1986 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 33rd

Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is

for informational purposes

only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 1986

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page 7753 ]

CONTENTS

Legal Profession Act (Bill 21). Hon. Mr. Smith

Introduction and first reading –– 7753

International Commercial Arbitration Act (Bill 20).

Hon. Mr. Smith

Introduction and first reading –– 7753

Oral Questions

Ministry of Forests advertising. Mr. Howard –– 7753

Financial Disclosure Act. Mr. Reynolds –– 7754

Prince George NSR land. Mr. Howard –– 7754

Alleged violation of oath of office by mayor of

Vancouver. Mr. Mowat –– 7754

BCSTA convention. Mr. Rose –– 7755

Motion 61 (Extension of acting ombudsman's term of

office) –– 7755

Mr. Parks

Mr. Cocke, Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Lockstead, Mrs.

Dailly, Mr. Howard, Hon. R. Fraser, Mr. Lauk, Hon. Mr. Nielsen, Mr. Nicolson, Mr. Williams

Mr. Parks

Division

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Post-Secondary

Education estimates. (Hon. R. Fraser)

On vote 62: minister's office –– 7762

Mr. MacWilliam

Mr. Davis, Mr. Nicolson, Mr. Rose, Mr. D'Arcy, Mr. Williams

TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 1986

The House met at 2:08 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, earlier today on behalf of all

hon. members I had the privilege of accepting from the Wilkinson Sword

company a ceremonial sword which will be worn by the Sergeant-at-Arms

on ceremonial occasions. Present at the ceremony were Mr. John

Hagerman, president of the Wilkinson Sword Company, Mr. Terry Johnston,

Mrs. Johnston, Mr. Peter Andreassen, Mr. Frank Caldwell, Mrs. Joyce

Caldwell, Mr. Martin Saunders, Ms. Theresa McGregor, Mr. Doug Townsend,

Mr. Ken Williams, Mrs. Alice Williams and Mr. Ian da Silva. I would

hope that the House can express its appreciation to these people for

their participation today.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, seated in the visitors' gallery

today is Mr. Doug Baird from the Burnaby-Willingdon constituency

office. I would ask the House to bid him welcome.

MR. PARKS: Mr. Speaker, I'd ask the House to join with me in

welcoming two young ladies from Vancouver, Miss Jan Doiron and Miss

Karen Kantelburg.

Introduction of Bills

LEGAL PROFESSION ACT

Hon. Mr. Smith presented a message from His Honour the

Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Legal Profession Act.

HON. MR. SMITH: Briefly, Mr. Speaker, this is the redraft and

enactment of the Barristers and Solicitors Act, the act that governs

the legal profession. The purpose of this bill is to enhance the

process of self-government and encourage greater accountability to the

public within the legal profession. The act has not been amended in any

major way since 1955, but in the 30 years that have ensued the practice

of law has changed dramatically and become far more complex. As a

result, the benchers of the Law Society took the initiative in 1982 to

develop a draft bill that would address emerging issues of public

concern. What you see before you is the product of their draft over

about four years, a great deal of work in the profession of the

Canadian bar and some changes that I made as well, as a result of

meetings. So this is the culmination of many years of internal

examination, consultation and consensus-building, and I think that the

final result will commend itself to both sides of the House.

The four principles underlying the bill are these. First of all, it

ensures the primacy of the public interest — that lawyers do act and

are expected to act in the public interest. It encourages and enhances

the authority of the Law Society to set high standards for members and

for students. It provides for the effective enforcement of rules

relating to competence and discipline, and improves the efficiency of

the operation of the society.

Major provisions of the act relate to upholding the public interest,

revising the powers of the benchers, the governing body, clarifying the

roles of disciplinary committees and other committees with credentials,

competence and so on and proved authority over members' financial

responsibility and other related matters. It is a major redraft.

Bill 21 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on

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

after today.

INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL ARBITRATION ACT

Hon. Mr. Smith presented a message from His Honour the

Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled International Commercial

Arbitration Act.

HON. MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to introduce

this bill. This is the companion bill to legislation that the House

passed in the last session allowing for the enforcement of foreign

arbitral awards. This bill will provide the modern progressive

legislative framework to govern international commercial arbitrations

in British Columbia. The bill is based upon the United Nations

Commission on International Trade Law which in June 1985 adopted a

model law for the purposes of conducting international commercial

arbitrations.

British Columbia today is pioneering in the introduction of this

bill, this model law. We will be the first jurisdiction in North

America to have a law for international commercial arbitration, and

with the opening of our International Commercial Arbitration Centre on

May 12, this bill will provide the framework to attract that

arbitration business from around the world. I commend this bill for

your consideration, and I know that my friend opposite is very

supportive of it.

Bill 20 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on

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

after today.

Oral Questions

MINISTRY OF FORESTS ADVERTISING

MR. HOWARD: I'd like to direct a question to the Minister of

Forests. The question relates to the advertisements — recent and

probably current — which star the minister in them as a participant,

and in which the minister makes misleading statements about the

reforestation program. I'd like to ask the minister whether he could

advise the House if the public treasury paid for those advertisements.

[2:15]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The ads, I would presume, are paid for by

the province of British Columbia. I find it somewhat surprising, to be

very candid, Mr. Speaker, that the member would find any statements

which have been made to be misleading. If he does so, I'd be quite

prepared to entertain his comments.

MR. HOWARD: I suppose it's too much to ask that the public

get the truth.

Interjections.

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

[ Page 7754 ]

MR. HOWARD: In the minister's radio ads, he makes reference

to the planting of seedlings. I wonder if the minister would be

prepared to recommend to his colleagues that public funds also be used

to run some additional ads employing the services of experts in that

field so that the full story can be told.

FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE ACT

MR. REYNOLDS: I have a question for the Attorney General. Can

he advise this House whether he has laid charges against the leader of

the Progressive Conservative Party of British Columbia, Mr. Peter

Pollen, for violating the Financial Disclosure Act, and if not, why not?

HON. MR. SMITH: The answer is no. The reason for that is that

I quite expect that he'll lay charges against himself.

PRINCE GEORGE NSR LAND

MR. HOWARD: I'd like to ask another question of the Minister

of Forests on a different subject than the one I asked him earlier.

Inasmuch as the forest and range resource analysis put out by the

ministry, dated 1984, shows an enormous increase in not satisfactorily

restocked lands in the Prince George forest region — something in the

neighbourhood of a 116 percent increase over the last five years — can

the minister advise the House whether he has decided to set a target

date by which that enormous amount of backlog NSR land in that forest

region would be restocked?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I am very much aware of the areas of the

province which are not satisfactorily restocked. I recognize that the

Prince George TSA has the largest percentage of NSR lands, and it is

something which I intend to address. With respect to a game plan, there

are a number of ideas which I have. I can assure the member that it's a

matter which must be addressed. I thought that perhaps with the

increase of the amount of money set forth in the Ministry of Forests

budget this year, together with the federal-provincial agreement and

full funding under the forest stand management fund, some of these

areas will be addressed.

I think it is important that we remind ourselves that the

federal-provincial agreement was set up primarily to address the NSR

lands within the province. The largest area which requires some of that

happens to be the Prince George TSA. I further recognize that a recent

guru in the academic world has made reference to the fact that there is

not adequate reforestation being conducted in the Prince George TSA.

Those comments were made about a week to ten days ago. I am aware of

it, and I have every intention of addressing the issue.

MR. HOWARD: With respect to the federal-provincial agreement

to which the minister referred, the agreement which was signed last

year, isn't it a fact that the commitment of the provincial government

— the best the provincial government would do in signing that agreement

— was to say that over the five-year life of that agreement there would

be no net increase in NSR land? In other words, the commitment the

provincial government made under that federal-provincial agreement last

year was to stay in the same place.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, I can't answer that

particular question, but I will take it on notice. I'm not aware of any

comments made sometime previous to my assuming the portfolio. But I'm

quite prepared to take that question as notice, and determine whether

or not.... I can tell you offhand that the $300 million over five years

will not be adequate to address all the NSR land within the province. I

know that. That's why there was a significant increase in the Ministry

of Forests budget this year. That's why we've introduced a forest land

management fund this year. The silviculture fund has increased

considerably.

MR. HOWARD: Why are you spearing your colleague?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I'm not spearing my colleague at all.

ALLEGED VIOLATION OF OATH

OF OFFICE BY MAYOR OF VANCOUVER

MR. MOWAT: I have a question for the Minister of Municipal

Affairs. Mr. Minister,

section 143 of the Vancouver Charter contains

the oath of office which the mayor and each alderman is obliged to

swear prior to assuming elected office. The oath states in part that

the elected official "will not allow any private interest to influence

my conduct in public matters." Last week in a televised news conference

the mayor of Vancouver described the Premier of British Columbia in

terms that all British Columbians find offensive. Residents of

Vancouver are especially embarrassed by the mayor's remarks. The mayor

of Vancouver has twice been a defeated NDP candidate in a provincial

election, and is currently a nominated candidate for the New Democratic

Party in Vancouver. Is it not obvious that the mayor has violated his

terms of office, specifically the statute prohibiting any private

interest from influencing his conduct in public matters?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Speaker, due to the interruptions from

the other side, I didn't get all of the question. Would the member

please repeat the question portion.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, the repeating of a

lengthy question violates the most basic terms of question period. I'm

sure that if there is a brief question the minister didn't hear, the

member could sum it up in just a few words.

MR. MOWAT: Is it not obvious that the mayor has violated the

terms of his oath of office?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Speaker, in response to the member's

question, I do not believe the depth which the mayor of Vancouver

reached just recently in describing the Premier and myself offends that

section of the Vancouver Charter dealing with the oath —

section 143 —

but I do believe he has offended many proud British Columbians. Quite

often a product can be judged by its cover, and we will allow those

people to judge what we have there.

Interjections.

[ Page 7755 ]

HON. MR. RITCHIE: No, it's not that. I believe we must be

tolerant of the mayor of Vancouver because he is a very frustrated

fellow....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. I feel that this

particular line of questioning must now be concluded and we go on to

other questions. I thank the minister.

BCSTA CONVENTION

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a non-political

question to the Minister of Education, fresh from his triumphant visit

to the BCSTA convention. Last weekend the B.C. school trustees released

a survey showing that the public was fed up with fights between

governments, teachers and school boards, and urged the minister and the

government to get back to the task of educating students. Has the

minister decided to consult local school boards and teachers rather

than to continue to announce policy on a unilateral basis?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, the survey that the member

talks about was one conducted by the B.C. School Trustees' Association,

and it did indicate that the public was concerned about the ongoing

dialogue and the what I guess you could call confrontation that has

taken place. They would like to see us work through communication and

consultation.

Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that since I've been appointed, I've

attempted to do that. In meeting with school boards and teachers, I've

had some very good meetings. Two things have been accomplished in the

last two months. Firstly, school trustees identified quickly that they

had a problem and a concern with textbook funding, and I was able to

get additional funding of $6.1 million for textbooks this year. They

were also concerned with the fiscal framework and the shortfall in the

figures we had sent them as of February this year. In meeting, I guess,

approximately 20 school boards and teachers' associations, they

indicated to me that there was a shortfall in the budget. I told them

that I would investigate that, and I did. Last Friday I was pleased to

be able to announce that I got them an additional $19 million in

funding for this year.

Mr. Speaker, those two decisions were a straight result of sitting

down with people in the education system in this province and

responding to their wishes. As I said to the president of the BCSTA

last Friday, I was pleased to have been able to take the first steps in

an ongoing dialogue to ensure that the media doesn't get headlines due

to confrontation, but they'll get positive headlines so that the young

people and their parents in this province will know that we're working

together for the best for our children.

MR. ROSE: I notice the minister, in bragging and boasting

about the money he gave to the textbook fund, didn't indicate that he

stole $11 million from it, and when he got caught he gave back $6

million. He didn't say anything about that.0

What consultation took place and with whom over, say, Bill 12, which

removed the sunset provision from the interim finance act and betrayed

an agreement between the former minister and the B.C. School Trustees'

Association? What consultation took place before he established the

Excellence in Education fund, which is a slush fund taking the spending

away from the local decision-makers and putting it into the pork barrel

in Victoria?

HON. MR. HEWITT: I don't know. I guess his items are prepared

for debate in this House by somebody who sits over in an office in

Vancouver and dreams these things up in order to continue the

confrontational approach. I heard all this dialogue last Friday, when a

few people stood up at the BCSTA convention and read exactly the same

questions. They were probably members of your party; either that or

frustrated candidates who are going to run for office.

Mr. Speaker, it is rather humorous, because this guy is so far off

base it's not even funny. But anyway, let me tell you about Bill 12,

because....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Order!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'm sorry. I wish you had brought him to

order, Mr. Speaker, because you're right, during question period we

cannot debate legislation that's before this House.

The other one was the Excellence in Education fund: $110 million

this year and another $490 million over the next years. The total is

$600 million. That really is a fund that is available for the people

who work in the business of education — the educators, the school

boards — to come forward and say: "Here is a new concept, a new idea, a

new program, in which we think we can get the best return for our

education dollar." An excellent approach for the best for our young

people in this province. Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that we have had a

considerable number of applications already that have come in, because

they have ignored the political dialogue that you keep throwing up and

they say, "It's a good approach and we're prepared to use it," and

they're doing just that.

[2:30]

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, once again the Chair must call to

the attention of members that there are some very broad and general

lines of debate that can be applied in question period, and I would

once again urge members to take just a few moments of their time in

both preparing their questions and addressing their responses, so that

they may in some small way fall into those guidelines.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I would ask leave to consider

Motion 61, standing under the name of Mr. Parks, which reads: "That

pursuant to the provisions of the Ombudsman Act this assembly

recommends to the Lieutenant Governor that Mr. Peter Bazowski be

reappointed as acting ombudsman upon termination, pursuant to the said

act, of his present appointment to the office of ombudsman."

Leave granted.

MR. HOWARD: The member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot) and I

said yes.

[ Page 7756 ]

MR. CHABOT: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I take

exception to this member who is usually slippery and deceitful in his

remarks...

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. CHABOT: ...and I really want to make sure that I am

dissociated....

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, we, as members of

place or should we be more apt to use that command than when we are

engaged in debate or in points of order. Therefore I would ask the hon.

member for Columbia River to withdraw the word "deceitful" in reference

to another member.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. CHABOT: No, I didn't. I thought I used the word "devious."

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. CHABOT: But, Mr. Speaker, we shouldn't have double

standards in this chamber, because the member for Skeena...

MR. SPEAKER: I would ask the member to withdraw.

MR. CHABOT: ...when he was asking questions to the

Minister of Forests, said "misleading statements from the minister" and

also said: "Be more truthful." I think we have to have one standard in

this chamber.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. We're going to very shortly have

a very firm standard in this House. I will be more than pleased to

demonstrate that standard to members who refuse to come to order when

called to do so by the Chair. Now the second member for Vancouver East

also raises a point of order, but before hearing him, I would ask the

member for Columbia River to withdraw the word "deceitful," which the

Chair heard in reference to another member. Does the member so withdraw?

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, if I used the word "deceitful," I

withdraw it.

MR. SPEAKER: I thank the hon. member. Does that conclude the

point of order? Thank you.

On the motion.

MR. PARKS: With respect to motion 61, it's unfortunate that

when bringing this motion before the House we get into that type of

acrimony when we're discussing the position of ombudsman.

I'm pleased to report to the House that, to this juncture at least,

the all-party committee of this House has striven for and, I believe,

accomplished an apolitical working relationship, and I think our

efforts to date are going to be rewarded by taking that approach.

It so happened that this morning the subcommittee of the select

committee met and received a report from the consultants whereby the

search process has been reduced to that of the final five candidates.

It's unfortunate that the committee is not going to be able to table

its final report in the House before the term as set out in the statute

expires — which I believe will be either this Thursday or Friday,

depending upon whether or not the House sits tomorrow — and

consequently the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council is going to have to

reappoint the position of acting ombudsman.

I'm very much concerned that the public perceive that action as

being in effect a stall technique. I think it's incumbent that the

House go on record and recommend that Mr. Peter Bazowski be

reappointed. Of course, that appointment will automatically terminate

with the appointment by this House of the new candidate. The committee

would expect, with respect to the final interviews, which will be

commencing next week, that we hopefully would be in a position to table

our final report within the next three or four weeks. So the message is

that we obviously have to reappoint an acting ombudsman, but hopefully

that term will be for a very short period of time.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I, along with my colleagues in the

opposition, feel that it is most unfortunate that we are placed in this

position — as the member suggests — at least, that it's unfortunate

that we deal with more riotous moments here a few moments ago and then

suddenly go to the ombudsman. Let me say this, Mr. Speaker: as far as

I'm concerned — and also many of my colleagues in the opposition caucus

— we should not be at this juncture. We should be nowhere near this

juncture at this precious point of time.

In the first place, the committee has not met continually, the way

it should have. The committee has from time to time met in a steering

committee, but they have not met to the extent that they should have in

order to get this job done. Now we've had some time to do the job, but

we have not had that job put before us.

The fact that we're in this trouble now is because the government

was playing foolishly with this whole question in the first place. In

1978, when they brought in the Ombudsman Act, it appeared to us that

they were really serious about the whole question of having an

ombudsman and having it be an ongoing office and so forth. They waited

until days before we lost the ombudsman to even structure a committee.

Then the committee that they did structure is led as incompetently as I

can imagine. Incompetence to this extent: that once we knew we were

behind the eight ball, we should have been meeting continually. We had

ample opportunity, between the time the committee was structured and

now, to have gotten a lot further than we have. We were late getting

out the ads; we were late in everything we did because there were other

things to do. It's absolutely true that we did not get the proper

leadership. As a result we're now, according to the Ombudsman Act, in

this position where we, the Legislative Assembly, have to make a

recommendation to the Lieutenant-Governor about an extension of office

for the present ombudsman. Totally the fault of the government,

[ Page 7757 ]

totally the fault of the person they put in charge of this committee.

But even before that, to wait so long before structuring the

committee! Any of the government members with a memory would remember

that we had months in session when the committee wouldn't have had to

have been paid any kind of reimbursement at all; they could have been

meeting during that last session. Instead, they wait until we're

virtually ready to adjourn and then.... That happened to work out

nicely with their program: the minute you adjourn, the government makes

the appointment by order-in-council. However, the way I interpret the

act, had the committee been meeting during the period we were in

session, then it would have had to have been — as we're doing now — a

motion from the Legislative Assembly that appointed an acting ombudsman

or a successor for the time being.

The government had made up their mind that they wanted to get rid of

the incumbent at that time, Karl Friedmann, and that's....

AN HON. MEMBER: Speak to the motion.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I'll speak to the motion the way I

see the motion. The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks) will

have ample opportunity to reply, when we get around to it, because he

moved the resolution. If he had called the committee meetings he

wouldn't have to be bugging me now.

I think this situation is a very sad one. I don't think we can go

very much longer without a full-time ombudsman, but here's our problem

as well. We have, I understand — I've just been told so in this House —

five names. Final list. What if none of them are acceptable? I'm not

making any prejudgments, but I am saying that we're not necessarily out

of the woods.

There's a lot of work to be done by this committee — or there was a

lot of work to be done by this committee — and it has not been doing

the work. That's all there is to it. The steering committee has met

from time to time; once in a while the ombudsman's committee has met.

As a matter of fact, I went uninvited — well, I finally got an invite,

but it certainly was an afterthought — to a steering committee meeting

where they were discussing names and what was going to happen in the

future.

I just suggest that this has not been handled well. Also, I'm

reluctant to vote for the incumbent. I have nothing against him

particularly, other than the fact that he has been a government

employee for so long. How can a person in the position of ombudsman be

objective after having been a faithful public servant for the length of

time that he has?

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: What do you mean? I'm not knocking civil servants;

I'm just saying that in my opinion it is impossible for that person to

be objective.

Getting back to the whole question, we're now being asked to do

something that we as the Legislature should not be asked to do. Today

we should be standing here, or even earlier in the session, moving a

resolution from the unanimity of a committee to name a new ombudsman.

But no, we're not doing that. We're not doing that because of the total

incompetence of the leadership of that committee and the fact that the

government stalled on calling it in the first place — period, amen.

Nothing short of that. As I see it — and I've watched parliament for a

number of years — we were manipulated in that situation, and I don't

appreciate that manipulation. I don't think this House today should be

dealing with what we're dealing with here. We should be dealing with a

permanent appointment, but we can't. We can't because of the fact that

we were late getting going, and now we've been incompetently led right

through the piece. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is.

HON. A. FRASER: You're holding it up right now. Sit down.

[2:45]

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, is there a doctor in the House? Louis

was just reborn.

The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam says he's concerned — and I'm

going to paraphrase him a little bit — that the public will perceive

that we're not moving on this question. Well, the public should

perceive that we haven't moved on this situation, because we haven't —

properly.

Mr. Speaker, with that I must confess that I have to stand here and

say that I will not vote for this resolution.

MR. REYNOLDS: It's a pleasure to get up and announce that I

will vote for this resolution. I don't think that I can let this go by

without saying a few words about the acting ombudsman, Mr. Peter

Bazowski, and the great job that he has done in the last few months. He

took over a department that was in chaos, run by a man who we've since

come to find out just didn't do his job properly. I couldn't help but

get up and say that.

It's interesting to listen to that member for New Westminster talk

about leadership. He couldn't even vote for the right guy at his own

convention. He wants to stand up in this House and make personal

attacks. It's unfortunate that that member has to use those personal

attacks against other members of this Legislature.

It's also interesting to note, when he talks about time and not

being invited to meetings, that he was invited to the subcommittee

meeting this morning and he didn't show up. So here's a member who

wants to stand up and knock our chairman of this great committee, and

he doesn't show up to the meetings.

MR. COCKE: Come off it — I was not invited.

MR. REYNOLDS: You see, Mr. Speaker, he has got a very thin

skin.

He talks about taking too long to structure a committee. How long

does it take to structure a committee in this House? Not very long. It

was done. They put their members on it; they should sit down and work

with our chairman, who I think is doing a great job working with the

acting ombudsman — who's doing a fantastic job in this province, has

got that office totally cleaned up, and what a great position that's

going to be for the new man we appoint. [Applause.] I'm so glad to see

the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams) agrees with me.

MR. COCKE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the member for

West Vancouver–Howe Sound indicated that I was invited to a meeting

this morning. That is absolutely

[ Page 7758 ]

incorrect. I had no invitation to a meeting of any sort this morning

in this legislative building.

MR. ROGERS: I thought it might be appropriate during this

discussion of this motion if there was some debate that was in order.

Therefore I thought I would enter the debate in the time that....

Interjection.

MR. ROGERS: The motion has nothing to do with your committee;

it has to do with the reappointment of a temporary ombudsman.

During the time that I served as a minister in the government I had

a number of dealings with the acting ombudsman. I had a number of

dealings with his predecessor. I think it's unfortunate that the acting

ombudsman has not allowed his name to stand as a candidate for the

permanent job. I think he has demonstrated to people on both sides of

the House, and certainly to members of the public, that he has taken on

this job and conducted it with great distinction. In my opinion, he

captures the entire spirit of what an ombudsman is supposed to be. He

is not apologetic to anyone. He is certainly not apologetic to members

of the government. He is fair, but he will also dismiss trivial

matters. I hope that in their deliberations the committee — which I am

not part of, and I'm somewhat pleased that I'm not part of the

committee — are able to find someone as distinguished, as well

qualified and as thoughtful as the present acting ombudsman to replace

him as a permanent ombudsman.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I'm going to be brief and not discuss

personalities, as some members have been doing — believe it or not —

except to say in defence of, first of all, a person I don't have to

defend, the previous ombudsman for this province.... Dr. Karl

Friedmann, in my view, served this province extremely well, and the

present ombudsman, who is temporary, was appointed by cabinet — and

that is precisely the point of my remarks.... It's my view that the

cabinet and the Premier — and I can't substantiate this — decided

consciously to not strike the committee, which is now the ombudsman

committee, until late June of last year. The cabinet, in my view, Mr.

Speaker, had ample opportunity to strike that committee, with the

appropriate motion before this House, in February '85 when this House

convened, knowing very well that Mr. Friedmann's term expired June 30.

As a consequence of this government action, we are now faced once again

with a motion before this House, voting for or against, or whatever the

case may be, a person who was not selected by a committee of this House

by unanimous consent but was in fact appointed by the cabinet. It's my

view that the cabinet purposely did not strike that committee until

June of last year, knowing very well that under sections 6 and 7 of the

present act, the cabinet, once the House adjourned or recessed....

The cabinet then had the power to appoint. I think that was a conscious

decision on the part of government.

I had other notes here, but I think it's been pretty well said. Mr.

Speaker, I want to tell you that I deem it to be an honour and a

privilege to have been appointed as a member of that committee. I only

regret that it's taken us close to 11 months and we still do not have

an ombudsman in this province selected by committee. Hopefully that

will occur within the next three weeks to a month.

MRS. DAILLY: I am on the subcommittee. In the subcommittee,

when this matter came up, I supported the motion to bring it forward to

the House. In my opinion, the House has no alternative: it has to deal

with this motion. However, in the whole interest of parliamentary

tradition, I think we're all well aware that motions such as this can

be voted against on the opportunity to express one's concern about

matters that surround the motion, and that is the position I find

myself in. I protest strongly the government's slowness in bringing us

to the situation where we had a functioning committee, because I think

the longer one stays with an acting ombudsman.... It does a

disservice to the whole concept of the office.

So in voting in this House against the motion, I'm expressing my

concern about the original intent of the government in not taking

enough responsibility for the importance of getting this committee well

underway in good time. I look forward, as do all others of the

committee, to hoping that we will come to a positive, unanimous

selection of an ombudsman finally.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I suppose when a person's name is

mentioned in a motion, as is the case here, there is a tendency to

relate to and deal in personalities. That's regretful. It's regretful

that it took place this afternoon. I'm not one of those who has any

vendetta, as was the case with one hon. member in this House, with

respect to the former ombudsman. But that was his choice to do that,

and he maybe had some reason for doing that.

I want to deal with the substantive matter of the office of

ombudsman, without regard to the person who happens to hold that

office. I have no brief for or against or with the former holder of

that office, Karl Friedmann, nor for or with the acting ombudsman,

Peter Bazowski.

I wasn't here in '78, Mr. Speaker, when the Ombudsman Act went

through the Legislature, but I did read the debates about it. I read

with admiration the lofty ideals that were expounded in pursuit of

seeking an ombudsman and about the office of an ombudsman, the

near-poetic terms used to describe the objective, the idea that it was

almost a sacred obligation of the Legislature and of the government to

be unanimous in choosing an officer of this Legislature.

The office of ombudsman is not a public servant in the ordinary

sense of the word that it is an office which serves a ministry. The

office of ombudsman is an office of this Legislature, and the ombudsman

an officer of the people of the province of British Columbia, all of

them without regard to politics. Regretfully, against that backdrop and

that background and the fine uplifting speeches that were made in the

House in 1978, this government here, upon the termination of the office

of the first ombudsman, sought to connive and manipulate the situation

so that it got to the point of not having the Legislature in session at

the time that the original appointment of Dr. Friedmann — a six-year

term, I believe it was — expired.

Pursuant to a provision in the act, the

Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council was then given the right to appoint an

acting ombudsman, which it did. But that was as a result of a

deliberate conscious attempt on the part of the current government to

break its trust with the people of this province, to break faith with

the people of this province and to politicize the office of ombudsman

and to make a decision in cabinet, a political decision, a political

choice for an acting ombudsman because cabinet didn't have the courage

and the guts to deal with the question face on.

[ Page 7759 ]

If it did have, it would have dealt with this question at that time.

The committee seeking to find a replacement would have been struck and

set up long before it was, and the ongoing process of having unanimity

of the committee seeking to find a replacement or to find an ombudsman

to fill that office at the expiration of the term of the first

ombudsman, whoever that replacement might be, was circumvented because

this government never does deal with questions on the merits. They

always deal with them on the basis of what political gain the

government can make out of it.

Because that trust was violated, because that faith with the people

of this province was broken by all those hon. members in the cabinet,

excluding the newcomers, who broke that faith and broke that trust and

violated an honoured tradition of relationship between government and

the people of the province of British Columbia, we have to vote on this

motion on that basis. It has nothing whatever to do with who happens to

hold the office. It is a simple question of conscience.

While there may not be any conscience resting in the government in

this regard, there certainly is on this side of the House.

HON. R. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, I would just add a short

statement with respect to the committee — on which I serve, in fact. I

would point out that while there may be members here wishing to decide

on the motives of the cabinet, certainly with respect to this

particular motion today, the reappointment of the acting ombudsman, I

would say simply that it was my view all along that to take a little

more time and to make sure the job was done well was the principal

thing, not to rushing it through.

I, therefore, will be supporting this motion.

[3:00]

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, this is a very gentlemanly debate. I

don't feel particularly gentlemanly about the issue. It is my view that

the government has not only deliberately dragged its heels but has

defeated the whole and fundamental purpose of an ombudsman in this

province.

The committee in 1978-79 conducted the same kind of search in a much

shorter time. They acted with alacrity and with unanimity in the

appointment of the first ombudsman, and the hon. member who is

proposing this motion says: "Look what happened." This is the degree of

objectivity being expressed by the government, Mr. Speaker.

They were upset for a variety of reasons, and that is why we had

this motion here today. It is late, criminally late for the people of

British Columbia who have legitimate inquiries to make with respect to

the bureaucracy in this province. What were they upset about? What was

the member for West Vancouver-Howe Seymour upset about?

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: Oh, pardon me. West Vancouver–Howe Sound. I so

seldom refer to him, Mr. Speaker. He may not wish me to refer to him at

all, but I am about to.

The attitude expressed by that member is at least an open and candid

one, as opposed to the secret and sleazy attitude expressed by the

government through their deliberate delaying actions, their

dishonourable action, in not reappointing the first ombudsman, who was

only doing his duty.

What upsets these people? What upsets the member for West

Vancouver-Howe Sound (Mr. Reynolds)? The inequities of bureaucracy and

the actions that are detrimental to citizens, the discrimination, the

unfairness, the incompetence, all that was brought out by the previous

ombudsman and his staff.

And when there was inaction on the part of the government, which was

the rule not the exception, the ombudsman quite rightly and according

to law made his findings and his recommendations public. He was an

activist, and the definition of an ombudsman is not to act like a

judge, who in the old days, before the Charter, was required only to

interpret the law according to precedent. He was a quasi-judicial

activist who, when made aware of a complaint or an injustice, would

pursue it with vigour. But the government of the right, Mr. Speaker,

does not like justice. They do not discuss justice. They don't

understand justice. They don't have a concept of justice, except when

it concerns themselves. They are exquisitely sensitive, as the member

for Vancouver South indicated...and the outcome of his very brief

appearance before the courts of this land.... They are exquisitely

sensitive to their own needs.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, you began your

address by informing the House that this was a very gentlemanly debate.

Since that time you have used the words "criminally late," "sleazy,"

"dishonourable" — hardly the remarks of a learned member of this

chamber.

MR. LAUK: I thank you for the lecture, Mr. Speaker, but I

point out to you that none of the words that I used in reference to

government action and policy is out of order. I've always been very

careful about that. As I rose to speak on this debate I indicated to

the House that I did not feel very gentlemanly about this issue, and

I'm expressing that point of view, because the people who are suffering

at the hands of an insensitive bureaucracy in some cases, and from the

very what I would call venal policies of this government, have no time

to wait about to be gentlemanly about it. This is not a gentlemen's

debating club. We're discussing issues that affect the livelihood and

the justice and the even-handedness of government policy with respect

to ordinary citizens.

The chairman of that committee, someone suggests, is too slow.

Someone might suggest he may be incompetent for the job, but not me. I

think he is ultimately competent. He is handling the job exactly the

way the government wishes him to handle it, and that's to drag his

feet. The appointment of Mr. Bazowski is, as I've said in this House

before and will say again.... He is not an impartial man. He is

clearly a bureaucrat born and bred and raised under the umbrella of

Social Credit policies. He is not an independent ombudsman, and it's a

travesty to maintain him any longer in that position. I say to all

members of the committee: "Get on with the job and get us an

even-handed, fair-minded and activist ombudsman."

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I couldn't help but respond to

those very temperate comments by the member for Vancouver Centre, only

to the extent that I simply want to speak on behalf of the acting

ombudsman because I think it is improper that this House not record

comments other than those inconsiderate, in my opinion, comments

offered by that last member — not in great defence, but in fairness. To

suggest that some other person who may be waiting in the

[ Page 7760 ]

wings is going to have all of these attributes of impartiality and

fairness and a sense of justice, and to suggest therefore that the

acting ombudsman does not have these qualities.... I simply can't

permit that to go unchallenged.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, I'll make it very quick. When a person serves his

country in the manner in which Mr. Bazowski has — when he has held such

positions as deputy commissioner of the RCMP and deputy minister in at

least two ministries within this province — to suggest that that person

in his many years of public service has not exhibited an understanding

of justice, even-handedness and impartiality, I think is just very

unfair to a person I consider to be a most distinguished Canadian. I'm

not suggesting that the member has no right to offer his opinion. Of

course he has. But I think it's just slightly unfair that a person whom

I have great respect for is not provided with at least some opinions

from one member of the House which would disagree with the member.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, if, as the minister who has just

spoken says, we are being unfair to Mr. Bazowski, I will submit that

that government has been unfair to Mr. Bazowski in placing him in the

position of being acting ombudsman. If they cannot see that there is a

lack of perceived impartiality in someone who has been a bureaucrat and

someone to whom people have appealed on occasion and been turned down

and had to resort to an ombudsman in previous times — that such a

person can serve then as an ombudsman — then we are really in a bad

state of affairs. I will say this: when people come into my office and

want to create an appeal on some matter, I will suggest perhaps we can

take this to the minister, perhaps we can take this to this person, or

in this ministry there is a resort to a tribunal; those things failing,

we can go to the ombudsman. There has been a distinct lack of

enthusiasm on behalf of the constituents of Nelson-Creston who come

into my office to go to the ombudsman as a last resort. They feel that

if they've been turned down by the minister or by a tribunal or some

other form of appeal within a ministry, when those things have failed,

there is no sense in carrying on further. That has been my experience.

I have urged people in these circumstances to go on anyhow and appeal

to that office, but sometimes my powers of persuasion are not

sufficient to see that they get their full day in court, that they get

their full measure of justice.

You can say what you like, and you have good reason to defend that

person. He has served you very well, Mr. Minister. But if you wish to

serve that person, you will not subject him to the responsibility of

holding this office one day longer.

MR. WILLIAMS: I think the member for Nelson Creston made it

pretty clear. This job of ombudsman is not properly served by somebody

who has been a senior bureaucrat. The problem is the victims of the

bureaucracy. That's the concern. This man is very much the successful

bureaucrat. The idea that the narrow police mind is the mind you want

in the ombudsman's office is just amazing, from that member from

Richmond. It is. It's a narrow police mind, in terms of viewing these

problems.

When we had an ombudsman appointed by this Legislature, we had a

person who questioned the bureaucracy and the actions of ministers that

were contrary to law, and quite rightly did so. Ask the Minister of

Forests (Hon. Mr. Heinrich). We had episodes like Shoal Island, where

nobody checked the timber going through for six years. We now have a

court case in this province that's carrying on right now. It is now

clear that the Forest Service of this province for six years did not

check or measure the timber that went through one of our biggest timber

facilities, at Shoal Island. But Dr. Friedmann blew the whistle on it.

Under court hearings and examinations right now, we are finding that

the only time a senior Forest Service bureaucrat attended Shoal Island

was to attend a cocktail party at the opening. Never, never again did

they check the wood going through that facility. Millions of dollars

were lost to the public purse.

I assure you that the narrow bureaucratic mind of the person we have

in the office now would never deal with an issue like Shoal Island. He

would be protecting his masters, the people he'd worked with for years.

That's what we would have had. That Minister of Forests has a major job

on his hands. He has the Augean stables to clean up in the Ministry of

Forests, and only a part of the stable has been measured by the former

ombudsman.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

MR. WILLIAMS: Only a part of the stable in terms of the

stench in the Ministry of Forests has been dealt with by the ombudsman.

You can be assured that the new one won't touch that stable at all. The

member for Mackenzie hit it right on.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The House will please come to order

and not interrupt the member who is speaking. I'll advise the member

speaking that the resolution deals specifically with the appointment of

Mr. Bazowski, not other items.

MR. WILLIAMS: Indeed. The member for Mackenzie hit it right

on, Mr. Speaker. He said that what's been going on on the part of

government is subterfuge, in a sense. You've been determined to get

your boy in that office. That's what you've been up to over the last

year.

He's a guy that knows how bureaucracies work. He knows how you can

isolate people within the staff and make sure that no correspondence

reaches their desk. He can make sure they have no assignments for a

year. He can make sure that they have nothing to do. He can make sure

that through his friends in government he can get increases in

allocations — as he did. The former ombudsman, who I assure you was

working far harder and digging into important things like the Ministry

of Forests mess, couldn't get extra money. But your boy got extra money.

In a bureaucracy, the way it works is penalties and rewards, and

every little bureaucrat understands a penalty and a reward. A servant

of this Legislature, a person that's to be a servant for all the

members of this House, is able to allocate penalties and rewards within

his staff on his terms, which are desperately close to your terms.

You've finally got your boy into that office, in terms of dealing with

what you want in his small bureaucracy. You can be sure, Mr. Minister,

that this man you work so closely with has delivered the

penalty-and-reward system in that office. You're happy to have him there

[ Page 7761 ]

now. You're happy to have him continue there, because he can

continue to do your work.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, could I just have leave to

make an introduction?

Leave granted.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I'd like the House, during this moment

of reflection, to welcome some visitors from my constituency, from

Langley Central Elementary School, to the Legislative Assembly.

[3:15]

MR. PARKS: I guess it goes without saying that each and every

member chooses what if anything they wish to add to the debate in this

House. I have, quite frankly, been extremely disappointed by the thrust

of the comments from the members of the opposition side, with the

particular exception of the hon. member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly).

The whole idea of the office of ombudsman is extremely important. It

is a concept that I think any sincere, honest parliamentarian should

take to heart. It's meant to complete the legislative and governmental

process, and if we support it, it will. It has in the past, it is

presently doing that, and I trust that in the future it will carry out

that function.

This House established an all-party committee to go about the

onerous task of choosing a successor to Dr. Friedmann. Some members

might well wish that that process be done in an expeditious and perhaps

a careless fashion. Well, it so happened that at one of the early full

committee meetings we discussed the various procedures that this

committee would follow. The full committee decided upon a procedure

that would have the subcommittee first of all determine the role of the

ombudsman. In fact, the subcommittee would be vested with the

responsibility of determining, examining the role, which that

subcommittee did. Although invited, no members of the opposition saw

fit to join the subcommittee, which went to Edmonton, met with the

incumbent there — the former ombudsman — with the legislators who were

part of the selection procedure in Alberta, and with the legislators

who were part of the standing committee. They came back, and they

tabled a two-volume report.

Interjection.

MR. PARKS: The member — on this occasion I'm afraid I cannot

refer to him as the honourable member — for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke)

made some chirping remark....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, all members are honourable in

the House.

MR. PARKS: Obviously, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that, but

from time to time I believe we have the option of adding the prefix

"hon." or just choosing to leave it out. In this case, I choose to

leave it out.

With respect to his comments about sending the committee to Samoa or

elsewhere, he forgets that this subcommittee chosen by the committee —

its procedure endorsed by the committee of which he is a member, which

he voted for — has done everything by way of unanimity. We have not

used the mandate that perhaps the government members have been granted.

Not once has the perceived or threatened heavy hand of the

government-controlled members of this committee or subcommittee been

used to stifle any requests, any debate, any comment, of the opposition

members. The very motion which we are now debating came about because

the hon. member for Burnaby North perceived a concern, voiced it in our

subcommittee, and the subcommittee unanimously endorsed her concern — a

most realistic concern.

The subcommittee, very diligently in my opinion, after tabling the

reports, embarked on a nationwide advertising campaign. Because a

number of people clearly understand the importance and the challenge of

this office, some 600 applications were received by our subcommittee.

Now that five-person subcommittee has taken the effort, has been

concerned enough, to review each and every one of those applications.

Needless to say, it is no easy task, but an extremely time-consuming

task.

After that process was followed and after those 600 applications

were reviewed — and that took a number of weeks, and it took a number

of weeks longer than we originally expected that process would take —

your subcommittee could only narrow down that list to some 23 or so

short-listed individuals. We recognize the importance and the challenge

of that task, so we have retained consultants....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, at this point I must advise you,

as I advised the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams), that

we are on a specific motion at this point to reappoint Mr. Bazowski,

and we must relate our debate to the motion before us.

MR. PARKS: I certainly appreciate those comments, Mr.

Speaker, but the Chair saw fit to allow the member for New Westminster

great latitude in questioning "the competency" of this member, and I

feel obliged to assist that member in remembering what he took

part in

and what this House took

part in. With the Chair's indulgence I shall

continue.

This very morning, the subcommittee met with our consultants and

received their final report, and we have decided on the five finalists.

At last Tuesday's subcommittee meeting the hon. member for Burnaby

North requested that the other members — the other opposition members

in particular — of the committee be asked to join with us this morning.

She was, once again, not stifled by the government members but was

encouraged to go ahead, if she wished, and invite them to this

morning's meeting. Mr. Speaker, one of those members did attend. That

is what occurred this morning, when we had the report tabled.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. Again, I would advise

the member to speak to the resolution.

MR. PARKS: Well, I believe the procedure is now understood,

even by the member for New Westminster. Speaking to the motion, the

motion is very simple, Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the diatribe that

has flown from a number of members of the opposition. As the member for

Nelson Creston (Mr. Nicolson) noted, he may have had some difficulty in

referring people to the office of the ombudsman, but he did not tender

one bit of evidence or advice that anyone who has gone to the office of

the ombudsman, while the incumbent is acting ombudsman, has had any

difficulty with the office of ombudsman. It is a fallacy, a cheap

political trick, very cheap, to suggest that the present office of the

[ Page 7762 ]

ombudsman is not acting in a very effective way for the people of

this province.

The acting ombudsman is doing his duty most efficiently. In fact,

the problem perhaps is that he is so efficient that we're not hearing

about how that office is being run. Somehow that member suggests that

for an ombudsman to be doing his or her job properly, there has to be

some great noise in the media or in the House. That's not the way the

office was envisaged. We don't want to have an ombudsman tabling

reports one day and then apologizing to the House the next day. That's

not how we want the office to run.

Mr. Speaker, we have hopefully but a few short weeks before our

committee will be in a position to table a unanimous recommendation

before this chamber. It would be folly, in my opinion, not to have the

office of acting ombudsman filled for a week or two in that interim

period. I regret that any members of the opposition see fit to use a

negative vote as a form of protest. But, Mr. Speaker, I think that if

the House reflects on the procedure that has been followed, the

subcommittee's sole guiding feature has been to ensure that we have the

most competent person selected for this most important office. We will

take as much time as is necessary, and to ensure that we don't have to

rush any more than we are — and I can assure all members that we are

rushing — we have someone who is very familiar with the job continue on

for some very few short weeks. I trust all members will reconsider that

position.

[3:30]

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS – 27

Brummet

McClelland

Segarty

Kempf

Heinrich

Veitch

Pelton

R. Fraser

Passarell

Michael

Davis

Mowat

McCarthy

A. Fraser

Nielsen

Smith

Curtis

Ritchie

Hewitt

Rogers

Chabot

Reid

Johnston

Parks

Strachan

Ree

Reynolds

NAYS – 14

Dailly

Cocke

Howard

Stupich

Lauk

Nicolson

Sanford

Gabelmann

Williams

D'Arcy

Rose

Lockstead

MacWilliam

Wallace

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF

POST SECONDARY EDUCATION

(continued)

On vote 62: minister's office, $141,717.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Just prior to recessing in the morning

sitting, the minister and I traded some comments regarding

international students and education. I just wanted to take an

opportunity to go over a few points that were left standing at that

time.

The minister seemed to indicate that increasing educational

opportunities for foreign or international students would in fact make

the system even more inequitable, as it presently appears. I'd like to

suggest to the minister that perhaps he has taken the concept of

educational free trade in maybe too narrow a context; I think we have

to look at increasing opportunities for foreign students in B.C.

post-secondary facilities.

In addition, I'd like to suggest to the minister that we should be

looking at utilizing our trained professionals and educators as a

marketable commodity, if you like, on the international education

market. It therefore becomes a kind of two-way street. Not only are we

opening up windows of opportunity for international students; we are

also opening up opportunities throughout the world for the marketing of

our educational and professional expertise. So I guess what I'm asking

for is an increased commitment for two-way participation and

multilateral exchange in terms of education.

I took the opportunity to read a brief that was submitted to the

minister by the hon. member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis). I

must admit, he's put a lot into it. I think there's a lot of valuable

information in that brief, particularly as it pertains to comments I

have just highlighted: the idea of increasing education trade,

recognizing it as a marketable commodity; also the recommendations that

he makes for a scholarship program. I'd like to advise the minister

that there's a lot of good material in there and it would be wise to

have a look at it.

I previously made some comments with regard to the situation where

international students come into British Columbia and obtain two years

of education at a junior college, and then, attempting to get into a

post-secondary institution, find their way blocked, at least in terms

of access at the University of British Columbia. That is not the case

in UVic and SFU, the other two institutions. I'd like to bring to the

minister's attention some facts that were in a recent Sunday edition of

the Province which I think highlight the importance of this question.

If I could read into the record part of the article, what it is

basically saying is that.... Actually it's a number of articles

trying to highlight the fact that many of the schools — both secondary

schools and the junior colleges — are getting into this international

market and aggressively trying to attract these international students.

"Publication of some advertisements in Vancouver

newspapers over the Easter weekend marked a milestone in public

education in British Columbia. The ads placed by Vancouver School Board

called for 'international students' to apply to complete their

secondary education in city schools. VSB is the first B.C. school

district to do so. Other public school districts may well follow

Vancouver. The B.C. government and educators are catching on that

education can be a valuable export. There are potentially hundreds of

millions of people in the education 'market.' It's a market already

being exploited by privately owned profit-making 'visa schools' in B.C...."

That's one article. Another

article goes on to talk about West

Vancouver School District and its desire to have a residential

Asian-Pacific program. It comes to light through these articles that

there's a lot of interest in attracting these international students.

"Malaspina College in Nanaimo has an office in Tokyo,

and Vancouver Community College has one in Hong Kong. And the new — and

long overdue —

[ Page 7763 ]

Ministry of Post-Secondary Education has an

international education branch. Earlier this year director Dr. Robin

Ruggles led an eight-member team of college presidents and other senior

officials on a two-week tour of Japan and South Korea to drum up some

business. The B.C. government has at last grasped that education is a

saleable service, perhaps the highest value-added thing we can sell in

export markets."

I could go on, but I think the

article speaks very plainly and very

clearly and, to some degree, to the credit of the ministry that it is

recognizing post-secondary education as a marketable product. I want to

use this to highlight what I think is the importance of this issue. If

we're marketing this, if we're going out through the Pacific Rim

countries and through Europe and Asia and saying to those students,

"Come to British Columbia, obtain your post-secondary education here;

utilize our facilities," we're attracting these students, charging them

top dollar for their education, they get here, and lo and behold after

spending two years here at a junior college, for example Okanagan

College, these students find that the University of British Columbia

will not accept them.

Some of these students are interested in programs that are only

offered at the University of British Columbia. I'm not saying all of

them, but some of them are. Those students are being sold short.

They're being sold a bill of goods that we cannot deliver. The present

policy at the University of British Columbia — and I've highlighted the

fact in my previous remarks — is discriminatory, and if you look at it

in light of the new Human Rights Act, it is in apparent violation of

section 3 of that act.

The minister has made comments that I have asked him to try to

dictate to the university. That is not the case. I appreciate and

philosophically believe in autonomy of the universities. However, I

think it is the minister's responsibility to point out to the

university that that policy is regressive in terms of the marketing

directives of the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education. It's

counterproductive. In addition to that, it is, quite bluntly,

discriminatory, and as I suggested before may well be challenged.

I'm not asking the minister to dictate to the university, but I

think that if we are going to sell post-secondary education as a

marketable commodity — and I well think we should — and use this as a

means of trade and barter in a rapidly changing technological age, then

we have to make the facilities duly available to those consumers that

are purchasing that service. If we don't do that, we're selling them

short and we're selling them a bill of goods which we really can't

deliver.

HON. R. FRASER: Mr. Chairman, I would say again as I said

this morning that I do not intend, as the minister, to dictate to the

universities whom they shall take, nor do I think that visa students

should be able to dictate to the university whom they should take

either. We can certainly advise colleges that they must tell their

students what their transferability rights are.

As you said this morning, depending on what country you come from,

your rights will change. For example, if you come from a highly

developed country where post-secondary educational opportunities are

abundant, then you will have more difficulty than if you come from a

country where they are non-existent. I think they should make that

obvious to the people who attend the colleges.

With respect to marketing, I'm glad that you've discovered the

ministry is working very hard on enrolling students in

full-cost-recovery programs. There are some specific programs of short

advise other countries of our services and they like what we offer and

they buy at full recovery cost, then that's fine. I don't have any

problem with that.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I don't want to continue going back to this,

but I want to emphasize that that is just the point: if you're going to

market something, you've got to be able to deliver the product.

Presently that simple statement in the regulations of the University of

British Columbia is affecting the ability of this province to deliver

that product. If the students come here, attend college for two years

and cannot get into the University of British Columbia because of that

discriminatory piece of red tape, then we're not able to deliver what

we're suggesting we can, and that is a full post-secondary education for

these students. The reason I feel it's important that you bring that up

and that you try to convince the university of its importance, far

beyond the legal and human rights matter, is the fact that it

compromises the ability of British Columbia as a province to fully

enter the education market. It's as simple as that. If they can't get

access to the University of British Columbia, they're not going to

come, and that's going to compromise the good work and the efforts of

the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education. So again, if you're going to

market the product, you'd better be sure you can deliver it. Right now

you can't. It's being compromised, and that should be changed.

MR. DAVIS: Mr. Chairman, this morning I said that education,

and particularly post-secondary education, can provide us with an

ongoing useful, productive export industry in this country, and I'm

glad to hear the member for Okanagan North endorsing that thought. It

currently is being pursued by a number of schools, and not simply now

the privately owned colleges but also a number of our secondary school

institutions, school trustees, etc., across the province — West

Vancouver certainly, the city of Vancouver definitely, and so on. In

other words, we are endeavouring to sell our excellence in education,

to sell excess capacity, because in some instances we have declining

enrolments and so on. I think that's all to the good.

Where I perhaps

part company with the member for Okanagan North is

that I would insist that all students who come, other than on our own

scholarship program, pay full cost. Indeed, I would require those who

go abroad to sell grade 11 and grade 12 instruction here to also sell

university education here, but sell it on the basis of full cost

recovery. I believe that the minister should endeavour to develop a

scholarship plan — one which would, let's say, be developed on a

fifty-fifty basis with the federal government. Simply to use round

numbers, if the federal government contributed $10 million a year and

the province $10 million a year, we could have a $20 million foreign

student scholarship plan. Those scholars coming on the basis of

ability, and using the criteria of need, would be in addition to those

recruited otherwise by our education system, be they from secondary

high schools, privately owned colleges or even our universities looking

abroad for students to fill up our classrooms. I would have our

subsidy, if I can call it that, limited to those in need — excellent

students abroad who could not otherwise afford to

[ Page 7764 ]

come. I would certainly charge those who can afford to come and who

do not win our scholarships full average cost.

[3:45]

There are only

one or two other points I want to make. First, statistics. One of the

problems I've had in discussing this matter with our university

presidents, for example, is that they come up with a much lower figure

for foreign or visa students — these are not landed immigrants or

Canadians — at, for example, UBC. UBC continues to produce a number of

the order of 500. Employment and Immigration Canada tells us that there

are roughly 1,100 as opposed to 500 visa students at UBC. Neither of

them include what I believe to be a fairly significant number of

illegal immigrants. There are perhaps 100,000 illegal immigrants in

Canada, maybe 20,000 in British Columbia. Surely a few hundred of them

are at universities — at UBC, for example. So there are three numbers:

500 as reported by UBC, 1,100 as reported by Immigration Canada, and

perhaps a larger number because some of them have entered illegally and

have concealed their actual status as foreign individuals. Somehow that

has to be cleared up. Certainly those in addition to the 500 are not

paying the differential fee which UBC and others claim they're charging

foreign students. I think that should be sorted out.

Finally, one particular matter. Capilano College is in North

Vancouver- Seymour. Capilano College badly needs a gymnasium. It

doesn't have any indoor recreational facilities at the present time. It

has a plan underway whereby the students and faculty will raise a third

of the capital cost, the private sector on the North Shore will raise

another one-third, and they're looking hopefully to the provincial

government to raise the remaining one-third.

Now this is precedent-setting because facilities of this kind in the

past have by and large been provided 100 percent by the provincial

treasury, or on a shared-cost basis in some instances with the local

school boards. So perhaps this is a precedent. I certainly hope so —

one-third, one-third, one-third, with only a third of the cost being

borne by the province. But I would urge the minister to endorse this

project if he can possibly see his way to doing it. I think it will

establish a benchmark for other colleges and encourage them to also

recruit local support, financial and otherwise, for endeavours of that

kind.

HON. R. FRASER: Just a quick comment about the Capilano

College gymnasium. It is a most impressive scheme, not unlike ones I

saw when I was far younger and money was raised for educational

projects. Indeed, I look to that with great favour and would like to

think that something would come forward, which of course we can't

announce until it does.

MR. NICOLSON: I might as well prolong the debate on foreign

students. I'd just like to say that it's been my experience with

foreign students, particularly from the Pacific Rim, that we seem to be

setting up some young networks of people. I see evidence of it

certainly in the microcomputer industry, where people who go over to

places like Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, are helping to bring

together some small manufacturing and assembly and helping to keep us

in a very competitive industry in providing some of the jobs in the

lower mainland that might not be too visible but they are certainly

there.

I think that if only a third of them go back to the country of

origin to share their skills there, those who remain here have network

connections and I think it's serving us quite well. It's certainly not

part of a recognized government program, I don't think, but I think

that in many respects we are the beneficiaries.

Earlier in the debate, the minister referred to a proposed increase

of 14.2 percent in the Winnipeg school board budget and that they were

facing this. I would think that what he meant by that was that

something like an increase of 14.2 percent to the taxpayers was a very

large amount to absorb in one year.

I would like to ask the minister what he thinks of the trend in

student tuition fee increases, which for the past three years at the

University of Victoria have been 59 percent. That's close to 20 percent

per year, so if something in the order of 14 percent is a big increase,

does the minister anticipate more catchup? Does he anticipate a

continuation of these outsized tuition fee increases or has that day

passed? Has the adjustment been reached? What's in store — cuts, very

modest increases below 5 percent, or are we going to continue to see

double-digit increases in student tuition?

I'd also like to talk a little bit about student assistance. The

minister mentioned the loan remission program. The loans remission

program probably helps rural students more than just about anyone else,

so if you're looking for a maximum case of benefit you could look at

the case of a rural student. But we should look at the kinds of

expenses that rural students encounter.

Some research done at the University of Victoria indicates that a

student needs an average of $607 per month to cover rent, food,

utilities, transportation and miscellaneous. By comparison, government

recognizes only $552 per month, or a $55 per month shortfall, for those

eight months, which creates a deficit of $440. Then costs involved in

return transportation for rural students are sometimes staggering.

Students from Chetwynd or Dawson Creek or Fort St. John would pay $768

for two return trips by air, while students from Fort Nelson would pay

$1,036 and those from Cassiar, $1,178 for a return trip. Shipping of

personal goods to and from their home town, as well as the setting up

of housekeeping, which includes purchase of second-hand furniture and

other costs, averages about $4,400 more than for urban students.

Total costs for single rural students range from $6,700 to $7,850

per year, according to those studies, and I am sure they bent over

backwards to be fair and objective. So since the maximum loan available

is $5,360 for single students, and since students from low economic

social backgrounds rarely have more than $500 to contribute to their

costs, a wide discrepancy exists between total costs and available

funds.

So there is that problem in terms of not meeting the need. Now the

evidence in the participation rate again is that there continues to be

a widening gap between the participation rate of non-metropolitan and

metropolitan students, in terms of university freshmen as a percentage

of grade 12 population in the preceding year.

There are a lot of other changes that are taking place in

universities. There is a whole change in the demography. I understand

that the actual full-time enrolment out at the University of Victoria

is probably less than 3,000 students out of the many thousands of

students that they have, which shows that maybe average students are

not freshmen leaving grade 12 and proceeding through four years of

university.

[ Page 7765 ]

There are some tremendous changes. But if we try to compare some of

the trends which reflect traditional demographies, we see that there

has just been a continuing gap. In fact, if the trend continues — and

it could be argued whether it is linear or some kind of a hyperbolic

function — as a linear function, we would have no non-metropolitan

students probably by the turn of the century. We'd be down to zero if

we were to continue at present rates, and assuming linearity in the

function here.

Also I'd like to mention a little bit about the loan remission

program. It is helpful to rural students. Anything is a help, but to

say that we have removed the barriers to participation of

non-metropolitan students through the loan remission program would be

absolutely not true. If a rural student borrows the maximum $5,360

annually for four years and, keeping in mind that I said that a

student's needs are a few thousand dollars more than that per annum,

the student ends up with a debt of $21,440, of which.... So out of

that $21,440, $8,000 is a provincial loan and therefore eligible for

maximum remission of $2,664.

Well, the total debt for that student is still $18,776, even if they

qualify for the maximum loan remission, and in fact this does not take

into account the fact that this maximum loan doesn't really cover the

costs for a lot of those rural students. So at a 12¼ percent interest

rate over ten years, the student will repay $32,178 in total interest

and principal.

Coming back to what I said in my opening remarks, in the good old

days when we went to UBC together, it is just absolutely.... Not

you, Mr. Chairman, but the minister; maybe we did too, I don't know.

But it has changed. It really has changed, and I think that if anyone

were going into this with their eyes wide open, you would almost have

to have the optimism of a Nelson Skalbania to engage in such debt and

go into it willingly and gleefully and positively.

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: Yes, that's right, and I guess if you have that

kind of mentality, well, that's fine.

But really it is, I think, a tremendous deterrent. The trends

continue. I know that because of the lack of job opportunities, a lot

of students are going back to university or to other forms of training

in the past year or two. But I think that the overall trend.... If

we can solve some of the unemployment problems, the overall trend will

still see this widening gap between the participation rate in the

metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas.

So I would like to hear from the minister. Maybe the minister could

give me an estimate of the point in which.... Right now the loan

remission program is not costing that much. It is going to build up; it

is going to become more and more in the future. I'd like to ask the

minister where the crossover is when what you're paying out in loan

remission would equal what you might have paid in straight upfront

grants.

HON. R. FRASER: If this is the last question, it's one of the

more interesting ones. I'll save it until the last.

[4:00]

Interjection.

HON. R. FRASER: Arithmetic, geometric or perhaps exponential,

but not hyperbolic.

With respect to the Winnipeg school board, the 14.2 percent increase

which I talked about on the way out, what struck me was that they were

doing it simply to keep teachers on staff. Apparently it had very

little to do with educational opportunities and the school board. As I

went on to say further, that seemed to me the wrong approach.

Tuition rates historically have been held down low in B.C. There

have been some adjustments. I personally don't see much in the way of

great increases coming on there, but that of course is a university

function, as you know. They appear to be quite reluctant to do much

about raising fees, and in my view it's good of them to think in those

terms.

Yes, remission to rural students is higher: 33 percent versus 25

percent for urban. So there is a recognition of the extra costs that

rural students have.

First, with respect to university entrance, it is apparent that the

rural students are not going to university directly after high school.

Many of them are going to the colleges, which in the view of most of us

is proof that the college system is working very effectively, and which

was one of the reasons it was developed in the first place. Secondly,

with respect to the remission program, since the top 10 percent get

half their fees back, it would be virtually impossible to tell when the

remission program would equal grant. What you're suggesting, I suppose

by default, is that we should be asking the federal government to have

a federal loan remission program on top of the provincial loan

remission program, and I'm not certain whether that has ever been done.

Interjection.

HON. R. FRASER: We have grants in a different way. We have

achievement grants, scholarship grants — call them whatever you like.

It's money that the student doesn't have to pay out.

MR. ROSE: The minister must be aware that his replacement of

remissions and bursaries and that sort of thing is nowhere near what

used to be achieved or required in 1982-83, when it was changed. In

1982-83 the budget for direct grants for student aid was $15 million;

then there was a supplementary estimate granting another $7 million.

Therefore $22 million in grants alone was available each year for

post-secondary education students. It was changed, and for the last two

and a half years there have been no grants. Even the former minister,

his predecessor, said we have the worst student aid system in North

America, if not the world. That is what this means.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair.]

In the two and a half years, you've really saved at least $50

million, and you're putting back into your program this year a piddling

one-fifth of it at most — 4.7. Probably steal some money from the

excellence fund and get the rest that way. The point is, compared to a

student in Ontario, which has grants, students in British Columbia

taking the full load of loans will find that their BA — or bachelor's

degree — costs them $15,000 more than in Ontario. Mr. Minister, that's

not fair, and that has to be addressed.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Chairman, I'm certainly glad to see the

minister and his able advisers in the House. It would be a lonely place

if they weren't here.

[ Page 7766 ]

I want to talk very briefly to the minister about Selkirk College.

Very recently they received their budget, and I want to make the point

that while there was a I percent increase because of, shall we say,

uncontrolled inflationary items, the college is in a situation where

they have to absorb about $350,000 into their core programs; out of

their core programs, I guess would be the best way to put it. The basic

reason for this — and I'm not arguing for or against this — is that

within the collective agreements that they have, largely with their

instructional staff, there are a whole bunch of increments that have to

be paid. I suppose there's potential that some of this could be offset

by Excellence in Education grants. I happen to think that all programs

there are excellent and should be eligible for assistance.

I don't think it's new to point out to this committee — but I'm

going to do it again — that a lot of inflationary items are simply

uncontrolled by the institution. A major one, especially in recent

years, has been textbook cost; another is utilities. In the case of

both the Castlegar and Rosemont campuses, we've got plant structures

which are close to 20 years old now, and no matter how well constructed

or engineered, when plant facilities get close to 20 years old your

maintenance and repair costs start to go up.

My concern, which I want to express to this committee on behalf of

Selkirk College and the students and the faculty there, is that I don't

want to see any further cuts in programs. There have been major cuts in

programs in the last few years due to the various restraint measures,

and of course as we have discussed in past years there was the

necessity of the college budget absorbing the costs of operating some

of the courses that were inherited by the demise of David Thompson

University Centre and the Nelson school of the arts — some of the

courses, as I say; most of the courses from those institutions were

lost, but some were absorbed by the college with very little extra

funding to make those up.

So I would like the minister and his administrators to take this

under consideration when applications, especially for Excellence in

Education grants, come before them, because if that does not take

place, I want to stress to the committee and to the minister that some

of the valuable technical programs and the very valuable academic

programs offered by that institution will have to be cut even more than

they have been in the last few years.

The minister has just conceded, in answering the member for

Nelson-Creston, that one of the important functions of the college is

to provide education; and the improvement of job training opportunities

in the kind of economic atmosphere which we are in right now, and the

ability of this particular institution to even maintain existing

technologies and existing academic services, is severely strapped. So I

would hope the minister would consider that. As I say, the situation of

the collective agreements requiring increments to be paid out is having

a severe effect on the 1986-87 budget as approved by the ministry.

MR. NICOLSON: There are other questions which I think are

being asked, and they are being asked at all three of the major

universities in British Columbia at the senior administrative levels.

In meetings with various university presidents and with administrative

staff over the past year, and in checking just very recently, the same

message holds true, and that is — and it's I think one of the most

major complaints from the administrative point of view — that there is

no planning. There is no long-term planning. There is nothing more than

almost a moment-to-moment type of planning possible, the way things are

being handled financially between the ministry and going through the

Universities Council to the universities.

I am informed that they have no information on what the budgets will

actually be. They are assuming that they are at 95 percent of the base

budget for last year. The base funding is frozen at last year's level,

but they have lost a $14.9 million special adjustment fund for 1985-86

which was one-time money and is not recurring. In its place, they have

some share of the $110 million Excellence in Education fund. So far the

three universities are certain, I think, of some $13.1 million, and

they may compete for more. But right at the moment this means a cut in

non-recurring funds and especially in constant dollars. We've really

been going down.

So the Excellence in Education funds do not help the operation of

the universities. They are not built into base budgets, and there is no

guarantee that these funds will continue. Thus they may be used to

start up new programs, but it isn't known whether there will be

continuing funding for those programs. I see the minister shaking his

head, because I am sure he's heard this before, and he's probably tried

to patiently explain it to university presidents and senior

administrators and so forth. But this really is the case, and the

questions are, for instance.... Suppose they wanted to start a

faculty of business administration at the University of Victoria, or to

start some other faculty which might sound like it is in keeping with

some of the aims and objectives of the current government. It might

also meet the test of needs in the marketplace. It might have the

support of the business community and some of the leaders that are

currently government appointees to the various university bodies. How

can they undertake these initiatives based on funding which certainly

is not projected beyond three years? How can they be assured that there

will not be a repeat of the uncertainty which has plagued the

engineering faculties at the University of Victoria and Simon Fraser

University? How can the universities proceed with some kind of

confidence that when they embark upon a program — yes, they'll be given

money for it — they will not be told a little bit down the road to take

the money for the continuation of that program out of other things,

such as fine arts, or music or Slavonic studies or whatever program

might be considered by government as a possibility for some paring?

HON. R. FRASER: Firstly, your comments were taken about

Selkirk, which I didn't note at the time, but you made sure that we

heard them.

Secondly, with respect to long-term planning, it has long been the

thought of people involved with universities that there should be

long-term planning, and there has been a great cry from organizations

such as the Universities Council for universities to do long-term

planning.

As result of meetings that our Premier had with universities, the

creation of the three-year funding came forward, the longest they've

had. As you said this morning, there is recognition of the need for

long-term planning at the university level, and they should do it. You

would think that the university would be one body that would have been

in the long-term planning circumstance for years.

Thirdly, your suggestion that the excellence fund would not be used

for operating budgets is a guess, but only a guess, so there's no

assurance that that is not true or true.

[ Page 7767 ]

MR. NICOLSON: Perhaps the minister should refer to the

documents called the "basis for proposals for the fund." I find some of

the things in these proposals rather interesting. Some of the

initiatives would have to get the support of, in terms of

universities.... For adjustments, for instance, in the regular

operating budgets

of universities, governments will identify each funding element and

seek the advice of the universities and the Universities Council in

making an allocation. I guess that's straightforward, but I noted in

other areas in these guidelines where....

You have a process now in terms of making these education funding

allocations where you're going to be consulting business and other

agencies and the general public. Yet I'm wondering if in doing that you

are not showing a lack of faith in the government appointees that you

already have on the boards of governors and such and on the

Universities Council — people like George Morfitt, Wes Black and other

people you have appointed to represent the ideas and the advice and

input of business and the general public. Why do we have to create yet

another kind of an institution in order to bring about these funding

priorities?

[4:15]

HON. R. FRASER: I find your argument kind of interesting,

because it strikes me that it's the opposition member who's always

crying for more and more input from all sources when it doesn't seem to

be required in every instance. The fact is that submissions will come

through the universities and we are not going to restrict the

opportunity of universities to be excellent just because we're going

only to one source. If people have good ideas they should come forward

with it, as they would anywhere.

MR. NICOLSON: One would hope that you aren't just going

through one source. One would hope that you're making use of the

opportunity to appoint so-called lay people to the various boards of

governors and to the council and other institutions. I'm wondering if

the government has lost confidence in those people because those people

have been saying many of the same things to you as the official

opposition has been trying to say.

I think we are all interested in post-secondary education and

university education. It's rather funny that in spite of the fact that

Wes Black was a Social Credit member of the W.A.C. Bennett cabinet for

20 years, I have some reason to believe that he's been trying to say

some of these very same things about ongoing funding — the lack of

certainty, the lack of educational opportunity. The government

appointees seem to falling up on the job — you know, falling up to

expectations rather than just being.... They might be meeting too

many of the public expectations, I suppose. So now the government is

seeking some other way of muddying the waters with some kind of a

consultative process, which is not really spelled out but alluded to in

these documents. I find it really disturbing.

Now I want to ask the minister what he thinks is going to be the

consequence of the trend which we have established here in British

Columbia, whereby the average university professor in British Columbia

is earning about $6,000 or $7,000 less than he would get for an

equivalent position in Alberta or Ontario, and probably Saskatchewan

and some others — and these are, I think, pretty comparable and pretty

nearby areas. I asked the universities what the extent of the problem

is with faculty leaving. It's a complex problem. It's complex enough

that you can hide behind the complexity of it and not address the real

problem. But faculty are leaving, and it is muddied by personal

decisions — family — and by other stresses and forces. But when you

come down to it....

For instance, one person who recently left is David Parnas, who left

the University of Victoria. He is going to get $20,000 a year more at

Queen's University. This is one of the most outstanding software

development people in North America, and yet it seems like we can just

afford to lose him.

This brings me to another question, and that is: whatever happened

to some of the intentions of the previous minister – some of his great

ideas? What happened with the advanced systems institute which was

proposed by your predecessor? Is it going to start up in the fall? Is

it going to have the funding? Will it be at the Burnaby discovery park?

Is that on track, is it abandoned or what? There we were talking about

paying up to $100,000 a year to attract people who might be just about

as good as Prof. Parnas, who, if we had been paying a decent and

reasonable salary.... What does this minister feel about the gap

that has occurred here, and does he feel that we are really well served

when...?

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: Yes, we are sometimes successful in attracting

some very good young professors here, and we make deals with them when

we get them here at less than the going rate. But if they stay, all of

their promotions and increments are sort of based on that starting

level. The only way they can really break out of it and realize their

true market worth — and it is a market — is to leave.

I'm speaking in terms of realizing that, maybe politically, talk

about ever raising a professor's salary.... My goodness, they're

supposed to already be overpaid. In the real world they are not being

paid at the market rate, and we are paying for it. As I say, you could

probably take every outstanding person like this — like Len Bruton, who

left last year and is only just now going to be replaced.... It has

taken over a year to search. It's tougher to find a replacement for the

faculty of engineering at the University of Victoria than it is to find

a replacement for the ombudsman. The search has been going on a whole

year, without that leadership in a fledgling faculty. What does this

minister see in terms of recognizing the realities of that marketplace

and maintaining the excellence in university education which we've had

to this date, and of which both he and I are the beneficiaries?

HON. R. FRASER: To answer your three points, first, there is

no lack of confidence in the existing boards. If there were, they would

be replaced. Secondly, with respect to university salaries, they have

averaged about I percent less than Ontario in the last five years, I am

advised, and it strikes me that for I percent I would rather live out

here, too. Or for I percent I wouldn't go back to Ontario — put it that

way. Certainly the advanced systems institute planning is still going

on. It hasn't been totally put together.

MR. ROSE: I'm intrigued by the minister's statement that he

seems to have all kinds of confidence in the boards he has appointed

under his powers under Bills 18 and 19 — when the indirect elections

were removed, and entirely malleable yes-men and — women were appointed

to those boards, friendly to the government.

[ Page 7768 ]

Through the last three years there have been many horror stories

having to do with education. Everybody in the province knows it, and

the reason for them have been relatively vicious cutbacks and an

onslaught on the education system on the grounds that we can't really

afford it. Our budget has been going up every year for other things,

but down for education, or at least scarcely maintaining its level.

Even this year the same thing is true. The boards are up to $130

million short; that is, the school boards. So there have been lots of

outcries, and they've used lots of ink in the paper, and there's been

lots of conflict and lots of tension. I think everybody is aware of

that.

There hasn't been one word from a college board member, to my

knowledge. There hasn't been one word of criticism of the government

policy on education that has come to me....

HON. MR. HEWITT: Where were you last Friday?

MR. ROSE: Are you speaking about the B.C. School Trustees'

Association?

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. ROSE: Well, I don't know where you were last Friday. I

happened to be travelling at the time, but I do know this: in the three

years that I have been critic of colleges, I have not heard from one

board member or a board chairman or the chairman of the chairman — not

a sound, complete deathly and utter silence, not a bit. If you heard

anything, please let me know, because they've been really quiet.

They've been running around in Hush Puppies ever since they were

appointed. They're not going to make any noise.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Are you back again?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: You want confrontation, do you?

MR. ROSE: How would you know? Why don't you go back to the

frozen north? Stick your head back in the snow, where you usually have

it.

Mr. Chairman, an internal report was quoted in the Vancouver Sun

March 27, headlined: "College Board Called Weak. An internal report on

Vancouver Community College suggests it is 'overadministered and

underled,' has a weak government-appointed board and should offer more

than

mere job training." Now I can go into the details of this report, but

this is the kind of thing we're getting in an internal report on

Vancouver Community College.

Some of the points: staff.... Well, anyway, there is something

just ahead of that that I will quote:

"There is a widespread perception on campus that the

VCC board, composed since 1983 solely of appointees of the B.C.

cabinet, has failed to take a strong role in standing up for college

interests."

I'm not saying this. This internal report says this.

"Many also thought the board represents only a 'narrow

spectrum of the community.' Staff and students believe 'political and

social pressures' are forcing the college to overemphasize job

training."

That's the same criticism I got when I was up in Prince George a

couple of weeks ago, that job training is overemphasized compared to

the pre-university aspects of it, that university transfer funding was

about half what was received by.... I was about to say something. I

retract even the thought of it, because I was going to refer to one of

the civil servants, and I don't want to do that since he has no way of

protecting himself — at least here.

But anyway, there is a widespread feeling that the university

preparation side of the program has been underfunded, starved. Classes

are large, and it has been really discouraged or downplayed.

It said that there should be substantial increases in student

financial aid. This is VCC: "There is an urgent need to expand campus

facilities.... Langara is used by 5,900 students even though it was

built for 3,500." Anyway, that's not an unusual criticism. The latest

StatsCan figures show that if B.C. had even the same proportion of

young people going to college and universities as other provinces have,

instead of having 50,000 or so students at colleges, we would have

24,000 more. So we are underrepresented, and its participation rate is

at fault.

There are a number of other things. I would like to ask the minister

a direct question. The minister is new on the job. I congratulate him

for it. I especially like the quote in the paper that I read that he

was going to be an advocate for colleges and universities, and I really

think that that is a very nice and very positive approach. I felt in

the past that ministers of education and post-secondary education have

almost, instead of defending their people, used their office to attack

them and demean them and downgrade them.

The first question is: has the minister taken any steps to improve

access to colleges since he has taken over, or has he thought about it?

I would like to remind him that the black hole, as it is called, system

of college finance.... Enrolment has to go up 5 percent each year

before any more funds are generated by the formula. So they have larger

and larger classes sharing fewer and fewer resources and people. What's

he going to do about that black hole? I would like him to talk a bit

about any new thoughts he has had about the formula, how restrictive it

is. We've just heard about the increment part of it here a little

earlier. And then I'll sit down. Maybe we can have a series of brief

exchanges here, rather than long-winded speeches and inflammatory

rhetoric — from me.

[4:30]

HON. R. FRASER: I think we would all have to agree that in

the recession that struck British Columbia in the last few years the

educational wing of public funding has done extraordinarily well. I

think that you would agree that it would be a useful thing to do to

invest in the future. The only other side that did any better was

health care, which in fact went up.

It's my distinct impression that the educational institutions, the

faculties, the students, boards and everybody else connected with them

did a very good job in trying to contain their costs, as they would

responsibly do, when in fact there was less tax money coming in because

of the circumstance that was imposed upon all of us.

Now I don't know why they're not phoning you. I presume they haven't

lost confidence in you, but they must be phoning someone else for some

reason. You talk about the criticism of VCC, which complained that the

courses were job training oriented and all those other things. There's

[ Page 7769 ]

lack of interest in having people take the humanities and expand

their minds and their educational opportunities or their thought

processes. Very often, though, you'll find that the courses are driven

by the students who wish to enrol in courses that will get them a job

as soon as possible. So it's not the colleges driving the students;

it's very likely the students driving the colleges.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

With respect to participation rates, again the historical

participation rate is something we can argue about depending on what

age group you want to use to classify students in — 18 to 24 or 18 to

30, whatever. But in spite of the fact that we've had good years and

bad years, the participation rate has been reasonably constant, except

it is now going up. What we do find is that the academic role in

colleges is increasing, undoubtedly transferring to universities. So it

looks to us that the colleges are indeed doing their job very well.

MR. ROSE: Well, I just don't understand this. I think that

we're really talking.... We seem to be on a different planet. This

bit about $300 million taken out of the school system, if you count

inflation over the past three years.... I'm talking about the

college system. But the college system this year — its budget is down

as well.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I beg your pardon? Mr. Chairman.... Come on, in

constant dollars. Let's talk about living in the real world. I've got

the total post-secondary participation rates, and it doesn't indicate

that British Columbia is about the same as everybody else at all. It

indicates the Canadian average is about 23.1 percent for total

post-secondary participation, and B.C. Is roughly 17.0, second from the

bottom. See? So I don't understand.

I asked the minister what he was going to do to increase the

participation rates based on the assumption that they're down. Of

course there are a number of people knocking on the doors of colleges,

because in times of high unemployment —

and we think the unemployment

rate is restraint driven, to some extent if not the major extent....

When I ask him what he's going to do about this, he stands up and

says everything's wonderful. How can you argue from that basis? I

can't. I can't even attack the argument.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Pollyanna?

Mr. Minister, if you intend to increase the participation rate, if

you think it's not high enough — but maybe you do — it seems to me that

you want student access. Seven percent of rural students go on to

post-secondary institutions. Those are facts; they're not my

assertions. For urban students, it's about 15 percent. I'm talking

about universities here. How do you increase that if you feel it should

be increased? I think it's discriminatory and unfair if students from

the rural areas don't have the same chance as people from the urban

areas. It has nothing to do with meritocracy, nothing to do with

whether they've got any brains or not. It has to do with their access —

whether they live close to a university — and if they don't, can they

find it in colleges?

The minister counters by saying: "Oh, yes, but they can get a lot of

this pre-university stuff at the colleges." I think that's a wonderful

idea; that's what they were there for. I'll go further. I think there

should be degree-granting institutions throughout the province, whether

they should be some sort of subsidiaries of the major universities, as

Victoria College once was of UBC, or something else. I don't know the

pattern. But I think it's blatantly unfair for the kids from West Point

Grey and places like that who can go to university in much larger

numbers and percentages than the rural kids. I think that'll always be

true, but I think the gap is far too wide.

I mentioned a little earlier the difference in cost, because of the

lack of student aid, of a degree. It costs $15,000 more for a BA on

loans. If you've got money, it doesn't matter. We know that enrolment

in universities discriminates in favour of the affluent and against the

below average incomer. But if you want to increase the participation

rates and the fairness, it seems to me there are a number of things you

have to do. You have to improve your student aid package. Maybe you

need to reduce fees. My information is that the fee structure for

universities in terms of the total cost is roughly 20 percent, and you

might say that the general public is subsidizing post-secondary

institutions or universities by approximately 80 percent of the cost of

teaching and learning.

There were special grants to Northern Lights College of $50,000 last

year because of their remoteness and extra snow and all the rest of it.

I'm told by their principal that it wouldn't even pay the phone bill.

These things have to be.... Instead of being ridiculous, these

things have to be a bit more closely related to the cost.

So I'd like to know if the minister intends to alter the framework

at all to take care of some of these inadequacies and anomalies

including increments, population distribution, cost of course delivery

region to region, and northern costs which are excessive — snows more

and more heat. Is he planning to bring out a new and more equitable

formula?

HON. R. FRASER: The member is suggesting that the ministry

should always look to improving the system of delivery. That is true,

and we always will.

MR. ROSE: The minister is new on the job, and I can

understand why he would be noticeably reticent about this. An

indication that he is always looking is kind of interesting, but

doesn't make us all that hopeful.

AN HON. MEMBER: You're boring.

MR. ROSE: Why don't you go away and hide like you usually do?

All you do when you come in here is sit and heckle anyway. Why don't

you go out to Abbotsford? I understand you're very popular out there

these days. They love you in Abbotsford.

Here again is a question based on an assumption the minister won't

accept. I maintain, and so do many others — and we're not all dunces

merely because we happen to have this view — that the college system as

well as the school system has really suffered and jeopardized a great

deal of possible economic recovery for this province. I'd like to know

from the minister if he's aware of what proposition 13 did in

California a few years ago, and how he intends to restore our system.

Maybe he plans to do it the way California is doing it. California is

doing it in their school system by importing Canadians — 200 last year

and perhaps even more

[ Page 7770 ]

this year. The headhunters are coming here, I believe, next

weekend. I want to know what he is going to do.

The question is: how long before we can boast here of a first-class

college system again? If we have that, it attracts investment and jobs,

instead of these phony municipal partnership agreements that we see

everybody.... Photo-ops with the minister smirking out of every

local newspaper. Disgusting!

HON. R. FRASER: We do already have a first-class system, and

we have a most unusual system in British Columbia. We have probably the

best system in all of North America when you put all the units

together. That's recognized by everybody.

Secondly, when it comes to job creation there are a number of

initiatives out there, as you know: the business development centres,

etc. etc.; the spinoffs from the universities that are creating lots of

new companies such as the ones we mentioned this morning. So there's no

doubt about it, education is an economic renewal tool, and it's being

used that way.

MR. ROSE: The minister is aware, I'm sure, that the college

system has experienced a cut of about 25 percent since 1982. I don't

know how a system can maintain its value, its efficiency. There are all

kinds of words for cutbacks. It's called efficiency, productivity and

all that nonsense, but a cut is still a cut. The government is very

fond of saying from time to time: "You can't throw money at problems

and expect to solve them." Well, you can't starve the system and expect

to solve those problems either.

I want to know something about Kwantlen College in Surrey. They've

claimed over the years.... That's a catchment area for my riding as

well — Kwantlen as well as Douglas. I want to know when the new campus

is going to be announced. Is it going to be announced soon, or just

before the election, or is there going to be a new campus there? When

can we expect to hear about that? Or is it too soon to say, because it

will spoil a good election promise? I think I can buttress.... Maybe

a supplementary question is: why doesn't it have it now? It has a huge

catchment area in terms of students, and it is grossly underfunded.

Will the minister comment on that? Is there any hope for Kwantlen to

have a new building soon — a permanent campus?

HON. R. FRASER: Mr. Member, as you know, every campus needs

renewal funds from time to time, and Kwantlen is certainly no

exception. I'm well aware of the very good work done out in Surrey by

the two MLAs who represent that constituency right now, and the

thousands of signatures they've garnered in support of a new capital

program in that area and for that college. But this is not the time to

make announcements, because we're not ready to make announcements yet;

we're still working on it.

MR. ROSE: Percentage of the population. Douglas and Kwantlen

have 11.3 percent of the population and 7.5 percent of the funding.

That's terrible. Percentage of students not in local colleges — the

highest in the province. No, not quite. Northwest is even worse — 38

percent. Kwantlen:14 percent of the B.C. population — that's why it has

the third member now in Surrey — and 6.9 percent of the college

funding. That's grossly unfair. That's just outright discrimination. I

can understand why you do it to New Westminster: because of my friend

here. But I can't understand why you do it to poor old Surrey. Ernie

Hall has been gone a long time. Except for a collection of shacks, it

is the only campus, of all the colleges, without a permanent campus.

It's not the time to talk about that.

I wonder if the minister has ever, talking about efficiency and

productivity, considered the number of press releases his office

issues. I just thought I'd give him a few little stats. Last year we

had this.... As a matter of fact, the father of the health fund,

the excellence fund and the forestry fund.... The ministry

subtracted some $12 million bucks from the budget and gave it out under

the minister's orders. So we had all these outfits competing for the

scarce bucks that had been withdrawn from the college funding. But

these all provided many photo ops and lots of press releases. If you

can get 42 press releases, and God knows how many pictures and

ribbon-snippings, out of $12 million, the question is: how many can you

get out of $110 million? Can you do that simple math — I understand

you're an engineer? Does the minister intend to perhaps reduce the

workload on his poor beleaguered staff by limiting the tremendous

number of press releases? The elephant laboured mightily and gave birth

to a mouse.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I don't know. Over last year, 42. It's a record.

[4:45]

HON. R. FRASER: We should address the more serious aspect of

your presentation, which was the funding of a college on a regional

basis — which is an unrealistic way to fund a college, as you know. We

do not fund colleges on the basis of the population of the area. We

fund colleges on the basis of the population of the students at the

school. This will mean that students in Surrey can go to Kwantlen or

BCIT or SFU, or wherever else they want to go. They're not obliged to

go to school in Surrey if they don't wish to. If they have educational

interests that are beyond the Kwantlen campus, such as at BCIT or

Pacific Marine Training Institute, they can go there — which adds more

fuel to the argument, because some institutes serve the entire

province, and therefore, to fund them on a regional population basis

doesn't really serve the student. What we're trying to do is serve the

student by funding the colleges on a demand basis or a need basis or a

per-student basis, so that when a student goes to a college the funding

is there. It's not by population in a region. It's population per

college that really counts. That's why it's done that way.

MR. ROSE: It's almost like saying that the students who live

in Surrey and New Westminster are by nature more nomadic. They're like

the Arabs folding their tents and moving to another oasis, because

their local oasis has been befouled, or the waterhole is insufficient

or has dried up. I wonder who gave the minister the information that

those people from Surrey and New Westminster take great delight in

travel. I mean, they don't have ministerial travel permits. They have

to go and spend hours on buses.

To be realistic and fair, I don't expect every college to offer

everything the same. You can't do that; it's like endless duplication

of expensive machinery at hospitals. It's just not sensible; it's not

credible. But certainly the basic courses should be, and the vast

differences between the funding

[ Page 7771 ]

related to population in one area I don't think can be argued. The

minister's argument is half-reasonable. By saying the minister is

witty, I think that perhaps we could say he's half right. That's a

half-truth there, all right.

No, I don't agree with that. I think you're discriminating against

two members of your own party, and I wish you'd cut it out. Build a

campus over there and fund them up to a reasonable level, and I'm sure

if there were decent transportation systems, then that might be an

attraction to move out. But I think that they would rather stay closer

to home. Certainly I would, rather than travel hundreds of miles to

school.

I wanted to know finally — and this is the "finally" for this

particular series — if the minister has any intention of changing the

system imposed under Bills 18 and 19 in which the ministry has full

power, rather than the local community, to appoint the college boards

rather than through indirect elections, and whether or not he intends

to maintain his right as a minister guaranteed under Bills 18 and 19 in

1983. I don't know the names of the acts; I just recall them as bills.

They basically did those two things. They gave the minister a right to

fire all the indirectly elected local community people and substitute

instead his own appointees. Does he intend to alter that in light of

the need for greater democracy and community interest and control? And,

two, his powers to establish or abolish courses centrally in Victoria

rather than leaving that expression of need up to the local community.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The first question would anticipate pending or

future legislation or legislative amendments. The minister may wish to

speak to the philosophy.

MR. NICOLSON: The minister certainly has dodged some of the

questions that have been put, and I'd like to maybe put them in terms

that a civil engineer or mechanical engineer can understand. Well, I

can't use words to do that; I'll have to use a graph. All members of

the Legislature received a series of graphs from Asst. Prof. Eric Sager

of the University of Victoria a little while back. The first one of

those was the cumulative percentage change in provincial operating

grants to universities over three years, 1982-83 to 1985-86. It shows

that British Columbia is the only province in which there has been

negative growth. I think that's a euphemism, isn't it, to talk about

negative growth? That's putting it the best way possible.

In Newfoundland there was a growth of 9.1 percent; in Nova Scotia,

16.6 percent; Prince Edward Island, 19.2 percent; New Brunswick, 17.8

percent; Quebec, 13.9 percent; the highest growth in Ontario at 20.