1982 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 32nd 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)

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1982

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

9547 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

British Columbia Railway subsidy. Mr. Stupich –– 9547

Sale and leaseback of UTA buses. Mr. Stupich –– 9547

Government borrowing. Mr. Stupich –– 9547

Pornographic films. Mr. Ree –– 9548

Canadian benefits from LNG and other B.C. resource projects. Mr. Leggatt –– 9548

Student loans. Mr. Lauk –– 9548

Pornographic films. Hon. Mr. Williams replies –– 9549

Steel contract for McInnes overpass, Hon. Mr. Phillips replies –– 9549

School Services (Interim) Act (Bill 89). Second reading. (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm)

Mr. Strachan –– 9550

Mr. Barber –– 9551

Hon. Mr. Hewitt –– 9553

Mr. Lockstead –– 9554

Mr. Hanson –– 9556

Mr. Macdonald –– 9559

Ms. Sanford –– 9561

Mr. Mitchell –– 9562

Mr. Lea –– 9565

Mr. Howard –– 9568

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1982

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I'd ask all hon.

members to extend a very cordial and western welcome to a number of our

good neighbours from Fiji in the South Pacific: Hon. T.R. Vakatora,

Speaker of the House of Representatives; Hon. Isikeli Nadalo, the

opposition Whip; the hon. Senator Joeli Sereki, nominee of the Great

Council of Chiefs; and Mrs. Lavinia Ahkoy, Clerk of the Parliament.

MR. BARRETT:

I would like to add my welcome to the visiting delegation from Fiji,

and I would ask the opposition Whip to meet in my office in ten minutes

as our whip is absent today. I'd also like to extend to them very warm

congratulations for picking British Columbia as part of their visit to

Canada. I would ask, too, that their Clerk stay away from our table and

avoid bad habits.

MR. COCKE: In our gallery today is

a member of the B.C. School Trustees Association executive and also a

very valued friend of mine, Anita Hagen, with her husband John. Would

you extend them a very good welcome.

HON. MR. HEWITT:

On behalf of the member for Kootenay (Mr. Segarty), I'd like to

introduce residents of Penticton, Oscar and Wally Dimler and Dennis and

Marge Jeffery. I'm glad to have them in my home town as constituents of

Boundary-Similkameen.

Oral Questions

BRITISH COLUMBIA RAILWAY SUBSIDY

MR. STUPICH:

I have a question for the Minister of Finance. With respect to cutbacks

in education, can the minister advise the House how much has been paid

to date from consolidated revenue to the BCR for purposes of northeast

coal development?

HON. MR. CURTIS: In order to be

completely accurate, I will take the question as notice. That

presupposes that there has been a payment out of consolidated revenue

in this fiscal year. I will come back to the House with the information

for the member.

SALE AND LEASEBACK OF UTA BUSES

MR. STUPICH: Just so the minister is clear on the question, it's "to date."

have another question for the Minister of Finance. On Friday, October

1, 1982, the minister announced that a policy of selling B.C. ferries

to eastern financiers has been extended to the bus system, in that 42

UTA buses have been sold to eastern financial interests, using the same

giveaway lease-back scheme that applied to the ferry system. Will the

minister confirm that it will cost B.C. taxpayers an additional $12

million to lease back these buses over a 15-year period?

HON. MR. CURTIS:

Let me first return to the first question. I heard what the member

said. He wants the information to date. I understand that. That will be

encompassed in the return.

With respect to the second

question, I take issue with the use of such words as "giveaway." In

fact, this is not an unusual method to be followed in both the public

and private sectors. Rather than have a question which implies

criticism, I would expect the member who asked the question, who

briefly served as Minister of Finance.... I would have been more

pleased if he had congratulated the government on this particular move.

Interjections.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Some members opposite giggle, chuckle and laugh. but

I think that there are some members opposite who clearly understand the logic

of this move and recognize that it is a common practice in transportation activities

with respect to railway rolling stock, vessels, aircraft, intercity as well

as suburban and urban buses, and even motor vehicles. What we completed last

week is eminently sensible for the people of British Columbia as well as for

B.C. Transit: that is, the leasing of vehicles with a life expectancy of some

30 years. I will stand today, tomorrow and in days to come, happily defending

the lease process, which is not unique to British Columbia, not unique to British

Columbia Transit. As I said earlier. It is eminently sensible and provides a

very good deal for B.C. Transit and the public of British Columbia.

MR. STUPICH:

Mr. Speaker, the minister was carried away with his own oratory and

missed the question. Is it going to cost B.C. taxpayers an extra $12

million to get these buses out of hock?

HON. MR. CURTIS: No, Mr. Speaker. I'm sorry I missed the question. It's sometimes not difficult to miss the question posed by members opposite.

The

assumed cost framed in the member's question is not necessarily

correct. The point is that it is an extremely satisfactory arrangement

for the public purse in this province,

GOVERNMENT BORROWING

MR. STUPICH:

Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure whether or not the minister is taking the

question as notice, but he didn't answer it. The partial answer that he

gave leads us to suspect that it may be more than $12 million. Hoping

that he is taking it as notice, I will ask a different question. Will

the minister now confirm that it is government policy — that is, this

administration's policy — not only to borrow to acquire new assets, but

to mortgage our existing assets to pay for groceries?

HON. MR. CURTIS:

Mr. Speaker, that wasn't a question: that was a brief speech containing

at least four elements of negative-doubting-people policy. Again I

would refer the member and other interested members in the House to

examine the success of leasing arrangements, particularly with respect

to equipment used in transportation, whether it's to move goods or

people, and to examine the extent to which that is used not only in

North America but in other parts of the free world. In his question,

Mr. Speaker, the member again

[ Page 9548 ]

looks

at the worst possible case, and that's the trouble with the party

opposite, those socialists. "Is it going to cost more than $12

million?" asks the member. I indicated that the $12 million to which

the member referred may not be correct, and I leave the answer at that.

MR. STUPICH: If I may be permitted an unprejudiced opinion, I think the questions are better than the answers today.

I'll

try one more easy one: can the minister confirm that the government has

decided to consolidate all outstanding loans and lease-back obligations

under a deadweight corporation called "Megadebt Unlimited"?

HON. MR. CURTIS:

The member is a little stale. That line was moving through the

corridors about ten days ago. It's not too original; it was better the

first time I heard it. But with respect to the leasing of the vehicles

by B.C. Transit, may I say that even with their incompetence in

government, the NDP administration of 1972-75 would have found this

particular move very, very attractive. I give them credit for that.

MR. STUPICH:

Will the minister confirm that this lease-back arrangement is

appropriate to people who want to defer corporate income tax, not to

governments who have no income tax to pay?

HON. MR. CURTIS:

That is a question that is largely dependent on the particular

arrangement made. It can vary. There is one other aspect that may sink

through to the opposition, and that is that by using this particular

procedure, we have involved the federal government in participation,

where otherwise it would not have occurred.

PORNOGRAPHIC FILMS

MR. REE:

My question is to the Attorney-General. Last June I expressed to the

Attorney-General my concerns and the concerns of my constituents with

respect to the proliferation of the distribution of hard-core

pornography on the North Shore of Vancouver. I'd like to ask the

Attorney-General whether any action has been taken with respect to the

distribution of this type of questionable entertainment and whether any

charges have been or are being laid.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I take the question as notice.

CANADIAN BENEFITS FROM LNG

AND OTHER B.C. RESOURCE PROJECTS

MR. LEGGATT: My

question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum

Resources. The Association of Consulting Engineers of Canada has

revealed that only foreign-owned engineering companies will be allowed

to bid on the western LNG project. Did the company give any indication

to the government of British Columbia regarding the use of Canadian

engineering services prior to the government giving the green light on

the Dome proposal?

HON. MR. SMITH: The answer is no, Mr. Speaker.

MR. LEGGATT: The Association of Consulting Engineers has stated that

high-technology and industrial benefits for Canadian industries from this project

"will be virtually nil." In view of the fact that Dome was awarded

the right to build an LNG plant in British Columbia, can the minister explain

why the bulk of all the major equipment in the plant will be manufactured outside

this country?

HON. MR. SMITH:

The member's assumptions in his question are premature. First, Dome has

not received the approval of the National Energy Board for its project.

The project is now before the National Energy Board. The matters raised

by the hon. member with respect to technology and the components of it

I will take up with the officials of Dome, and get back to you.

MR. LEGGATT: That's precisely why it's so appropriate that these questions be asked now rather than after the contracts are awarded.

last question is: would the minister explain to the House why his

government has not introduced a program that will guarantee jobs for

British Columbia workers and work for British Columbia companies on all

B.C. resource projects in this province?

HON. MR. SMITH:

That assertion is really incorrect. The jobs that will be created for

British Columbians from the LNG plant, if it goes ahead, will be many

and will be important. Just as this government has created upwards of

10,000 jobs in the northwest as a result of the northeast coal, there

will be more jobs for British Columbians in the next year through these

policies than through any of the make-work projects of the members

opposite.

MR. LEGGATT: My final question. The

minister didn't address himself to the question specifically. It deals

with whether this government will, as policy, provide guarantees on

these projects so that British Columbia workers and British Columbia

companies can see a guaranteed employment when tax money goes into the

project or when it is a B.C. resource project. Would he confirm that

this government has no guarantee policy on providing first British

Columbia workers and first British Columbia companies?

STUDENT LOANS

MR. LAUK:

I thought the Minister of Energy would answer the question. The

Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) has said that we always state the

worst possible case. Well, we're getting used to that from this

government, Mr. Speaker, and we always follow that route.

This

is to the Minister of Education: On September 21 I asked the minister

whether he would move quickly to provide the $18.6 million of

provincial grants to college and university students who have qualified

for provincial assistance. To date, no notices have been sent to

applicants and no decision on the amount of student grants has been

made, although the minister undertook to give me that information. Can

the minister explain why the government is continuing to sit on these

allocated funds?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I'll pursue the question further.

MR. LAUK:

A new question, Mr. Speaker. This year, the Legislature approved $18.6

million in grants to students in post-secondary education. No funds

have yet been paid out.

[ Page

9549 ]

Has the minister decided that these funds will be paid to the

students who have applied for them, or have you decided that they won't

be?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we have decided that they will be paid out.

PORNOGRAPHIC FILMS

HON. MR. WILLIAMS:

During question period I was asked a question by the hon. member for

North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Ree) which I took on notice. I did that

because I didn't want to risk offending against the rules, because it

might be construed that my response was, in part at least, a statement.

With

regard to the matters which arose out of certain video cassettes which

were sold by a firm in North Vancouver, no decision has yet been made

with respect to the laying of a charge or that a charge will not be

laid. The owner of the establishment which made the cassettes available

to the public has voluntarily agreed to remove the offending material

from his shelves. In many respects, that is a more appropriate

resolution of the problem than to mount a criminal prosecution under

the code provisions with respect to obscenity and face the possibility

of a loss or, if successful, merely the imposition of a fine. However,

the matter doesn't end there.

We have now before us, with

new technology, the offering, for sale or rent, of video cassettes

comprising so-called movies, by a number of entrepreneurs in the

province. In some cases it may be concluded that they are sellers of

smut or purveyors of pornography. It is not the intention of this

government to allow that to continue,

We have legislation in

this province with respect to motion picture films in the usual sense

and the opportunity, through the film classification director, to

examine films which are displayed in motion picture theatres in this

province. They must be approved in the first instance and, if approved,

appropriately classified. Our legislation, however, does not enable us

to use that process with regard to these video cassettes. Neither do we

have the authority by legislation to deal with the further emerging

technology which is producing pay TV. There is currently a dispute

between the federal government and this province as to which

jurisdiction can appropriately license pay television outlets.

a consequence, the officials of the criminal justice division of the

Ministry of Attorney-General, under instructions, are in the process of

preparing amending legislation and appropriate regulations which will

enable us to impose the approval requirement, both on video cassettes

and on material which may find its way into the homes of people in this

province through pay TV under licence from the Utilities Commission.

is necessary that we take appropriate caution, because in this

initiative we are running up against the sensitive issue of censorship.

Therefore we have both a constitutional problem and one which may

involve consideration of the implications of the Charter of Rights and

Freedoms. It would be unwise to be precipitate in the preparation of

such legislation, but I wish to assure the members of this House and

the people of British Columbia that we will be moving in this direction

as quickly as we can.

One of the problems with regard to video cassette material is the inability

to examine the multitude of titles sold or made available for rent in these

various retail establishments.

are, therefore, clearly indicating today that if merchants who deal in

this material do not take the time to examine the contents of the

material that they are prepared to sell or rent and are not prepared to

take account of the guidelines with respect to prosecutions for

obscenity, then we may find it necessary, when a proper complaint is

made under the provisions of the Criminal Code, to proceed with the in rem

provisions of the code and impound their entire stock of video

cassettes until such time as we can examine them at our leisure. This,

I suppose, would have the result of putting such a merchant out of

business.

We know that they have a code of conduct in the

film industry. We know that there is a code of conduct in the

television industry. If the pay TV operators and the merchants who sell

and rent video cassette material are prepared to sit down and establish

a code of conduct, they may then avoid some of the, serious problems to

which I have referred. Any merchant who is in doubt as to whether or

not any material he has for sale or rent offends against the obscenity

provisions of the Code can ask us for assistance. We'll be happy to

examine the material and give him advice.

STEEL CONTRACT FOR McINNES OVERPASS

HON. MR. PHILLIPS:

I'd like to answer a question posed to me recently by the member for

Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Leggatt) with regard to contracts let for the

McInnes overpass in New Westminster, that great development that's

taking place as a result of planning by this government and employing

thousands of people at the present time in British Columbia.

Interjection.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS:

You wish to make a speech or...? You're against that as well. Along

with the rest of that group of Negative Nellies over there, you're

against everything that this government is doing.

The basis

for selecting the successful general contractor was, as is usually the

case, the lowest bid meeting all specifications. Hansa Construction, a

New Westminster company, was low bidder and has executed a contract

with First Capital City on the basis of a total project cost of $3.2

million, of which only $100,000 or 3 percent of the contract is for the

supply of steel.

In assembling the contract price, Hansa

Construction solicited prices from a number of subcontractors —

electrical, mechanical, precast concrete, reinforcing steel, etc. — one

of which was GM Steel for the supply and installation of reinforcing

steel. GM Steel in turn called for prices for supply of reinforcing

steel bars, and apparently CanWest was the low bidder. CanWest, a

wholly-owned B.C. company, makes major purchases of steel for various

purposes from Canadian steel mills and very minor purchases from

foreign sources. In fact, CanWest's representatives have advised that

of approximately 6,000 tonnes purchased annually, only 200 tonnes are

purchased from Korea. So again the member for Coquitlam-Moody has, of

course, been wrong. In this particular case, the material that was in

the inventory happened to contain a very small....

Interjection.

[ Page 9550 ]

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You're wrong again. You're always wrong in this Legislature. I don't know how you can be so consistently wrong.

this particular case, the material that was in the inventory happened

to contain a very small proportion of Korean steel bar, estimated at

about 5 percent, so that the foreign content is in fact only about

$5,000 in an overall price of over $3 million.

The very fact

that the member, who wants to put up a picket fence around the province

of British Columbia, go back to policies that have ruined this country

— centralist policies of barring trade.... Oh, I'd love to have more

time, Mr. Speaker, to talk to that member.

In the case of

direct purchases, it is our policy to utilize B.C. or Canadian labour

and materials to the greatest extent possible. In the case of supplying

reinforcing steel for the McInnes overpass, the purchase of materials

is the responsibility of Hansa Construction and its subcontractors, and

beyond the direct control of First Capital City. It should be

remembered that the project, in fact, has a very high local content, in

that close to 100 percent of the value is represented by British

Columbia labour and materials.

In answer to further

questions posed by the member, I'd like to state for the record that

CanWest does buy some steel from Korea and some from the U.S., but at

least 85 percent of the steel it purchases comes from Stelco — Stelco

buy their coking coal in the United States of America.

Mr. Cecil Cosulich is on the board of directors of CanWest, and he's also the owner of RivTow.

answer to a further question posed by the member, CanWest has no direct

contracts with the B.C. government. However, it has four contracts with

general contractors connected with government projects and they are:

ALRT prebuild, $345,000; Murray River bridge, $135,000; Port Alberni

courthouse, $124,000 — all projects going ahead because of the forward

planning of this great government, providing thousands and thousands of

jobs at a time when they're needed — McInnes overpass, $800,000. All of

these contracts were low bids in fair, open tender. Now I hope that

that answers the member's question.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 89.

SCHOOL SERVICES (INTERIM) ACT

MR. STRACHAN:

I know all Members of the Legislative Assembly probably didn't sleep at

all over the weekend because I informed the members of this House

Friday afternoon when I adjourned debate that I was going to speak a

bit more about the pill — not the bill, the pill — as it affects this

bill. I'll delve into that briefly, Mr. Speaker. There's absolutely no

question in anyone's mind, if they look at the history of the Canadian

birth rate in the last 20 years, that there have been some significant

changes and some significant impacts upon the education system in

British Columbia and also throughout North America.

The

engine that moved our education system in the last 30 years was in fact

the incredible baby boom that we enjoyed on our continent, North

America — in Canada and British Columbia — from 1951 to 1965. During

that time, the average Canadian birthrate was 407,000 children per

year. It made a significant impact upon the education system; I don't

think there's any question about that. However, the economy changed,

medical science changed, and we're all aware of what the pill did. From

about 1965 on, the average Canadian birth rate declined from that

475,000 births per year to around 275,000 births per year — a decrease

of around 200,000 per year. That's the Canadian average. This had a

significant impact upon education financing, education administration

and the entire education system in Canada, and indeed in our province.

The

significant thing to consider is that if we did have this decline

beginning in 1965 — as my good friend from Nelson-Creston (Mr.

Nicolson), the mathematician, will agree, I'm sure — if you subtract

1965 from 1982 you end up with the number 17. The youngest people of

the Canadian baby boom are now 17 years old and essentially through our

public school system. That is one of the dilemmas we face now in the

North American education system. As a matter of fact, it's ironic to

note, Mr. Speaker, that even in a dynamic community such as Prince

George, which I represent, a community which has trebled in population

since the mid-sixties, we have seen since 1978 a declining school

enrolment, in spite of the fact that our general population enrolment

has increased significantly. Prince George is now identified as British

Columbia's second-largest city. Nevertheless, the facts are there;

they're clear. We can talk about the pill. We can talk about whatever

we want. The education population is declining — most significantly in

our province — which leads us to the dilemma that we currently face.

[Hon. Mr. Schroeder in the chair.]

I said on Friday, the other problem we've seen is that while we had the

significant increase — particularly in communities such as mine, Prince

George — we built for it, we hired for it, and we put all these people

in place. Regrettably we didn't plan for the time when we in fact would

have a declining enrolment. To give you an example, in School District

57 in Prince George, which is huge — it's identical in boundary to the

ridings of the hon. Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) —

we declined from a high of 22,000 students in 1978 to a full-time

equivalent now of 19,000, a significant decrease. The fact is that we

built for those 22,000 students. We hired for those 22,000 students.

Regrettably

none of us — and I'm equally to blame, because I was a trustee during

those growing years — saw the writing on the wall. We didn't act soon

enough to be in a position to look after this declining enrolment which

we now face. One of the regrettable things in our district is that we

have added five fairly high-priced administrators since 1980. These

were people who were not in place during the high enrolment years but

who are in place now, and I don't think that there's any question that

our district and our school board are going to have to seriously

consider the golden handshake in a few of those cases, or at least some

redistribution.

I think it's important to point out here

that the legislation that we're dealing with now, Bill 89, includes

everyone — administrators as well as vice-principals, supervisors,

directors of instruction, etc. — and those people who do have teacher

qualifications could be transferred back into the classroom before the

end of their administrative assignment. I think that's an essential and

interesting facet of this bill, because it will give the local school

board the discretion to

[ Page 9551 ]

move these people around as they see fit, and enable them to enact cost savings.

had the opportunity this morning to review briefly the A

section of the

School District 57 budget. The A

section is the part of the budget that

deals with administrative costs. I note with some alarm that the

per-pupil cost of administration in district 57 is well over what one

sees in other school districts. Of course, a district as large as

district 57 is bound to have a higher administration cost. It's

probably 30,000 square miles in area, and it does take extra funds for

administrators to supervise an area that big. Many professional

development sessions and administrative sessions will be held in

Vancouver or Victoria, so an administrator from district 57 is going to

have an added transportation cost. There is no question that on the

basis of an equivalency rating the administrative costs are going to be

higher in a district such as district 57. However, there's also no

question that they are far too high at this point, especially when one

considers the declining enrolment that we now face.

The last

thing I would like to talk about in this bill is the fairness that it

applies to the teachers. A lot of mixed messages have gone out in the

last week or two. As a matter of fact, this morning I spoke with a

teacher from Kelly Road School on the Hart Highway, who was concerned

about having 12 minutes per class added to his day. I had to explain to

him that it's 12 to 13 minutes per day, not per class. In fact, in

terms of the classes in his school, about three minutes per class would

be added to his day. Regrettably, we do have some mixed messages going

out. I think there are a lot of misconceptions about this bill. It's my

hope, at least, that some of these messages will be straightened out so

that boards, teachers, local teachers' associations, the teachers

federation and the people who have the best interests of everyone at

heart will study the bill and understand which direction we're coming

from.

I think the important thing to point out here.... The

bill is silent on it, but as you read it and follow it through, anyone

who knows the education system must observe that in fact the teachers'

salary base and pension base is maintained. Certainly there will be a

net decrease in a teacher's salary under the terms of this bill;

nevertheless, the base that he agreed to, the base that his next

increase will be based on, his pension base, is maintained at the 16.8

or 17.5 percent, or whatever it was. I think that is eminently fair for

the teachers. Earlier we were discussing rollbacks of education

expenses, and unquestionably a big concern of teachers is the impact it

would have on them in later years; if we did roll back their salary

base for this year, we of course get into their pensions. However, they

are aware now that their pensions are in place, and their salary base

is in place for future negotiations and future pension considerations.

I think that's one commendable part of the bill.

Mr.

Speaker, I'm not going to say much more. I would just like to say that

I do support the bill. It's eminently fair and addresses the concerns

of British Columbians — as taxpayers and the people who have to support

the education system. It addresses the concern of contact hours in the

classroom. It points out — and it's abundantly clear — that the

contract hours will be maintained. Finally, in defence of the teachers

and the members of the teaching federation, it does protect their

salary base and their pension base. It's a good bill, its eminently

fair, and I support it.

MR. BARBER: Mr. Speaker, some

weeks ago this Premier appointed an anarchist as Minister of Education

(Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm). The anarchic approach of this minister has

culminated in a bill which has simultaneously managed to win the

disfavour of both the school trustees and the teachers on an issue of

restraint, wages and benefits. That's really a remarkable achievement

when you come to think of it. Only an anarchist whose real intention

was chaos and disruption could possibly achieve such remarkable results.

DEPUTY SPEAKER:

I would remind the member of something we've been reminded of so often:

that is, that moderate language is the hallmark of good debate. I would

ask the hon. member to remember that we are in second reading of a

bill, and personal allusions should be avoided.

MR. BARBER:

The anarchist approach of the government, the anarchist tendencies of

the government's minister, and the anarchist implications of the

government's strategy in the field of education are those which concern

us, at least in the opposition, in a very serious way. Ordinarily, if a

government is going to come down on one side or another in a salary,

bargaining, wage, income, or some other form of benefits dispute, they

generally manage to establish a position that's fairly clear to both

sides in the dispute. They take the side that they think is fair and

reasonable, and one side is a little more happy than the other.

Interjection.

MR. BARBER:

I've read the bill very thoroughly — all morning long, as a matter of

fact, returning phone calls I couldn't return last week to teachers and

trustees who wanted to express an opinion, among other things.

The

remarkable achievement of this bill and of the anarchist strategy

behind it is that they have simultaneously managed to alienate and

offend both trustees and teachers. That's really something. I think the

minister deserves about five seconds worth of credit for that, because

not a lot of people could do it, but this guy can. If we see a pattern

in government relations, provincial and municipal, we see a pattern

that we've observed before. Let me allude to it briefly.

What

this minister is doing to Education he did to Municipal Affairs. The

centralist, heavy-handed, control-everything-in-Victoria approach that

he took in Municipal Affairs, he is now taking in Education. I have

some experience in that, having been the critic for municipal affairs

for almost seven years, I'm well aware of the absolute alienation that

he created within the ranks of the Union of British Columbia

Municipalities and which he is now creating again within the ranks of

trustees and teachers both. The policies they are adopting are

fundamentally anarchist. They are destroying the basic architecture of

a system of education which has taken decades to establish. That

architecture of the British Columbia system involves those weights,

balances, checks, counterweights, means and mechanisms whereby parents,

teachers, trustees and sometimes even students are consulted, advised

and have a chance to participate. Victoria, by and large, stands back

and helps with the money, and avoids dealing with the local

prerogatives. benefits and views.

The anarchist strategy

this government has followed in education has been to upset all of

that. This minister has been doing it every day since he became

responsible, What they've been doing deliberately is attempting, I

think, to destabilize a

[ Page 9552 ]

situation

which had served, by and large, the people of this province pretty

darned well. The deliberate policy of destabilization serves not an

educational purpose but a political one. The educational purposes are

not served when teachers don't know who will be on staff the following

day. Educational purposes are not well served when trustees do not know

what programs are going to be in place the following week. The highest

educational ambitions are not obtained when the trustees, teachers and

general public cannot authentically know and guarantee that the

programs, disciplines, apprenticeship and achievements of a good formal

education can, in fact, still be made available any longer on the basis

that they are entitled to be made available to every student in British

Columbia who is in the system.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: You must have written your speech before you read the bill.

MR. BARBER: I've read the bill. I've listened to your speeches through Hansard .

The

policy of destabilization which this government has introduced and the

chaos they have deliberately created have a political aim that is

completely unrelated to education. They have hoped to separate and

divide — thereby conquering — the agreement, consensus and professional

belief in the quality of education and the resources required for same

that have been created between the trustees and the teachers in this

province. That's a very powerful alliance, and Social Credit doesn't

like to know about it, doesn't want to be confronted with it and will

do anything to destabilize it. The anarchist strategy of this minister,

implicit in this bill, has been an attempt to break an alliance in the

name of quality education that has been forming between teachers and

trustees both.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Ordinarily

those groups are antagonists or, if you will, Mr. Speaker, adversaries.

Ordinarily teachers and trustees, for a number of good and historical

reasons, have taken approaches that have led to different conclusions

on each part. They are not often allies, except when they are under

attack by Social Credit and a minister who tells us that we have to

learn "to write good," and thereby tells us what he means by a quality

education. It's the sort that apparently he didn't receive.

minister who has the nerve to tell other people to "write good" has got

more than enough nerve, I suppose, to bring a bill in like this, the

purpose of which has been, the government hoped, to destabilize the

relationships that have been worked up, built up and created in the

last weeks and months between the trustees and the teachers. The

trustees aren't fighting for their jobs — they don't pay very much. The

teachers, glory be, although they are fighting for the job security of

their colleagues — which they are entitled to do — to the horror of

this government have responded not by talking much about the salaries,

benefits, wage package or the other stuff the government thought they

would greedily debate; no, the teachers haven't talked about that at

all; that for them too, as for us, is secondary. The teachers, the

trustees and the people who care about education have been talking

about kids, about the realm of the mind, the power of imagination and

the gift of intellect. The teachers and the trustees have been talking

about the future of mankind in this piece of the planet, which is

dependent on the skills, the apprenticeship and the discipline of a

first-class education.

What is the point, do you think, of

preparing people to work in the Discovery Parks of British Columbia at

the highest end of the scale at the same time as the same government,

through its policies of anarchism, is tearing apart the elementary,

junior and senior high schools of British Columbia? What is the point

of addressing the power and prospect of a Discovery Parks system to aid

— the government argues — both industry and intellect at the same time

as you're busy wrecking the fundamentals?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: One moment, please. The Chair recognizes the member for Dewdney on a point of order.

MR. MUSSALLEM:

My point of order is based on my assumption that anarchy is illegal in

this country. He referred to anarchist policies. There is no such

possibility of an anarchist policy. I'd like that withdrawn.

MR. KING:

On the same point of order, I would think the minister would accept

that term since he used it on the weekend on television to describe the

teachers of this province.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point

of order raised by the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke does not address

the point of order raised by the member for Dewdney. With respect to

the comments by the hon. first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber), I

guess we all have to appreciate that the term the member for Dewdney

finds offensive could be construed as being quite unparliamentary when

applied to another hon. member of this House, and it could be suggested

that that member did not have honour for the parliamentary traditions,

which would be imputing a very improper motive to another hon. member.

I would commend that statement to all members of this House. Perhaps we

can avoid using the term; it would offend our parliamentary traditions

and would impute a very unparliamentary motive to another hon. member.

I'm sure the hon. first member for Victoria and other members of this

House, on both sides, appreciate that concern.

MR. BARBER:

The motives of the government concern us — motives that have nothing

whatever to do with a quality education. They have nothing whatever to

do with those interests of intellect and imagination that have to be

spurred and animated by a good educational system in B.C. The motives

of that government and this bill are one and the same. Those motives

are to destabilize educational relationships, to destabilize an

educational structure and to destabilize a system of public education

that has served us, by and large, pretty well.

The motives

of this government are clear. The performance of the minister in

question is clear and infamous in the sense of those who care about

local control. What he did to municipalities he is now doing to school

districts. It's the same pattern and the same performance, based on the

same principle. I say that this government is following a policy of

anarchism in the school system. I'm not attributing violence or the

violent aspect of anarchism, which, of course, is a Criminal Code

offence, which was referred to by the member for Dewdney. I don't

accuse this government of that at all; that would be preposterous. But

what I do say they are doing is a kind of damage that is almost as

irreparable as physical

[ Page 9553 ]

damage;

they are damaging hope, trust, confidence and professionalism. They do

so in the name of fair play, yet, peculiarly, not one single element in

the public educational system has so far called this bill fair. Both

employer and employee have said that the bill is unfair. The students,

teachers and trustees who have spoken to me about it have clearly and

authentically demonstrated their view of the unfairness of this bill.

all these bases, given the political record of this government and this

minister — the centralist approach in particular — I would ask that the

bill be withdrawn. It is a mistake in policy. It is a mistake in

administration. It will prove a mistake in law. On those three counts,

I ask the government to withdraw the bill.

HON. MR. HEWITT:

I extend my sympathy to the first member for Victoria, who has a

terrible cold. I'm sure that is why his speech was as short as it was.

He usually goes on at great length. I would say, however, that some of

his information was a little out of line. He mentioned that the now

Minister of Education, the former Minister of Municipal Affairs,

alienated municipalities in the province of British Columbia. I seem to

recall that at the recent UBCM convention this minister, the former

Minister of Municipal Affairs, was appointed a lifetime member of the

UBCM. I'd suggest to the first member for Victoria that the vast

majority of representatives of municipalities in this province said:

"Thank you, Mr. Vander Zalm" — I apologize for using the name, Mr.

Speaker, but I'm sure that's what they said — "for a job well done as

Minister of Municipal Affairs." I lend my support to that statement as

well.

The first member for Victoria says that the teachers

won't know who will be working on a day-to-day basis. He said that

teachers and parents won't know what programs will be available on a

day-to-day basis. He also mentioned several times that he had read the

bill. If he had read the bill, he would have found out that the purpose

of the bill is to preserve jobs and to indicate that there would not be

teacher layoffs. It preserves the teachers' jobs in the schools and

lets them know what the future holds for them. It also preserves the

programs. By carrying out the purpose of the bill, services would be

maintained, and most importantly — because there was a lot of talk

about it — services or classes for the handicapped would be maintained.

I'm sure that concern was expressed by a lot of parents. This bill

addresses itself to the services to be maintained to people with regard

to programs and classes, and it also preserves jobs in the schools.

We must recognize that we are in difficult times. Nobody has denied

that for the past several months we have been debating and dealing with

fiscal restraint. We've had a tremendous amount of cooperation.

Everybody involved in the economy of British Columbia has attempted to

do their fair share. The minister has had discussions with school

boards and with teachers' groups, asking them to do their fair share.

When you look back at what's gone on from the time the Premier

announced the restraint program in February 1982, and the amount of

cooperation and the amount of discussion that's been going on, to

achieve the goal we've achieved — and that is to control government

spending, to attempt to bring it back into some form of realism.... The

economy of British Columbia could not afford to pick up the tab. It's

not us in this room who pick up the tab. It's not us who pay the bills

for the hospitals or the bills to the doctors, or pay for our schools

and our teachers. It's the people of the province. It's everybody who

makes a profit and pays tax. It's every logging company that cuts trees

and pays stumpage. It's every mine that pays royalty on the minerals

they take out of the ground. It's everybody who pays sales tax on every

consumer purchase. Everybody participates. Because of the economic

downturn and the reduction in the number of housing starts, our forest

industry, instead of paying into government somewhere around $70

million a month in revenues from logging, is only contributing $5

million a month. So you can see the impact that that has OD revenues to

the government, those revenues which are used for education and health

and other functions of government.

So when we recognize how the revenues generated by the economy have

been reduced, we have to bring our spending back into some area of

reality. The doctors, in their discussions and meetings with the

Premier and Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen ), determined that

they could give back to the province some $30 million. The dentists,

instead of, I believe, a 12 percent increase, looked at 6 percent. The

Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Heinrich), in dealing with the

municipalities, said: "Here are your limits, here are your guidelines,

and you must live within those." Municipalities do the same as we do as

government: they raise funds from taxpayers. Yet we said that we have

act to control spending — "Here are your guidelines." The BCGEU, after

some work stoppage, but through discussion and recognizing the

seriousness of the problem, agreed to their 6.5 percent increase. And I

guess I could go so far as the MLAs in this House. We had a contract.

It's called a piece of legislation. It was a piece of legislation, a

law of the land, that said we would be paid an increase of 11.9

percent, effective January 1, 1982. In dealing with the restraint

program. we changed that contract and reduced our increase to 1.9

percent for 1982 and a zero increase for 1983.

All that we have attempted in discussion — the Minister of

Education, dealing with the school boards and the teachers' group — was

to let them play a

part in this recovery program. In this effort to

bring our expenditures into line with our revenues. Many school boards

and teachers' groups agreed with that, and achieved that, goal. Some

did not.

The bill that has come forward before the House was

an attempt to identify what had to be done and set out a method as to

how it would be done. bearing in mind the impact of such legislation.

But, we said (

a) that we should preserve our standard of education in

this province, that we shouldn't penalize the education programs for

the handicapped; and (

b) that we should have job preservation or

job-sharing as opposed to layoffs of school teachers. Now that wasn't

too serious a request to put to the teaching profession. We've done it

in such a way that their salary base will be preserved, which was of

concern to them, although I must say that the MLAs in this House took a

rollback and, in effect, have not preserved our salary base. But I can

understand why some teachers would be concerned about the loss of that

17 percent increase or a rollback in it. Which thereby reduced their

base for the next increase. But it's not a major problem to, say,

maintain the base, and we'll achieve the cost savings another way.

That's what the bill has done with regard to the paid professional days

off. Which we are saying should not be paid for, and to the shortening

of the year by a period of time at the end of the school year.

But

in doing that. as you mentioned, Mr. Speaker, in your comments, we

maintained the standard number of days of instruction in the province.

Instead of looking at reducing the

[ Page 9554 ]

hours

of instruction to our young people, because we recognize they're our

greatest asset for the future, we've said that the number of minutes of

instruction per day would be increased, and thereby we would achieve

the standard 935 hours per year. That could be accomplished by an extra

13 minutes a day, and in doing that the teacher could adjust his

instructional time and make sure that the work he or she is required to

do with the students — the hours of instruction, the number of units of

instruction — would be maintained. So the bill does two things,

primarily, and those two things are to maintain the standard of

education in the province, and at the same time achieve job

preservation so we don't have closure of school classes and layoffs.

We have to recognize that these are difficult times and that it's

time for cooperation in all sectors of our economy. We know, and many

of us have said it before in this House, that the controlling factor in

the private sector is the marketplace. I'm sure many people in this

province have felt the impact of that control, that check and balance

in the private sector, that impact of the marketplace. If you have a

product and can't sell it, if people have cars on the lot that nobody's

buying, if you have a store full of furniture and people are laid off

and they can't purchase your stove or your fridge or your chesterfield

suite, then you as a small businessman are in serious difficulty and

you have to cut back. The man who works in the mill and is laid off has

some difficulty in making ends meet, and he has to cut back in certain

areas. So the public sector, in my opinion, is no different than the

private sector. We have to recognize that our income is down. As a

result, we have to tighten our belts, so to speak, and attempt to

adjust our programs in such a way that we can maintain the standard,

but at the same time reduce the costs that we're placing on the

taxpayers of this province. It's time for the cooperation of all

sectors of our economy. The key to all this is that it will be a major

test of the mettle of our system. Can our system — when I say "our

system," I mean the public sector — work and respond to the challenge

that's put before it? I suggest to you that it can. It's been basically

proven in many areas.

As I mentioned, the BCGEU, hospitals, doctors and even the MLAs

have recognized that they all have to play a

part in this program. This

particular piece of legislation looks towards the education system and

how best we can give some assistance and guidance to having that sector

of our economy meet the challenge. The information in the bill allows a

full understanding on the part of school boards and teachers of what

can be done to achieve the goal that's been set out by the Minister of

Education and this government, so that they can play their

part in this

restraint program. With those comments, I'm pleased to support Bill 89.

I compliment the minister on bringing this piece of legislation before

the House.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I will take my place

briefly in this debate. I was shocked to hear the member just leaving

the chamber, who just spoke — he's not leaving the chamber; he's just

coming over to say hello — saying that he was defending a bill which

nobody in the province is defending except some government members in

this House. I was really shocked to hear that.

Under this

bill, non-teaching staff will be greatly reduced. There's no question

about that. School boards have served notice to their staff all over

the province that this will be the result of this bill. Special

programs will be curtailed. There's no question about that. The

minister knows that very well. I'm going to present evidence to the

minister of that charge in just a few moments.

Support staff

for teachers, including aides, will be reduced in some school

districts, probably in most school districts, under this bill — there's

no question about that — as will special education for seniors and

adults and the government's own programs for adult education. By the

government's own admission, "grants for school board night school

operations will be reduced by 33 percent over two years, with a 19

percent reduction in 1983 and a further 14 percent reduction in 1984.

The continuing education project system has already been reduced by 78

percent through 1982-83." Those are the ministry's own figures.

"College community education programs will be reduced by 65 percent,

with a 27 percent cutback in the 1982-83 allocation and a further 39

percent cutback in 1983-84." Those are figures from the ministry, and

not from anybody else.

Transportation assistance will be cut

back. I want to give the minister a small local example of those

cutbacks in transportation assistance right now — assistance which, I

might add, was brought in by a New Democratic government and minister

some eight or nine years ago. How time flies!

AN HON. MEMBER: When you're having fun!

MR. LOCKSTEAD:

It's not much fun these days in here. We have five children on Savary

Island who have to travel approximately two miles every day from Savary

Island to Lund in order to attend elementary school at Lund. The school

district, because of the recently announced cutbacks, will be

terminating the subsidy allowance to the water taxi operator to bring

those children over to attend school. That allowance came to

approximately $150 per month per child, in order that those children

may receive an adequate education. They have been told that this

assistance will be cut off at the end of October.

When I

spoke to people in the school district about it, they said that they

wanted to continue the program, but their hands are tied. They simply

don't have the money because of the other cutbacks they're going to

announce or bring to the minister's attention shortly. Although I've

already written them, I have now received correspondence from Savary

Island, and I will be sending the minister a copy of the letter

outlining the problem within the next couple of days. I hope that

something will be done in that particular case. Those children, by the

way — at least the parents of those children — were told that they

could take correspondence courses. We're all very much aware now of the

problems relating to correspondence courses in these situations,

particularly where these children do have the opportunity to attend a

regularly structured school.

Perhaps the most condemning

thing I can say about the bill now before us is to read a letter that

was sent home with every one of the 3,000 students in School District

47. This letter was signed by the chairman of the school board, and

reads in part:

"The board will do its utmost

to continue to provide education of a high standard, even with this

decrease in revenue, and as much consideration as is possible will be

given to reducing costs in areas that do not directly affect classroom

instruction. Transportation assistance will be cut back. Money for

sports trips and band trips will be eliminated. Non-teaching staff will

be reduced. Community use of schools will

[ Page 9555 ]

be curtailed. Support staff for teachers, including aides, will

be reduced, and so will special education services. Field trips and the use

of recreational complexes for cultural and athletic programs will be decreased

or eliminated."

Those

are some of the programs that are being cut. Every parent in that

particular school district — I have three school districts in my riding

— received a copy of that letter.

The minister probably

knows by now that there was a meeting of concerned parents, and it was

not sponsored by the teachers, the school board, the BCTF or the BCSTA,

in School District 47. That meeting, which was packed, was called by a

United Church minister and was held at the United Church hall. The

parents expressed their concern over the legislation now before us and

over previous cutbacks — cutbacks that affect the quality of education

in this province. This bill does exactly that, in my view, and in the

view of the several hundred concerned parents who attended that meeting

after receiving this letter.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Who's sending out the letters?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Marion L. Williams, Chairman, School District 47.

Excuse me, Mr. Speaker, I don't want to get in the crossfire but the minister asked me a question.

We'll

quote some more from School District 47, Powell River. This is a letter

that went to the Minister of Education, Mr. Vander Zalm, with copies to

a lot of people, including myself. That's why I've got it. I thought it

might have gone to the Premier; some have, this one didn't. It's a

three-page letter, I'm not going to quote all of it, but I do want the

minister to understand and realize what some school districts....

School District 46, theSun shine Coast school district, has said

something similar, as have many other school districts in the province,

I'll quote in part from the board of school trustees' correspondence to

the minister dated September 16, 1982:

"We fear that the real improvements in standards and services

to individual students will suffer a setback as a consequence of the ad hoc

decisions being forced upon us that may take years to correct. With the business"

— they're speaking to the minister here — "you are in (I mean nursery,

not government) I don't have to remind you how important long-range planning

is and how disastrous ad hoc planning is."

I read that paragraph to indicate the attitude of that particular board towards

the legislation now before us, Mr. Speaker. To quote another paragraph:

"No

matter what your intent, the real losers are our students and, in the

future, this community and province. These children pass by only once

in our schools, and a one- or two-year disruption in their education

can well reduce their potential for many years to come."

The

letter goes on to give 12 areas of immediate concern related in part to

this legislation and to previous decisions made by the government in

terms of cutbacks and other decisions. I don't think I'll read all of

these. I am sure the minister has heard these concerns a hundred times

during the course of this debate and has received hundreds of letters.

I don't think we're going to get an answer anyway. It would appear, Mr.

Speaker, that the government is determined to proceed with this

legislation. no matter what.

I have received some concerns from the Sunshine

Coast School District 46 teachers' association about Bill 89. This went

to the minister as well. The concerns that they list relating to the

quality of education and the decrease therein are things like this. The

bill will inevitably increase the pupil teacher ratio, which has gone

up considerably over the last couple of years. It will mean further

loss of special services and increased tensions in the classroom.

Already the cutbacks have resulted in the loss of the native

environmental study program, which the board has said it may reinstate

next year, pending funding and a decision by the minister, That program

won't be reinstated under this bill next year, Mr. Speaker. How can it

be? This program that's so vital to our native Indian children in that

part of the coast that I represent — how can that program be reinstated

under this bill? It can't be and it won't be.

They are

naturally opposed to this legislation and appalled at the assault on

the collective bargaining progress. I agree, this bill is an assault on

the collective bargaining process, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps nothing puts

the matter so much in context as a piece of correspondence that I

received late last week. It is dated September 23 and is from Sherilyn

Stedham in School District 47. In this correspondence she encloses a

letter from the then Minister of Education, Patrick L. McGeer, dated

March 8, 1978. This letter is from Mr. McGeer to this teacher.

am very pleased to express my deep appreciation to you for the

outstanding service you have rendered during the past school year....

On behalf of myself and the government of British Columbia I

congratulate you for the high level of competency which has been

recognized in your teaching, It is because of the efforts of dedicated

persons such as you that the educational system continues to receive

such high respect from the public of this province."

What does she have to say on September 23, 1982? This is a letter to the minister

with a copy to me and one to the Premier.

"I am distressed about the way your ministry is handling

the restraint program. I enclose a copy of commendation I received from your

ministry. Regardless of the quality of my teaching and my eight years of seniority

in Powell River School District, I face job termination on January 1, 1983."

She

is going to be laid off — fired! Under this bill, that is exactly what

will happen, and don't tell me it won't. She has been taken out of the

classroom, as I understand it, and currently placed on a substitute

list in that school district. That's the kind of thing that's

happening. That's why under this bill you can have no effect on that

decision. That's what's happening, Mr. Minister, and it is happening to

11 other teachers in that one district alone as of last week — now. She

goes on to request fair legislation so that school boards can take

seniority into account, etc. I know, Mr. Speaker, that the minister is

well aware of all of these matters, because this kind of correspondence

is coming in from all over the province. I have a long list of facts,

figures and cutbacks, but I think I'll refrain from going into that.

It's been gone over and canvassed in speech after speech in this House,

and I'm sure the record is full of facts and figures. My main concern

in getting up this afternoon and speaking in this House, Mr. Speaker,

was to let the minister know that I am talking with

[ Page 9556 ]

school

board members, that I am talking with teachers, students and parents,

but most important of all the students and the parents throughout my

whole riding. The reaction is almost unanimous: don't bring this bill

forward; drop it, leave it on the order paper. It's bad legislation.

MR. HANSON:

Mr. Speaker, for some time the members on this side of the House have

been telling the government that their spending priorities are haywire

and totally backward. We saw it over the last couple of years in the

area of health care, and now it is glaringly obvious in the area of

education. They have a megalomaniacal obsession with their large

resource-extractive projects, to which they've hung their political

futures in the northeast of this province. They have assigned the

taxpayers' dollars of the general treasury of this province to those

projects at the expense of fundamental services in health care and

education. For them to say that this is a recent restraint measure is

untrue. This process has been underway for some time now, and has

accelerated over the last year. Since October 1, 1981, at least, a

contrived and deliberate attack on education has been in place and

underway in British Columbia. I'd like to document that in my remarks.

have just a couple of comments by way of background about the

performance of this minister. I don't think any minister in the history

of British Columbia has been so successful in terrorizing the young

people of this province as this minister has in his six or eight weeks

as a minister of the Crown in this particular portfolio. That shouldn't

surprise us too much, because he is one of these people who likes to

win his political epaulets on the backs of those who cannot fight back.

I think you are aware, Mr. Speaker, of his performance when he was

first made a minister of the Crown in this province in Human Resources.

He went after those people on social assistance in a way we had not

seen since an earlier predecessor, Mr. Gaglardi, had undertaken a

similar course of action in this area.

The people of the

province did not respect the minister because of that. They realize

that people on social assistance are most vulnerable to that kind of

attack from a minister of the Crown. They cannot fight back. They're

totally defenceless. His political record is a series of these battles

where he attacks those people who are most defenceless in our society,

so he moved from Human Resources and created total chaos in Municipal

Affairs. He managed to mobilize even the most conservative elements of

local government against his highly centralist policies. He's on a

power trip. He loves to centralize and run things out of his bottom

drawer. He wants to assume all the power himself. No sooner had he

assumed the Education portfolio than he started to introduce a form of

county government into the education system of the province, attempting

to strip, right off the bat, local control over education, which is a

long-standing form of government in this province in terms of the

administration of education through duly elected officials taking

cognizance of local needs and participation of citizens in that process.

They don't want one minister controlling education. The school boards,

teachers, parents and children of this province do not want that minister controlling

their education, because he doesn't appreciate or respect the system. He

has an elitist notion of it. He does not respect the egalitarian aspects of

the public school system. You know, Mr. Speaker, that a public school system

is an egalitarian system that assumes that every child, no matter what the economic

circumstances of its family or situation, deserves every opportunity to achieve

excellence in academics or any other aspects of education. We know that that

is an objective that the public school system is aspiring to in philosophy.

know it is not achieved, because economic factors of a child's family

and so on clearly do impact heavily on their aspirations, achievement

and the kinds of goals they set for themselves, their parents set, and

so on. I think that it's clearly documented. If you were draw a line

north and south through Vancouver, you'd find the number of people

attending university far higher on the west side of Vancouver than on

the east side. It's not genetic or biological. It's cultural, financial

and economic factors. First citizens tend to live more on the east side

of town, and so on. What I'm saying is that the goals of a public

school system — the egalitarian notion that every child, no matter

where it resides, its economic circumstances or the geography of its

particular area — should not affect the quality of education granted to

it, nor should the price of real estate in the area dictate the number

of dollars going in to provide that education.

For some time

now we've known that the Social Credit government has no commitment to

the public education system. They are basically elitist in their

approach. When it comes to spending tax dollars, to their spending

priorities, they are enamoured with the political objectives of having

megaprojects that they can point to — projects of dubious economic

value, where no cost-benefit analyses have been carried out. They drain

tax dollars into those capital sinkholes at the expense of quality

services such as health and education, which is clearly false

economics. Certainly that is so with respect to health care. The public

of British Columbia is well aware that quality health care will not be

restored in this province until Social Credit goes the way it should,

the way of the dodo bird, and there's a new political realignment.

Anyone in the health industry, anyone who has been waiting for health

care, is aware of that particular issue. Cutting back on the amount of

money to children's education is, in the short term, totally wrong in

terms of economic planning, and in the long term it's going to be

disastrous and will cheat the children of the province out of future

opportunities, which no government should have the right to take away

from children.

Earlier I said that the cutbacks didn't start

in the Premier's February announcement on restraint. They started here

in Victoria in October 1981. The first realignment within the budget

for the Victoria School Board occurred when the pupil-teacher ratio was

expanded and 22 teachers were cut. There was a second round of cuts in

January 1982 that resulted in an additional expansion of the

pupil-teacher ratio, and 40 more classroom teachers were cut from the

list. In addition, six professional support staff were cut. One was a

speech therapist, another was a psychologist, one itinerant teacher

moving from one problem child to another within the district, three

elementary school counsellors, a district planner and one additional

half-position for a community relations officer. A further round of

cuts occurred in March 1982, a further $617,000. Classrooms were

enlarged, the number of split classes was increased, and an additional

60 teachers were cut out of the system.

So here we had an

impact on the educational system within the Victoria district, whereby

learning disabled children will receive less help. These are the

diagnostic services in terms of counselling and those professionals on

staff who could alert teachers to difficulties that a particular

student is having, could expand the district diagnostic testing to

signal

[ Page 9557 ]

red-flag the difficulties that students will have. If they're not

alerted to those facts, if parents are not made cognizant of the

difficulties their child has, in the long term those have a negative

impact all the way through the child's educational experience.

[Mr. Mussallem in the chair.]

Children

more to cope on their own. This is clearly a move away from the

egalitarian objectives of our public school system toward a more

elitist approach. Survive as best you can. If you're lucky enough to

have large amounts of money, get private tutoring, private education

and so on; if not, then tough.

Larger classes with less

individualized attention for children is also an impact of the cutbacks

in education. Clearly, when children they have the opportunity to work

in a classroom of 18 or 20 students, and all of a sudden an additional

four, five or six students are brought into the class and the teacher

has less time for each child, more learning disabilities go undetected.

People who, for one reason or another, are slow learners don't get the

added assistance. Aides are no longer there to assist in the

mainstreaming of disabilities and so on. The teacher is forced to pick

up all of these extra burdens, the added stress, and is less able to

give the needed care and attention to the child, and so on. Obviously,

larger classes with less individual attention are a negative in the

educational system. Split classes are chaotic; they are more

dislocating to people having one class in the morning, classes in the

afternoon and so on. French programs are being reduced in number.

Enriched courses for gifted children are being dropped and so on.

Clearly that cuts into the notion that every child, no matter what

their abilities are, should have the opportunity to achieve to the best

of their abilities, to achieve excellence in areas for which they have

a predisposition and an aptitude. We're going to be moving backwards,

as we have been doing in British Columbia for some period of time.

Counselling

services are seen as a frill by this government. School boards have had

to cut back in this area, where clearly if children are given an

opportunity to canvass interests and ideas they will have a better idea

of where their abilities and interests lie, what their long-range

career options may be, or will just have exposure to possibilities that

they had never entertained — perhaps going on to post-secondary

education, or some kind of professional career or vocation; options

that save time, prevent anxiety and so on, if those decisions are

properly made with all the information at hand. When counselling

services are extracted from the school system, who is hurt? It's the

children, as in all instances.

Modified programs in core

subjects for children with limited abilities are going to be curtailed

more and more. The government is cutting back on some 1940s notion of

what an education is in this world, when we all know that technology,

information systems and education are becoming extremely sophisticated.

Here in British Columbia we're being left behind. We've been behind for

many years in the production of professionals in the areas of

engineering and nursing. Currently there is obviously a downturn in the

economy, which in many ways is being exacerbated by the policies and

programs of this government. As you know, they don't plan: they don't

anticipate future needs. When we know we're going to have a shortfall

in engineers, nurses and other professionals in the future.... Rather

than gearing up and ensuring that our young elementary school students

and post-secondary students are aware of the long-term job market

trends and where the possibilities are going to be so they could have

some goal to aim towards, in actual fact we're cutting back areas of

post-secondary and elementary education, which will impair the

possibilities for these younger people when they get to the age when

they could be going on to some other professional career.

Library

services are being reduced; that, as much as anything, characterizes

this government's approach to education. They don't believe in

libraries; they've never been great supporters of a good public library

system in this province. It was not until 1972, and the efforts of the

now second member for Surrey (Mr. Hall) and his movement to expand the

public library system, to make sure that libraries were supported, so

that small communities had access to metropolitan library services....

We're going two steps forward and three or four backwards.

doesn't surprise me that this government is cutting back in education.

They've never been great supporters of the public education system.

They have allocated any surplus tax dollars — even operating tax

dollars — to projects without planning, without cost-benefit analyses

and without proper regard or the establishment of any, and of

infrastructure for our province. We have always been drawers of water

and hewers of wood. It's no accident that we are the chain-saw

operators. We are the people who drive the bulldozers. We are the

people who use our wages from those endeavours to try to buy the

digital calculators, electronic equipment, automobiles and so on which

are produced in other jurisdictions.

As a young British

Columbian growing up in B.C., in elementary school, some long time ago

now, it was pointed out to me in early social studies classes that we

were a primary resource-extractive province, that we didn't have

secondary processing, and that it was something we should have because

we would then tend to be less seasonal and less cyclical. We would be

able to stabilize our economy. We'd start managing our primary

resources more properly. We would add value to them and we'd get more

jobs out of them. Here we are 30-odd years later in virtually the same

position. We just provide the raw materials for other people; we're the

cupboard for the world. We don't even own our fish resources. We are

clearly losing control of our mineral resources to other nations. At

the same time, we have people in government who are ministers of the

Crown, charged with the responsibility of educating the young people so

that we'll be able to break out of this cyclical culture of poverty, in

the sense of being just the chain-saw operators — and I don't mean that

to disparage people who work in the woods carrying chain-saws, but

there are many other things that we can do as British Columbians....

We're a highly-skilled workforce in some respects, but we've never been

given the opportunity within our own economy to apply our skills for

ourselves and our families.

This minister has characterized

to the public, as clearly as possible, the Social Credit government's

commitment to education. He has stripped away the tweediness of his

predecessor, who, with his pipe and his tweed jacket, had the aura of

someone who cared for or perhaps had some commitment to education. But

this minister has stripped naked the Social Credit approach. To see the

concern and the anxiety and the real fear in children's eyes, and to

hear what they say to me and to others in this society, is no accident.

I don't

[ Page 9558 ]

know

how you did it, but you managed to do that within six weeks of assuming

your portfolio. You managed to create anxiety in almost every child in

this province, because they saw in you someone who wanted to take away

local authority, to influence the educational system in a very negative

and backward way, to move it back into some kind of simplistic sort of

pre-telephone notion of what education is in this province.

rank among the lowest in the entire country in the production of

engineers. The member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) is an

engineer himself, and he knows that we produce fewer engineers than

almost any other province in this country. At one time we ranked as

almost the best in the world. You write those beautiful little letters

to the editor, and you give little speeches in this House, but when

push comes to shove you vote with them every time, because if you

actually put up once and voted against them, you'd probably shake these

guys loose a little bit.

AN HON. MEMBER: You said it was terrible then.

MR. HANSON: I'm saying it is terrible now.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. The member will please address the Chair.

MR. HANSON:

It was amusing to see at the end of the last session, just as the

minister, who was stewarding his last disaster through this House — the

Land Use Act for doing away with the Islands Trust and virtually doing

away with local government in this province.... As soon as he was

reassigned and that bill was pulled, he said that his colleagues were

gutless. It's interesting that he calls his colleagues and the Premier

gutless, but only when they leave town, or from a great distance.

Here

he had the opportunity to be an advocate for the children of the

province — and a minister really should be an advocate in his

portfolio. The children of the province are looking to him — they have

looked to that ministerial portfolio — for someone who would be an

advocate for their own futures. But, you know, it's got to be the

supreme act of cowardice — as he's demonstrated on previous occasions —

to attack the children of the province. He's not acting on behalf of

the children of this province at all. For him to talk strictly in terms

of making some kind of phony economic argument to rationalize stripping

the public education system in this province, to move on to some

elitist system, and also to funnel those tax dollars into some projects

which he feels will save his political skin is absolutely immoral —

politically immoral, Mr. Speaker. I've seen very clearly what his

policies and his predecessor's policies have done over the last year a

half within this particular district, within Victoria. I know the

teachers are under stress. They are carrying a heavier load, attempting

to meet their own professional and moral commitments to the children.

Make no mistake about it, Mr. Speaker, those who say the teachers of

this province don't have a commitment to the children of this province

don't have a clue what they're talking about.

I've met

with many teachers here, and discussed the situation with them, and

they are prepared to work as best as possible. They understand that

economic times are not as strong as previous times; we all understand

that. But then you see the spending priorities: $125,000 to put Social

Credit logos on buses; $100,000 for a study to put a tunnel between

Vancouver Island and the mainland; $100,000 or more to make political

films using tax dollars; over $100,000 for the fancy 28-page brochure

about all the wonderful things you're doing for the children, the

disabled and the elderly in this province; $250,000 for furniture for

the Ministry of Finance last year. I saw the furniture that was taken

out of the Douglas Building, and the government employees looking at it

shook their heads because they couldn't believe you were replacing that

furniture. It was perfectly good; there was not a thing wrong with it.

It was replaced by furniture that was prefabricated in Ontario, brought

here to have the nuts and bolts screwed together on the lower mainland.

For $250,000, people in the Douglas Building got new desks and they

didn't even want them. They wanted that money used to fix up the

Glenshiel Hotel, to have more....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I would ask that the debate stay with Bill 89.

MR. HANSON:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am trying to point out to the minister that

the spending priorities of the government are wrong; that the

provisions of this bill strip money from the commitment to our children

and to education and reroute it to northeast coal and other projects,

when the money would be better invested in our children's future. That

is the logical sequence of the argument I am making, Mr. Speaker. It is

entirely consistent with the principle of the bill. The principle of

the bill is to take money from the children of this province and to

allocate it to a capital sinkhole in the northeast of this province,

one of dubious financial value to the province, where the cost-benefit

analysis has never been laid before the public so that they could see

any return in the future.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: On a

point of order, Mr. Speaker, I am offended by the fact that all of this

debate does not relate to the bill. The member from downtown Victoria

probably hasn't been off the Island for a good long while, and hardly

knows where northeast coal is. How he relates northeast coal to the

bill is beyond me, and I would ask that you draw this to his attention

again, Mr. Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The second member

for Victoria continues, but I would request again that he keep nearer

to the bill, He has been wandering too much and I think he knows that.

MR. HANSON:

Mr. Speaker, I think all members of the House are aware that there are

only so many tax dollars to provide the various services within the

provincial government's authority. There are only so many tax dollars,

and when we see the government stripping away $67 million from

education and tunnelling that same $67 million into northeast coal, my

remarks are entirely relevant.

My opening remark was that

the spending priorities of this government are absolutely haywire;

they're backwards. You don't extend your house and build a deck and a

sunporch, then tear the furnace and the electrical system out to do it

while living in Winnipeg. This is what this government is doing.

They're taking away the basics. As my colleague the first member for

Victoria (Mr. Barber) said, they're stripping away the basic

architecture of the education system and using that revenue to try to

enhance themselves politically with some economic venture, when the

people of the

[ Page 9559 ]

province

have never been given a frank and candid explanation of how many

dollars have been spent, to what extent the Crown corporations are

borrowing, adding to the indebtedness of the province, and so on.

Our

commitment is to education. We feel that when you take money away from

a learning-disabled child, you are not only impairing the future of

that child, but you are adding to the long-term social obligations that

may be incurred as a result of the support network that may have to

come around that child through his entire life. It is false economics.

don't afford that person an opportunity to acquire the dominant

language of our province, then you are going to make it more difficult

for that person to become a functioning productive member of our

community, and that makes bad economic sense as well. When you cheat a

child and a child's future, you reap the negative benefits further down

the road.

To not offer enriched or gifted programs, larger

classes, split classes, taking away counselling, taking away field

trips, taking away the ways in which children become more aware of the

broader community and their role in it, their responsibilities and

obligations, taking away and cutting back on library services and so

on, are clearly the hallmark of Social Credit education policy. The

teachers are now very aware of it. The children are aware of it. I hope

that when the election comes the people of the province will help us,

because we cannot stop you. We win the debates in this House on every

issue, but we lose all of the votes. We cannot stop you. If you want

Bill 80 and you want seven seats or 15 seats, we cannot stop you. Only

the people can stop you. And we're hoping that come the next election

the people will stop you in your tracks.

MR. MACDONALD:

I would be the last one to want to repeat the arguments that have been

very ably made from this side of the House. But I have a few things to

say about Bill 89, and the Speaker will be listening to my words to

ensure that I do not stray from the bill.

I continue,

however, to be amazed at this session of the Legislature, which led to

the introduction of Bill 89. It has been a comedy of errors on the part

of the government unparalleled in the history of this province. We came

here on September 13 in sort of a rush session with very little notice.

I relate that to the bill in this way: the government did not try to

consult the educational community, by which I mean the good teachers of

the province, the trustees, the parent-teacher organizations and all

those who have an interest in the very excellent educational system

which has been developed in this province but which is now in very

serious difficulties. We were called in a rush session for purely

political reasons to gerrymander, through Bill 80 — and I make just a

passing reference to that — and pass one or two goodie bills, and then,

with the good sage advice of those political operatives from Ontario,

the grey-flannel suits in the Premier's west wing, we were to go to an

election.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, on a point

of order, I understand we are debating one specific bill at the present

time and not reviewing the whole session. I wonder if the member could

possibly talk about the bill under debate.

MR. MACDONALD:

Mr. Speaker, in reply to that interjection, let me say how what I am

saying relates to Bill 89 now before the House. It is a measure that

was rushed through in desperation without consultation with the

educational community. There would have been time for consultation if

we had not been rushed into session for the political purposes of the

Premier. That's the reason I have brought up the strange session in

which we are engaged, which has been called purely for political

purposes.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

The result

of this sudden surgery on the educational system which we see in Bill

89 is that it has taken place quite needlessly. The problems of

education could have been solved out there by cooperation and

leadership instead of confrontation. So the Legislature sits through

this very strange session into which we've been hurried for political

purposes. Then we get Bill 89, not because the people within our very

good educational system are not meeting — they're well aware that there

is a recession. and perhaps worse than a recession — and working on the

problems that a recession entails for education. We were given Bill 89

because the Premier, wanting to go to an election to survive

politically at all costs, perceived that there were dangers in the

educational system in terms of the politics of consutation, rather than

cooperation and consultation, that marked this government, particularly

in the last year or two,

It was the Premier who appointed

the Minister of Education some very short while ago — only about six

weeks ago. Oh, it's more than that now. Yet on the weekend before last,

it was the same Premier who, for political reasons — not educational

reasons — decided that he would intervene with his grey-flannel

advisers from the province of Ontario who are running this province for

political reasons. That's what's happening in British Columbia. I don't

think the cabinet knows what's going on or what's coming next — that he

would be Mr. Big Guy, and take the Minister of Education to the

woodshed and publicly humiliate him.

This bill doesn't

represent the authorship of the Minister of Education at all. It was

drafted in the west wing. It was drafted as one more attempt by the

Premier to shore up his political image and that of this faltering

government, with a view to an election. That's what we have. There's no

reason to switch this often in educational policies within a single

fiscal year. Come on! How long ago is it since we were here debating

the Education (Interim) Finance Act? Because of the

recession-cum-depression, which was already plainly visible — the

projects were there — last June we debated a bill under which sweeping

powers were given to the Education minister. The homeowner school tax

was increased as a result of that by about 30 percent. The industrial

base, which is part of our educational formula. was swept out from

under the control of the local school boards and given to the

government.

If this government had any foresight that that

was what they had done for education. surely it would not be necessary

to rush back within three or four months with a new bill that

represents another attack on the educational system. I wonder, when you

think of the necessity of this bill, whether the budgeting process

hasn't gone completely out of the window in the province of British

Columbia. Does the budget mean anything today? The budget was debated

last spring. The economic forecasts could have been made at that time.

The teachers negotiated their salary conditions for the coming year.

The school boards prepared their budgets. Since that time there have

been four interventions by government in the educational system.

[ Page 9560 ]

wonder there is confusion out there. No wonder the whole educational

system — I mean the trustees as well as the teachers and parent-teacher

associations — believe that this government has run out of control and

that it doesn't know what it's doing. If we pass this bill, how long

will it last before some other intervention is planned by this

government? A government so desperate and unable to plan its finances

that it leases off and puts buses in the public transportation system

that have to be recovered at some later date by the taxpayer at an

additional cost of some $12 million, into pawn, just doesn't know what

it's doing. It's plunging the province into debt.

I don't

think the minister who is now presenting this bill was the author of

it. I think he's defending it as best he can. I think that so many

inconsistent statements made about education have sown confusion and

concern in the ranks of all British Columbians. The bill itself will

also dump another load of taxation on the homeowner at the local level

and save money for the provincial Education budget. It allows for the

non-shareable capital-cost budget to be used for operating expenses.

don't know of any other province in Canada that could not have planned

better for this period of hard times than the government we see

opposite. Had there been planning, some foresight or some consultation,

the school system would have solved its own problems — financial as

well as educational — by consultation, and you wouldn't have needed to

bring down this kind of hammer bill, after all the switches that have

already taken place within a very short period of time in the

educational system of the province.

We have a government

that is governed by polling, not by educational requirements, health

requirements or the requirements of prudence in the management of

resources. We have a government that has imposed a surcharge on

northeast coal which, when the project is working, will recover one

third of the interest on the new debt incurred by B.C. Railway and the

government for northeast coal. That is good management, good husbandry?

Had it not been for these ill-considered megaprojects, negotiated on a

most unbusinesslike basis, with no conception of the cost, just concern

for the political glitter, we would not be here debating this bill at

the present time. Had the Premier not called the Legislature into

session last September 13 for the purpose, as I said, of the

gerrymander bill and an election, we would not be here debating Bill

89. The process of consultation would have made Bill 89 unnecessary.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: That's relevant to the bill. Even the Minister of

Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) is smiling a little bit, because he knows perfectly

well that what I'm saying is true. Bill 89 wouldn't be necessary had

there been consultation. There's consultation in the health field at the

present time, as I understand it. Why not with education? Why bring in the hammer,

in the form of this bill? Why switch policies every three months? Can we be

sure that this is the last of your sudden switches in policy'? After this

bill, can we be sure that what's left of the educational system can live

until the next budget? When we hear the next budget — if it's brought in

by this government — can we be sure that it will have any meaning at all for

Finances, Education, social services and health services? The budget delivered

by the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis), including the Education estimates,

has had no meaning whatsoever in this current fiscal year. It's just a joke

to took back on it. Those Education estimates have been altered in a major way

at least three times. Where is the foresight and planning? We're told that

this is a government of businessmen who know the bottom line, who are prudent

and who plan. I've never seen on the part of any government such chaotic

staggering from one crisis to another.

Here

I am in the Legislature debating Bill 89 — 1 haven't forgotten the

number. I've come back to 89 because that's my touchstone to keep me in

order. Here I am, taking issue with some members opposite, many of whom

are ministers of the Crown with their own portfolios — the Minister of

Education is included. In the case of the Minister of Education, the

Premier swooped in with those grey-flannel advisers, produced this bill

and undercut him. Each of the other ministers has been undercut, and

they all know it. They all know that we have a one-man government — or,

let's say, a clique in the west wing. It's government by people who are

more concerned with the polls and with popularity, whether we should go

for an election now, whether this mega will look good to the people of

the province, regardless of expense. Every one of them knows that he is

not in charge or participating fully in the planning of government

policies.

This is a very bad bill, and I think that it's

most regrettable that you should have so many switches in. an

educational system — switches of policy, switches of finance, switches

of financial formulas — in one short fiscal year, which is only six

months from the time the budget was brought down. That's what we've

had. The Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) is smiling. He knows

that everything I say is true. He knows that in his own department, if

there are some political brownies to be won, and the guys down in the

west wing in the Premier's office and the publicity people and the

polling people see it, that he'll just have a new policy foisted on him

so quickly his head will be spinning, and he won't have anything to say

about it. Never mind if it's good for the forests, or reforestation, if

that has to go. It doesn't matter. It's all politics. That's what this

bill is. It was to solve a political emergency, but it's done

irreparable harm to the educational system. You don't tinker with that

kind of a system. You don't tinker all through a fiscal year without

doing harm to an educational system of which we had reason to be proud

before this government got its hands on it.

You say in Bill

89 that you're going to save some special classes. Heavens above,

already the educational system has been gutted of some of those special

services to children that made it an important service which was as

fine as any in Canada or any in the world. Now you destroy morale, now

you cut further, now you put more on the local taxpayer, and you can't

even last with one policy for three months let alone for a fiscal year.

This bill and the other legislation we have been debating in this short

session should have been deferred until the government came up with

some real planning, after consultation with the people of British

Columbia. It's a government that's proceeding by the blind staggers. As

I say, I feel little sympathy for the minister who has been so severely

undercut. After all his statements, one way or the other, which spread

confusion and confrontation throughout the educational system, finally

the Premier comes in with his and adds additional chaos so that morale

is bad. Why don't you trust the people of the province in the various

services? Give

[ Page 9561 ]

the

teachers, the trustees and the parents who are very concerned about the

educational system a chance to make their contribution to the solution

of the problems of British Columbia, and you'll get cooperation,

the Premier were to get over his jitters and call the election this

year, if the indecision is not terminal in his case, I can think of no

better way in which this opposition could go to the people of British

Columbia than by suggesting that we should begin consultation with

people in a common effort to resolve problems rather than using the

confrontation tactics of the government that are tinged with politics

all the way through, and that's a lot of what we see in this bill. I

oppose this kind of interference in the educational system of B.C.

MS. SANFORD:

Mr. Speaker, I don't think anyone who has been watching the Social

Credit Party over the years should be surprised about the cutbacks in

education, because the Social Credit philosophy has never made

education a priority. They've never considered that our children are

our number one resource. So there's nothing new in finding that the

megaprojects are going ahead without any cutbacks whatsoever, but

education and health are being cut back by this government. There's

nothing new at all about that.

The Minister of Education is

rubbing his hands in glee as he views the first steps that he has taken

in dismantling the education system. Sitting there in his ivory tower,

he just can't wait to dismantle, little by little, through more and

more cuts — at least two more cuts next year — the system which

provides an education for the children of this province. We all know

what he wants: he wants a county system. He wants a system whereby

school boards are eliminated entirely and the minister down here in his

ivory tower in Victoria can dictate exactly what's going to happen

within the school system in this province. This is only the beginning,

and it's a tragedy for the kids of the province.

I've never

seen the teachers of the province as demoralized as they are now as a

result of the actions of the government. This is the fourth time that

the goal-posts have been moved, that they have been told that there

will be cuts here and additional cuts there, and then again something

else changes, and now we have this bill before us today. The reason

that we have this bill is that (

a) education is not a priority and (

b) the government is so desperate to try to come up with some issue on

which they can go to the polls that they are prepared — as blatantly as

they have in this bill and with other cuts — to dismantle the education

system. They're prepared to do that. Education is not a priority with

them. It doesn't matter if the education cutbacks are made. It doesn't

matter if the teachers are demoralized in the school system. Think of

the kind of education that the kids in the province are getting when

you have the teachers of the province as demoralized as they are as a

result of the actions of this government. It's difficult enough to be a

good, effective teacher day after day in this province without having

the kind of attitude towards education that we have seen exhibited by

the government during the last few months.

The parents are

dismayed, the school boards are dismayed, the teachers are dismayed,

and it's the children who suffer. They'll continue to suffer for the

rest of this year. and they will suffer even more next year. If this

government is re-elected again, we will continue to see a dismantling

of the system.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: It's when, not if.

MS. SANFORD:

Help our children if that minister stays in Education, Mr. Speaker. Let

us hope that there is an election so that at least that change can be

made.

Within districts 69 and 71, which I represent, a

number of problems have come to my attention as a result of the

cutbacks that the school boards have been forced to make as a result of

the cutbacks in the education funding applied by this government. Do

you know what it's like, Mr. Speaker, for a child to arrive in a

classroom of 27 or 28 children, or sometimes more, when there is no

teacher? One of the things that has happened in my school district —

and I hope the minister listens — is that when a teacher is ill and is

not able to attend that class, it has been ordered that there be no

substitutes hired. Do you know what kind of chaos results in a school

when there is a teacher away, with 26 or 27 or however many pupils who

are without any kind of instructor, and the other teachers are somehow

supposed to fill in and make up for that absence because the school

board is unable to afford to hire a substitute? This is a policy that

has been adopted, and it is a policy which the school board members

themselves are saying is resulting in chaos in the classrooms. Has that

made any difference to the attitude of the government or to the

attitude of the minister towards the funding cutbacks? Not one iota.

The

other thing is that this government has such indecisive leadership and

is so uncertain as to what to do at this moment that they keep changing

those goal-posts. They keep forcing an issue which they hope will lead

them to the polls. It's a seat-of-the-pants operation, that's what it

is, and it's the students of this province that are suffering as a

result. What we see is an increasing trend toward centralization, and

we are certainly aware of the attitude of the present Minister of

Education with respect to centralization. We saw that very clearly in a

bill that he had to abandon when he was the Minister of Municipal

Affairs. Even his colleagues could not accept at that stage that much

centralization all in one bill, but this is the centralization that"s

taking place under this legislation.

The school trustees

from the two school districts within my constituency tell me that the

amount of time that they have had to spend — or that they've been able

to spend — as school trustees discussing the education that's delivered

in the classrooms of those districts has been virtually nil, because of

the fact that they've now had four separate changes from this

government. relating to education and education funding. The staff of

the school board offices spend all of their time drawing up budgets. If

the minister keeps changing the goal-posts in the way in which they

have, then obviously that's all the school boards are going to be able

to do anyway. They were elected locally to help provide a better

education for the students within that district that they represent.

The only thing they can do is to readjust the figures because of the

cutbacks that occur time after time through this government.

I'm

wondering how the various small business people in the province feel,

who may have any kind of contract with the provincial government at

this time. It's become clear through this legislation — and I know

others have spoken on this — that it matters not to the members on the

government's side that contracts are broken. A contract has been broken

through this legislation. Where does that leave anyone else in this

province who may have a contract with government? This government

cannot be trusted to keep a simple contract. Here we have a prime

example of a contract being broken without any reference to the people

who are affected or to the school boards who were involved in

negotiating the contract in the

[ Page 9562 ]

first place, even though most of them have been settled through arbitration.

One

of the things contained in the bill is a provision for the expenditure

of non-shareable capital on operating costs. I know that others have

also mentioned this, but it is very unfair to expect school districts

who have at this stage larger sums of money in the non-shareable

capital funds to be able to use those for operational costs, because it

puts at a disadvantage those school districts who do not have very much

set aside in their non-shareable capital funds. For instance, the

difference in the amount of money that's available now to various

school districts for operating budgets is so wide that in some areas

there is absolutely nothing that they can add out of the non-shareable

funds for operating costs. In other districts they may be looking at

several million dollars that they can now apply to their operating

budgets, and it's unfair. It seems to me that if the government wishes

to take this route, they should ensure that there is some equity in the

amount of money that's available to the various school districts.

know what that

section is all about. It's just the first step in

increasing the amount of money that the homeowner is going to have to

pay for education costs. With the use of these non-capital funds for

operating budgets, school districts, who are so hard-pressed as a

result of these cutbacks — and the cutbacks that they're about to face

next year — will be increasing the taxes that the homeowners pay in

order to meet their operating budgets. It's inequitable; it's unfair.

I'm wondering if the minister, when he winds up debate of second

reading, could make some reference to the use of those noncapital funds

and give this House some assurance that he will attempt to make the

expenditure of those funds more equitable throughout the province.

School districts are going to be penalized. Some of them have zero

dollars to spend under that fund. I would like the Minister to give us

some assurance that he will attempt to bring in some equity.

This

is a typical approach of Social Credit: charge ahead with the

megaprojects and deny children the basic right to develop to their full

potential. It's criminal when students in this province are denied the

right to attain their full potential. It is a wrong that we on this

side of the House cannot and will not support.

The other

thing is that because of these cutbacks we will be finding increasingly

that young people are not able to cope within the system. Special

programs are going to be reduced, eliminated or altered. The

pupil-teacher ratios are going to increase. Teachers are demoralized.

School boards will be spending all of their time trying to work out

budgets; finding ways to cut, cut, cut. There are going to be students

in this province who, because they cannot cope within the system that

has been provided by this Social Credit government, are going to turn

to antisocial behaviour. There's no doubt about that. The costs

involved in the antisocial behaviour are going to have to be paid by

the taxpayer as well.

It's a costly approach, in the long

run, that this government is taking to providing education for our

students. We cannot accept the approach. I hope the Premier finds an

issue on which to go to the people, because I would like, first of all,

to remove that minister from his portfolio in education; and secondly,

to remove this government from office.

MR. MITCHELL:

Rising to enter into the debate on Bill 89, I think each one of us

should look at how it is going to affect the province of British

Columbia and our particular tidings. I think it's really important that

when you look at the two contexts you also look at why this particular

bill was brought in. The second member for Vancouver East (Mr.

Macdonald) referred to it when he said that this is a political bill.

Basically, this is a political bill. It is designed to do one thing: to

draw a red herring or put up a smokescreen in front of what happened in

the original one and two restraint programs the government brought in.

A lot of taxpayers and parents of students didn't realize the impact

that happened when the other bills and restraint regulations came out

of the ministry, and how they were going to affect their particular

school district and the school their children were attending.

Before

I get into that it's important, for the record, to establish some of

the procedures that take place when a school board is preparing a

budget and the community input that comes to those who are elected to a

very responsible position as a member of a school board. Mr. Speaker,

you with your past experience know that in every community there are a

few people who spend hours and hours preparing — would you say — the

factory or facilities so that the children of this province and those

who are going to inherit it can have the background and groundwork

needed to face the changing economics, changing technology, the

changing approaches to social disorders — to build the security that a

country as rich as Canada and as rich as B.C. can produce.

One

of the major school districts in my particular riding is Sooke School

District. It is known within the ministry as School District 62. It is

very interesting, Mr. Speaker, to note that not only are they School

District 62, but they were also number 62 out the 75 school districts

in this province in terms of cuts to their budget. To put it another

way, they were sixty-second as far as any increase in their budget over

1981 was concerned. As the minister knows, and as I imagine his deputy

has explained to him, when they start producing a budget — normally in

the school year.... The school boards are working on their budgets for

the next year in September, October and November. They are going

through the facts and figures and predicting what the costs are going

to be, and what their enrolment is going to be. In the Sooke School

District it is no different. When they brought in their budget in the

fall of 1981, at one of their early meeting in late 81-82, they brought

in an original budget which called for a 21.77 percent increase over

Then they realized from their figures that that was a

ballpoint high mark. As a responsible group of elected people, they

knew that that was not going to be the budget that they would end up

with. Being a group that believed in public input, they held five

meetings throughout the school district, where they had delegations

from various ratepayers' groups — parent-teacher groups, business

community groups and chamber of commerce groups — give input as to what

the community needed. When you realize that Sooke School District is

mostly composed of an area which is the largest unincorporated area

with the highest density in all of Canada, then you realize that public

input is essential for an elected group, not only to get the best

schooling but also to get the type of interest from those who are going

to benefit. After their five meetings and the input that they felt was

justified, the budget was cut to an 18.19 percent increase over 1981.

Then

what happened? They presented that budget that they felt was a viable

budget, a budget that fitted into the restraints they felt the

community could absorb. It was a budget they felt reflected some of the

wealth of British Columbia. At that point, though we had had a glowing

provincial budget given by the Minister of Finance and were told

[ Page 9563 ]

that

British Columbia had never been in such good condition — excellent

condition, I believe he said — that we had a future in which the money

was there and that the strength of British Columbia would support the

budget that he brought in, the then Minister of Education brought in

his first restraint program. Their budget was submitted to the Ministry

of Education. The first restraint program cut the budget to a 16.34

percent increase over last year. While we all realize that the teachers

may have negotiated a 17 percent increase, that is only a part of the

budget. The main concern of any elected body is to prepare for the

education needs of the student population. What did the first restraint

program do to that area and that particular budget? It cut out a lot of

needed programs and planning.

They rewrote the budget. They

followed all the guidelines of the ministry. As I say, this is the

third budget they were working on. The first was the one that came in

in the beginning of the year. The second was the budget they brought in

after the public input. And then they, were on their third budget that

took in the first restraint program. They got that all written. They

came within all the guidelines. They did all the necessary cuts that

they had to do to come within the guidelines.

Then we had a

change in the goal-posts, as the member for Comox (Ms. Sanford) said.

They changed the goal-posts again and brought in another restraint

program. Another $60 million had to be cut off the budgets of British

Columbia, and in particular to the Sooke School District. Their budget

then was cut to 13.84 percent of an increase over 1981 — from 21

percent to 18 percent to 16 percent down to 13 percent.

What

did this do to the Sooke School District? I know it's easy to confuse

people with facts and figures and percentages. But what did it do that

this bill now says that we are not going to do? This bill — getting

back to Bill 89 — said we are not going to cut out any special —

education programs; we are not going to cut out any school teachers; no

school teachers will lose their jobs. But because of the restraint

program of the Social Credit government, in the Sooke School District

alone, they have cut out 23 school teachers. I'm using the figure of 23

because the teachers tell me it's 24 and the school board tells me it's

23. Being a very law-and-order and conservative person, I use the

figure of 23. It also cuts out 12 custodians, employees who maintain

the school so that it's in excellent shape. It cut out eight

maintenance workers, who lost their jobs because of the restraint that

cut into the school facilities in the Sooke district. It also

eliminated five secondary school librarian aides.

The one

thing that I would like to bring to the attention of the minister....

Again, if you want to use statistics, one school lost 25 percent of its

teachers. Not only that, but they lost 100 percent of the

special-education teachers. I know figures may confuse you, but there

were only four to begin with in that particular school. That was the

school in the west end of my riding in Port Renfrew — an area with a

lot of native Canadians, a lot of children from loggers' families.

There were only four teachers in that particular school.

MR. MUSSALLEM:

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I draw to your attention that the

hon. member, probably in good faith, has stated that there are certain

people who have been discharged from the school system. This bill

prevents exactly that, and I hope he understands it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER:

That is not a point of order from the member for Dewdney. Any member of

this Legislative Assembly is allowed to bring an opinion to this

Legislative Assembly, and stands on his own word.

MR. MITCHELL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for supporting my position, and I am glad that

the member for Dewdney reinforced what I have been saying, because this

bill is only a political smokescreen to hide the facts of what has

happened under this government. This was brought in to hide the facts.

It was a political smokescreen, and these teachers have been eliminated.

HON. MR. HEWITT:

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I wanted to correct a statement. The

Speaker,yourself, sir, did not support the position of the member for

Esquimalt–Port Renfrew, but supported his right to speak his views in

this House. I think that should be on the record.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That's not a point of order either.

MR. MITCHELL:

To reinforce what I said to begin with, and what the second member for

Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) said, even the Whip of this government,

who has read this bill, actually believes the propaganda in it, that

this bill makes it illegal to lay off any...that no teachers will lose

their jobs. Teachers have lost their jobs in 1982 in the Sooke school

district because of the policies of the Social Credit government: 23

teachers, 12 custodians, eight maintenance workers and five secondary

school library aides have lost their jobs. I know the groundswell that

was coming from the general public because of these cutbacks. The

parents were realizing what was happening to their school district.

They were beginning to understand what effect it was going to have on

their children. Then they brought in a bill that is an insult to the

intelligence of the voters of British Columbia, and says that no one

will lose their jobs and there will be no cutbacks.

I would

like to tell the member for Dewdney that there have been cutbacks. and

the quality of education in British Columbia under this government has

deteriorated throughout the length and breadth of British Columbia,

especially in the school district I represent. It doesn't matter how

you put up a smokescreen or what type of political propaganda you use

the facts are there. The effect of this government on the school

district is being felt. To bring in a bill that's going to try to hide

what is happening out there is not going to work. If anything, it's the

policies of this government to the population.... Rank and file

workers, professional people and grandparents who have children going

to school are not going to be fooled by a piece of political propaganda

known as Bill 89. One of the previous speakers has already said that

not only are the teachers concerned and realizing the danger of what's

happening, but so are school trustees and people from all walks of life

who have no particular axe to grind. They have no vested interest in it.

lot of dedicated people have put hours, days and months into trying to

understand what particular regulations this government's going to come

out with next. They tell me that normally by the end of April their

school budget is in place. They then have a few months to rest in the

summer before getting back into the new budget for the fall. But this

year school trustees in my area have lost their summer holidays, They

spent August rewriting a budget because the

[ Page 9564 ]

government

decided to change the goal-posts. This is not a small group. They have

a budget of $26 million. With the cooperation of about three

supervisory personnel, they have lived within that budget. They have

less than one-half of I percent of a surplus. With a $26 million

budget, this government could not bring in.... There's not one ministry

in this government that brought in an original budget and lived within

it, yet they came in with less than one-half of 1 percent surplus. They

ended up with a $7