1998/99 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 36th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1999

Afternoon

Volume 15, Number 7

[ Page 12565 ]

The House met at 2:07 p.m.

Hon. G. Clark: I have a series of introductions today. First of all, sitting in the gallery is Ian Kydd, consul general for the United Kingdom. He's accompanied by four officials from the United Kingdom who are responsible for welfare-to-work policies and are here studying the policies of the British Columbia government: Mark Neale, Heather Kempton, Nancy Braithwaite and Martin Betts. Also, Renee Saklikar from my Youth Office is with them. They're visiting British Columbia to share ideas on what the Blair government is doing in Britain and to listen to some of the changes we've made in the last few years in Welfare to Work. Would the House please make them welcome.

It's also my privilege to introduce Jason Op de Beeck, a grade 10 student attending Arbutus Junior Secondary School in Victoria. Jason is here from a career and personal planning class, and he's job-shadowing me for the day.

Hon. J. Kwan: It's a pleasure to recognize in the House today staff from the fire commissioner's office and members from the three firefighters associations in British Columbia.

Representing the Volunteer Fire Fighters Association of B.C. are Mac Gregory from Castlegar, Bob Haddow from Okanagan Falls, Jim Nelson from Warfield, Les Schumacher from Smithers, Rick Stark from Duncan and Mike Walsh from Gibsons. Representing the Fire Chiefs Association of B.C. are Murray Bryden from Saanich, Bill Musgrave from View Royal, Jack Preston from Oak Bay, Glen Sanders from Shawnigan Lake and Frank Thoresen from Victoria. Representing the B.C.

Professional Fire Fighters Association are Bob Brett from Vernon, Terry Ritchie from Burnaby, Paul Bruce from Victoria, Stan Lajoie from Victoria, Darren Hughes and Matt Clayton from Oak Bay, and Mike Burgess and Rob Heppel from Saanich. And finally, representing the office of the fire commissioner are Rick Dumala, Grant Lupton, Gordon Anderson, Al McLeod and Virginia Katan.

Would the House please make them all feel very welcome.

M. Coell: I have four friends in the legislative precinct today: Murray and Bernice Duncan and Bill and Eva Doyle. Will the House please make them welcome.

S. Hawkins: It's my honour to introduce some fruit growers from the Okanagan who made their presence known at the Legislature this morning: Al Clark, Gord Ivans, Pete Steeves, Nicole Ackerman, Sheila Ackerman, Mike Sterling, Brian MacDonald, Gerry and Sandy Shaw, Robin and Shelly Holitki, John Duncan, Penny Gambell and Russell Husch of the B.C. Fruit Growers' Association. I hope the government listened to their concerns this morning. Would the House please make them welcome.

[1410]

W. Hartley: Today in the gallery we have some 17 grade 6 students, ten adults and their teacher, Ms. Taylor. They're here to learn about comparative government and local history, and they're from Fernwood Elementary School in Bothell, Washington. Would members please welcome them.

Hon. J. MacPhail: Today we are fortunate to be joined in the Legislature and in the legislative precincts by people who are very important to us here. Our executive assistants, who represent us ably in the riding, are here improving their skills in order to be better able to represent us back home.

Hon. G. Clark: Meeting the ministers.

Hon. J. MacPhail: Yeah. "Meeting the ministers," the Premier says. I would ask the House to please make them all welcome.

Hon. L. Boone: The Minister of Finance mentioned it, and I just wanted to mention that my executive assistant, Pauline Carroll, is here. Also with Pauline is Nicole Normand from my office here in the precincts, and her friend Lee Ann Dunseith. Would the House please make them all welcome.

E. Conroy: It gives me great pleasure to introduce the mayor of Trail -- one of the most bustling communities in the constituency of Rossland-Trail -- Mr. Jim Nelson, and his wife. Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. M. Sihota: I was pleasantly surprised to see Chief Musgrave from View Royal in the gallery today. He represents a fine tradition of volunteer firefighters in the Western Communities -- in his case, View Royal -- and he's done an outstanding job. I was glad to see him here; I don't see him here all that often. So I'd like to give him a warm welcome.

Introduction of Bills

FIRE SERVICES AMENDMENT ACT, 1999

Hon. J. Kwan presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Fire Services Amendment Act, 1999.

Hon. J. Kwan: I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Motion approved.

Hon. J. Kwan: I'm pleased to present amendments to the Fire Services Act. This bill gives formal recognition to two very important medals issued by the B.C. fire commissioner. The B.C. long-service medal is awarded to firefighters who have helped keep communities safe for 25 years. The second medal is the medal of bravery. This medal is awarded to firefighters for acts of courage beyond expectations in the normal course of his or her duty.

British Columbians rely on firefighters every day. Whether they're professionals or volunteers, firefighters place their lives on the line to keep our families, homes and businesses safe from fire hazards. The medals we are recognizing today demonstrate our deep appreciation for their courage and sustained commitment to our communities.

I'm very pleased that the B.C. fire commissioner, Rick Dumala, and representatives from the Fire Chiefs Association of B.C., the B.C. Professional Firefighters Association and the Volunteer Fire Fighters Association of B.C. have joined us in the gallery today for the introduction of this important legislation.

Hon. Speaker, I move that Bill 60 be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

[ Page 12566 ]

Bill 60 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

[1415]

Oral Questions

EFFECT OF GOVERNMENT POLICIES ON TREE FRUIT INDUSTRY

AND FOOD PROCESSING

B. Barisoff: The agriculture industry in B.C. is under huge stress. Last year in B.C., 21 food and beverage operations shut their doors. The tree fruit growers are concerned that thousands of jobs and a whole way of life are being destroyed by this government.

Will the Minister of Agriculture tell us why, after suffering for years under the NDP's high taxes and excessive regulations, they have to be insulted by the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, who calls them chicken because they have to do business outside B.C.?

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. C. Evans: I am going to pretend like the rhetorical part of that question wasn't in there and respond to the issue . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members . . . .

Hon. C. Evans: . . . having actually to do with the producers in the room. It is true that the tree fruit sector is suffering huge stress, as the hon. member describes it, having to do largely with the effects of heat on the 1998 crop. Actually, this morning I met, as did the Premier and several other ministers and MLAs -- probably half the folks on this side and quite a few on the other side -- to talk about (1) how to deal with the stressed-fruit issue, (2) how to deal with the difficulties around whole-farm disaster insurance, and (3) how to deal with the future of the replant program.

I hope the hon. member actually cares about these issues as much as he does about the politics he wishes to dump on top of it.

B. Barisoff: If the minister and particularly the members on that side of the House thought a little less about politics, they'd pay a little bit more attention to the farmers.

According to the Packaging Association of Canada, in addition to 21 food and beverage companies that shut down last year, 30 more are on the brink of shutting down or leaving the province this year. If the food processors go, the farmers won't be far behind.

Will the Minster of Agriculture tell us why the NDP has done nothing to reduce regulatory and taxation burdens on the agriculture industry and farming families across British Columbia?

Hon. C. Evans: I guess the hon. member can be forgiven for having to read his question. If he actually dealt with these issues on a day-to-day basis, hon. Speaker, he'd have been part of the ten-point plan for the environment and the deregulation of that sector that we've been working on for two years with the Ag Council. He'd have been part . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members, let's hear the answer.

Hon. C. Evans: . . . of the review. He'd have been part . . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members, the answer, please.

Hon. C. Evans: I hope the producers in the room notice that the questioner was not shouted down while he asked his question. The hon. member, hon. Speaker, might have observed or taken

part in the review of labour standards and how they affect the agriculture sector. The hon. member might have noticed when fuel taxes went down for farmers or when we changed the regulations around wineries. But the hon. member hasn't paid a single bit of attention -- hasn't asked a question in two years -- and last month, when I asked him to go with me and all the other agriculture ministers to discuss Canada's response to the GATT, the Leader of the Opposition wouldn't even let him attend the meeting.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

[1420]

M. de Jong: Well, let's see how the Minister of Agriculture deals with these issues on a day-to-day basis, Madam Speaker. It was only a few months ago that the Mainland Dairymen's Association wrote to him -- wrote to his office -- with a concern, an issue they were concerned about. Listen to the response they got from the minister's office: "Well, you know, we really don't get a chance to read our mail." And it said: "It would help reduce our mail-opening workload, save trees and, hopefully, also save you postage costs if you would take this office off your mailing list." That's how that minister deals with the concerns of the agricultural community.

Interjections.

The Speaker: And your question, member?

M. de Jong: My question on behalf of all those orchardists, all those people who rely upon the food-and-beverage-processing sector in British Columbia, is: how many more are going to have to leave this province, driven out by this minister's and this NDP government's policies of overregulation and overtaxation?

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members, let's hear the answer.

Hon. C. Evans: Every person who writes to me as Minister of Agriculture, as the hon. member addressed me . . . .

Interjections.

[ Page 12567 ]

The Speaker: Members, the minister has not completed his response.

Hon. C. Evans: . . . in my office in Victoria receives an answer from me.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Time's a-wasting, members. Come to order. The minister has not completed his response.

Hon. C. Evans: Hon. Speaker, unfortunately, I have a volunteer in my office in Nelson who decided that the way to deal with annual reports and materials that come in from interest groups all over the province was to write the letter that the hon. member read. I informed that individual and the staff she worked with that the response was inappropriate and asked them to phone or write to every single person in the province who received that letter, with an apology and an explanation.

I do not pretend that what this person did on my behalf was justifiable, but the hon. member knows -- and everybody else here doesn't know -- that he's holding up a piece of stationery with my MLA signature on it and not my ministerial portfolio.

The Speaker: First supplementary, the member for Matsqui.

M. de Jong: I seek the minister's forgiveness. Heaven help me, I thought that he had a responsibility as both an MLA and a minister. That apparently is not the case.

Look, there are two certainties . . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Come to order, members.

M. de Jong: There are two certainties in this Legislature, Madam Speaker. One is that businesses will continue to flee this province as long as that minister and that government are in power, and the second is that nothing this minister or that government does is going to change the first fact.

The question to the minister is: how many more businesses . . . ? How many more people who depend upon the food and beverage sector in the province of British Columbia are going to find themselves living in Alberta or Washington or Portland, before he gets it through his head that the government's policies of overtaxation and overregulation are responsible for driving them across the border?

Hon. C. Evans: I actually am responsible and answerable to the farm community. It is the farm community who asked me to deal, first, with regulatory regimes around the environment; second, with the regulatory regimes around labour; third, with the regulatory regimes around fuel tax; and fourth, with the regulatory regimes around winery distribution. We did every single one of those things, in spite of the fact that when there aren't farmers in the gallery watching, they don't ask a single question. They don't care about these issues.

[1425]

WCB REGULATIONS AND SMOKING-AREAS EXEMPTION

J. Weisgerber: My question is to the minister responsible for the Workers Compensation Board. WCB regulations state that except in an emergency, an employer must not require a worker to enter an indoor area where smoking is permitted and that restaurants, bars, long term residential facilities and prisons are exempt from this regulation only until January 1, 2000. Given the new, cosy relationship that the government and particularly the Premier-in-waiting now has with the tobacco industry, has the minister decided to extend this exemption beyond year-end?

Hon. D. Lovick: The short answer to the question is no. I'm happy to advise the member that there is no new, cosy relationship between this party and the tobacco industry.

The Speaker: First supplementary, the member for Peace River South.

J. Weisgerber: My supplementary question is to the Deputy Premier. Surely this minister, who has demonstrated his sympathetic understanding of the problems, will intervene on behalf of British Columbia smokers. For example, I very sincerely believe that people in long term care facilities should be allowed to continue to smoke in their rooms or suites, which are in fact their homes. Can the Deputy Premier advise this House on the action he's decided to take on behalf of those British Columbia seniors who can't reasonably be expected to quit smoking?

Hon. D. Miller: I've ignored the advice of my colleagues who've told me to butt out. Let me try to offer some opinions on this. I am -- as most people in this House know -- unfortunately, a smoker, and I'm not particularly proud of that. I think the efforts undertaken by my government and other agencies to dissuade particularly young people from smoking ought to be supported as strongly as we possibly can, because I don't . . . . It's clear, as well, that . . .

The Speaker: Minister, complete your answer, please.

Hon. D. Miller: . . . increasingly people who do smoke have to be more and more aware that it's not just themselves they are harming, but others around them. I think these are very tough issues to grapple with. I don't think there's a perfect kind of policy that deals with it all, and I would hope that the WCB, in looking at it, can balance the interests of employees and the general public in terms of tailoring their policies. Their mandate . . .

The Speaker: Thank you, minister.

Hon. D. Miller: . . . and I worked in a pulp mill -- is to prevent workers from being exposed to noxious gases.

The Speaker: Minister . . . .

Hon. D. Miller: It's a tough issue, and . . .

The Speaker: Minister . . . .

Hon. D. Miller: . . . I hope they can resolve the problem.

The Speaker: Minister, thank you very much.

[ Page 12568 ]

EFFECT ON GOVERNMENT REVENUES OF

SOCIAL SERVICES WORKERS' JOB ACTION

L. Reid: Thousands of social services workers basically left, started job action, on March 8. This strike is hurting families all across this province -- whether it be a child care worker or a transition house or individuals relying on group homes for the physically and developmentally disabled. Since these 10,000 workers are not being paid today, will the Minister for Children and Families tell us how much money her ministry is saving as a result of this job action?

Hon. L. Boone: I don't think that this ministry is saving any money at all. It's interesting. This issue has been going on for several weeks -- a month or so -- and this is the first question that we've had from the opposition benches regarding this whole issue. This is a very important one, and one that I would like to see solved very soon. The parties are negotiating right now. We're very hopeful that they'll come to some agreement and get back to work. These, as you know, are people who are working very well . . .

The Speaker: Finish up, minister.

Hon. L. Boone: . . . on behalf of people. So we're very hopeful that we'll see a resolution.

The Speaker: Thank you, minister.

First supplementary, the member for Richmond East.

L. Reid: It's a fact that this government is banking money as a result of this strike. It astounds me that the minister is not clear on exactly how much money. I'm asking for a commitment today from this minister. Will she commit that every penny saved as a result of this strike will be returned to programs for children, for women and for families and not go to a cabinet minister across the way whose boondoggles, in terms of fast ferries, pulp mills, SkyTrain . . . ? Will those dollars -- every single cent -- be returned to women, children and families across this province?

[1430]

Hon. L. Boone: This ministry is not saving money as a result of this strike. I find it interesting, coming from the members opposite who are advocating cuts to every social program around, that they're even concerned about these things. That is what they said, hon. Speaker. When we brought in . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. L. Boone: . . . a budget that protected our services, the members opposite said that we should be cutting more, we should be reducing services and we should be eliminating government programs.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members, it's impossible to hear the minister with everyone talking.

Hon. L. Boone: Well, hon. Speaker, we're not doing that.

Petitions

T. Stevenson: It's my pleasure to table two petitions presented to me today by the Cabaret Owners Association. There are a total of 10,868 names of British Columbians, which were collected over a ten-day period, urging the government to proceed with changes to modernize the liquor licensing regulations. It's my understanding that less than 10 percent of all petitions that . . . .

The Speaker: Member, member. That's more than . . . . We have enough information about the petition. Thank you very much.

Ministerial Statement

STATE OF TREE FRUIT INDUSTRY

AND OF AGRICULTURE IN B.C.

Hon. C. Evans: The last time I took the opportunity to make a statement in this House was one year ago, on Agriculture Day. I used the time to tell the good-news story of agriculture as a sector of growth and relative prosperity in rural British Columbia. Today was originally to have been the second annual Agriculture Day in this House. Had that occurred, I would've used this ministerial statement to celebrate the fact that B.C. was the second-fastest-growing provincial exporter of agricultural products last year, with a phenomenal 61 percent jump in exports.

Instead, the farm industry decided to postpone Agriculture Day in order to allow the tree fruit industry an unobstructed stage on which to tell their story of market collapse and, to their way of thinking, of abandonment by government.

I have decided to use this time to explain to all hon. members how agriculture could be booming in sales and jobs and growth while, at the same time, fruit, grain, hogs, ginseng and other commodities might be in free fall and how the people who produce them might be in need of assistance and, in the case of the BCFGA, even angry. On the one hand, food sales both domestically and for export continue to grow faster than any other resource sector in the province. On the other hand, as we know, world commodity prices are in chaos.

The apple industry is an excellent example of the current situation. They are dealing with a 50 percent devaluation of wholesale prices for their 1998 fresh product and a phenomenal tenfold decrease in the price of juice. No industry, of course, could withstand such pressure alone -- especially an industry that was reeling already with the elimination in this decade of 100 percent of federal and provincial support systems, loan programs and cost-of-production allowances that they used to receive in the sixties, seventies and eighties.

Two years ago the leadership of the BCFGA told me: "What we need in British Columbia is a disaster program to help us in times of absolute market failure." We did what they asked for and put the program in place in time for 1998.

In 1998 the BCFGA said: "What we need in British Columbia is re-engineered crop insurance." Again we did what they asked and put that program in place for this year. In 1998 the combined pay-out for crop insurance and the whole-farm disaster program was $16 million for the tree fruit industry alone. This year we almost doubled the funding for our disaster program, thanks to a $10 million lift from Canada's disaster funding. Two months ago we mailed out 1,000 applications.

[ Page 12569 ]

Will the program work for farmers, especially for those who travelled so far to join us here today? I don't know, frankly -- probably not for everybody. But of those 300 fruit tree farmers who applied in 1998, almost 80 percent received payments.

I have received, as of yesterday, only 49 applications for this year. I beg hon. members of both sides of the House to encourage your eligible constituents to apply. Even if your objective or theirs was to prove that the program didn't work, the only way to prove that is for 1,000 applications to come back in for analysis. It is estimated that the tree fruit industry didn't make use of approximately $2 million in the program last year, because only 300 growers applied.

[1435]

Lastly, I want to say this. In our society we are grossly disconnected from our food supply. We do not understand it; we do not value it; we do not, in the main, think about it at all. I may have some technical disagreements with the folks out on the steps today about how government should respond to their issues, but I will defend with my last breath their right to bring agricultural issues to this building. It really doesn't matter, you know, if you're a minister or a critic or with the press or an ordinary citizen -- we are all responsible to maintain both the food supply and those who produce it.

The time frame of our accountability may differ, of course. But ultimately all of us will live or die politically and physically according to how we respond.

B. Barisoff: This government has turned its back on the tree fruit growers and broken its commitments at every turn. It's time we recognized the importance of the agriculture industry to our economy and our job creation. To compete and win in the global economy, tree fruit growers and all farmers must have three things: lower costs, lower taxes, and less regulation and red tape -- a long-term provincial strategy to become and stay competitive. Farming is not just an economic value; it's a social value. The ALR was created to protect and preserve our agricultural land. Most British Columbians support that objective.

If government is going to continue to tell farmers what they can and can't do on their land, then it must work with the farmers to make land viable and productive -- an effective and affordable crop insurance program. Farmers understand that crop insurance assistance must be within the taxpayers' ability to pay. But they also need and deserve an insurance program that delivers and helps when it's needed, in a timely and efficient manner. The NDP's changes to the crop insurance program have left tree fruit growers hanging in the wind because of bureaucratic bungling, red tape, payment delays and funding cuts that are completely at odds with all their election promises.

On this side of the House, we would address all of these challenges and create a solid, competitive foundation for the tree fruit growers and all farmers that would work over the long term. Farmers don't need or want handouts. Farmers want and deserve the right to make their land productive for their families, their communities and all the workers who depend on the jobs they create.

On this side of the House we would listen, but the government must start to listen also. When it makes promises, it had better be prepared to keep them. On this side of the House, we wouldn't make promises that we couldn't keep. We won't promise money or funding that's beyond the taxpayers' ability to pay, as takes place on that side. But we would work with the farmers, and public servants, to make their industry strong and competitive forever.

The Speaker: Hon. members, the Chair has, in the past -- and in the recent past -- sent out information about ministerial statements and the replies to them. I wish to commend those guidelines and those statements to the members of this House. The replies have been way too debatable and political, and I'm afraid that's not in the traditions of this chamber. I wish to draw that to everyone's attention and encourage all members to read those guidelines again.

[1440]

Orders of the Day

Hon. J. MacPhail: In Committee A, I call Committee of Supply. For the information of the members, we'll be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Women's Equality and the Ministry of Human Resources. In this chamber, I call second reading of Bill 59.

TUITION FEE FREEZE ACT

(second reading)

Hon. A. Petter: I move that Bill 59 be read for a second time. Hon. Speaker, this act freezes tuition fees in B.C.'s 28 colleges, university colleges, institutes and universities for a fourth consecutive year. It therefore has the effect of making post-secondary education more accessible and affordable to some 150,000 students in British Columbia. The act freezes fees charged for graduate, undergraduate, career, technical, vocational and developmental programs, and it also freezes mandatory ancillary fees that have the effect of increasing the cost of tuition. Mandatory ancillary fees include, for example, library fees, registration fees and laboratory fees.

This act is important for what it does, but it's also important, in my view, for what it represents in terms of a general direction for post-secondary education policy in this province.

I want to enlarge a little bit on some comments I made yesterday at the opening of my estimates debate, because this act very much speaks to the commitment that this government has made about maintaining and enhancing access to post-secondary education, which in this day and age is basic education -- education that British Columbians need if they are to succeed in an increasingly competitive, knowledge-based economy; education that parents are worried that their young people may not have access to and that if they don't have that access, they will not have the opportunities that they as parents had.

It's a worry that is well-founded, because of the direction we've seen taken in other provinces.

I think it is very much the case at the end of the twentieth century that the future of post-secondary education -- the choice we make about post-secondary education -- will help to determine the future of our whole political and social development in the next century. The central question that we have to ask is: in a society in which people are becoming increasingly detached from their traditional places of work and from traditional patterns of work, are we going to provide people with the tools in order to succeed in a new economy in which knowledge is the most valuable commodity and the greatest determinant of one's ability to get ahead?

[ Page 12570 ]

The kind of dislocation that society went through during the Industrial Revolution, in which people were taken away from the land base and thrown into cities, and the huge disparities that arose in wealth and power between those who had access to capital and those who didn't, those who were able to partake in the benefits of the Industrial Revolution and those who were not . . . .

We run the risk of replicating that same dislocation as we go through a technological revolution that is taking people away from their traditional modes of work and in which the traditional skills that people have accumulated over time cease to be as relevant, as new knowledge and skills become more and more important. We're seeing, regrettably, the phenomenon that we saw through the Industrial Revolution being replicated in this technological revolution.

We're seeing the same concentrations of wealth and power. Those who command wealth and power in this revolution are not the Andrew Carnegies and the John D. Rockefellers. They're the Bill Gateses and the Ross Perots. But the same phenomenon is taking place. We see from all the statistics that emerge not only in B.C. but across Canada and around the world that there is a growing gap between the haves and the have-nots, as individuals become increasingly dislocated from their traditional patterns of social life and work, and become increasingly vulnerable as we move into a more atomistic society in which those individuals will rise or fall depending upon their access to knowledge.

[1445]

That's why it's critical that if we are determined as a society to retain the benefits of the twentieth century in terms of the social welfare state, in terms of the kind of security and cohesion that emerged for a growing and prosperous middle class -- and if we are prepared to build on the success of the twentieth century in harnessing the value that came out of the Industrial Revolution and in making sure that this value is widely shared and an emerging middle class could benefit and we'd develop social cohesion -- then it is essential that we make sure that the doors to post-secondary education are thrown open wider, that people are given more access to knowledge, not less, that education becomes more of a universal right and entitlement and less of a market commodity.

If people's ability to get access to education is determined by the market, then we will end up with a modern-day debtors' prison, the debtors' prison of those who don't have education and can't get it because they can't afford it. They can't afford it because they don't have the knowledge and skills in order to get the jobs that are required in order to earn the income. We've got to avoid that future.

We have a huge opportunity. We have a technological revolution with huge potential to grow society, to produce benefits. The question is: are those benefits going to be widely shared? Are they going to be widely enjoyed? Are we going to ensure that we will retain a prosperous middle class and that those throughout society will share in that prosperity?

Or are we going to let the chips fall where they may? If we do, those chips will fall in a way in which we see an increasing disparity of wealth and power, an increasing division between the haves and have-nots as the doors to post-secondary education slam shut and the only way to get through them is by pulling out one's chequebook or one's credit card. Those who won't have access will be those who'll become increasingly left out of the benefits that society has to offer.

That's really what this debate is about -- tuition -- because, regrettably, we see what's happening in other jurisdictions and other provinces as increasingly they rely more and more on market determinants for access to education. The trends we see in provinces like Alberta and Ontario, which the opposition members are always so quick to point to as examples that they would like to emulate, show that there have been huge increases in tuition within those provinces. The average cost of post-secondary university training in Ontario is now $1,500 more per year than it is in B.C. In Alberta it's $1,300 more per year.

For a working family's kid to go and get a post-secondary education is starting to become unaffordable. The differential for a professional program in Ontario is in some cases going to be as high as $8,000 or $10,000, as tuition fees rise in excess of $10,000.

What that means is that the hope of someone from a middle-class or a lower-working-class background to become a doctor or a lawyer is going to be taken away. Their opportunity to become a beneficiary of those skills or other professional skills will start to decline, as will the opportunities for everyone, as these gaps continue to grow. That's what this is about. It isn't just about tuition; it isn't just about education.

It's about whether or not we're going to retain our commitment to the twenty-first century and ensure that there is an opportunity for everyone, that equality of opportunity really means something and that people have the tools to take those opportunities and translate them into real social equality in our society.

If we say to students, "We're sorry, we can't guarantee you those skills; you have to come up with the money first," and, "We're sorry you can't come up with the money because you've got to have a job that's dependent upon those skills," then we are no better than the keepers of those debtors' prisons portrayed in Dickensian novels, who locked people away till they could pay off their debts. That's something that this government and this province should never do.

That's what this debate is about. It's about freezing tuition for a fourth year, but more fundamentally, it's about ensuring that we keep the doors to knowledge open, that we take the principle of universality that pioneers in the twentieth century built into the K-to-12 system and do no more than say that that principle should now be applied to what is now basic education. When we developed the universal public education system, basic education was thought of as K-to-12. It's no longer K-to-12.

No kid out there, no parent out there, no sentient human being out there believes that someone can get a well-paying job, a good-paying job, in society with a K-to-12 education. Everyone recognizes that there's a need for more.

[1450]

All we need to do, then -- but it seems like such a huge challenge -- is take that principle that our forebears helped to build, that progressive principle of universal access to basic education based upon one's need and not upon one's income, and extend it now to post-secondary education. If we in this government had the resources and had our way, we would be bringing tuition fees down, but the resources are limited.

What we have chosen to do instead is keep those fees frozen for an unprecedented fourth year, increase support for student financial aid for the increased number of students, remove tuition barriers for adult basic education so that adults who have previously not had the opportunity to get basic skills can get them, and ensure that we set an example that, hopefully, others can follow.

[ Page 12571 ]

That is a challenge that goes beyond this bill. It's a challenge that speaks to our future. It's a challenge that speaks to our children. It's a challenge that I invite members of the opposition to align themselves with. It isn't about partisanship; it's about commitment -- commitment to a vision. Do we believe in access to education, or don't we? Are we prepared to set a different course, or aren't we?

Are we prepared to ensure that the young people of tomorrow and the young people of today have the skills they need -- not only for their benefit, but for our collective benefit -- to maintain a strong and prosperous middle class, to enable the working-class kids of today to better themselves and become full and active participants in society, based on their desire, their ability and their willingness to pursue the educational opportunities that we afford -- and not because we slam the door shut and say that the only way to get in is to pay more? I urge members to support the Tuition Fee Freeze Act.

It's about more than tuition; it's about our future.

J. Weisbeck: I rise to speak to Bill 59, the Tuition Fee Freeze Act. This is the fourth consecutive year that this government has frozen tuition fees. I still don't understand why a tuition fee freeze has to be legislated. I can only assume that this is one of the few positive things that this government has done, and they would like to get the photo-op maximum out of it.

I've always been very curious, as well, about how the government bases their decisions, how they brought this piece of legislation forward. In 1996, I asked the then Minister of Education, the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin, whether there had ever been a study on the impact of tuition fees. I asked: how many people actually stay home because of tuition fees? The minister responded that the last detailed, extensive and exhaustive study that was done was the Orum report, which I believe was issued in 1993.

I checked the Orum report, and it states: "Post-secondary institutions should be free to set their own tuition fees. It is recommended that all post-secondary institutions be allowed to set their own tuition fees within a context of a comprehensive financial aid program that includes both government and institutional components." Obviously that didn't answer my question on the issue of access and fees.

Having said that, for the fourth consecutive year we will be supporting the tuition freeze, and contrary to what government has been saying and would like the public to believe, we have always supported the tuition fee freeze.

We recognize that tuition is a barrier to attaining an education, but it is only one of many barriers. We must make every attempt to remove those barriers, to allow our population full access to education to be able to function in the new millennium. I agree with the Minister of Education: it is the best investment governments can make, and that includes health care, because the more educated people are, the healthier they are. Therefore it obviously pays to get people more educated.

[1455]

But there are some concerns out there, and I know Dr. Strong from the University of Victoria made the following comments.

The key here is "may compensate." If you're going to give something away, you have to compensate on the other side of the ledger -- removing one barrier and, in this case, replacing it with another one.

There's no argument about the importance of keeping tuition fees affordable. Unfortunately in this case, there are a number of concerns created by not making up the funding differential. Dr. Strong, in an

article recently in the Times Colonist , made a comment that "over the last four years, enrolment has increased at the University of Victoria by 2,000 students, while money from government has gone down 10 percent. We've cut $9 million from our budget over the same time period, and our class sizes went up 20 percent. Tuition fees imposed by the provincial government since 1995 have delighted students, but they have led to the elimination of some courses and programs." Anita Zaenker -- she's the University of Victoria's student society director of academics -- made the comment: "What we're finding is that very few electives are being offered, so students' options are being reduced."

As I say, we have always supported this tuition freeze, but it's obviously short-term thinking, unless they do balance the ledger. You can save a couple of thousand dollars in tuition fees, but unfortunately, you may have to take an extra year of university, which could be another $8,000 or $10,000. But the true cost to a student is losing a year of income.

I know that there was a questionnaire sent out from the minister's office asking students about what their feelings were on tuition. It was basically a propaganda questionnaire. The questions were very, very limited. I think that they were just basically asked: "Do you believe in tuition fee freezes?" Obviously every student would like to save themselves some money. I think, to be really honest, that if you were to send out a questionnaire, you should probably ask the question: "Are you in favour of a tuition freeze if you take longer to complete your education?" Or: "Are you in favour of a tuition freeze if you end up losing a year of salary?"

This truly isn't about tuition fees at all. This is about maintaining a post-secondary system in our province that is functional. I have an executive report from Okanagan University College. They talk about the college being at a critical juncture in its development. They say:

"Provincial funding mechanisms and decisions are in large part responsible for a significant gap between what OUC receives to educate a student through tuition and provincial funding and the actual costs of providing that education. The gap has been growing and the problem has been exacerbated by a three-year-old tuition freeze and other factors beyond OUC's control. The difference between revenue and expenditure makes offering increased access impossible, although there is clearly a demand for it. Waiting lists for programs and courses are measured in the hundreds and thousands. People want the product OUC offers, just as the development of our region depends on it."

[1500]

They've stated a number of highlights. Provincial per-capita expenditure on post-secondary education has risen from $306.72 per person in 1992-93 to $317.05 in 1998-99. Regionally the per-capita expenditure has fallen to $103 in 1998-99 from $105 in 1992-93. The effective provincial funding received by OUC on a per-student basis -- full-time-

[ Page 12572 ]

equivalent -- has dropped from $6,757 in 1992-93 to $6,191 in 1998-99. So as the government says they're increasing funding to universities, this certainly is not apparent at OUC and other institutions.

The tuition freeze has created a situation of inequity within similar institutions. While an academic degree student at OUC pays a maximum tuition of $705 per semester, at UBC he or she would pay $1,147.50, and at Malaspina University College he or she would pay $945. The result is that some institutions have more operating funds to invest in their students' education.

We all know that there are huge challenges in the post-secondary education system. There has been a prediction that as the children of the baby-boomer generation reach university, there's going to be a very large increase in the population of universities in the new millennium.

The students are concerned. Jennifer Burnett from the University of Victoria says that if education is supposed to be one of the NDP's top priorities, "how can Minister Petter justify maintaining tuition freezes and the current level of funding, combined with the increases in the total number of seats available across the province, while wait-lists grow longer, class sizes are increasing, and courses and programs are disappearing from colleges and university calendars?"

David Cox, he's the vice-president of the OUC student association in Kelowna, says:

"Now the government is cutting back further its support on this institution. Currently, there are approximately 1,000 more students than OUC is funded for. Tuition covers only a small part of running an academic institution; the rest must come from the private and public sectors. OUC has a strong fundraising campaign, but cannot compensate for the cuts. Services and classes would be lost at OUC just as society's demand for educated citizens is increasing."

Class size and class cuts are not the only concern with a loss of funding. Dr. Jack Blaney, in a letter to the National Post . . . . His

article is called "The War for Ivory Tower Talent." He says:

"Canadian universities are on the cusp of a crisis . . . .

"It began with an erosion of research equipment and staff, including post-doctoral fellows, graduate students and technicians, together with our weakened position to recruit and retain top faculty . . . . Important research increasingly is done elsewhere . . . .

"This problem is serious. Canada's investment in research and development is half that of the United States . . . .

"Canada's research universities, whether large, mid-size or small, operate on about half the revenue per student as do comparable universities in the U.S . . . .

"Those [universities and] institutions have the resources to recruit and retain outstanding faculty and graduate students. It's difficult for Canadian universities to compete."

He's saying that over the next decade hundreds of faculty will retire from our universities across North America. This sets the stage for a major escalation in the war for university talent. We should see this not as a threat to our academic institutions but as a great opportunity for building upon and renewing our strengths.

Yesterday during the estimates the minister made a comment that as some of these older professors are retiring, and with some of them obviously making the maximum salaries that institution would offer . . . . He was jumping up and down with glee, saying: "Now we'll be able to hire a new professor that's coming onto the market, somebody that's younger, somebody that we can pay less for, and as a result we can put some of that money back into the system." Well, I think Dr. Blaney makes it very, very clear that that simply is not going to work. We must -- to maintain the level of education, the level of instruction in our system -- be able to attract and retain good quality staff.

This is not about tuition fee freezes. This is about maintaining a system that's functional, that's competitive and that's world-class. I know that the government has made comments bragging about the fact that they want to have the cheapest system in the country. I would recommend to them: let's have the best system in the country, rather than the cheapest.

[1505]

Hon. G. Clark: It's my pleasure to rise and speak in support of this legislation, the Tuition Fee Freeze Act. I'm pleased to see in the gallery today what I think are students visiting, because this really is about students and the future of the province.

It is true that a tuition freeze only deals with one of the barriers for access to post-secondary education. There are others, and I'll deal with this in a minute. But I think it's a fundamental psychological barrier to entrance for many people of modest or middle-class families in terms of their decision to proceed to university or to colleges or indeed to any post-secondary institution.

It is, I think, important to remember why we've embarked upon this direction in British Columbia with the fourth consecutive year of a tuition freeze. This direction is completely contrary to every other province in Canada with the exception of Quebec, which has had a freeze for even longer than us. It's because of a philosophical commitment on the part of the government for access to post-secondary education.

About a hundred years ago governments in North America decided collectively -- of whatever political party; society decided -- that it made sense to provide a free education for all young people. Now, that education in those days was defined initially as basic literacy requirements, and even then it was haphazard at best. It wasn't really until the 1930s and the 1940s -- the postwar period -- when people in the west generally, but particularly in North America, embraced the concept of universal public education paid for by taxpayers.

The reason that society did that was obvious to everybody during the debates, and it is obvious today -- that is, that one must have basic literacy skills. You must have a basic education if you are to get a job in the modern economy.

In the forties, of course, those jobs were largely in manufacturing, and there were growing industries. Unemployment was less going through the sixties, and people felt that a high school education was critical to individual success. Much of the debate -- even when I was going to high school in the seventies -- revolved around this notion that you needed a high school education: "Stay in school; get a high school diploma, because if you don't get a high school diploma, you will not get a decent job. You will not be able to be successful." That was what society expected and society debated.

Even in families, there was a lot of debate about getting your grade 12 education rather than quitting and getting a job.

Frankly, when I was growing up there were people who quit in grade 10 or 11 and got a job. But they went through a free, publicly funded education system -- for them -- and they made their choices. Today in 1999 it seems appropriate that we revisit this question of public education. Because if the

[ Page 12573 ]

rationale in the twenties and thirties and forties and fifties and sixties was that the taxpayer should pay for public education because we want young people who have the skills both to be successful as citizens and to be successful in a job . . . . If that was the debate and the consensus in those days, then is that true today?

I ask fellow legislators here and the people of British Columbia . . . . I think it's obvious that it is no longer the case that getting a high school education is a sufficient guarantee of success in the modern economy. You must have more than grade 12. You must have trades training or apprenticeship, you must have vocational training or you must have university or college. You must at least have some kind of post-secondary education to be successful -- to get a job.

[1510]

If we all agree . . . . I think that if you asked British Columbians what they would say, they would agree that it is no longer acceptable to finish your education at grade 12. Then why has public policy not kept pace with public sentiment? Why has public policy not kept pace with the modern realities of the job market in the 1990s and in the twenty-first century? To get a job in the twenty-first century is increasingly going to require more skill and more knowledge, particularly in an increasingly competitive and borderless world.

That is why, in British Columbia, the foundation of what we are trying to accomplish is very simple. It is to ensure that same philosophy of a publicly funded education system is there beyond grade 12. The great motivation -- morally and philosophically -- for those people who came before us, who agreed with public education from grade 1 to grade 12, was that education was the great leveller. It was the great way to provide equality of opportunity. No matter what your income was, you could get an education.

No matter what your income was, you would have more or less the same equality of opportunity to be successful. This is the Canadian view. This is the Canadian dream -- and very much the American dream: that you could be successful. It didn't matter what your parents did, you would have the opportunity. You would have greater opportunity to succeed because our public system of education gave you that opportunity to succeed, no matter what your income was.

Now that dream, of course, is frayed at the edges in many parts of Canada and the United States. Just because people had a publicly funded education, people knew instinctively that there were other barriers -- social barriers, economic barriers -- to success. But the essence of this notion of upward mobility was very much at the core of public policy from grade 1 to grade 12. It's very much at the core of what we've tried to do in British Columbia over the last four years.

Our tuition fee freeze has meant that more people of modest means can go to college, that more people from working-class and middle-class families can get ahead, that the access that they need to be successful is there for them, as with other policies that we've introduced -- like making adult basic education free so anybody can get a high school education now in British Columbia no matter what their age is, and they can get it paid for by the taxpayers. We're the only province in Canada to do that.

Similarly, the tuition freeze is an attempt by government -- by us -- to carry through on this philosophical commitment and to carry through on what I think is the Canadian dream, still, for many people in our country. That is to provide that access, no matter what your income is. Are we there yet? Of course not. There are still fees for universities and colleges and vocational institutes and apprenticeship training. There are still fees, and those fees are still onerous for people from modest backgrounds, but we are making great progress.

With those tuition fees, we said -- and I've said in this speech already -- that it's a great barrier to entrance. Well, if we've frozen fees for four years, we should have seen an increase in enrolment.

An Hon. Member: And we have.

Hon. G. Clark: Have we? The answer to that is unequivocally yes. Look at these numbers. Between 1993 and 1998 -- the last three years of which have been a tuition freeze -- the enrolment rate in British Columbia colleges and universities increased by 16 percent. How does that compare to the national average during the same period? Enrolment in the rest of the country increased by 0.6 percent. We've gone from the second-lowest participation rate in universities and colleges to the second-highest participation rate in universities and colleges in the last four years.

[1515]

Actual enrolment numbers in B.C. public post-secondary education institutes increased by 10 percent between '92 and '98, and during the same period, enrolment numbers decreased by 4.4 percent in the rest of Canada. So we have seen a remarkable turnaround in enrolment. I'm very proud of that -- and we should be, as a province. This means that for the first time, our young people are taking advantage of the opportunity of post-secondary education in greater numbers than anywhere else in Canada -- or second-best in Canada -- and that bodes well for the future of our province.

Now there are those, including on the other side, who have just made the point that a tuition fee freeze is not sufficient. I agree with them; it's not sufficient. That's why we've increased funding every year in the last eight years, with $250 million more annually going into the college and university system. We're funding the increased enrolment -- 16,000, hon. Speaker -- and that's why the costs are going up to coincide with a tuition fee freeze. As we freeze tuition, it is inducing more young people to go to university. The support must be there, and the spaces must be there.

It wasn't that long ago -- and perhaps I've been here too long, hon. Speaker: 13 years -- but I remember that for the first five years I sat in this chamber, every September there were lineups, blocks and blocks and blocks of lineups in the rain, trying to get into college and trying to get into university. Those lineups are gone. In fact, the grade point average required to get into university or college has been reduced. That's a good thing, because we're opening up access. I know that I went to university at a time when it was the most accessible in the history of our province, and I know how difficult that would be today for someone of the same background as me.

Now, in addition to providing more funding and more enrolment increases and a tuition freeze, some argued -- and the last speaker on the other side argued -- that quality is deteriorating. Well, look what's happening relative to the rest of Canada. Maclean's magazine is now doing an annual report on education, and they are rating our universities. They have done that for some time, and in the last two years, for the first time, SFU has now been placed number one university in

[ Page 12574 ]

Canada in its category. UBC and the University of Victoria have placed in the top five for their categories, and UNBC, our brand-new university, is rated ninth-best undergraduate university in all of Canada.

So at the same time that we've been freezing tuition fees and increasing enrolment, we've seen a dramatic increase in the quality of our universities and colleges relative to the rest of Canada. I think that speaks very much to those critics who try to argue that a tuition freeze is not sufficient. We agree, but we think we have made great progress in other areas. We are building an education province in British Columbia. We have increased investment from kindergarten to grade 12. Every year we are reducing class size from grade 1 to grade 3, which is pedagogically the best time to do so.

We are making significant investments, but I think we have made the greatest stride so far in the post-secondary system. The tuition fee freeze is the cornerstone of our public policy and speaks to our values of what we expect of our young people and what we as legislators owe our young people.

I think this will be a legacy for future generations. If we continue on this path, there will be nowhere in Canada which will match our opportunities for young people. The key to success in the twenty-first century is clearly knowledge. It is, clearly, giving our young people the tools they need to compete in the modern economy, and those tools can only be gotten by post-secondary education, including trades training, colleges and universities.

So I think this bill is a good symbol of our success. We have made remarkable progress: from the second-highest tuition fees in Canada to the second-lowest tuition fees and from the second-worst participation rate in universities and colleges to the second-best participation rate in universities and colleges. And by the time the next election comes around, we will have a legacy for future generations which I think will pay great dividends for the future of our province.

[1520]

One last thing I must say. The members opposite say that they're going to vote in favour of this bill. I appreciate that, and so do students. But I must say that in the last election campaign, they campaigned on a 14 percent reduction in funds for universities and colleges. They are now campaigning for tax cuts which will cost $3.6 billion to the treasury. Those cuts will have to be made somewhere, and colleges and universities and education and health care make up over 65 percent of our entire budget.

I suggest to you that if they were being honest as a party, they would know that you cannot make those cuts to public spending without dramatic impact on university and college funding. We know, and anybody who looks at their record knows, that this tuition fee freeze -- the only one in Canada, leading the country -- would not survive if they were fortunate enough to form the government. We would see a return to what we're seeing in Alberta -- their friends in Alberta are raising fees 10 and 20 percent a year -- and in Ontario -- 20 percent and 15 percent a year.

That's what's happening in the rest of the country. We're leaving them behind. That's a commitment that we on this side of the House have, and it is clearly not shared by members on that side of the House. I look forward to that debate whenever the election comes, because I think we are speaking to the values of Canadians and the values of British Columbians, making sure that our young people in this province have a better chance to succeed and have a better chance than their parents did to get a job in the modern economy -- the new economy of the twenty-first century.

A. Sanders: I rise to speak on second reading of Bill 59. I agree with the Premier; I think it is wonderful for us to educate the children of B.C. here. Too bad we couldn't employ them here too, once they got that education. Wouldn't that be a miracle? Let's educate them here and export them somewhere else so that they can actually work for a living, because they aren't going to get a job in this province if they're youth.

We have a college and institute system and university system that is large. We've got 22 institutions, 90 campuses, 1,000 full-time and part-time programs. We've got 80,000 full-time-equivalents in terms of students, and they span all ages. We also have 300 British Columbians who devote a significant part of their free time to sitting on the 22 boards that govern our institutions. These individuals are given the instruction and the opportunity to try and fund our universities in an equitable way and ensure that students receive a good education at those institutions.

At those institutions, which are funded at this point by over a billion dollars, we have different components of how they're funded. About 15 percent of that funding comes from tuition fees that students pay. The cost of the delivery is far in excess of the student tuition fees and must come from the private and public sectors.

In British Columbia right now, we're operating at a frozen tuition fee that is equivalent to the 1995-96 fee structure. This tuition fee is absolutely, completely necessary for students in British Columbia. Quite frankly, this government has put a stranglehold on the jobs that would require them to make their money so that they could go to university and come back in the fall for their semester and actually pay out of their pocket for the money that they would have incurred in a job they might have actually had, if they had the ability to work in a different province.

This province has record high levels of youth unemployment. In British Columbia we no longer allow our students to do what most people have come to recognize as the norm. We do not allow them the opportunity to have large numbers of student-level jobs, where they can go out in the summer and earn the money that would be the prerequisite for them for paying a significant portion of their share for university or college without having to incur huge amounts of debt through student loan.

If you go to the Canada student loan office for students in any city in this province, you will find very few opportunities on the board for them. I consider that an absolute shame and a travesty for those young people who have four months off and are trying to earn the money that they would need to go back to school, so they don't have a huge debt burden at the end of their school career.

[1525]

There are basically three ways a student can get money, besides from their family. One is through a job. In the good old days, that used to be the largest proportion of where they got their funding for university on a year-to-year basis. Loans and bursaries are the other areas. Fees from these are onerous, as the Premier said. They are onerous to modest-earning families, because the students don't have the opportunity for work. So no kidding that this is a very important thing for modest-income families, because quite frankly, they're hoofing the whole bill through student loans and bursaries.

The Premier mentioned that enrolment had gone up in the universities and institutions. That's true. It did go up, by

[ Page 12575 ]

diktat. In the first couple of years that the tuition freeze was in place, the former Minister of Advanced Education told the institutions that they had to increase the enrolment, so no wonder it went up.

Let's look at where the costs have gone. The costs for universities have gone up; there's no question about that. With their frozen tuition, there is no additional contribution there, so we will see in the individual institution a difference between the costs of the administration of the institution and what's available from the public sector. The questions that need to be addressed when we look at the tuition freeze and actually look at the innards of what's going on at individual institutions are twofold: the quality of education and the quantity of education.

From my discussions with most of the people who work at institutions that we all hold dear in our own communities, they would far and beyond sacrifice quantity for the quality of instruction that they provide. They will cut the number of courses or the course offerings to any individual course long before they do not pay for equipment for science labs or the more expensive parts of courses in the arts or humanities. There is always the opportunity that courses will be offered less often. As anyone who's tried to go to an institution or college and timetable themselves based on other commitments and other courses, it is not always easy to get all the options you want.

Therefore I will be looking very much through the estimates of Advanced Education to ensure that we are doing something to track how many course offerings are being cut at institutions. How many people are having to take a year longer in instruction in order to get the offerings because they are not coming up as often in the blocks that those students could not have conflicts with? How many times are we finding that students are incurring additional debt because it's taking them longer to graduate -- be it a semester or a year? How we are accounting for that?

How are we ensuring that we have some quality assurance within the individual institutions to make sure that it doesn't just look good on paper -- that there's more students going to university and tuition fees are frozen -- but that in fact we are not incurring an additional year of debt for those young people, which is not doing them any favours and is certainly not doing the system any favours.

My concern with decreasing options comes from a woman by the name of Marie Esau, who lives in the riding of Okanagan-Vernon. She writes a letter about her son's personal experience with courses being cut and the impact this has had on the family. And I know that the critic for Advanced Education has a number of these kinds of letters that he can share with the House. Mrs. Esau says the following:

"Regarding the cancellation of the civil engineering technology program, September '99 at Okanagan University College -- Kelowna. Our son applied in September '98. Acceptance in the program was given in November '98, with no mention of the course being cancelled due to lack of students and/or money. Then at the end of April '99" -- last month -- "we hear via the media the program for September '99 has been cancelled due to lack of funding. We are now at May 1, too late to apply elsewhere. Closure for admission to the University of Calgary was May 1. Cariboo College does not offer a civil engineering technology program. What are the students to do who were in the program?

"Our son has two years of mechanical engineering from UVic and had decided on civil engineering technology or civil engineering. For him, working a year is not a viable option, as he had a severe head injury. His opportunities are very limited, and time to arrange with the faculty he has chosen cannot be done at the last minute.

"This cancellation four months prior to the program is penalizing the students. It should have been decided starting in January or February, in order to give the students an opportunity to make other arrangements [at other institutions]. The choice has been removed from their hands. We feel the program should run in September '99 and miss September 2000, thus giving students [like my son] a year to make other arrangements, if they were to enter the program September 2000." With the present government, it is said that there are increases in funding to education.

"What a joke!

"Marie Esau."

[1530]

This is one type of experience, and I want to know that we have an accountability structure in place in the Advanced Ed ministry to ensure that we are not having a lot of students at UVic, UBC, Okanagan College, Douglas College, Kwantlen College or any place across the province ending up in situations where -- because of lack of funding, because of tuition freezes and because of the constraints put on the administrators of our institutions -- they are no longer offering programs and leaving students like this young man really out in the cold in a circumstance where he is anticipating that he will work this year.

But quite frankly, he won't be working in my community, because there are so few jobs that he will be seriously out of luck if he's looking for a job in the very near future.

I'd like to close on two comments that the Premier made. The first was that the Tuition Fee Freeze Act is a symbol of success. Unfortunately, from where I stand in my community, it is instead a symbol of failure -- the failure of our province and our government to provide good-paying jobs for youth so that they can help to get the dollars that they need in order to finish their university or college education or their training programs.

The second was: isn't it wonderful that we are educating more people? Again, if we're educating them here, then let's employ them here. Let's open up the economy so that these

[ Page 12576 ]

young people that we are training for professional careers, for apprenticeships, for all of the good things that we are doing for our youth . . . . If we're going to train them here, then for God's sake let's employ them here.

Hon. M. Sihota: Listening to that doubletalk from the members opposite is remarkably stunning. To sit here in this chamber and reflect back on the history of this legislation and what prompted this government -- and indeed this Premier -- to bring this bill before the chamber . . . . It's amazing the kind of conversion, if I can put it that way, that's going on opposite with members of the Liberal Party, members of the opposition. What kind of hypocrisy are we hearing in this chamber around their views about post-secondary education?

[1535]

We took a number of initiatives. We brought forward -- as we are now debating in this legislation today -- a freeze for tuition for the third year in a row. This bill extends the tuition freeze so as to make sure that the cost of post-secondary education for young people who want to go from high schools on to colleges and universities is not increased and that tuition doesn't serve as a barrier. It's shocking to see that in other provinces of this country it now costs between $9,000 and $11,000, for some disciplines, to be able to get proper post-secondary training. Here in British Columbia, you can access university for as little as about $2,500 a year.

So we said we were going to distinguish ourselves in that regard. We said that we were going to distinguish ourselves by increasing the number of spaces that are available, the number of seats that are available for students trying to get into post-secondary education facilities. We said it was unacceptable, and that kind of era -- those days we saw with the previous Social Credit government where students had to line up for days to find out whether they were going to get the class that they wanted -- had to come to an end.

We said that we were not going to mimic other provinces, other right-wing jurisdictions -- be it in Ontario or Alberta -- who were creating the kind of shortfalls in funding to post-secondary facilities that were causing students to line up for classes and be unable to get seats or spaces for the courses that they wanted to take. Again, we said we were going to distinguish ourselves in that regard, and we have.

So the provisions in the budget that's before this House right now . . . . We have created up to 10,000 new spaces, with pride, for young students to get access to the seats they need so that they can get a timely education and get out into the workplace in an expeditious fashion. In addition to that, what we said was that we were going to try to bring down the other barriers to post-secondary education.

In particular, we were going to make it easier for students from working families to get access to post-secondary education. We were going to change the grant and loan system that we have in this province to make it easier for kids from working-class communities like mine in Esquimalt, where participation rates historically have been low, to allow them to get access through a better system of grants and loans. Indeed, we changed the system. We brought forward a new regime of grants and loans. You know what? We now have the second-highest participation rate for post-secondary education in this country.

We started from a position where we had the second-lowest. We have the second-highest enrolment levels now in this country, and we started from a position where we had the second-lowest.

[1540]

In fact, I'm struck by this story from the Canadian Press . Parenthetically, let me just quote it: "Calling it a stinging indictment of government spending policies, a leading Alberta industrialist said the Klein government is failing to

[ Page 12577 ]

adequately fund education research in the province. 'Out of 18 major Canadian universities, the University of Alberta ranked sixteenth . . . . ' " And it goes on. I don't want to quote the entire article, except to make the point that the members opposite advocated that kind of vision. Now today they stand up in this chamber knowing that they were wrong but never acknowledging it, knowing that their leader was wrong but never acknowledging it -- right? -- and knowing that their vision runs as a crosscurrent to what most ordinary people want: a chance for their children to make it somewhere in life.

They're standing up and supporting this bill -- some kind of conversion at the last second. I'll tell you why they're doing it. They're doing it for reasons of pure politics. They're doing it because they know they don't want to be in a position for us to be able to say: "Oh well, look, they don't believe in this." But at the end of the day, nothing fundamentally has changed. Their policies haven't changed; their view of the world hasn't changed. They still stand in this chamber every day, particularly the Finance critic and the Leader of the Opposition, and as a part of their vision of British Columbia, they advocate tax cuts for the rich, for the wealthiest in society.

Well, if you provide those kinds of tax cuts, you've got to make up for it somewhere. I'd argue that part of that makeup would happen out of education budgets. If you do that, people won't be able to live the dream of making sure that their children have access to post-secondary education.

You can't have it both ways. It is the height of hypocrisy for them to kind of hide behind the skirt of this legislation and to go out there and say, "Oh yes, we voted in favour of the tuition freeze bill; oh yes, we stand with the government on that issue," when deep down inside, ultimately, when you read their policies, they're advocating $3.6 billion in cuts. Some of those cuts would have to come out of education, and that would inevitably drive us to the kind of experience we're seeing in Alberta and Ontario.

It is all about choices. We said, during the course of the budget debate and during the course of the introduction of this bill, that this is all about choices. It's all about the values that you believe in.

[1545]

We believe passionately -- I think my comments testify to that -- that every child in this province ought to have an opportunity to get a post-secondary education. We made a commitment right from day one to be able to achieve that, and this bill embodies that commitment.

Now, I find it hypocritical that those members opposite stand up in this chamber at other times and say, "Oh, the debt is too high; we can't have more debt in this province," and criticize this administration for increases in debt and then have the temerity to stand up during the course of this debate, knowing it's all about education, and pretend as if one side of the mouth or one side of the brain is not working. They come in here and stand up and say: "Oh, you know, we need more labs; we need more facilities at universities; we need new buildings" -- as I've just heard the members opposite say.

Well, that's debt, and you can't have it both ways. Either you can make a choice, as we have, to build new buildings, build new labs and provide more spaces to post-secondary facilities in this province . . . . In this community that means the new Young building at Camosun College, it means a new university at Royal Roads . . .

An Hon. Member: Who supported that?

Hon. M. Sihota: . . . and it means new facilities at the University of Victoria.

The member said: "Who supports it?" We on this side support that. That means that the debt goes up. Let's be clear about that. You can't have it both ways and come in here and tell us that you don't want the debt increased, as the members opposite do . . . . You can't have it both ways. It's all about choices. We have made a choice to invest in education and to invest in post-secondary education.

An Hon. Member: Ferries.

Hon. M. Sihota: The member says: "Ferries." Yes, we made a decision to invest in those as well. But members opposite ought not to come to the conclusion that you can mix apples and oranges.

Interjections.

Hon. M. Sihota: Hon. Speaker, I'm quite happy to get into a debate, but I have more respect for the rules of this House than to get into a debate about Skeena and providing employment opportunities.

At the end of the day, what this bill is all about is the kind of vision this government brings to public office. As I said earlier on, we believe not just that students should have an opportunity to get a post-secondary education, not just that every child in life . . . . I want my children and I want all of my constituents' children to do better than their parents have done in life. It goes beyond that.

As a fundamental component of the kind of economic vision that the Right doesn't understand -- that the Right never seems to understand -- we believe that if we invest in education today, if we provide our students with the kind of skills that they need to meet the needs of the economy tomorrow, we're building prosperity for the future, we're laying a foundation in economic terms, and there's a relationship between the kind of investments -- yes, deficit- and debt-driven -- that we make today in education and the kind of payback that comes to society tomorrow.

Now, members opposite and those that advocate this kind of right-wing agenda that we see elsewhere in the country have great difficulty in connecting the two and in believing that there is a relationship between the kind of investments we make today in our children and the kind of outcome we'll have in terms of an economy tomorrow.

[ Page 12578 ]

The member opposite who spoke before me had the temerity to talk about the fact that this doesn't seem to link into some kind of economic strategy. Well, it does. We're training our children in our education facilities and post-secondary facilities today to meet the demands of the new economy, and that includes high-tech . . . .

An Hon. Member: What economy?

Hon. M. Sihota: Oh, the member is saying: "What economy?" Well, without stretching the bounds of the rules here, we're investing in providing more spaces for students in high-tech, while at the same time we're attracting world-class, high-tech companies here to British Columbia. Look around Victoria: MDA Ltd., IBM, ISM-BC, EDS -- all high-tech companies that have located here because of the kind of work that we've done. Why are they locating here? They're locating here because we have an educational infrastructure that is second to none in Canada -- second to none in Canada.

Nowhere else do you have the equivalent of a University of Victoria, a Camosun College and a Royal Roads University -- things that they would criticize, the things that are attracting those industries here.

Look across the water. We're training students in high-tech.

[1550]

Interjections.

Hon. M. Sihota: The members say: "What kind of economy?" Let me tell you. Look at Ballard and the kind of investments we've made in that company and the kind of students that they need to work there, my friend. Take a look at the kind of developments we're seeing now in Vancouver in the high-tech aircraft sector -- be it MDA on the Radarsat stuff in terms of satellites, or Avcorp in terms of the Bombardier contract, which members opposite will criticize us for. They'll always criticize us for making those kinds of investments. Those people need trained workers.

We're expanding our institutions -- be it BCIT, be it UBC, be it Simon Fraser. Yes, hon. members opposite, we're investing in a new institute, Tech U in Surrey, which again members opposite will criticize because somehow ICBC is involved; somehow Bob Williams is involved. You know, they can't get past their political angst about this government and acknowledge just for once that those kinds of investments that we're making for students in British Columbia are going to build a prosperous economy for tomorrow.

The Premier was right: this is a definitional piece in terms of legislation, and yes, it distinguishes us from the members opposite. You would never . . . . Not one member here on this side of the chamber has ever heard a member opposite stand up and make this kind of speech, lay it out in these kinds of terms -- or for that matter, even apologize for the kind of position that they took during the last election campaign and say that they were wrong. In fact, it's been exactly the opposite.

The member for Saanich South, the Minister of Advanced Education, and myself most recently challenged that heckling member for Okanagan East, who is the Advanced Education critic for the party. We actually challenged that gentleman to a public debate at the University of Victoria, and said: "Let's have a debate about these kinds of things in front of the students, in front of the faculty, in front of the staff at our universities." You know what? They chickened out. They did not show up.

In a moment of bravado their member for Port Moody-Burnaby Mountain said: "Oh yes, of course we'll debate the Minister Responsible for the Public Service and the Minister of Advanced Education." But you know what? Then they realized: "Whoops, we don't have a policy." For two years the B.C. Teachers Federation has been asking the Liberal Party for their policy on education, and we haven't seen a policy forthcoming from them yet. No wonder they wanted to avoid a debate. Now we hear: "We'll debate you during an election campaign."

Well, you know, let's put that in some perspective. The time is now. What are you afraid of? I'll tell you what they're afraid of. They're afraid of being shown up for the kind of hypocrites that they are, for the kind of absence of policy that we have opposite and for the fact that they haven't strayed one iota from the position that they took during the election campaign, notwithstanding their tepid support for this bill. The Premier is right in saying that this is landmark legislation.

It does distinguish us from the members opposite, and it goes right down to the core kind of values we on this side of the House believe versus the kind of values that members opposite advocate -- the kind of vision we have of a society that builds for tomorrow versus the kind of vision that they have, which builds an Ontario and Alberta here in British Columbia.

I'm very proud of this bill. It goes to one of the reasons why I got involved in public office. I stand up with pride in support of this legislation, and once again I invite members opposite to step outside this chamber and engage in the debate that they've wanted to avoid to date.

J. Dalton: I'm reminded of a recent public event when, as some observer said, he went to a debate and a hockey game broke out. Perhaps the member opposite was inviting some of the same.

[1555]

Hon. Speaker, there are several key issues here that we have to address when we look at this bill. As my colleague from Kelowna has pointed out, this is the fourth year in a row that we've been debating this issue. That's fine. We have no trouble standing on our feet and making comment and, of course, supporting the bill when it comes time to vote.

Access is the key issue here, and the minister who introduced this bill, the Premier and we on this side, as well, have all commented in some way or another about access. It's interesting. When you look at the post-secondary budget overall, there is a couple of things that have been drawn to my attention, and I'm not alone.

For example, it's interesting that the Open Learning Agency budget has actually decreased this year. It's the only post-secondary institution that has actually taken a hit from this government and has suffered a decrease. I wonder, when we're dealing with access, why an important and almost world-famous -- in fact, in a way, Open Learning is world-famous -- institution like that would have to suffer a budget decrease when this government is so proudly trying to tell us that it has increased spaces and is now, of course, addressing the financial concerns of students through a further tuition

[ Page 12579 ]

freeze. So that's one issue that caught my eye when I looked at the post-secondary budget. And that certainly has an impact on access. The minister and other members from the government side are proudly telling us about new opportunities for post-secondary students, but there's one particular opportunity, which is Open Learning, which seems to be ignored by this government.

Another issue dealing with access is course and program choice and offerings. The Premier said that in the old days -- maybe referring back to Social Credit or some other regime; I don't know . . . . The Premier made mention of lineups that he feels have disappeared. Well, that may be true on the part of the physical lineups. I certainly remember my days at Langara when lineups literally stretched out of the building and onto the street. Perhaps the Attorney General can support that, because he was a Langara student at one time, and he may remember those lineups as well. That was, of course, a few years ago.

We still have lineups. They may not be the physical lineups, but the problem that students now face is that program offerings are not the ones that fit their career objectives. Those are still lineups. In fact, they may be more insidious, in a way, because students' expectations are dashed. They're disappointed when they arrive at their post-secondary institution of choice, and they find that course and program offerings are not what they expected.

There's no point in having students registering for courses that don't meet their career objectives or that delay their career objectives or steer them in a direction that is really not what they've expected and what they've been gearing up for since high school days. Those are difficulties of access. Those exist today, without question. We have those kinds of access problems at every institution.

As well, we have to consider the impact of the tuition freeze on, of course, college and university budgets as a whole. When this bill was introduced last week, I phoned one of the college presidents, and he made an interesting observation. He said that this bill was both a blessing and not a blessing. What he was referring to on the blessing side -- and as the parent of children who are heading to or who have been in the post-secondary system, I guess that for me, perhaps in a way, it's a blessing -- was the fact that the students would not be facing a tuition increase for the 1999-2000 year.

On the not-a-blessing side of the equation, the college president was also referring to the fact that inflationary costs -- things such as hydro and workers compensation and every other aspect that a college or university must pay for . . . . Those items of an inflationary nature are not necessarily reflected in the post-secondary budget for this year.

[1600]

Those factors have to be taken into account when we debate tuition and when we debate other sources of revenue for colleges and universities and consider corporate sponsorships: a variety of methods whereby colleges and universities raise funds in order to properly offer -- or would like to offer -- the courses that they feel are their mandate. So we have to consider that impact. Even though we are in the process right now of dealing with the Advanced Education budget, I am not convinced -- and some of the responses that the minister has provided to date do not convince me -- that we've properly addressed some of those budgetary impacts.

Let's consider, for a moment, student financial aid and, I guess, more significantly, student debt. The Minister of Advanced Education advised us this morning that the average student debt for a student graduating from a post-secondary institution in British Columbia is $15,000. That's the average debt. Has this government considered the impact of that debt load on student life and on post-secondary life and beyond, into their careers? I'm not so sure that the financial package that is available for students is one that is going to properly alleviate that debt load.

That's another factor that I think we have to fold into this debate and discussion about the tuition freeze and the other methods of access to post-secondary and, of course, the financing that must go with it.

There's one other point, as well, that I wish to make comment on. Perhaps this is the most telling of all. Recently a public education survey was conducted. This was across British Columbia -- a typical phone survey; about 500 people were surveyed. One of the questions that people who were contacted were asked was about the relationship between the economy and education. There was a very telling result. Eighty-seven percent of the people who responded in this survey said that a strong economy equated to a strong educational system.

Quite frankly, I do not think that this government can get to its feet in any way to fan the economic side of that equation -- in fact, quite the reverse. It's fine for them to bring in Bill 59 and again support a tuition freeze, which we on this side will do as well, but they forget that in the equation of a strong economy supporting strong education, there's something missing. What's missing from that side is the economic aspect of it.

We cannot hope, in any way, shape or form, to build a strong K-to-12 or post-secondary system if the economy of this province is allowed to founder as it has done -- and of course, it's only getting worse. I needn't, I'm sure, remind the members opposite of the closure of Gold River and Highland Valley and other impacts on the mining and forest industries.

Those are vital to the strong economy that I made reference to and that 87 percent of responding British Columbians felt was vital to a strong public and particularly a strong post-secondary education system. So I'm hoping the government will take those thoughts in mind as it proceeds through this exercise of dealing with tuition and other issues of post-secondary access and financing.

With those few comments, I will indicate, as some of my colleagues have done, my support for this bill.

[1605]

G. Bowbrick: I want to begin today by reflecting, historically, on the importance of education in our society. I think we all understand that there was a public policy decision taken early in this century to say that kindergarten through grade 12 should be made universally accessible. The arguments behind that, as I understand them, were economic as much as anything: that a workforce that at that time could be educated up to and including grade 12 at public expense rather than private expense was beneficial to the economy. We saw this as a move towards greater equality in our society.

Now, the problem is that we have allowed that standard to prevail only at that level for too long, and we haven't thought about the next step. The next step has to be more affordable post-secondary education. I think the importance of education beyond grade 12 is readily apparent to everybody. I don't think any of us, if we were sitting down with a young person today, would recommend to them that they could simply finish grade 12 and expect to have a successful working life.

[ Page 12580 ]

But it's not enough to express platitudes, and it's not enough to suggest that it's a good idea to get a post-secondary education. As legislators, it's vitally important that we make sure that education is accessible. While the ideal, at some point in the future, would be free post-secondary education, clearly that's not something that's affordable at this time. So the next best thing is to keep education as affordable as possible. Ideally . . . .

I think we heard the minister say that reduced tuition fees is something that's not feasible right now, but certainly the freeze on tuition fees for the last four years has effectively made post-secondary education -- at least in terms of the payment of fees -- more affordable, as there are other factors that have gone up in cost around that, like inflation. Wages would have gone up, but tuition fees have not.

Now I want to relate a couple of anecdotes. One is that a couple of months ago I had the privilege of going out to UBC and speaking to the Vancouver Youth Parliament. After I finished speaking there, a young woman came out in the hallway and had a long discussion with me, because she's considering going to law school. She's a very bright young woman -- she has the grades to go to law school -- and she was trying to make a decision. There are a lot of doors that are open to her in terms of institutions that would be more than happy to accept her as a student.

This student knows that I went to law school -- not that long ago, in 1992, I graduated from UVic law school. So she was considering the University of Victoria law school; she was also considering the University of Toronto. Both are excellent law schools; both are among the top law schools, if not the top law schools, in Canada.

We spent some time -- probably 20 or 25 minutes -- talking about the relative merits of the University of Victoria law school versus the University of Toronto law school. I was coming at this completely from the perspective of someone who finished law school in 1992, not someone who has to face the reality of getting a post-secondary education today. So when we talked about the relative merits of going to the University of Toronto versus the University of Victoria, I only talked about the relative strengths of each law school in terms of faculty, in terms of course offerings, in terms of the diversity of the student population or the diversity of the faculty.

After a long discussion, she raised something which hadn't entered my mind, because I was speaking to her as a former student about my experience as a student at the University of Victoria. She said: "Yeah, but you know, one of the things I have to consider is that the University of Toronto law school has tuition fees in excess of $10,000 a year." I have to admit that I knew that intellectually. I guess I hadn't quite understood it on the emotional level at which a student might understand it when they're faced with making choices about their future.

So we talked about the fact that she's fortunate enough that somehow or other, if she wanted to go there, she might be able to pull the money together through scholarships or what have you. Now, obviously one of the reasons we need a tuition freeze is that most students wouldn't be in that position and wouldn't be able to pull together that kind of money on an annual basis to go to law school.

[1610]

But she raised something else which I think has been absent in this debate. It may have been touched upon indirectly, but I want to flesh it out a little bit more. She said: "You know, my concern about going to the University of Toronto law school, with tuition fees of $10,000 a year" -- and by the way, they informed her that they're expected to increase by another 10 percent next year -- "is that I'm going to go to school only with a bunch of people who are well-off. I'm concerned that I'll end up going to school with people who aren't reflective of the society that we live in." I think that's a key consideration in all of this.

Referring back to my opening remarks, when I talked about the importance of education as a step towards greater equality in our society . . . . Well, clearly, the threat of much higher tuition fees is that we'll see a situation where our universities and colleges could become much more elitist institutions. I think it's fair to say that that is already happening in a jurisdiction where you have to pay $10,000 a year to get into a professional program or a graduate program. I should emphasize that by comparison I believe tuition fees at the University of Victoria law school are about $2,500 a year, so it's far more accessible.

When I went to law school, one of the things I was proud of was that we had students from all across Canada. We had students from all backgrounds. There were students who had left home in their teens and supported themselves. Some of them had worked in the forest industry and never had any formal education until much later in life. There were people that I graduated with who graduated from law school in their fifties. There were aboriginal students who clearly wouldn't have been able to afford $10,000 a year in tuition. So I want to emphasize that, hon. Speaker.

These are real considerations when we're looking at this type of public policy. It's about access, but sometimes when we talk about access, we don't talk about everything that that means. When we talk about access, we're really talking about equality; we're really talking about opportunity. That's what's so important about the tuition freeze.

One other brief anecdote. My constituency assistant is a very, very bright young woman who scored very highly on her LSAT in the fall, applied to a number of law schools and recently went out and interviewed for scholarships at Dalhousie University in Halifax. These scholarships are the best scholarships, I understand, available at any law school in Canada. She just found out a few weeks ago that she got the scholarship, and it's a $10,000-per-year scholarship. I said: "That's great. You're going to be able to cover your living expenses. You're not going to have to . . . .

You might be able to take summer work at a lower wage rate, if it's something related to the field you want to get into." And then she pointed out to me that the tuition fees for law school at Dalhousie are in excess of $6,000 a year. It's lucky for her that it's a $10,000-a-year scholarship. It's just unfortunate that over 60 percent of that scholarship -- the highest scholarship available to go to a law school in Canada -- is taken up by tuition fees.

I think I've made my point about the importance of access and the importance of equality and opportunity when it comes to post-secondary education and the fact that these are real considerations in the real lives of young people in this country today. But I gather now that the official opposition is going to be supporting this bill, which I find a bit perplexing. We've had a lot of debate in this chamber recently about what Liberal commitments are on almost every other area within government. We've seen the Liberal budget and the fact that they've got a $3.6 billion problem. The reason they have that problem is because they insist on promising everything to everybody.

[ Page 12581 ]

We all know that government is about choices. I've said before that other governments in Canada that I know the opposition looks to with great admiration -- the governments in Ontario and Alberta -- have made clear choices. In Alberta, for example, we know that they do have a lower overall taxation rate than British Columbia, but we also know that the savings for a family of four -- with a couple of kids -- making about $80,000 a year are eaten up automatically if they send one child to university.

[1615]

Now, this is interesting from a public policy perspective. There's an interesting question about what we're seeing happen to post-secondary education in this country. I would argue that continually increasing tuition fees is a form of privatization of education, which is extremely unfortunate. We know that the average tuition fees for an undergraduate are already $1,300 a year more in Alberta than they are in British Columbia. A service which I think most Canadians have traditionally regarded as a public service to be paid for by their tax dollars is increasingly, in Alberta, not being paid for by their tax dollars.

There's a simple reason for that, and it's because the government of Alberta has chosen to have the lowest tax environment in the country. At least in Alberta they've made a clear choice, and I think they're aboveboard about that choice. They have no problem with seeing tuition fees increasing at an annual rate, in some cases, of 10 percent. I believe the University of Alberta will have increases of close to 10 percent this year. They don't have a problem with that, because the trade-off is lower taxes.

In this province we've said no. We've said that we can have, overall, the second-lowest level of taxation in terms of all provincial taxes considered, including property taxes, medicare premiums and what have you. We can have the second-lowest, but we can have the second-lowest tuition fees in Canada as well. The problem we have in this province is that we're not having a full debate about real, hard choices. As a government, we're making choices, and we're taking a lot of flak for those choices, and that's fair enough.

But what we need to see more of is an opposition that would clearly outline their choices to see if they're willing to withstand the public scrutiny of their choices. What we have is an opposition that says they'll balance the budget, they'll maintain spending in key areas like health care and education, they'll have the lowest taxes in Canada, and they'll pay down the debt. Now, there's no other province in Canada -- no other government in Canada, even the ones they admire so greatly in Ontario and Alberta -- that makes those kinds of commitments. Today they've just added to that by saying that they want to support the tuition freeze, at least in principle.

Interjections.

G. Bowbrick: I hear misgivings from the other side. I heard the member for West Vancouver-Capilano saying: "It causes lineups" -- and these issues . . . . I have to disagree with the member on that. But the point is that if he has those problems with the tuition fee freeze, the question is: why doesn't that member vote against this bill? It seems a little hypocritical to vote in favour and at the same time say: "But it has all these bad ramifications."

Once again, in the broader context, this is about choices. I'm proud, as a legislator, to make this choice. I wish we'd see an opposition that had a little more courage to state its choices for British Columbians, to put them on the table. They tell us that they won't talk about them until, oh, two weeks into the next election campaign. That says to me that it's an opposition that understands it can't withstand public scrutiny on its promises for the next two years, and it's hoping it can slip things by British Columbians in the final two weeks of an election campaign.

That isn't a position that's in the spirit of open and honest debate in this province. I think many British Columbians would wish that they would just come clean and tell us what their real choices would be. We'd all be better for it, and we could have a better debate.

Hon. P. Ramsey: It's a real pleasure to rise in the chamber today to support the Tuition Fee Freeze Act that we now are debating in second reading here and to speak to some of the underlying reasons why, on this side of the House, we think this is an absolutely critical step towards moving forward with an agenda that puts education first in British Columbia.

[1620]

It helps to enhance our reputation -- one we're gaining across the country -- as the education province, as a province where we are making policies that open the doors to learning, both at the K-to-12 level and, more importantly, at the post-secondary level. We know that the competitive advantage that this province needs will be, in part, that of the skills and knowledge of the people that benefit from post-secondary education.

I want to reflect a little bit on why I feel this is such an important act, particularly for those of us who come from interior regions of the province where, frankly, post-secondary education has not traditionally been part of what was considered the "normal" or "ordinary" progress of people as they went to school and then went into the workforce.

Well, those jobs, those opportunities, are gone, or at least greatly diminished. Now when I go into high schools in Prince George and ask young people what they see as their future, something like 75 to 85 percent say that they know that college or university is in their future. They know that their route to a successful career and to economic success for them and their family lies with education. That is a hugely different message. On this side of the House, we think that that is exactly the right direction, and we want to support those young people in every way possible. The tuition fee freeze is exactly the sort of initiative that we need.

I want to just put on the record the difference that this government's tuition freeze policy has made over the past four years, because I've heard a lot of very strange figures from the opposition benches. Let's put on the record what the tuition fees are in this province right now, compared to other provinces.

This year in British Columbia, 1998-99, the B.C. average for tuition in colleges and universities blended is $1,970. The

[ Page 12582 ]

Canadian average is $2,990, and the provinces that this opposition says it admires most -- Alberta and Ontario . . . . Well, in Alberta the average is $3,260, and Ontario clocks in at $3,490. So when we talk about what sort of model for post-secondary education we want in British Columbia, let's look at the real choices that governments across this country have made. This government has made a choice to keep tuition fees down, and we've made significant progress in keeping the doors of our educational institutions open.

Now, I heard a lot from the members opposite, saying: "Well, that's not enough. You've got to keep growing the system. You've got to provide more opportunity." And that, too, is an area that we've devoted a lot of attention to in British Columbia. The facts are clear. Since 1991, enrolment across British Columbia in our colleges, institutions and universities has grown by 10 percent. We've opened new universities, including UNBC in Prince George, and across the north . . . . We're opening another one, Tech B.C., the university in Surrey. We've opened new faculties in colleges and universities, and students are taking advantage of them.

The number of spaces has increased by 16,000 -- a 10 percent increase over the last eight years. In the rest of Canada, there has been a decline of 4.4 percent. We are moving in a different direction than the rest of this country on post-secondary education. And we on this side of the House are proud of that and want to continue to keep those doors to learning open.

[1625]

The other thing that the members opposite are saying is: "Well, that's fine. Okay. You're freezing tuition; that's good. Maybe add more spaces" -- though they seem not to really accept that. But they say they also need student support -- better student financial assistance. Frankly, we agree. This year -- just this year, and I guess we'll be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Advanced Education sometime later today -- members might want to ask about what we've been doing in student financial assistance, because that budget has gone up this year. It has doubled in the last eight years, and this year it's going up again by another $7.7 million.

Yes, it is expensive to get post-secondary education. And we provide better financial assistance than any other province in the country. We have the only bursary program and the only loan remission program that still exists in Canada. Now frankly, as the chair of the Council of Ministers of Education in Canada, that's not something that I'm very proud of as a Canadian. I think all provinces should be looking at grant programs to reduce the cost of post-secondary education.

I would love to hear from other provincial Premiers the vision of post-secondary education that I heard in this House today from our Premier -- a vision that increasingly says that we need to have post-secondary education as right for all, not a privilege for an elite few.

A generation ago, two generations ago, a hundred years ago, this country and other western democracies started moving towards free public education. Frankly, it is time for us to now look at how we move towards more accessible, open and less costly post-secondary education. That has to be borne as part of the general support that society gives to its young people, because without that we are going to be disadvantaging them and disadvantaging our province and our country.

Interjections.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Now, I hear some members opposite that seem to be wanting to curtail this discussion. I don't understand it.

Let me just say a few things in conclusion here, because I think that this is

an act that is going to be supported by both sides of the House. I believe that this is the right direction to move to support young people and not-so-young people who need post-secondary education and training. It is clearly

an act that distinguishes this province from other provinces in Canada. I wish that that vision of accessible post-secondary education was more widely shared across the country, and I regret that it's not. But for our part, we will be supporting this act and supporting the doors that are opening to learning for students across British Columbia.

With that, hon. Speaker, I would move second reading.

The Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, I'll put the question.

[1630]

Second reading of Bill 59 approved unanimously on a division. [See Votes and Proceedings .]

[1635]

Bill 59, Tuition Fee Freeze Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. J. MacPhail: I call Committee of Supply to debate the estimates of the Ministry of Advanced Education, Training and Technology.

The House in Committee of Supply B; P. Calendino in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF ADVANCED EDUCATION, TRAINING AND TECHNOLOGY

AND MINISTRY OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

(continued)

On vote 11: ministry operations, $1,717,327,000 (continued).

C. Hansen: I want to ask the minister about a program that's known as vocational rehabilitation services, which I believe falls under the skills development division of the ministry. Specifically, this is pertaining to a constituent. I know that the constituent and her parents are very concerned about this issue and would probably not mind my using their name, but since I don't have their explicit written consent for that, I won't. Besides, I want to talk generally about the policies that this program operates under rather than the specifics of this case, although I think the case is interesting for the problem that it points out.

This particular young lady was born with a learning disability, went through our public education system as a special needs student and graduated and got her Dogwood Certificate from the public school system. She's now seeking to go on to Kwantlen College. She has made application for vocational rehabilitation services through the ministry and, in the process, went through medical assessments. In the discussions with ministry officials, one of the questions that was asked was whether or not she had any outstanding claims against ICBC as a result of a motor vehicle accident that had

[ Page 12583 ]

occurred several years ago -- which was really unrelated to the particular application she was making for vocational rehabilitation services.

They acknowledged that there is an outstanding claim, but they were astounded to find out that there is a policy of the ministry to deny her the right to apply under this program because of the fact that there is an outstanding claim. In this letter that was sent to her from the ministry, it actually spells out the policy that exists. It says . . . .

Under this VRS policy, one of the circumstances that exists in which one is not eligible includes: " . . . they have made a claim under the Workers Compensation Act, Veterans Rehabilitation Act of Canada, private insurance carriers or any other branch of federal, provincial or municipal governments that, resolved, could include rehabilitation services."

[1640]

I know that my constituents found it really very surprising to find that this particular policy was used to deny their right to proceed with this particular application for vocational rehabilitation services. I'm just wondering if the minister could comment on this -- as to whether or not this policy was intended to be applied in this particular manner.

Hon. A. Petter: I think it would be helpful, given the individual nature of the concern, if the member were to share it with me; I'd be happy to follow up. In general terms, if the client is an income assistance client who's also seeking services through VRS, then the eligibility that is being referred to may well relate to the income assistance eligibility criteria. If that's not the case and this is a client who's seeking eligibility for service with VRS outside of income assistance, then their eligibility would indeed be determined through the VRS criteria themselves.

If that's the situation, I would be very happy to follow up and see why in fact the situation is as the member has described it, and see what we can do to address it. I'm not familiar with the specifics or how this issue would have come into play -- unless it is an income assistance recipient, and then it would be part and parcel of the income assistance criteria.

C. Hansen: My understanding of this particular case is that it's not an income assistance case. In saying that, I don't want to deal with the specifics of this individual case on the floor of the Legislature. My concern is the way this particular policy is applied generally, because certainly it has applications to British Columbians all over the province and in different circumstances. My concern is that there would be such a policy in existence that basically says to applicants that if they have any outstanding claims against a government body, their application cannot be considered.

Certainly in this particular case, the constituents saw this as almost a veiled threat which said that unless they were to dispense with their action against ICBC for an unrelated motor vehicle accident, the application couldn't be considered. Certainly I would question whether or not that was the intent of this policy in the first place. I'm just wondering if the minister could give us some assurance or perhaps explain to us why this policy is in existence and how it was intended to be applied to applicants.

Hon. A. Petter: I guess that in response to the member's question I can only hypothesize. I'd have to look at the circumstances. In general terms, I will run a little risk of hypothesis here: the general criteria for eligibility through VRS entails not only the termination of disability and other criteria, but also the criteria that the individual not meet any of the conditions for ineligibility, including having a claim for rehabilitation services with another government agency or private insurance carrier.

In other words, VRS is intended to provide a safety net where people cannot obtain rehabilitation services through either private insurance or some other government agency. So it's for people who cannot get services elsewhere, as many government programs are. There is an expectation that other agencies will provide the service where they're obliged to do so, and VRS will come in where that obligation doesn't exist. If the issue is that ICBC may have had an obligation to provide rehabilitation services, that might help explain why this avenue was being pursued. But again, I'm hypothesizing.

[1645]

C. Hansen: I think that in this case, the motor vehicle accident and the fact that she was making application under this program were unrelated. She wasn't seeking rehabilitation services to be rehabilitated as a result of injuries caused by a motor vehicle accident. This was a special needs individual who has had a disability from birth and was basically applying to the program in order to further her education at the post-secondary level. In this case, this particular policy, it appears, is worded extremely broadly.

In fact if you read it, it says that they are not eligible if they have a claim under the Workers Compensation Act, the Veterans Rehabilitation Act, etc., including ICBC. The way it's worded, it doesn't seem to even give any discretion. If you have an unrelated matter that's before ICBC -- or WCB, for that matter -- the way the policy is worded it doesn't give the ministry officials the authority to proceed with the application in spite of the fact that there is some outstanding, unrelated ICBC matter that is unresolved.

Hon. A. Petter: The problem with shadowboxing around an individual claim is that although the member -- as I appreciate -- is trying to get me to explore the policy . . . . The trouble is that it's hard to know what the policy is that's being applied here -- or misapplied, if the member is correct. I would agree that if in fact the claim is unrelated, then clearly it should not be a condition of receiving service. I'm struggling to find out why it might be related, giving the benefit of the doubt to my ministry and the excellent officials who work in it. I assume they don't make determinations based upon unrelated matters. Hence I indulge in a hypothesis.

If it is not the case that the ICBC claim or workers compensation claim might entail eligibility for rehabilitation services, then I am perplexed as to why eligibility under that claim would be taken into account. If the member provides me with the name of the individual so I can pursue the matter in confidentiality, I'd be more than happy to do so. Then we might find out what principle it is we are debating or, hopefully, not debating.

C. Hansen: I'll turn it back to my colleague from North Vancouver-Lonsdale . . . . Just before I do that I want to thank the minister for agreeing to look at that. I will send him the background on this particular case. But I also hope he'll look at it from the