West Van, you refuse to negotiate with teachers. Therefore, after a time

determined by the minister.... That could be inequitable too, because the

minister could allow Board X .... they could make Vancouver, for instance,

do it right away, and allow Coquitlam and Burnaby, Qualicum and Cowichan some

extra time. Anyway, if they can't come to an agreement,

Schedule 3 kicks

in, and a lot of very interesting things happen under that agreement.

What's the incentive for a board to come to an agreement if they are

basically anti-teacher? There isn't any. They're better to wait it out.

Then the minister can come with a bail-out bill or

Schedule 3, like he

did for West Van in this bill. Precisely what's happened.

I said incompetent teachers shouldn't be protected. There are ways —

awkward, admittedly — under the act currently of dealing with this

matter. If they're not good enough, why don't you negotiate with the

profession or allow the boards to negotiate with their own staff to get

better agreements? I don't think anybody should be interested in

protecting the incompetent teachers — or governments, for that matter.

I'd like to fire the incompetent government. That would be nice.

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: That's what I said: that we should have the right to fire an incompetent government. And the minister agrees with me.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: We got rid of one in 1972 as well.

Mr. Speaker, you're going to have to protect me from these people. They keep yelling at me.

Could you be determined incompetent, Mr. Speaker, if you had the

wrong political leanings? Or maybe if you were really active in your

teachers' association'? Or maybe if your religious or social

commitments, sexual orientation or something, was not approved of by

the local board or the local committee? Is that the kind of thing that

would affect your competence to teach the young and be a role model?

That's what we're afraid of. There's no definition of competence in

here. The minister says some woolly things. He doesn't like

"satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory," but he likes "excellent," "good,"

"poor" and "rotten." In other words, five or six different categories.

If you've ever had anything to do with rating and grading teachers....

Everybody knows what a good teacher is and what a bad one is, but if

you've ever had anything to do with grading teachers and student

teachers — and I've had 10 or 11 years of it — it's a damned difficult

thing. You can rate their behaviour, how they perform in front of the

class, but you don't measure learning that way. Anybody who has ever

tried to learn anything about teacher assessment knows it's more than

just eyeballing. I'm very concerned.

As a matter of fact, some of the left-wing boards would be in a

position to fire all those active Socred teachers. Did you ever think

of that? What about all those left-wing elected boards, elected on a

no-cut platform, going on a witch-hunt after Socred teachers? Boy,

that's pretty serious when you think of that — the wrong political....

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Boy, you've sure got a lot of confidence in school boards.

MR. ROSE: I'm not the one who took away their powers, Mr.

Minister. You did. You're the one who marched right in, centralized and

took all their powers away, not me.

The minister talks about seniority. He talks about the Victoria agreement. They spell out what seniority means and

[ Page

6269 ]

how it's to be.... What does the minister do in

schedule 3? He stands seniority on its head. He mouths on about such

inanities as order in terms of.... In his press release it's a little

different, but in

section 5, "Determination of layoff, " it talks about

"current demonstrated ability." Who makes that assessment? The

superintendent? The principal? According to whose wisdom?

"Qualifications." The cheapest teacher? Or the best qualified? And then

down below that there's seniority. Victoria, which he quoted from, has

got termination and recall based on seniority and qualifications, and

they define length of service — not this kind of stuff that the

minister has done, with all kinds of interrupted service and the like.

[4:15]

The minister doesn't understand why we become upset with a bill like

this. Well, it's the same kind of shoddy drafting and stuff like that

that we've heard from him with everything he touches. He's almost an

alchemist in reverse — a pleasant one, but nevertheless he is.

I'd like to read him some of the Victoria agreement. It's just the

opposite of what he contemplates under

schedule 3 here. There is no

incentive for boards to bargain with their teachers. There are

considerable incentives for boards not to bargain, because the

schedule

gives the boards carte blanche. The

schedule directs the boards to take

the following into account in this order: current ability,

qualifications, and only then seniority. That's the very opposite of

what Victoria and many others have done. I think there are something

like 55 agreements. But if a board doesn't wish to agree, we're going

to get

schedule 3. That's a poem: if you don't agree,

schedule 3. So

there's no reason for them to bargain if they don't wish to. Right?

I think that the bill is unnecessary and unfair, and it's a

potential time-bomb. I think it's going to hurt labour relations in

B.C. They're already stressful because of all the buffeting they've

taken. It's another band-aid approach. And I think it's going to set a

time-bomb ticking that's going to damage labour relations for a long

time.

What did we need if we didn't need this? We probably could have

used, because of the goof-up with no regulations in Bill 3, a one-line

bill that said something like this: "To give the school board and

teachers' associations authority to negotiate terminations, layoffs and

recall...." That's all you really needed. You didn't have to go into

all this other sort of stuff which qualifies that. I don't think

there's anything wrong with having some kind of clause in there which

would give management the right to manage. I'm not opposed to that.

But, of course, we must remember that we wouldn't need this at all if

we hadn't had the $200 million to $300 million attack on the schools in

the first place.

It's unnecessary because there's no district that at some point

hasn't come pretty close to layoff arrangements with its own teachers.

All agreements have been pretty standard — I mentioned the Victoria

one. But they have what the bill lacks: comprehensive

definitions of

what they mean by seniority and qualifications. I don't think any of

the agreements, like the Victoria one, look anything like Bill 35. It's

only West Van that has refused to negotiate a Bill 3 exemption — not to

conclude one, but to negotiate one. For their insistence they are

rewarded with this special law by the minister — a gift to West Van. I

think it's unfair. Most senior teachers and qualified teachers will not

necessarily be retained. Active teacher representatives are vulnerable

and the bill is an assault on academic freedom. It's a time-bomb, and I

think it gives the boards too much power.

Let me summarize, Mr. Speaker. We're concerned about the bill

because, first, it's unnecessary. A one-line bill entitling or, if you

like, demanding that boards and teachers negotiate termination, layoff

and recall agreements would have been all that was necessary. I think

it's going to lead to strife, unless a fair agreement is worked out.

There is no definition of seniority. What is seniority? Is it

district-wide? Does it mean continuous? Interrupted? What does a leave

of absence do to seniority? And the pension provisions? There are all

kinds of questions we can go into during committee stage.

It contemplates the need for mid-year layoffs — more disruptions in

the school system. It's open to abuse by boards, easy pickings for

certain people. If you want to get rid of a particular person, what do

you do? You just reorganize his program. That's all you have to do. Has

the individual teacher any rights? Well, the minister says that under

arbitration he has, but if the original agreement negotiated by the

teachers' association and the board doesn't protect an individual, then

what rights has he got of appealing that? I don't know if he has any. I

think the arbitrations will only occur in those districts arising from

Schedule 3 or disputes where they can't come about, and if a board

doesn't want to come to an agreement it doesn't have to.

I think I've covered most of my concerns about it. I can't think of

a layoff agreement that doesn't have a statement about qualifications

and seniority, but the bill doesn't.

Let me end by saying one other thing. I think the minister is pretty

cocky about how his efforts have been greeted by the general public. He

is probably closer to certain numbers than I am in terms of polling. I

think it's pretty safe to attack teachers. I think that probably looks

good. A couple of months ago we had a poll which said that we want to

spend more money on education but teachers shouldn't get any. So I

think it's pretty safe ground to scapegoat teachers for a variety of

reasons. But I've got a poll by the BCTF that was recently published,

and I'm sure it went to every member. I know the minister has done some

analysis of that poll, too, and probably feels quite good about it

because he thinks there are some leading questions. But there are some

interesting things here, and I refer to point (9). If you want me to

table this, I will.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Three minutes.

MR. ROSE: Thank you. It's volume 3, number 5, of "Action

Update," May 7, 1985, and point 9 on page 3 says: "In what ways have

the cutbacks changed your political support?" Number 1 gives the change

from Socred to NDP, total 14 percent, parents 16 percent and

non-parents 13 percent; change from Socred to another party, 12 percent

total, 19 percent for parents, 10 percent for non-parents; change from

Socred to undecided, 15 percent for total, and 19 percent and 13

percent for parent and non-parent; change from NDP to Socred, 1

percent, parents 3 percent, non-parents nothing; change from NDP to

another party, 2 percent total, 1 percent parent, 2 percent non-parent;

increased interest in third parties, 6 percent and 6 percent.

And: "If a provincial election were held today, which party would you

vote for?" I'll just give you the total, because we're short of

time. Even if I'm designated, are we still short of time?

[ Page 6270 ]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, if the member wishes to be designated, you have two hours.

MR. ROSE: Left?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, an hour and a half.

MR. ROSE: Oh, well, I'm sure glad that I don't have two hours left. I have an hour and a half left.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Seriously, do you wish to be designated?

MR. ROSE: Why not? It doesn't hurt, does it?

Well, just let me close by saying this. "If a provincial election

was held today, which party would you vote for?" Now I don't think

that's a leading question. It says 16 percent Socred, 33 percent NDP, 6

percent Liberal, 7 percent Conservative, the United Party didn't get

any and the Rhinos got 1 percent. So at the moment the Rhinos are ahead

of the United Party, and they've abolished themselves, so what will

come next I have no idea.

Anyway, I don't mean to be frivolous about this. I think that the

attack on education has left many people really disenchanted with the

minister, and I don't care what smiling face he puts on it, or how many

people in the claque over there beat the hell out of their desks when

he stands up to answer a question, which he usually obfuscates. I think

that it's a very serious thing when you put public education under such

an extreme attack for so long. I hope.... And I think it'll probably

happen, elections being what they are.... The minister said up in

Vernon.... You know, maybe you won't need all these layoff agreements

because, as he said in Vernon: "There's more money coming."

AN HON. MEMBER: Next year.

MR. ROSE: Oh, yes, next year. Well, when elections are coming

there's usually more money coming for education. So we'll all hold our

breath, we'll keep our heads down, those teachers that are terminated

will try to get jobs somewhere else in the meantime, and then maybe

they can come back to this province a year from now after the next

election — or up to the next election while we're hiring, putting a lot

more money in the pot — and then maybe they may be able to have a job.

In conclusion, the bill in such a form is not necessary. It gives

too much power to the boards, who can use it for their own purposes. It

tips the seniority and qualifications provision on its head, and it,

allows people to be terminated who have given a lot of good, sound,

able service to their particular districts. I think it's unfair, unjust

and unnecessary.

Thank you.

MR. VEITCH: It is my pleasure to rise and support Bill 35,

the School Amendment Act, 1985. I always enjoy what the hon. member for

Coquitlam-Moody says. He's a very good speaker, and he puts his point

across well, but it's interesting that he's caught up in the dichotomy

of his own particular party. It's very interesting to me that you seem

to say — or at least your party seems to be saying — that seniority

should prevail. Yet we just spent several hours here — in fact, several

days — saying that doctors shouldn't have seniority. Isn't that

interesting? We said we should bring in the bright, new people.

I'll get around to the principle of the bill, Mr. Speaker, if you'll just hold with me for a while.

It's interesting that they seem to state that young doctors should

be brought in with fresh ideas, with new ideas and new training, and

bring a real emphasis to the medical profession. Yet they don't want to

do the same thing in education. There's a double standard here. What

they want to do is keep seniority because that's the trade union

motive. They're caught up in this whole business of following the

unions, and they will never go anywhere until they're able to change

their standards and have a standard of their own.

It's interesting that we spent all of that time on Bill 41 saying

that we shouldn't have seniority in billing numbers or anything of this

nature, but in education, that's a different load of poles. We're

dealing with the BCTF, which is a union, and we should have strict

seniority.

It's interesting, Mr. Speaker, that several districts did sign

exemptions under Bill 3, and School District 41 in my area, Burnaby,

signed such an exemption. I want to tell you it's one of the most cushy

exemptions that you'd ever find. You'd never find a way of laying

anyone off or bringing in any new talent under that exemption, because

they had a left-wing school board that made darned sure that seniority

was the only factor. That's where it is.

That's why I'm so proud to agree with this bill, because it brings

equity to the teaching profession. It brings in new blood; it brings in

new ideas. Someone told me a number of years ago — he was working in

education and was a little down on it at the time — that education was

100 years of experience unimpeded by progress. I don't believe that at

all; maybe the hon. member does. But that's what seniority does.

Seniority in itself and by itself alone brings the status quo. It

brings 100 years of doing the same thing over and over again without

any new ideas, Mr. Teacher. This allows for the process of ability to

take place. What's wrong with the process of ability?

It's interesting that in Burnaby in one year — and I can't remember

the exact year, but just prior to restraint — the school budget in

School District 41, which is now about a $60 million budget, increased

by $12 million in one year, while in the decade leading up to that

period, the school population decreased by 50 percent.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to just turn to the bill for a minute. What

the bill does is provide equity. It provides that school boards and

teachers' associations may negotiate layoff agreements. That's

collective bargaining; that's what we're talking about. In the event

that a board and an association fail to conclude an agreement,

education is taken into the thought process at that point in time, and

this agreement will then be instituted in place of that. I see nothing

but equity there.

There's nothing wrong with the discontinuation either, Mr. Speaker,

as the bill points out — unlike Burnaby which decreased its school

population by 50 percent and increased its budget by $12 million in one

year, but that's okay, that's all right.

MR. ROSE: What was that again?

MR. VEITCH: The school population, through you, Mr. Speaker,

decreased by 50 percent in one decade, and in the year just prior to

restraint, the budget itself increased by $12 million in that one year.

What this does....

[ Page 6271 ]

Interjections.

MR. VEITCH: Why? Why, Mr. Speaker? Because there were no such

provisions as those included in this bill. They thought that all you

did was turn on the magic money tree and somehow tap people's pockets.

They didn't know that someone has to earn that money in order to pay

teachers or anyone else. It wasn't education; it was simply putting

teachers in place for sometimes no good reason.

[4:30]

This allows for discontinuation or reduction in the level of program

and activity of service. Why should you be continuing to teach the same

you have seniority, and if the position open is for a mathematics

be somewhat proficient in mathematics. A younger person, who is

proficient in mathematics, would be laid off. Now tell me where the

equity is in that position. Is there any equity at all, Mr. Speaker? I

think not, no equity at all.

MR. ROSE: Lay off the old guys.

MR. VEITCH: Some old guys need laying off. Some are long in the tooth — maybe you and I both, hon. member.

What this bill is about is current demonstrated ability, and the

word "current" is underscored. It's about the state of the art in that

particular discipline being required at that point in time. You're not

in education to simply employ administrators or employ teachers; you're

there for the training of the students. That's what it's all about.

Sometimes we overlook this in our thought process; and certainly the

NDP overlook this in their process.

Interjection.

MR. VEITCH: Bursars are always good people.

Mr. Speaker, we are always talking about PT ratios. In 1973 then

Premier Barrett targeted a PTR of 25 to 1. He didn't do that. He didn't

make that by the time he was turfed out of office in 1975. But what is

it now? With all of this talk and all this verbiage, it's about 18 to

1, isn't it, Mr. Minister? It's somewhere in that area. Now come on,

don't tell me that this government has been hurting education. That's

pure and absolute nonsense.

What seems to be the position of the opposition and, indeed, of the

Leader of the Opposition? Instead of getting through this smokescreen

and doing something about the problems and opportunities that exist in

education, he's standing on the steps of the Vancouver School Board and

maybe not conditioning people to break the law, but not telling them

not to. That's where it's at. Why doesn't the opposition get on and

talk about the rule of law, about doing positive things for education,

instead of getting on a bandwagon where they think they're going to win

some Brownie points in the next provincial election? That's what it's

all about.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

This bill offers assistance to school boards that have had precious

little assistance to do their job all along. I really wish that

something like this could have come in in place of Bill 3, but it

didn't. It's a good bill. It's been a long time coming. I

wholeheartedly support it.

MR. ROSE: Point of privilege, Mr. Speaker. I believe that the

member who just spoke implied that the opposition had counselled people

to break the law.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: He didn't? I accept that as a withdrawal.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don't believe that was a point of privilege.

MR. GABELMANN: In a long list of political bills this

session, this tops the list. I think what we need to understand about

Bill 35 is that it is a political recovery bill and nothing more. The

government decided some time ago that it could win political points by

attacking education and educators, and it proceeded down that path.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do you guarantee that?

MR. GABELMANN: I guarantee that. It started down that path,

and it was doing fairly well from its own perspective in terms of its

political agenda, until it went so far that it not only had

professional educators up in arms about what it was doing but also

parents, trustees and children in the system. It got so bad that the

polls began to show that the course they were embarked on was not as

popular as they believed it was going to be, and they needed to recover

from that.

How did they recover from that? They sat down and they said: "What

we need to do politically is separate teachers from trustees and

parents. What we need to do is try once again to single out for

scapegoating the least popular element in the education field." That's

what this bill is about. The member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose)

indicated that it wasn't necessary, and it isn't. If there's a failure

in respect to that stupid Bill 3 process, then that can be remedied

easily enough by simply requiring boards and their teacher associations

to reach agreements in respect of termination and recall.

But no, we don't have that. What we have here is a bill that sets

out the government's own agenda about what it believes should happen in

respect to those layoffs — not allowing or requiring local boards to

reach those agreements with their teachers, but giving all of the

incentive in the world to the boards not to reach those kinds of

agreements — and therefore we have this particular legislation in

place. Why? Because there's a determination that we've got to, once

again, single out a particular element, an unpopular element for

scapegoating so that we can, in the government's thinking, once again

try to make education a politically popular issue for Social Credit.

That's all this is about. Anyone who thinks otherwise does not

understand the Machiavellian nature of Social Credit. If not, Mr.

Speaker, why have we had bill after bill after bill in this session

proposing to do things that aren't required in legislation? Why do we

have a Coquihalla bill on the order paper, to permit the government to

spend money on highway construction, which they can do on their own

anyway?

Mr. Speaker, I'll just take a moment to say that if there are any

problems in terms of funding education properly in British Columbia,

you can just take the money that's being

[ Page 6272 ]

wasted on the Coquihalla Highway project and you'll have more than enough to fund education properly in this province.

I spent all day yesterday going up there and traveling on that route....

MR. REID: That's how to put people out of work: close the Coquihalla down.

MR. GABELMANN: Putting people to work — 1,600 people working

for three or four months on a project that's going to cost us half a

billion dollars at least, wasting more money than we need to put

education back on tracks — building highways through 20 feet of snow!

Mr. Speaker, that's not in order, so I'll pretend I didn't say all

of that. But it makes me a little bit angry when the government brings

in bill after bill, including Bill 35, which is designed not to promote

good government, not to promote harmonious relationships in our

community, not to try to get progress in our society, but rather to

create divisions in order to try to create political Brownie points for

the government. To use the kids in our school system and to use

education for those political motives is absolutely scandalous. The

minister, who is in private life a decent guy, should have the courage

and the guts to recognize that he's being used as a pawn by the

political manipulators who run that government. It really is

unfortunate, Mr. Speaker....

MR. REID: He's his own man. He always has been.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, if the Minister of Education were

his own man he would not be succumbing to the requests of the people

who run this government — the people who conduct the polls and

determine which policies are required. He would not be succumbing to

their demands that education somehow be saved as a political issue,

because right now it's an issue that's going to do them in at the next

election.

MR. REID: Not so.

MR. GABELMANN: That's what this bill is about, and all the

"not so's" and all the catcalls and all the minister's shaking of his

head don't deny that reality. Why then, if it isn't so, have we had

this long series of political bills this session? Legislation which

isn't required except for one purpose: to make the government more

popular, or if they can, to make us unpopular because we defend some

basic rights and some basic services and principles in this province.

That's what the agenda is. Let no one misunderstand or mistake what the

agenda is.

All the government has to do to get around the technical problem is

to require that boards and their teacher associations reach an

agreement on these matters. Then the boards and the teachers have to do

it, don't they? That's all that has to happen. There is no incentive in

this legislation for those boards which have reached an agreement to

renew that agreement. Now the civilized ones and the ones who care

about education will negotiate their own agreements and will not rely

on this legislation. The ones who do not want to politicize education

will not use this legislation. And the minister says that's right,

admitting that it's political legislation. It's not necessary.

AN HON. MEMBER: All agreements are gone at the end of the year.

MR. GABELMANN: I know. They have to be renewed.

Now I'd like the minister, when he wraps up second reading, to tell

us why he didn't just require them to do it. That would have been

enough. Perhaps there would have been no political marks in it. There

would be no ability to set one part of our society off against another,

which is the hallmark of this government since July 7, 1983. Political

division among people — let's do what we can to divide people one from

another, and let's do whatever we can to make sure that Social Credit

is re-elected in the next election. Everything we see in this session,

including this bill, is designed with that objective and nothing else.

Obviously it is not designed for good education, because every teacher

in British Columbia who operates under this legislation will fear for

his job. It's bad enough now that all kinds of them fear that their

jobs will be gone in the current situation, but a number of them know,

because of their long service and because they haven't had reports on

file, that they're competent teachers and will not be subject to

firing. Every single teacher who falls under this legislation will now

worry about whether he is the one who will be fired. What does that do

to the morale of a teacher in the classroom, when he or she wonders

whether or not the job will exist tomorrow or next year? What about the

competition that engenders among teachers about getting summer school

programs in order to get a higher qualification than the next guy or

the next woman? It's a kind of atmosphere in which good education

cannot take place.

But then again, Mr. Speaker, we make a mistake. We on this side of

the House sometimes think that the government is interested in good

education. It's not. It's only interested in good politics for Social

Credit. That's all that matters to them.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: You can say "not true" all you like. It's a fact.

Mr. Speaker, the chirpy member for Surrey rarely gets up and defends

her position. I'm sorry to hear the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr.

Michael) refer to the children of this province as an interest group,

but damn it, I'm going to defend those children here in this House even

if he won't. That's what we're talking about: the education of our

children in this province. And when you engender fear and mistrust and

nervousness in the system, more than is already there — it's hard to

believe there could be more, but there will be — you damage — hopefully

not irreparably but you damage severely — education in our system.

The member for Burnaby-Willingdon (Mr. Veitch) said: "Oh, what's the

opposition doing, taking one position on doctors and another on

teachers?" Absolutely ludicrous. How many doctors have been fired

recently? And if they are to be fired, they fire themselves because

they govern themselves. The government hasn't brought in a bill saying

that certain organizations in the community are able to do a quality

check on the doctors and fire some of them. The parallels are absurd.

[4:45]

Let's deal with the question of quality, because it needs to be dealt with. I remember one teacher in particular in my

[ Page 6273 ]

school years who should have been fired. He had a

lot of seniority. If I'd been on the school board in those days I would

have made sure he had a report on him, and he would have been fired.

The procedure, the process, is there now, and because it may not be

used properly doesn't mean it isn't a procedure that works. The

procedure, for those who don't know, is simple. Reports can go on a

file, and if there are three within two years, the teacher is down the

road. If a teacher is incompetent or for some other reason should not

be teaching, then t