2011 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 39th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes

only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Monday, March 5, 2012

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 31, Number

ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)

ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)

CONTENTS

Page

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

Tributes

Mary Mackie

L. Krog

Introductions by Members

Tributes

Harvey Friesen

L. Reid

Introductions by Members

Statements

Air safety work of Kirsten Stevens

D. Routley

Introduction and

First Reading of Bills

Bill 23 — Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 2012

Hon. K. Falcon

Statements

(Standing Order 25B)

Marilyn Dooley and role of social workers

R. Sultan

Health care services in Sayward

C. Trevena

Beneficial effects of pets and animal-human interaction

L. Reid

Housing for income assistance recipients

J. Brar

Nutrition Month and healthy eating

J. Thornthwaite

Environmental activism by Art Loring

D. Donaldson

Oral Questions

Infection control at Burnaby Hospital

A. Dix

Hon. K. Falcon

Catalyst mill operations and workers

D. Routley

Hon. P. Bell

S. Fraser

Auditor General report on environmental assessment process and permit backlog

R. Fleming

Hon. T. Lake

International education strategy

M. Mungall

Hon. N. Yamamoto

Electricity rates and smart-metering program

J. Horgan

Hon. R. Coleman

Government response to reports on protection system for victims of domestic violence

K. Corrigan

Hon. S. Bond

Allocation of funding for arts and culture

S. Chandra Herbert

Hon. I. Chong

S. Simpson

Petitions

D. Donaldson

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 22 — Education Improvement Act (continued)

K. Krueger

C. James

J. Rustad

C. Trevena

J. Thornthwaite

B. Simpson

D. Barnett

B. Ralston

R. Cantelon

K. Corrigan

Hon. T. Lake

S. Simpson

Proceedings in the Douglas Fir Room

Committee of Supply

Estimates: Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development (continued)

H. Lali

Hon. I. Chong

S. Simpson

S. Fraser

D. Thorne

R. Fleming

K. Corrigan

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MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2012

The House met at 1:33 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

C. James: I have two individuals who are visiting us here in the gallery. Over the last few days they've been taking advantage of Be a Tourist in Your Own Home Town, a great tourism opportunity and a good economic driver in Victoria. They've decided to come by and visit question period at the Legislature. Would the House please make welcome Travis Moore and Drake Matejka. Great to have you here.

J. Horgan: I have two sets of introductions today. Joining us in the gallery are two retired educators from the Sooke school district. Bonnie Stacy, the former principal of Crystal View Elementary, and Erica Williams are here today, as well as some active teachers from Journey Middle School in Sooke. Would the House please welcome Martha Gerow, Michelle Vann, Laura Maragh, Sue Kilpatrick and Randy Dunbar from downtown Sooke.

S. Hammell: There are a number of Surrey teachers in the gallery today. They've joined us to witness the debate on Bill 22. Could I please have the House recognize Marion Koerbel, Glynis Cawdell, Julia McRae, Kristine Olsen, Gabriel Mateescu, Bhupinder Mattoo and Amber Rainkie.

L. Reid: My guest today is Jane Dyson of the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities. It has been my privilege to reconnect with her to advance on an issue which is at the hearts of many — namely, emotional support animals. Please join in making this House very welcome to her today.

[1335]

D. Black: Certain circumstances in the province have provided somewhat of a benefit to this grandmother in that I want to welcome and ask the House to welcome my granddaughters Meagan and Lauren Black. They're students in New Westminster, very athletic girls who have participated in the community in every manner of way. Accompanying them is their father, my son Matthew, who is a Vancouver police officer, a sergeant in the Vancouver police department. I'm delighted to have them with us here today, and I hope that everyone in the House would make them welcome.

Tributes

MARY MACKIE

L. Krog: I rise today to ask the House to pay its respects to the passing of one of British Columbia's most courageous citizen journalists, a woman who was a harsh critic of the B.C. government, particularly around the sale of B.C. Rail, and also critical of yours truly in the role that I played in criticizing the government. She was a well-known blogger. A defender of democracy, she feared no power. I'd ask the House to pay its respect to the passing of B.C. Mary — Mary Mackie.

Introductions by Members

H. Bains: In the House we have more teachers from my city, the city of Surrey. Please welcome them here. Their names are Casey James, Eric Newmeyers, Ken Jones, Peter Martin, Naomi Petzetakis, Gioia Breda, Angela Thibault, Ramandeep Mann and Monica Singh. Please help me welcome them to this beautiful House.

B. Ralston: I, too, want to recognize teachers from Surrey who are here in the House today — Dawn Mah, Raeland Guery, Colleen Eichendorf, Kieran Sandhu, Sarah Kramer, Kevin Larkin, Bob Elliott and Craig McGuire. Would the House please make them welcome.

R. Fleming: I have a couple of introductions I'd like to make this afternoon. The first is to Tony Irwin, who's the CEO of Western Tidal Holdings, and his colleague Roger Ord. Western Tidal Holdings is a renewable energy company recently formed and registered in British Columbia to locate and build sites for tidal power electricity generation here on the west coast. Would the House please make those two gentlemen feel welcome.

There's also a group of four constituents of mine who are here in the House today — June Dermann, Dream Dermann, Tristan Wright and Angelica Wright. They visited the Legislature on the weekend as part of the Be A Tourist In Your Own Home Town festivities, events that occur in Victoria. They enjoyed the tour so much that they wanted to come back today to see question period, so they've been here twice in three days. They wanted to witness debate on Bill 22 this afternoon. Would the House please make those four individuals most welcome in the House today.

Tributes

HARVEY FRIESEN

L. Reid: I rise today to pay a fond farewell to my father-in-law, Harvey Friesen. It's never easy to have that conversation with your children about the passing of someone

[ Page 9712 ]

who is larger than life for them. He was a spectacular grandfather. I simply wanted to extend my thanks to all of you for your many kind wishes.

Introductions by Members

G. Gentner: Many of us in this House were, I'd say, survivors, so to speak, of the Fire Ops 101 last year, sponsored by our firefighters provincially. I have the honour and pleasure to introduce to the House today Delta's finest firefighters from Local 1763 — president, Brad Wilson; vice-president, Mike McMillan; Shawn Cropley, secretary; Hardeep Dhaliwal, who's the registrar; and the money guy himself, Tony Smith, treasurer. Could the House please make them welcome.

J. Brar: Visiting us today there are more teachers from the city of Surrey, the fastest-growing community in the province. They are here to witness question period as well as the debate on Bill 22. They are Vanda Sampson, Tim Saprut, Linda Stewart, Amanda Hickey, Meena Dulku, Christine Yurik, Emily Dinjara, Jas Sidhu and Phyllis Minsky. I'll ask the members to please make them feel welcome.

[1340]

S. Chandra Herbert: I just want the House to welcome K-t Harvey, who describes herself as an actor, writer, shape-shifter and proud Okanagan, Tsilhoqot'in, Kootenay and Carrier native. Please make K-t Harvey very welcome.

M. Mungall: Mr. Speaker, it's not every day you look up in the House, especially when you're from a rural constituency, and you see someone you know. If I'm correct, I'm looking at Carole Gordon, who will be participating in the democratic process come 2013 in Kelowna. Please make her welcome.

Statements

AIR SAFETY WORK OF KIRSTEN STEVENS

D. Routley: Last week on February 28, it marked the seventh anniversary of February 8, 2005, the day an MJM Air Beaver plane crashed in B.C. Onboard and killed in that crash were Dave Stevens, Fabian Bedard and brothers Trevor and Doug Decock.

Kirsten Stevens, Dave Stevens' widow, has gone on to create an organization called SafeSkies, which has done extensive lobbying throughout Canada and with the federal government to improve air safety for floatplanes in this country. My partner, Leanne, and Kirsten have worked as lobbyists for logger safety.

I think that it would be good for this House to recognize Kirsten Stevens for the excellent work she's done. So often people suffer tragedies, and it's their response to those tragedies that helps so many others, and so Kirsten deserves our thanks.

Introduction and

First Reading of Bills

BILL 23 — FINANCE STATUTES

AMENDMENT ACT, 2012

Hon. K. Falcon presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 2012.

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

Motion approved.

Hon. K. Falcon: I'm pleased to introduce the Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 2012. This bill contains amendments to the Business Corporations Act, the Cooperative Association Act, the Financial Institutions Act, the Partnership Act and the Pension Benefits Standards Act as well as consequential amendments related to the Auditor General Act and other statutes.

The most significant amendments in this bill introduce a new type of corporation, the community contribution company, or CCC. Within the for-profit framework of the Business Corporations Act, CCCs will combine socially beneficial purposes with a restricted ability to distribute profits to shareholders. This hybrid vehicle will promote social enterprise by allowing this sector to tap into the emerging demand for socially focused investment options.

Other amendments in the bill will confirm procedural safeguards that protect co-op members, make corporate registry filings more efficient, streamline the appointment processes for the head of the Financial Institutions Commission and provide greater certainty and transparency regarding the authority of the Auditor General.

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

Bill 23, Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 2012, 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.

Statements

(Standing Order 25B)

MARILYN DOOLEY AND

ROLE OF SOCIAL WORKERS

R. Sultan: This is Social Work Week in British Columbia. Social worker Marilyn Dooley once said:

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"Suffering diminishes all human beings. Social workers give of themselves to enhance life for everyone." She also observed: "We have this tremendous social service in B.C. responding 24 hours a day, serving children and families in crisis and others in need, helping resolve many of our society's problems."

Marilyn Dooley recently retired after 40 years in public service, mostly on the Downtown Eastside. We hoped to have Marilyn in the House today so that we could honour her and recognize Social Work Week with her, but that was not to be.

But it is a time when all of us should thank those who toil tirelessly in our schools, in our family programs, in our mental health facilities and in our counselling centres, improving the lives of British Columbians.

[1345]

Social workers staff the front line of our child protection system, and we ask them to make difficult decisions every day. If you ask Marilyn Dooley, she tells you that social workers are "just good people." I ask both sides of this House to join me in recognizing the contribution that these good people make to our province.

HEALTH CARE SERVICES IN SAYWARD

C. Trevena: Sayward used to be the gateway to the north Island, a vibrant logging community in the port of Kelsey Bay, where the ferry headed north. Now it's a much quieter community, with some people living in the broad valley; others further down the picturesque Salmon River, in the shadow of Mount Hkusam — many seniors, many retirees. But it's a community with a mission.

The mayor, John MacDonald, has been a driving force in making the dream of a primary health care clinic for Sayward a reality. He wants to make sure that the people in the community have access to health care in their own community. It's just over 70 kilometres from Sayward to Campbell River, and that's a long drive for a person who made an appointment with a physiotherapist, or care post-surgery or to visit the baby clinic.

People in the community have now caught the bug, and a board has been established to create a primary health care clinic. The building is there, the former municipal offices, and the furnishing has started, thanks to many donations. Now it's a matter of trying to attract professionals who would come to Sayward on set days of the week or the month to work out of that clinic.

The group are hoping that it will attract the mobile lab service so that people don't have to head to town for a simple blood test. They'd really like to see a nurse practitioner. They know they don't need a doctor full-time, but they would like to have someone who can take on some of the medical load.

A number of people on the board are also paramedics, and there's some talk of integration with the work done by B.C. Ambulance Service. But they're not starry-eyed. They know they need a lot of basic medical equipment to make such a clinic work — everything from tongue depressors to disposable gloves to gauze to a blood sugar meter. They're looking for donations and are aware that some of the equipment may need to be purchased.

There is a fundamental belief in public health care, in preventative health care and in health care in the community. Health care should not be paid for by fundraising or by corporate donations but out of the public purse. Care close to home, in the community, often saves hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, to everyone's health care bill.

BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF PETS

AND ANIMAL-HUMAN INTERACTION

L. Reid: Today I'm dedicating my remarks to Jane Dyson, the executive director of the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities. Comfort, solace, companionship, bonding — all are characteristics of a settled life. Dr. Coren of UBC talks about one of the newest trends in medical research, which focuses on the relationship between people and their pets and the effect this has on their physical and mental well-being.

The scientific data is unequivocal in showing that dogs can be a significant factor in dealing with stress responses for all people and can have a major beneficial effect on special groups, such as persons with physical and mental disabilities, seniors and others who may be socially isolated.

The medical recognition of the significance of the human-animal bond and its influence on human psychological health has become a subject of serious research. Human findings include lower blood pressure, relaxed heart rate, regular breathing and less muscle tension — all signs of reduced stress. Individuals with disabilities are particularly susceptible to stress, and hence, all of the secondary problems associated. Up to 25 percent of people who seek the services of a general practitioner do so for depressive and anxiety disorders.

Depression is considered to be much more disabling, socially and physically, than many chronic conditions. Although depression can be caused by many factors, one of the most common is loneliness. People who lack human contact often benefit from pet ownership and the emotional bond that pets provide.

Recently researchers looked at a group of people 60 and older living alone or only with a pet. Non–pet owners were four times more likely to be diagnosed as clinically depressed than pet owners of the same age. The evidence also showed that pet owners required fewer medical services and were more satisfied with their lives.

In the year 2010 Dr. Aubrey Fine edited a stunning collection of chapters on animal-assisted therapy, theoretical foundations and guidelines for practice, in which the au-

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thors explore the animal-human bond — from the use of animals with individuals with autism spectrum disorder to human-animal interactions in successful aging.

Animals have become an important part of the lives of many people of all ages, and there are now numerous studies to support the beneficial effects, both physiological and psychosocial.

[1350]

HOUSING FOR

INCOME ASSISTANCE RECIPIENTS

J. Brar: During the welfare challenge, I experienced firsthand how difficult it is for a person living on income assistance to find a place to stay. I walked half an hour in the pouring rain to reach Highland House, a non-profit organization that helps low-income people find accommodations. A staff member named Tammy provided me with a list of rooms to rent and a ride to go see the places. The list contained 50 rooms, and Tammy asked me to call and set up appointments to see some of them.

I called every number on the list and was able to set up only three appointments. One of the houses I saw was a scary-looking, dirty old house with four rooms. The room that was available was small, with a single bed, a very small table and a fridge. The rent was $450.

Around the side of this house the landlord showed me another room. It was about three feet by seven feet, with no windows. When he opened the door, I was shocked. Who could live in a room that small? I could only take one step into the room, and I was standing directly in front of the twin bed. The bed fit in the room like a glove, from wall to wall. I thought to myself that it would be worse than staying in a jail cell, this room.

When the landlord told me that the room was already rented for $300 to a man due to be released from the hospital following surgery, I was unable to control my tears. I tried to hide them from the landlord and Tammy. I could not even begin to comprehend what kind of challenges await the tenant recovering from surgery when he comes to this room.

No one should be living in conditions like this. Clearly, we need to do a better job assisting the most vulnerable people of this province that we call the beautiful province on the earth.

NUTRITION MONTH AND HEALTHY EATING

J. Thornthwaite: British Columbians pride themselves on being counted among the healthiest people in Canada. Not only do we have the highest physical activity rates in the nation; we have the longest life expectancy as well.

I was a registered dietitian in my other life. My daughter is now at UBC in the land and food systems department with the goal of becoming a dietician, and my mom was a dietician at St. Mary's Hospital.

We take our nutrition very, very seriously here in British Columbia. Fresh organic produce is readily available in many of our supermarkets, and campaigns like the 5 to 10 a Day program build the foundation for lifelong nutrition in our schools. According to Stats Canada, British Columbia consumes more fruits and vegetables than anywhere else in Canada.

Check out the Dietitians of Canada website. They pronounce March as Nutrition Month and have dedicated it to busting popular nutrition myths, bringing the truth about food to Canadians. All month thousands of dieticians across the country will promote healthy eating and help Canadians with nutritious meal plans for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Healthy eating starts in the home. As part of healthy families B.C., this is another great way for families to learn about nutrition and how to eat healthy together.

Last year our government announced a new resource for families. HealthLink B.C. is a fast, easy way for people to access trusted health information. Simply dialling 811 connects you to a nurse, pharmacist or registered dietician at any time of the day.

This week at Lions Gate Hospital there's going to be a Nutrition Month display outside the cafeteria and ready access to all of the dieticians in Lions Gate to get tasty snacks, recipes and handouts on healthy nutrition, etc. This month I encourage all families to take advantage of the resources and information available to them from these dieticians. Let's work together to help keep our province healthy.

ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM

BY ART LORING

D. Donaldson: Many years ago I founded the Gitksan and Wet'suwet'en School of Journalism. One day we were told of imminent direct action by Gitksan and Gitwangak to shut down the main CN Rail line running through the village on a long-ignored compensation issue. Sensing a teachable moment, we quickly packed up the class and headed to Gitwangak to cover the story. Standing on the tracks was a man who volunteered to be arrested but first spoke firmly and clearly to the RCMP and cameras about why the actions were necessary.

Always raising awareness, he then kept talking with the arresting officers, as he was led away down the tracks, about the export of timber resources from the territory with little in the way of employment for a village where nine out of ten didn't have a job. That man was Art Loring, Guu Tsa-giin, of the Lax Skiik Eagle clan, a true warrior — peaceful yet forceful, firm but not violent, respectful of the traditional laws. That was what I witnessed during many intense experiences I was privileged to share with Art.

[1355]

There were other times when I documented direct ac-

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tion that Art spearheaded. Once we were threatened by an agitated outsider when the Gitxsan were attempting to assert control over some unsustainable pine mushroom harvesting activities. Art skilfully defused the situation without losing the point, and soon the man was arrested in possession of a loaded rifle. As the main subject in Blockade, a 1993 documentary by filmmaker Nettie Wild, Art became more widely known as a defender of the land.

I also recorded his efforts to introduce ecosystem-based timber harvesting strategies in the Fiddler Creek watershed and his ecotourism initiatives. He used traditional ceremonies to cleanse his spirit and found great comfort and strength by working on the land and teaching young people about hunting, fishing, trapping and medicinal plant gathering.

On January 30 Art Loring, Guu Tsa-giin, died in a falling accident in the bush. Only 56, he is greatly missed, but his true warrior energy will be inherited by those to come in future generations. [A First Nations language was spoken.]

Oral Questions

INFECTION CONTROL AT

BURNABY HOSPITAL

A. Dix: My question is to the Deputy Premier. For many of my constituents and their families and, obviously, for people in Burnaby, Burnaby Hospital is their community hospital — including the Rampuri family. Their father, Bhinder Rampuri, contracted C. difficile three separate times during his hospital stay, including the week prior to his discharge date of February 6. He died February 8.

The Rampuri family is obviously concerned about the level of information available to them and the community about the spread of C. difficile at Burnaby Hospital. In fact, the Fraser Health Authority itself has acknowledged that action was only taken because of media headlines. I quote Dr. Nigel Murray. "As a result of recent public discussion, we have taken immediate steps to restore confidence in infection prevention."

Why did it require television news stories on the situation and media reports on the evening news and in the newspapers for the government to provide adequate information to people in the community about the problems at Burnaby Hospital?

Hon. K. Falcon: I will take that question on notice on behalf of the Minister of Health.

CATALYST MILL

OPERATIONS AND WORKERS

D. Routley: Catalyst Corp. is in creditor protection. Catalyst operates mills in Crofton, Port Alberni and Powell River. The loss of any of those mills would be devastating to their local economies. In Crofton, in my constituency, hundreds of direct jobs, hundreds more indirect jobs and many, many small businesses will be directly impacted.

What is the minister doing to work with Catalyst towards a solution to this crisis?

Hon. P. Bell: One of the key elements to the issue that Catalyst faces is its competitiveness internationally. We are working with the company as well as individual log suppliers to ensure that they can receive logs in an affordable way, maintain competitiveness and operate on an international basis. But this problem will not be solved just by the provincial government. It's a problem that will involve all parties, including the local communities, the employees, the management team and potentially new sources of financing.

Mr. Speaker: Member has a supplemental.

D. Routley: Well, the government has steps they could take between doing nothing and stepping right into the situation. The workers and their families are waiting for some sign that this government is taking their plight seriously. The minister must step up and provide that leadership right now.

These mills, once down, are lost forever. These jobs will be gone. Already, workers who took a buyout option or a bridging to their pensions are left hanging. They may be unsecured creditors, and they may lose their pensions. These workers are looking at a future without jobs and potentially without pensions. This is a disaster in the lives of the people in my communities — my friends, my neighbours.

What can the minister tell them today, right now, about what he and his government are doing to protect those jobs and to find a solution to this crisis?

[1400]

Hon. P. Bell: I will try and be clear again to the member opposite. This solution will not be found by any one single individual or party. Catalyst has had some history around challenges, economically, with their operations. They are currently in a restructuring process. That is the appropriate model under which they should be operating.

Catalyst has been working with their employee groups. Some have been supportive of new styles of contracts, similar to what Harmac has done. They've been working with individual communities in the province, and they've been working with the province, in terms of harvest and log supply for Catalyst. I'm confident that if everyone works together, we'll be able to find a solution that will protect the interests of employees and the corporation here in British Columbia.

[ Page 9716 ]

S. Fraser: With Catalyst Paper receiving creditor protection, there are fears that hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs may be at risk should the operation cease. I represent the workers and the community in Port Alberni, and there is so much at stake.

Has the minister appointed a fact-finder, for instance, to look into this issue and determine what needs to happen and to try to protect these mills from closing?

Hon. P. Bell: We are working with Catalyst. I and my colleagues have been meeting both with them as well as individuals in the communities. This is a very complex issue, and it is absolutely appropriate that they are operating under creditor protection right now.

Our role will be to make sure that all parties come together to try and find a constructive solution. I would actually refer to Port Alberni because I think they've been very successful in terms of working with the community under the previous leadership that existed. I hope that the current leadership in Port Alberni continues to do that. I know the employees have worked hard.

If they want to take a lesson, it would be to look at Harmac. That's a great example where there has been real success in a company, and they're looking at a long-term, viable future for the employees and that community.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

S. Fraser: With Harmac, they tried to get into a partnership with Voith international to help them become a world leader, and this government walked away from that. So that doesn't bode well. This is real life right now — 360 direct jobs in Port Alberni and another 1,000, as the minister knows, with the spinoffs, in the balance here.

This is above politics. The workers and their families need solutions, and we don't need rhetoric. Will the minister agree to work with the company and also with the unions and the workers and with the communities, in a real sense, to protect these jobs should the unthinkable happen and Catalyst curtails any of its operations?

Hon. P. Bell: I believe I've answered that question already. The solution to this is actually all parties working together.

Recently there was a vote held by one of the unions in the organization that rejected the proposal that had been brought forward. Catalyst has worked hard with local communities. Communities like the one that the member opposite represents in Port Alberni have been very, very proactive. Powell River — very, very proactive. Campbell River — some very positive decisions. Other communities, not so much.

It's important that we work together to resolve this. The insolvency process, the creditor protection process that they're in, is the appropriate one.

AUDITOR GENERAL REPORT ON

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT PROCESS

AND PERMIT BACKLOG

R. Fleming: The government tabled a budget without new resources for the environmental assessment office only months after an Auditor General's report blasted the Liberal government for failing to ensure that the proponents of industrial projects are delivering on their environmental commitments.

My question is to the Minister of Environment. How does the minister expect the environmental assessment office to address all of the Auditor General's concerns when clearly this budget will do nothing but send the office towards more project review backlogs and chaos?

[1405]

Hon. T. Lake: Thank you to the member for the opportunity to talk about our response to the Auditor General's recommendations. I think we should never be afraid of making our processes better. We want to do that each and every week in this ministry.

The environmental assessment office has, in fact, responded to the Auditor General's recommendations. We now have a strategy and quality assurance unit to develop and implement the EAO's enhanced compliance management program. We have additional FTEs that have been reorganized in the office to ensure that we have coordination across all of the line ministries, to ensure that we not only make sure that we do a comprehensive environmental assessment but that we have the compliance and enforcement mechanisms at the back end of that, which is in line with the Auditor General's report.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

R. Fleming: The environmental assessment office in British Columbia was once an award-winning internationally recognized agency that was studied and emulated by other parts of the world. Today, under this government, we have an agency in crisis whose work has been put under a cloud — by the Auditor General's findings, for example, but also for the hit it took on its credibility and quality of advice for approving the Prosperity mine last year when the federal Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency utterly rejected the project.

Same project, same review, same terms of reference but radically different results. Prosperity got turned down by the federal government, but it got a B.C. Liberal green light because the facts and the science weren't done and they weren't put before the minister.

Again to the Environment Minister: it simply defies common sense to imagine that the environmental assessment office can both improve its environmental oversight, as recommended by the Auditor General, while accelerating the permitting process, all with a frozen

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budget. Can he explain how his government intends to accelerate environmental assessment process without further lowering the bar for environmental protection in our province?

Hon. T. Lake: Well, as always, the NDP answer to everything is to just put more money into something. Of course, we won't know what the NDP would propose to spend on the environmental assessment office because we haven't seen the phantom budget that they apparently have over there, which they were prepared to release in the fall.

I can tell you this. The NDP could save a lot of money, because the NDP say no to everything. We wouldn't need to have an environmental assessment office.

On this side of the House we believe that British Columbia can develop our natural resources in the most sustainable way in the world, in which all British Columbians can be proud, and that's what we are doing.

INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION STRATEGY

M. Mungall: The Liberal September press release trumpeting their plan to double international education students in B.C. by 2015 promised an action plan for international education, ready by the end of the year. We're now two months into 2012. We have yet to see a plan, and the only action we've seen in post-secondary education is to make cuts.

Does the minister have a plan that she can table in this House, or will she just admit that the Liberals are once again failing to keep their promises to British Columbians?

Hon. N. Yamamoto: The member opposite got it half right. Yes, we are actually embarking on an aggressive international education strategy. The report from the International Education Project Council did come to me at the end of last year. It is being reviewed, and you'll see shortly an international education strategy that will be unveiled publicly.

The member opposite is also wrong about our annual operating dollars and the commitment to our post-secondary institutions. Annual operating dollars to post-secondary are increasing — $1.9 billion being invested by taxpayers this year alone.

[1410]

Let me remind the member opposite: over $2 billion since 2001 for student financial assistance and over $2 billion in capital invested in our post-secondary system.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

M. Mungall: The minister says there's an actual plan. I wish she would actually tell us where the whereabouts are for the student aid review. That would be some good news.

The question is: what is in the plan? The reality is that post-secondary institutions…. Many of them are saying: "Where are they going to put international students? Where are they going to be able to address this increase?"

Acting now on international education is critical. Eric Davis, vice-president of the University of the Fraser Valley, had this to say in response to the Liberal promise to double international students. "We don't have the room to grow…. Our buildings and classrooms are full. We've run out of space." And he's just one among many.

The Liberals' response to the realities at UFV is this: no plan to build capacity, no support. Just make cuts. British Columbians want to know when the minister is going to pick up the file and get the job done.

Hon. N. Yamamoto: Unlike the members opposite, whose phantom budget is yet to be displayed, we actually do have a strategy for international education. I'll be pleased to present it to the members opposite once we have it finalized.

ELECTRICITY RATES AND

SMART-METERING PROGRAM

J. Horgan: I, like other members of this place, have been receiving e-mails and correspondence from constituents who have seen their hydro rates double over the past number of months. Since the implementation of the smart meter program, in fact, in my constituency I've been hearing from dozens and dozens and dozens of people about how they've gone from $100 a month to $300 a month without changing their consumption patterns.

Hilton Venter is a senior living here in Victoria. He had a smart meter installed in December. His bill has doubled to $885 for a two-month period, and he hasn't changed his consumption at all.

We have thousands of people saying: "Don't put these on our walls." We have dozens and dozens of people saying: "Our bills are out of whack." Will the minister acknowledge that he's made an error here, that he's made a mistake, and ship the whole process to the Utilities Commission so we can get to the bottom of it?

Hon. R. Coleman: I guess we're at the bottom of the barrel for question period, with 12 minutes to go.

The reality is I had a conversation with the member opposite on Thursday. He brought up one of the issues around one of the smart meters. I explained to him that somebody got a bill change, not because of a smart meter but because they'd installed a 220-amp service and put in a great big hot tub, and they ran it through the winter.

Now, there is often a reason for a change in bills.

[ Page 9718 ]

Sometimes you can have a bad reading. What you do then is send somebody out. We actually send somebody out to measure their electricity, and the federal inspector of electricity actually performs these disputed tests. We go out and look at the range, and if we have to, we'll switch out the meter and go over the bill with the individual.

I said to any member of the House that's asked me about this, on both sides of the House, that if you have somebody that has a concern about a bill, get it to me personally — I've said this to the media as well — and I'll look into the individual cases, as you give them to me, every single time.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

J. Horgan: It's interesting that…

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

J. Horgan: …the misfortune and the hardship of citizens of B.C. is a night at Yuk-Yuk's for the Minister of Finance. But we on this side of the House take it seriously when constituents contact us. We take it seriously.

Thousands and thousands and thousands of people have lost confidence in this government and B.C. Hydro as a result of the mismanagement of the smart meter program. It was exempted by law by the B.C. Liberals without any oversight whatsoever on a billion-dollar expenditure. Now we see rates going up right across the board.

[1415]

In California last year 1,600 meters were recalled because they were defective. Will the minister make the same commitment to the people here in British Columbia that the Utilities Commission will review the billion-dollar expenditure and will try and keep rates down for people in B.C. rather than sending them through the roof, which is what the Liberals are doing?

Hon. R. Coleman: Well, 0.015 percent of people have actually rejected, of the 750,000 metres that have been installed in British Columbia today. In actual fact, when the grid goes live, it'll be the first integrated grid in North America, which will save hundreds of millions of dollars for British Columbians and at the same time allow us to make sure we have the most valuable integrated system in North America.

I know that the member opposite just gets really excited about this, but I do know this. The one thing he supports is higher rates for families in British Columbia, because he supports the union of B.C. Hydro that wants a 9.3 percent increase in power rates when we're prepared to stand up to the Utilities Commission as best we can to keep them down to 3.9 percent.

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO REPORTS ON

PROTECTION SYSTEM FOR VICTIMS OF

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

K. Corrigan: Last week this government claimed they take the issue of domestic violence seriously. Yet in December of 2011 the Auditor General, in his report Effectiveness of B.C. Community Corrections , raised concerns that only 42 percent of probation officers had completed their mandatory course on domestic violence.

The Auditor General said it is a risk that these officers who are front-line workers dealing with domestic violence all the time are not completing certain courses before supervising offenders.

With only 42 percent of probation officers completing a mandatory domestic violence course, how can British Columbians trust the Liberal claim that they take this issue seriously?

Hon. S. Bond: In fact, yes, the Auditor General did make some comments and provided a very helpful report that looked at the effectiveness of community corrections. And in fact, what the member opposite didn't point out was that approximately 75 percent of our corrections clients have actually not come back under community supervision for a new offence within a two-year time frame.

We continue to lead. British Columbia does an exceptional job. We will continue to look at the recommendations provided by the Auditor General. We appreciated those. In fact, there were a number that were related to the way that records were kept. We have accepted all of those recommendations, and we'll continue to work hard to improve correction services within the province.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

K. Corrigan: Well, it's interesting that the minister mentions a reoffence rate. One of the recommendations and one of the comments made by the Auditor General was that the tracking was inadequate and it was hard to find out what the reoffence rates were.

We have heard reassurances from this Liberal government before, and the problem on domestic violence is the lack of action that follows empty promises. Over 4,000 people convicted of domestic violence are living in the community, with the majority having a substance abuse or mental health issue.

Government was warned of the seriousness of the domestic violence issue in a report by the children's representative in 2009. It was told again in the Auditor

[ Page 9719 ]

General's report about inadequate training for probation officers. Then last week we saw the Representative for Children and Youth's devastating and heartbreaking report.

Why has the government failed on such an important issue as domestic violence? What action will this government take to prove that their most recent reassurances aren't just more empty promises?

Hon. S. Bond: The member opposite points out the recommendation that I referenced in my answer. In fact, the Auditor did find that in 64 percent of the non-completion cases where we were dealing with community corrections, the problem was a lack of recordkeeping. So we said we will rectify that situation. That is exactly what we're going to do.

[1420]

All of us in this chamber, not just the member opposite, take the issue of domestic violence as a serious and profound issue that has impact on people's lives.

When the report was tabled by the child and youth rep, we responded immediately by saying that we are creating a domestic violence unit within our government. It will bring together the resources from those ministries that currently have resources in place. I can assure you that unit will be in place. It will be operating, and we will deal with circumstances. We all hope profoundly never to see the same circumstances repeated again.

ALLOCATION OF

FUNDING FOR ARTS AND CULTURE

S. Chandra Herbert: Arts groups in B.C. have been struggling for years, especially after the Liberals made the deepest cuts to arts investment in B.C. history. So imagine my surprise when I learned last week that the minister for arts is sitting on a fund of $3 million — a fund not known to the public, with no application process, without any public knowledge about this fund — and she has to spend it within the next 23 days.

Can the minister explain to this House how a secret fund of $3 million with no application process, no public process, no jury — completely at her own discretion — is open, accountable and will best support artists and the creative sector of British Columbia?

Hon. I. Chong: Half a billion dollars, $500 million — that is what this government has invested in arts and culture since 2001. For the member to suggest that there has been a cut is really inconceivable.

What we have been able to do is work with the arts and culture community. We have maintained funding to the B.C. Arts Council, the second-largest level ever in the history of this province, and they are providing those grants to a number of arts and culture communities. In addition, the community gaming grant program provides another $7.5 million to arts and culture groups. That's an increase as well, and we're proud of that investment we're making in arts and culture.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

S. Chandra Herbert: Well, the minister in estimates last week confessed to having $3 million and only 23 days now to actually spend it. She didn't say there was a public process. There is no application process. She admitted to that as well. She admitted that it was completely up to her how to spend it.

Now in this House she claims that there were no arts cuts. Oops. You might want to tell your Finance Minister, who admitted to the press that the Liberals cut the arts far too vigorously. Oops. I guess that fact didn't get checked either.

So $3 million — we forgot about that. We forgot that we cut the arts — the worst in B.C. history. Well, that would be the B.C. Liberals. We saw the head of the B.C. Arts Council resign over political interference. Now we know that in this upcoming budget year there's also $3 million, and it's an election year — surprise, surprise. The minister pretends to be surprised.

Can we ask the minister how she can assure the good people of British Columbia that this $3 million is not just another political slush fund for the Liberals to use to try to help them in failing re-election chances?

Hon. I. Chong: As I said already, half a billion dollars, $500 million, is what we've invested in arts and culture since 2001 — $17.5 million through the gaming grant process. Despite the current economy, we are maintaining funding levels to our arts and culture groups in 2012-13.

S. Simpson: We're talking about a $3 million slush fund. We're talking about a fund here that's not accountable and that's being driven out of the minister's office. We're talking about a fund that, it looks to anybody viewing this, is for political purposes. How much of it will get spent in Port Moody? How much of it will get spent in Chilliwack-Hope? That's the question.

[1425]

Will the minister commit today to bring an end to these kinds of funds in her office and ensure that they go through the Arts Council or go through an accountable, transparent body and not through her office now?

Hon. I. Chong: I do want to say that ultimately, responsibility and authority reside with ministers. The public accounts will reveal all the expenditures that are made with respect to arts and culture grants and programs.

I just want to assure the member that the programs

[ Page 9720 ]

we have within our ministry are dealt with diligently, with staff who review and analyze all the requests we receive. The member will well know there are always more requests than there are dollars for, and that's one of the reasons why I depend on my staff to take a look at those requests and provide recommendations to me.

Mr. Speaker: The member has a supplemental.

S. Simpson: Well, since the minister isn't prepared to make a commitment to move those funds over to an accountable, independent body like the Arts Council, since the minister makes vague comments about knowing what this is all about, will the minister release today documentation that tells us exactly what she plans to spend that $3 million on?

Hon. I. Chong: As I've indicated, the B.C. Arts Council has received the second-highest level of funding ever. They do a wonderful job, and they will continue to do that. But if the member is interested in where all the allocations of dollars will be through this ministry and other ministries, the public accounts will be revealing those.

[End of question period.]

D. Donaldson: I rise to present a petition.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

Petitions

D. Donaldson: This is a petition signed by 258 constituents of Stikine, mostly from small communities and villages in the upper Skeena, calling on the government to stop the installation of smart meters without consultation, against their wishes, for privacy, health and job concerns.

P. Pimm: I seek leave to make an introduction, please.

Mr. Speaker: Proceed.

Introductions by Members

P. Pimm: In the precinct today with me we have two members from the fire department in Fort St. John. Capt. Tom Worton and Stephen Beard are here. Can I get the members to help me make them welcome, please.

Orders of the Day

Hon. R. Coleman: In this House this afternoon we will continue second reading debate of Bill 22, intituled the Education Improvement Act, and in

Section A, in committee, we will be doing the estimates of the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development. Should that conclude before the end of the day, we would move to the Ministry of Advanced Education.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 22 — EDUCATION IMPROVEMENT ACT

(continued)

K. Krueger: At the beginning of the second reading debate for Bill 22, the minister and the critic each acknowledged that this House has deep respect for teachers, and I want to start on that note as well.

I'm married to a very gifted teacher, a woman who was born to be a teacher. We didn't realize that when we first met or first got married. She thought she was going to be a pharmacist, and I thought I was going to be a doctor. She chose teaching, and I chose this place. I think she made the smarter choice, certainly the one with the most long-lasting benefits, because she makes positive changes in children's lives every day with the way that she teaches them.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

We have many friends, too many to name, who are teachers. Many are my constituents. I do want to mention one, Renee Renkema, bravely fighting a terrible battle with cancer — a dear bosom friend of ours.

We're praying for you, Renee, and thinking of you. I hope you're able to watch this debate. I know it's important to you.

[1430]

The fellow who serves as my constituency association president was my student teacher when I was in grade 8 up in Dawson Creek. We've known each other all these years. He calls me one of his successes because he taught social studies, and he's proud that I'm in the Legislature. I'd better not start naming them because there are so many teachers that have been positive influences and mentors in my life. Everyone seems to recall those excellent teachers that they had in their lives and treasure what they gave us.

One of the cool things about this debate is that I'm getting letters from students. I'm sure teachers are urging them to write, and I thank them for that. I'm just going to acknowledge one from a young woman named Lizz. She emphasizes two z's on Lizz. She didn't think I'd actually read her e-mail, but I have, and it's one of the most powerful letters I've ever received. I just got it, really. It was March 4 at 10:13 p.m. I don't have her permission, so I won't go any further into that one, but I hope one day I can release it because it is an amazing letter.

Our government committed to one another before we were government — our caucus, our leader — never to cut education funding. I know there are arguments about

[ Page 9721 ]

if you don't keep up with inflation, people say that's a de facto cut and so on. But the truth is we've never cut funding to education, and as the student population has declined, we have taken pains to try and show people that we're paying more per capita in the system. And we are — 50,000 students less. Nevertheless, we know that education is the first and highest priority of the provincial government. Health care costs us more because it's so expensive. But we generally feel that way, and we all in this House deeply respect teachers.

The world changed in 2007 and '08 with the worldwide recession that we're not out of yet. We aren't, and the rest of the world certainly isn't. We're seeing positive signs. We're coming out of it faster than we might have been able to expect. Just before that, though, when we found ourselves in a surplus position, we gave a very healthy settlement to our entire civil service, and that included 16 percent over five years to teachers and a signing bonus of, I believe, at least $3,700. I've heard that some teachers got $4,000. I'm not sure about that, but at least $3,700. That was because we could afford it at the time.

But since then the entire civil service, pretty much — 130 unions — have settled with net zero because we're in recession. We're in deficit. Cabinet ministers took a 10 percent cut in pay immediately, and they're still at a 10 percent cut in pay because we're serious about not making this deficit any deeper than we can possibly afford it being. Around the world, things have changed. Even in Hawaii, everything's half price compared to what it was in 2007 — condos, single-family homes, everything.

So most people aren't looking for a salary increase, and 130 B.C. public sector unions have accepted and signed, including some very recently, that they don't reasonably expect that and they're prepared to sign off without it. They're looking for ways to increase productivity. They're looking for consultative problem-solving so that they can find savings within the existing funding and share that between the union memberships. It's been working pretty well.

The exception is the BCTF and this painful phase 1 strike over the last six months. There has been a price that's been incurred. Students have incurred it — parents telling us that they didn't know their children were failing certain subjects, a loss of vital communications with parents and between teachers and their administrators, a loss of relationships in the schools that may well take a long time to overcome. Vulnerable students falling through cracks because their parents didn't know that they were failing.

Worn-out principals. There have been headlines over and over in our newspaper locally in Kamloops that administrators are sick in unusual numbers because they are just being worked so hard. We call them principals. Teachers call them principals, and so do the rest of us, because they are intended to be the principal teachers, the go-to teachers in the school, the mentors, and this prolonged strike has make them sick, disrupted teams and hurt relationships long-term.

Every child should be taught as an individual with a unique context. That context changes over time, and it's really important that teachers and parents keep abreast of that. There are family breakdowns in our society. We know that. A lot of marriages end in divorce. A lot of them have rocky times. There should be tight communications.

Now, I've liked this debate thus far. It reminds me of how we proceed in the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth, which the Leader of the Opposition referred to. In that committee, everybody is about the children and making sure there's a good liaison with the children's rep and that we're listening to her. She's doing a great job. This House unanimously renewed her mandate recently. The opposition leader praised all of that, and so did Mr. Ted Hughes when he reviewed the work recently.

[1435]

This debate has been feeling like that thus far, and that, I submit, is because people in this House actually feel education is too important to be partisan about, just like children in other contexts are too important to be partisan about.

So I hope we can continue in that vein. I know we have disagreements. We both know that we're dealing with a problem union, with the BCTF. The members opposite had difficulty settling with them — couldn't settle with them, actually. I think we're the only government in 25 years that has actually been able to settle with the BCTF. Frankly, that was because we had a lot of money at the time, and we had the bonuses and so on.

But now, faced with the fact that it's time that BCTF accepts net zero, they just don't want to do it. We can't do otherwise, Madam Speaker, as you know. We're already in deficit. It would cost $2 billion to meet the demands of the BCTF. In addition, we would have to pay a like amount to all those 130 unions that we've already settled with, in what is known, colloquially, as a me-too clause because we promised that. Everybody else is going to have to accept this. If we sign with any union and we don't stick to net zero, we'll pay you as well. We can't afford it. It would be over $3 billion.

There are a lot of numbers that are thrown around by the BCTF. You would think, almost, that we don't do funding for special needs children. Actually, we have $866 million a year earmarked for children with special needs, and we have the additional learning improvement fund as well. The minister has covered that thoroughly.

I said that my wife is a teacher. On Friday when she and I both got back from work, which is often pretty late in the day, she said: "I need you to explain some things to me." She's a very trusting person, like a lot of teachers. She looks to her union to give her the facts and nothing but the facts, to give her something that she can rely on. She gave me a list; this is her little handwritten list.

[ Page 9722 ]

She said:

"The union says we're going to be fined if we withdraw from a volunteer extracurricular position. We're going to be fined if we remove items from a classroom that we paid for ourselves."

Everybody knows that a lot of teachers spend personal money making their classroom a better place.

"The school district will have power to transfer a teacher to any other location or job in the district, with two days' notice. We'll not have our seniority — our length of service — or education considered when we apply for jobs. There aren't going to be any limits on class sizes beyond grade 3. And there'll be a removal of the restriction on the number of special needs students in the classroom, presently three."

We've had status reports from the Minister of Education all through these painful six months. He has asked Susan Lambert time and time again to sit down with him and

schedule time. He'd clear his calendar. He'd clear up those sorts of questions. Her response has been that she wants money on the table. She knows there's not going to be any money on the table. So once again, we're at this dread impasse.

I'm not going to take up a lot of time, because we genuinely want the opposition to have the time that they want in this debate to state their case. The critic came over and asked me why I applauded him. But I thought he did such a good job laying things out. He doesn't agree with us on everything, but he said a lot of things we can certainly agree with, and I applauded him wholeheartedly.

We know that teachers have been told that there are 700 fewer special needs teachers. The fact is that there are 2,100 additional special needs teaching assistants in B.C. classrooms. We know that teachers have been told they're the ninth best paid in Canada. The fact is that B.C. teachers' salaries, with benefits, make them fourth best in all the provinces, and they pay the very lowest income tax, just like all the rest of us that make $120,000 a year or less.

We know the teachers have been told that seniority is eroded under Bill 22, but it does remain a key factor, with qualifications also considered. We do think that if you are applying for a math job, you've got to be able to teach math. That's just so commonsense that I don't think any teacher would actually argue with it. But the BCTF would.

The contract demands — we are told by the BCTF, and teachers are told — are reasonable. But a 15 percent wage increase, at a cost of $2 billion, is not reasonable given the current economic reality. The rest of the world knows that, including 130 other public sector unions.

Again, my wife tells me that the BCTF says class sizes are going to be eliminated, and they're not. They're going to be there. Granted that from grades 4 to 12, it's a cap of 30. It can increase, with the approval of principals and superintendents.

[1440]

But the individual teacher will have to be compensated if that happens. The compensation could be money — and it would be on a pro rata basis for the extra students — or it could be additional prep time. It could be professional development funding or a combination of all of those and other things.

We're looking to have satisfied teachers, happy teachers, happy classrooms. We're not looking to offend our teachers or in any way show disrespect to them. I think it's disrespectful for a union to frighten its members, to try to stampede them into a situation that's not natural to them.

I've lived through strikes. I was on strike once for 22 weeks, and that was because the employer locked us out. We kept chipping in our net pay to support the people they were locking out. When they hit 400, we couldn't afford it anymore, so we all went on strike. We were gone for 22 weeks — zero pay for half a year. It's really tough.

I'm sorry that the teachers are losing money today, and they will be tomorrow and the next day. They're not going to be happy about that. It's going to be hard for them to stop feeling bad about that. It'll probably take a very long time.

I am going to wrap up because I don't want to usurp time here, but I want to say that our hearts are with you teachers out there. We'd like you back in the classroom. We know that's where you want to be. We know you're getting great things done there. I am hearing genuinely touching testimonials to the way your students love you.

Not all my teachers were good, but many of my teachers were very good, and some were absolutely excellent. I'll never forget them, and I still want to thank them when I have this opportunity.

C. James: I am incredibly proud to stand in this House and talk about my support for education, but I have to say that I also stand angry that once again we on this side of the House are having to stand up and defend public education against a government that doesn't care about the system in British Columbia.

You know, Madam Speaker, I heard the previous speaker say that the government's heart is with teachers. Well, an easy way to show the heart is with teachers is to withdraw Bill 22 right now and go to mediation, as was suggested in the first place. That would show some real action and support for teachers. But I'm sad to say that I don't expect that we'll see that. This has been a track record that we've seen from this government.

I want to take some of my time to talk about that today, but I want to start by talking about the involvement that I've had in education and education's importance to our economy, to children, to our society, because that is what is at stake here. I feel very grateful that I've had the opportunity to see education from a number of different sides and a number of different roles.

I think, like many of us, I've seen education in the role of a student — a student right here in greater Victoria. I feel very fortunate that I had the opportunity to be educated in public schools right here in this district: James Bay School, South Park School, Central junior high school, Oak Bay high and Spectrum. I name those

[ Page 9723 ]

schools proudly because I'm very proud of the education that I received in those schools. I thank the teachers and the other educators who provided that incredible education.

I've also had the good fortune to be involved in education as a mother of two kids who are also educated in the public school system — again, right here in greater Victoria. In fact, it was one of those rare times, I think, in communities, where my children had some of the same teachers that I had in school. Not sure my kids appreciated that when they get the comments back, but it's an interesting perspective to be able to have your children attend a school that you attended, as I said, with some of the same dedicated teachers in that school.

I was very involved in the education system as a parent. I was president of the parent association, and so that's another role where I had a chance to see firsthand the involvement of teachers in our school system. Anyone who is involved in a parent association knows that you see how hard teachers work.

You hear comments once in a while about people talking about the time that teachers spend in the classroom. Well, anyone who's been involved in school, anyone who cares about education, knows that a teacher's job is not the school day. A teacher's job is the school day and the mornings and the weekends and the evenings and the events they go to and the prep time and the work that they do to put those things together.

[1445]

You see that firsthand when you're involved in the parent association. I feel very grateful for that opportunity because, as I said, it gave me a very good perspective on the work of teachers.

I also have been involved in education as the child of a teacher. My mom was a single parent for a large portion of my life growing up and was a teacher in the school district — again, here in greater Victoria.

Anyone who had a mom as a teacher or a father as a teacher will know that August has a very special meaning. It's the time you start to spend going to the school and going to the classroom and getting it set up for September, because the school year for teachers starts then, in August, when you're getting the classroom ready. I have fond memories of spending time putting posters up and getting the classroom ready for September. I think anyone who's had a parent as a teacher thinks of that time fondly and recognizes the time and the energy that was put in.

Any child who has a parent as a teacher remembers report card time and those weeks that are spent getting those report cards done, preparing for those report cards, the incredible time that teachers put in.

I'm sure anyone who's had a parent as a teacher also remembers those students who, for our family, became lifelong family members. My mother was a teacher in special education, so we had students — we still have students — who come back in the summertime to visit my mom. Although she has been retired for over ten years, they'll come back to visit and are connected to our family because of the time and the energy that was put in. That creates a special, unique view of education.

I also have seen education as a foster parent of children with special needs. I was a foster parent for over 20 years and had children and young adults who went into the public school system with great special needs. I saw the incredible time and energy put in by teachers to meet their unique needs, despite all of the challenges and despite all of the odds, who wanted to do everything they could to make sure that those children received the best education possible and the best start possible. That's again a unique view of the education system.

I also served as an elected school trustee for 11 years in the greater Victoria school district. That's again a unique view of the education system. I sat at the bargaining table. I sat across from employees as an elected school trustee, as a member of the employer, bargaining with all different employee groups. One of the most important things I learned, through any of the bargaining that was done, was that the key to come to the table for successful bargaining was respect, that that was the key in any relationship.

No matter how difficult…. And we had some difficult bargaining times in our school district over my 11 years as school trustee. We didn't agree on everything around our table. We had some very tough talks, but we knew that we respected the employees, and the employees respected us back. That meant we could get through those difficult conversations. We could come to agreement because we had a common goal, which was to improve our education system for everyone.

Madam Speaker, I just don't see that. I just don't see that with the B.C. Liberals. That's probably the word I've heard the most often from parents and students and teachers that I've talked to since this bill was introduced and since we knew that it was coming in the Legislature: the lack of respect. The people in the profession feel the lack of respect that hampers everything in our education system. That's so critical, as I said, to a good relationship, to good bargaining at the table — that respect. I think it's unfortunate that that's what we've seen from the B.C. Liberals.

Why is education important? I just want to take a minute to talk about that, because I think people often may look at education as important simply for their children while they're in the education system. My experience has certainly deepened my belief that education is critical to all of us. Regardless of whether we have children in the education system, regardless of whether we are parents or business people, education is critical to us as a society. It's critical to us as a society because it's the basis of a fair and democratic society.

[1450]

[ Page 9724 ]

Education is there for everyone, Madam Speaker. You can't say that about a lot of services that are out there, whether it's government services or community services. Our education system is there for everyone. It brings people together from different views in life, from different parts of a community, from different ethnic communities. All come together in our education system.

Education strengthens and enriches our communities. It's critical to a good, healthy citizenship, critical to a good, healthy society. Education is critical to a strong economy. If we don't have well-educated citizens, we won't have a strong economy. If we don't have creative minds coming out of our education system, where are the next inventors coming from and where are the next creative entrepreneurs coming from? They're coming from our education system. The education system provides the foundation for a strong community and a strong economy for everyone.

A strong education system also will save us resources in other areas of social programs. A good, quality education will save us resources later on from the justice system, from the health care system and from social programs. Every measure of population health, whether it's poverty issues or whether it's ill-health issues, talks about education as key to a healthy population.

It's critical that we strengthen our education system in British Columbia, critical for all of us. Whether you have children in the system or not, whether you have a connection to education or not, it matters to all of us in society to have a strong public education system.

Everyone in the system is important. I've certainly worked with everyone across the education system — principals and vice-principals, support staff, boards of education, parents and, of course, students. But I want to talk, for the purpose of this bill…. This bill really does take on an attack on our teachers in British Columbia.

The teachers really are the people who are there in the classroom with our children for a large portion of their lives. They're the unsung heroes in our society. They are the people who educate our future. And what could be more important than supporting those people in our classrooms every day who are educating the future of our society? It's a critical role, a critical role that is not being respected by the introduction of this bill.

I want to read a quote for a moment. I'm sure some people have heard this quote, but I think it really describes, for me, the reality for teachers in classrooms every single day. It's a quote by a long-time teacher. It says:

"If a doctor, lawyer or dentist had 40 people in their office all at one time, all of whom had different needs and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, the lawyer or the dentist, with little or no assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for the entire school year, then they might have some concept of what the classroom teacher's job is like every single day."

I think that's a good description of the challenges of a teacher.

I think many of us, some of us on this side, have had the good fortune of having grandchildren over the last number of years. I certainly know that I love looking after my grandchildren, but I also know how exhausted I am at the end of the day when I've had my two grandchildren over and I've spent a day and had a day with them. Well, just imagine, Madam Speaker, having 25 or 30 of those children with differing needs, with differing challenges every single day in a classroom. That's the extraordinary job that our teachers do every single day.

[1455]

Given that importance, given the importance of teachers, given the importance of our education system when it comes to our economy, when it comes to our society, when it comes to a healthy citizenry, what did this government decide to choose as its direction when it came to education? They chose to pick a fight, to pick a fight with something so important as education.

I wish it wasn't so, but there's a history here. There's a history here of not only this government picking a fight with teachers and the education system but this Premier picking a fight with teachers and the education system. Let's take a minute just to look at that, because it is important to look at the history. This isn't a one-time event for the B.C. Liberals — to decide to pick a fight with teachers and our education system.

This is an ongoing battle that started off with the Premier when she was, in fact, Education Minister. We heard the government, the B.C. Liberals, when they ran for election back in 2001, talk about the importance of funding education — how critical it was. They promised, in fact — another one of those broken promises — that they would support more funding for education.

What happened after the election? We ended up seeing education funding frozen from 2001 to 2004. What does that mean when education funding is frozen? It means that school boards are expected to pick up the inflationary costs that are there, which means cuts in programs and services somewhere. That was the reality from the now Premier, then Minister of Education — to go back on that promise to support education and to in fact create cuts and more difficulties for school boards.

We saw those cuts happen all across the board. The funding formula was changed to take away the support for small, rural schools. We saw one of the largest school closures over those years, because no longer was there a recognition that sometimes in small, rural communities you have to support a school that is in place and provide funding for that school. But no, the then Minister of Education, now Premier, decided to change that funding formula and took away the ability for those small schools to stay open, which created huge pressures for school boards and therefore huge pressures for teachers in classrooms.

What else happened during those years when the

[ Page 9725 ]

Premier was Education Minister? Well, we saw that the government and the then Education Minister stripped teachers of their collective agreement — a bill that was overturned in the Supreme Court, where the government was told that they were wrong, that what they did was invalid and unconstitutional.

Now, you would think that a government would have recognized that using a heavy hand might not be the direction to go. You would think having the Supreme Court tell you that what you did was unconstitutional and invalid would perhaps send you in a different direction when it came to dealing with teachers and teachers bargaining.

Perhaps you might want to try and resolve issues. You might want to show a little respect, a little understanding that what you had done was wrong. But we didn't see that at all. Instead, we have seen Bill 22 arrive here in the Legislature, without a recognition that this government, in fact, was told by the Supreme Court that what they did was wrong.

I want to read a quote from the Supreme Court judge in that case, because I think it really says everything about why we shouldn't be here and says everything about the B.C. Liberals and what they think of teachers and what they think of education.

The quote comes from the Supreme Court judge: "By passing this legislation without so much as consulting with the BCTF, the government did not preserve the essential underpinning of collective bargaining, namely good-faith negotiations and consultation." "Good-faith negotiations and consultation." That's a direct quote from the Supreme Court judge on the previous bill that came forward, that was found to be unconstitutional.

[1500]

Wouldn't you imagine, Madam Speaker, that the government would have listened to that, that they would have paid attention to negotiations, to consultation, to collaboration and the importance of that? Sadly, that's not why we're here in this Legislature.

I wish we were standing up to talk about how we could strengthen our public education and support teachers. Wouldn't that be a wonderful conversation to spend our time on in this Legislature? Wouldn't it be wonderful to be talking about how we could work together to improve our education system, to provide more support for all students and all teachers in our province? Now that would be a good use of legislative time.

Instead, we're standing here because the government decided, once again, as I said earlier, to pick a fight with teachers and to bring in this bill instead of trying to resolve things.

In the throne speech, which was only this fall, we heard the Premier say: "We want to modernize our education system to ensure our teachers have the support they need to provide children with the right skills." That was in October. There's another broken promise, from this Premier and from the B.C. Liberals.

How is this bill going to provide children with the right skills and provide teachers with the support they need? It's not. It's not doing that at all.

This legislation doesn't give support. It takes support away. This legislation, along with disrespecting teachers, removes support for children, all children, in the education system.

Now, when the minister introduced this legislation, I heard him talk about discrimination and that this bill would ensure special needs students weren't discriminated against. Well, what is discriminating, and what is discriminatory, is putting students with special needs into a classroom with little or no support. That's what is discriminatory — not allowing those students to receive the attention and the support that they need.

Those are heartbreaking stories that I'm certain members on the other side of the House have been told as well, where teachers are doing everything they can to try and provide support, and they go home in tears, at the end of the day, because they just aren't able to meet the needs of every student — that's students with special needs and not with special needs, who then struggle in that classroom. It's all students, then, who are struggling in the school. It's all students who aren't getting the kind of education they need. You have to put the supports in place.

I'm a big supporter of integration. I spent a large portion of my life working with children and adults with disabilities. I think it's critical to provide opportunities for every child, to be able to be educated in our school system, to go to their neighbourhood school, to be able to have the same kind of opportunities as every child does. But some children need supports to be able to do that. Those supports come in a variety of ways, including smaller classes to be able to provide the teacher with the ability to give the attention that's needed to those children.

This legislation causes that not to happen. This legislation says that, yes, there's a cap, but it's all right to go over the cap. It's all right to go over that cap if you provide extra resources. Well, I can't tell you how many times I heard this weekend from teachers who said: "We don't want the extra resources. We want the smaller classes and the support so we can provide those kids with the best education possible."

That's what teachers are looking for. No one goes into the teaching profession unless they care deeply about education and about children, about making sure that they can do the best job possible. No teacher I know went into the profession so they could see government pick a fight with them when they're trying to do a good job in the classroom every single day. But they need the supports for that to happen.

[1505]

What I see with this legislation is that it further erodes those supports and the ability to make sure that teach-

[ Page 9726 ]

ers have every resource possible to provide for children in classrooms.

Now, the legislation also says…. I think it's interesting to take a look at this, because we see the government say no to mediation. "No, we're not interested. Sorry. We're just going to bring in this legislation. We're going to take it forward to an arbitrator with clear direction, not an open mediation process." Yet the bill itself says to teachers: "You'll just collaborate on class size. You'll just work it out. You'll work with everybody in the school, and it'll all just work out."

Well, the government isn't listening to its own advice. The government isn't sitting down to try and work things out. The government isn't looking at how it can resolve issues, and yet it is saying to teachers: "Don't worry. It'll all happen in the classroom. You'll work with principals. You'll work with parents. It'll all work out."

Well, I'd say to the government, to the B.C. Liberals, that they should take a little of their own advice. They should have looked at sitting down and working things out. When you actually had both the employees, the BCTF, and the employers, the BCPSEA, B.C. Public School Employers Association, saying, "Let's go to mediation," both parties calling for mediation, why on earth wouldn't government have said yes?

There was a point agreed to by both parties in the negotiations, and usually when you have both parties agreeing to go to a mediator, that provides that wonderful opportunity where you say: "Let's go and try and resolve this. Let's take this, then, to mediation. Let's make sure we do everything we can to try and resolve this, to work it out."

But instead, we haven't seen that. So what will be the reality — the reality we have seen over the last 11 years under the B.C. Liberals in education? That reality will mean larger classes. That reality will mean less resources for education, which will mean fewer supports for students with special needs, fewer teacher-librarians, fewer counsellors, more school closure, because the reality is that this budget holds pat. It doesn't increase funding for education in the budget that was tabled by the B.C. Liberals.

If you don't increase the budget, you end up with cuts. Because there has been an increase in MSP premiums and school boards pay for the MSP premiums in school districts, there is a cost the boards will have to find from somewhere. They'll have to squeeze those education dollars once more to be able to pay for that. Where does that come from? It comes from the classroom.

I hear a lot of talk on the other side around change in education, individualized learning and how important that is. Well, one of the keys to individualized learning is time for teachers. It's pretty tough to create individualized learning if you have a larger class and larger numbers of kids with special needs and no supports to provide for them. It is very difficult to create individualized learning without those resources in place.

I'd love to have a conversation about how to improve our education system. But it has to start from a place of respect for the individuals who work in the system and a recognition that the supports and the resources have to be in place in the system. We can't continue to download costs and pick a fight with the employees who work in the system, teachers, and expect that that is somehow going to make everything just fine in the education system.

[1510]

I want to take a minute to reflect some of the voices that I've heard, because I think the most extraordinary time that I saw this weekend were the number of students I spoke to who talked about the importance of education to them.

This is a letter from a teacher in Prince George.

"The reduction in the funding provided to our education system is having a drastic, irreparable effect on our students. I work in a senior high school, and I've seen the devastation. I'm assigned to the learning assistance program, and let's take a look at what that means. It means that every 70 minutes, 15 new students arrive in the classroom needing help with math, chemistry, physics, calculus, biology, etc.

"Class-size limits protect our students' education, their mental health and their well-being. Having properly funded programs ensures that the adults are there for students when they come for help."

Another one from Victoria. "As a teacher working in the Victoria district, I implore you to remember that those of us who have dedicated our life's work to enhancing student achievement don't deserve to be disrespected. I want to fight for our students and to protect education in our future. It just makes economic sense."

"I write to you as a mother, a lawyer, a member of your constituency. I voice my concern because I believe it unfairly impacts teachers in our community and province, and I hope that people will remember to support our teachers."

"I'm a foster parent of a 15-year-old child with special needs. She's been well supported in the public school system, but I'm concerned because she needs individual attention. Because of cutbacks, there isn't always support for her. She's a well-behaved student. She flies under the radar sometimes. I want to know that teachers can complete the outcomes and curriculum, and they need the supports to do it."

J. Rustad: I rise to speak to Bill 22. Quite frankly, I wish I wasn't here speaking about Bill 22. I remember giving a similar comment a number of years ago under a previous job action. It's never healthy for any system when you have these types of things going on.

I want to talk a little bit about what Bill 22 is and kind of what it isn't and put a few things into historical perspective as well. What Bill 22 does is bring a cooling-off period to a situation that is, clearly…. On both sides tensions have risen to the point where we actually have an escalation in activity.

It brings a mediator in place to negotiate under a num-

[ Page 9727 ]

ber of things that need to be addressed. However, it does implement the net zero clause that government's position is in. On top of that it also has what's called a learning innovation fund, where it responds with $165 million to deal with some of the challenges that the federal court, the Supreme Court, has said that we need to deal with.

But I want to just say why that net zero component is so critical. A 1 percent increase to our public sector across the thing is about $230 million. Now, we have signed 130 different agreements with our public sector unions under the net zero mandate. They've signed on reluctantly, but they recognize the fiscal reality that we are in as a government.

They've said: "Okay. If that's the case, we understand. We're going to go sign on to net zero, but we do not want to be the only ones to do it." We put a me-too clause in, which says that if somebody else gets something, their contract is back and open, and it's an option for them.

Think about this for a second. The wage ask from the BCTF is only one component, but just that component alone is about $765 million over three years — the 15 percent. So let's do the math. If we had to do that across the entire public sector, 15 percent is over $3 billion. What's $1 billion? That's an awful lot of money.

To put it in perspective, $3 billion is more than 50 percent of what we take in with personal income taxes. If we were to meet that and try to get to a balanced budget, we would have to raise personal income taxes, if we wanted to do it through personal income taxes, by 50 percent. That's only the wage component of what the ask is.

[1515]

It's completely unrealistic to think that we can move off of the net zero mandate when 130 other public sector unions have already signed on to it. It is unfair to them, and it is unfair, quite frankly, to the taxpayers in the province.

Now, I would love to see us in a situation where we can provide an increase for teachers. I really would. I've been in a lot of classes. I was a former school trustee. As an MLA, I go into classes, and it never ceases to amaze me the amazing work that our teachers do in the system. But we're in a fiscal situation where, unfortunately, we have to make some tough choices.

There is room to mediate a whole bunch of things. When we engage with the BCTF and ask them about class size, composition, those sorts of things, they're not interested unless we move off net zero. Well, that makes it very difficult to try to get to a position where you can actually negotiate after 78 bargaining sessions and now seven months of job action, which has now escalated to a full strike.

But the members' opposition seems to suggest that this is conflict between the B.C. Liberals and the teachers — that, you know, it's: "We don't like teachers." Well, nothing could be farther from the truth.

I want to read into the record some previous Hansard discussions, if I may. So this is an individual. The name is L. Hanson.

"It's interesting to listen to the Minister of Labour say that he can't get his message across to the teachers that there's no money. If he was dedicated to do that, he would have a manner of doing it.

"Mr. Premier, a question. Students in this province are being treated as political footballs. This government is standing on the sidelines while children get kicked around in these school strikes. Is the Premier of this government so beholden to the BCTF that he's unwilling to restore education as an essential service?"

That was from May 12, 1993.

Another quote.

"It's clear to me that the trustees and teachers will not return to the bargaining, let alone reach a better agreement for our children. As a government, we simply can't risk this agreement in the hope that these two parties will put aside their longstanding differences and work out anything better." It continues: "I am not prepared to gamble with our children's education by allowing this impasse to drag on and risking the strong likelihood of teachers being locked out or on strike."

That particular phrase was from June 25, 1998, from the hon. P. Ramsey.

Here's another quote. This is from May 5, 1987, hon. Mr. Veitch.

"One of the members a while ago, however — I believe it was the member for Atlin — stated this was an anti-teacher type of legislation, and he quoted someone as saying that they ought to take the gloves off. Well, Madam Speaker, I honestly believe that we've had the gloves on, on all sides of this issue for far too long. I believe the whole issue of education in the province has been politicized for far too long and it hasn't done any good for the educational process in this province.

It certainly hasn't done any good for the participants, and it certainly hasn't done any good for those people we are trying to protect and to help through the educational system, and that's the students, who are sometimes forgotten in this whole melee."

That was a quote from May 5, 1987.

A quote now from October 6, 1982, Mr. Lauk: "We know what this bill is. It's a political ploy. It's taking kids, a whole generation of students, and turning them into a political football." October 6, 1982.

Madam Speaker, this dispute has been going on for a far long time. Let's go back even farther. April 30, 1975, by Mr. Smith.

"I am not blaming the minister for all of these innovations, because some of them came before her time. But let me say this. Each of the innovations introduced by the minister since she took office have been, to the great extent, costly programs. It has given rise to the belief that the more money you pour into the system, the better the education. Well, there is a good reason to believe now, as there was in previous years, that money is not the answer or the solution to our educational program entirely."

I continue the quote.

"The problem is that we are turning out of our high school system, from the grade 12 level, too high a percentage of students who are practically illiterate. They can't read properly. They can't write properly. They know nothing about the basic concepts of life that they will have to face after they leave the grade 12 level."

[1520]

The arguments and what has been going on that we've heard so far in this bill and that I expect we'll hear in the coming days of debate on this are not new. This is a challenge that has gone on for a very long period of time.

But I think it's worth noting, in particular, something

[ Page 9728 ]

I find quite interesting about the BCTF. As I said, I've worked with a lot of teachers as part of being a trustee and in classrooms. Their work is incredible, but I do kind of wonder about the BCTF and what their motives are.

There's a great book called Worlds Apart which talks about the history of the education system over 150 years. It came to a conclusion as part of its text that in the late 1960s and into the early '70s, the BCTF had decided they wanted to become more political. So they broke an agreement that had been longstanding and became very political and ultimately are credited with the downfall of the government to that day.

But since that time I find it quite interesting…. When you look at, for example, Ken Novakowski, who was the BCTF communications director and former president, was a federal NDP candidate in 1972, a provincial NDP candidate in 1986, managed Glen Clark's leadership campaign in 1996…. Interesting.

The BCTF executive director and former president, Elsie McMurphy, provincial NDP candidate in 1986. Former BCTF president Alice McQuade, Mr. Clark's appointee as co-chair of the B.C. unity panel on the Calgary declaration in 1997. David Chudnovsky, BCTF president and also an NDP MLA here in this House in 2005-2009. Jinny Sims, former BCTF and NDP MP currently. Irene Lanzinger, another BCTF president who was on stage with the B.C. NDP leadership during the recent convention. Our current president, Susan Lambert of the BCTF president, donated money — $1,150 — to the B.C. NDP.

Do you see a pattern, Madam Speaker? It's one, I think, that is challenging. I wonder, because what we should be talking about…. The member for Victoria–Beacon Hill said it very well. We should be talking about how we are improving education in the province, what we need to do to try to help out our students. But it's unfortunate that we have this challenge and this relationship that has gone on now for more than 40 years.

I read in recent press articles that they've come to the realization too that this is a real challenge going forward. So the question is: what is it that Bill 22 is trying to solve? How is it we are trying to get there?

For example, the BCTF has come out and claimed that there are over 12,000 overcrowded classes in British Columbia — 12,000 overcrowded classes. That gets out in the press and the press print it. The question is…. Out of the 65,000 classes that we have in the province of British Columbia, fewer than 1,500 have more than 31 students. Fewer than 600 have more than 33, and almost all of those are band, choir and theatre.

Those are the facts. That's the reality, and I kind of wonder why misinformation is being put out there to the public. We're talking about an education system. Surely the education and the people talking about the education system should be accurate in terms of the facts and figures that they use. They claim there are 700 fewer special needs teachers, when in fact 2,100 additional special needs teaching assistants are in the classroom today.

The one that I think is particularly interesting is…. The member for Victoria–Beacon Hill said: "We shouldn't be picking a fight with teachers. You know, this should be about educating. This is about trying to improve funding in the classroom for our students." So perhaps it's worth going through exactly what's on the table from the BCTF. Leave provisions, $118 million. Preparation time, $711 million. Benefits, $295 million. Salary, $765 million. Salary grid reductions, $169 million. Over $2 billion that's on the table. In all of those things, I didn't see what the member had talked about in terms about smaller class sizes.

[1525]

So when you are facing tough economic times, as we are, and you're trying to do the best you can without seeing a situation where you're raising taxes, without being in a situation where you're being fiscally irresponsible, sometimes you do have to go to a net zero mandate. A net zero mandate isn't designed to try to punish anybody or to single anybody out. It's designed to try to help government get through a tough time, where they cannot raise taxes, where revenues are tight and you need to get back to a balanced budget.

You only need to look at Ontario and at what the Drummond report has suggested they're going to have to do to their education system to realize that if you are fiscally irresponsible, there are consequences eventually. I don't want to see those sorts of things have to happen to our education system. I know from the teachers I've talked to that they care deeply about their students and about their jobs. I also know that they're very, very frustrated with us, with the whole system. To many extents, I don't blame them, but we're not in a position to be able to go where the BCTF would like it to go.

We have an interesting tool in legislation in the province of British Columbia, and it was used effectively around the HST. It's called doing a petition. Get 10 percent of the people all around the province to sign a petition, and you can actually go to a referendum. That's a tool that, maybe, the BCTF should consider if they want to see the type of tax increases that they'd like to see for education. Take it to the people. Ask them directly. We have that tool to be able to allow for the direct input and for direct democracy.

Now, I'm not a fan of direct democracy, but the tool is there. It was put in, in the 1990s. Maybe it's something that should be considered if they feel that through our net zero mandate we're not doing the right thing.

I want to close just by talking a little bit about the kids. The job action that has gone on for seven months has had a negative impact. It has. I know there've been lots of teachers that have tried to find ways to keep parents in touch and to try to find ways to make things work, but the reality is that there has been an impact. I've heard from many of the administration that they're burnt out.

[ Page 9729 ]

Having the stress of the extra workload, because of the withdrawal of services and stuff, is creating challenges. This cannot go on forever.

Unfortunately, when you have a net zero mandate and you're in a situation where you must try to negotiate under that, you can put a lot of things on the table, but you have to realize it has to be within that. Like I said earlier, it'd be irresponsible to the rest of our public sector employees to do anything other than that.

I had a meeting with a teacher representative from my area. At that meeting we talked about net zero, and she said: "You know, we could perhaps get to net zero." But I'm just wondering why that has never been able to make it through in terms of the negotiations with the BCTF. As this carries on, I hope that we will see an end to job action soon. I hope that this bill will come through the House and that we'll be in a situation where we have a cooling-off period, where we have the ability to be able to have this mediation and some discussions around that.

Ultimately, I have a real passion about education. I would like to see some significant changes in the education system. I think there's great opportunity to see improvements. But we can't do it by trying to bankrupt the province and put us in a situation where we can't provide properly, going forward. It just can't happen. I'm sorry about it. I wish there was a difference. I wish there was a different way, but the fiscal reality is what it is.

Madam Speaker, I'm appreciative of having the opportunity to say a few words on this bill, and I very much look forward to listening to the rest of the debate. As I said, education is critical, and the teachers are an enormous part of any success that we have in our education system. Maybe I'll just close by thanking them for what they've done over the years in terms of providing the quality education and the improvements that we have seen over the last decade and beyond.

[1530]

C. Trevena: I rise to speak on Bill 22. I'd like to start my remarks by putting it into a little bit of context by reading a letter that I received from a teacher. I'd like to quote it: "Currently I am teaching four different classes with the following composition: socials 11 with 33 students and one IEP; socials 11…"

Hon. D. McRae: That's my letter. I wrote that.

C. Trevena: "…with 30 students and four IEPs; socials 11 with 34 students with four IEPs; and military history with 31 students and nine IEPs."

"I endeavour to be a good teacher. I try to create a positive learning environment to create relationships with my students, be available outside of class time and effectively teach the courses in a meaningful manner. This semester I have 128 students and 18 IEPs in total. This does not include my advisory group, with whom I meet once a month and try and assist their progress through the school year.

"My concern is that I do not know just how effective I will be as an educator this year. With large classes, management becomes a bigger issue, and more time is spent trying to get students on task rather than teaching content and skills. I find it difficult to create positive relationships with my classes when there are so many students of varying needs and issues. It stretches one's ability to have students reach their full potential when you can spend so little time with each individual.

"I will do my best to work with the students and give them the skills and knowledge they will need to be successful in my classes. My concern is that I may not have the ability to be as effective a teacher as I have been in the past. There is only so much time one can spend marking (an additional three more students adds 10 percent more marking load on a teacher per class), prepping, doing the paperwork, making the phone calls, answering the e-mails and learning new programs like BCeSIS.

"If I continue to teach classes of this size and composition, I do not see how the system will get 18 more years of service from me. I would eventually break or stop caring, and then it would be time for me to move on.

"Many thanks for listening to my concerns."

As the Minister of Agriculture noted, it was his letter. It was his letter that was written at the time of Bill 33. There is a historical context. We have been discussing these issues before.

But I would like to ask the minister, seeing that it is his letter and it's very pertinent to the debate that we're having again, whether he still stands by this or whether he feels — he has now moved on and left the teaching service — whether he has actually challenged his cabinet colleagues about his real, direct experiences as a classroom teacher. Heartfelt feelings went into that letter, obviously.

Has he said to the Minister of Education and to the other members around the cabinet table: "You cannot go ahead with this. Please, you cannot go ahead with this. I believe too strongly in public education"?

Or does the minister feel that he's now moved on to a much more comfortable position where he won't have to go back to his teaching position? In which case, I think that he's feeling a little conceited because one never knows in elected politics how long you're going to be there for.

So I really hope that the minister will participate in this debate to give both sides of the House the full benefit of his experience as a classroom teacher who has — many times struggling with large classes with many students with special needs — tried to get that balance that, I think we've all heard, has come time and time again from teachers who are facing classes which are just, to be honest, unwieldy for them to do the job that they're hoping to do.

I hope that the minister feels he has the opportunity to respond to this, that if he has actually changed his mind, he has the integrity to stand up and say that he's changed his mind and everything is fine now, and that if he hasn't changed his mind, he could explain to his cabinet colleagues and the people on the B.C. Liberal side of the House why he will, then, not be voting in favour of this bill and be supporting this side of the House on the bill — which I and, I'm sure, his colleagues who have

[ Page 9730 ]

worked with him in schools in school district 71 would be hoping to see. I have had conversations and letters with teachers in his former school district who are very concerned, obviously.

[1535]

I quoted this, and I am standing up in opposition to this bill with this side of the House, because we are debating really fundamental legislation here. The previous member for Nechako Lakes was talking about the history and going back from teacher dispute to teacher dispute from many years, quoting from Hansard , talking about the debates and talking about how we keep hearing this again. It sounds a bit like Groundhog Day . I've got to say, quoting from the minister's letter…. You feel that we aren't ever going to come to a solution.

I've got to say that what we are debating in this piece of legislation…. It's almost like it has crystallized after so many years, really, of attacks on the public education system. I believe that Bill 22 is the crystallization of it, because it is going to two fundamental, core parts of our society.

One is the fundamental right for free collective bargaining, which this bill, I believe, undermines. Secondly, it undermines high-quality public education. Both of these pieces are rights that we have had as Canadians for many, many years. We've had the right to belong to a trade union and bargain freely without having a piece of legislation imposed on you. Well, the teachers have, for some time, not had that right. I think this further undermines it, and I'll be explaining that in my remarks.

Also, we have had the wonderful benefit of a public education system, which is the great equalizer in our society. If you have kids going to a public education system, they all get the same start in life. They're all there getting the benefit of high-quality education from people who are trained and trained and trained.

I was talking to a teacher this weekend who said: "Do people realize how much education we teachers get? How much university training we have? How many of us have a master's? How many of us go back to school during the summer to improve our skills? How many of us keep on doing the training?"

We have a highly skilled workforce that should be giving the benefits to students right across this province. Free public education. It is actually…. Free public education is one of the parts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Elementary education — free public elementary education — is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This piece of legislation, I believe, undermines both these blocks that we need for a good, healthy, just, fair and equitable society — the right to free collective bargaining and the right to have a good-quality public education system.

For a few minutes I'll talk about the imposition of this legislation, when I think that what we really should be seeing is having mediation rather than imposing legislation — very, very heavy-handed legislation — on the teachers.

It makes one wonder what sort of war the government is fighting with this profession. You know, they are hard-working professionals. They work hours that are comparable with our hours as legislators. They're up very early in the morning preparing their work. They're at school all day handling large classes, often with unwieldy groups of children. They are then continuing their work after school, often with after-school-hours clubs and marking and meeting teachers, and then they're prepping the class for the next day.

Their vacations are often filled with extra training or summer schools. They are doing an exceedingly hard amount of work. They, like other workers who belong to a union — and the B.C. Teachers Federation is a trade union — have the right to have free collective bargaining. They have the right to freely negotiate their wages, their benefits and their working conditions without having them imposed by a piece of legislation such as Bill 22, which I do think is, as I mentioned, draconian.

The legislation. What actually is in Bill 22, Madam Speaker? Well, it extends the collective agreement as we know, but it imposes mediation, and it imposes a mandate for that mediator. It sets down ground rules for that mediator that are very strict. It says that proposed solutions must not result in any new net costs for school districts. In some ways, I'm sure the school districts are breathing a sigh of relief, because they have so much downloaded on them with having to pay for MSP, carbon offsets and HST, which they don't get refunds for, and so on and so on. I would hope…. They must be quite pleased that it would result in no net cost.

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This piece of legislation has so many tight parameters that it really is, as I say, a heavy-handed imposition. Also, it's got a

section called "Offences," which I am not surprised the teachers are offended with. It comes across as really insulting and, I've got say, almost punitive when you are looking at what these are. And the offences are if there is an illegal strike.

Of course, we know that teachers are an essential service. This was brought in by this B.C. Liberal government to make the teachers one of the underpinnings of our fabric, like firemen or nurses or others who just cannot go out on strike. The whole society will crumble if they go on strike.

They are an essential service. But now we're actually going to have them fined to an extraordinary extent if they have the temerity to have an illegal strike. For an employee, for each teacher, $475 a day — that's obviously on top of the wages they'd lose — and for the union an amount of not less than $1.3 million each day. This is saying to a union: "Forget it. Just go to work. Be good people. Do due diligence and forget your right to unionize."

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This is the year 2012. People were fighting for trade unions and the right to belong to trade unions and have free collective bargaining and have their rights represented by people that they elect more than a hundred years ago. This was something that people fought and died for. It's part of the fabric of what we as a democratic western country should be proud of. This was the foundation for both the party in Britain that then became the governing party for many, many years, the Labour Party, which came out of the labour movement, as did the New Democratic Party when it was starting.

The labour movement is not just a political movement. It's essential to the rights of working people. People forget, in their endeavours to say how terrible it is and, I think, partly to make the teachers look bad…. One forgets the good things that unions have done, and teachers belong to a union. Unions brought us the five-day week. They brought us maternity leave. They brought us health and safety. They brought us good working conditions. They tried to bring in child labour laws, but those have gone too.

I think that the teachers have every right to be angry about Bill 22 and what it is doing to their rights as teachers to operate in a collective manner. There were alternatives this government could have used. It could have accepted mediation. It could have called in a special mediator. There could have been a form of inquiry. There are different tools that this government could use without bringing in the hammer of Bill 22.

But we know that the government has a history of legislating people back to work. I mean, we've done it before with the teachers. We've seen this happen before. We did it with the paramedics not so long ago. Time and again, this government gets terrified of people actually exercising their democratic right to go on strike and legislates them back to work.

I could continue with this because I find it such an egregious, heavy-handed approach. However, I want to turn my remarks…. We only have half an hour to speak on this bill, and there are a lot of other things I'd like to say.

So I'd like to talk a little bit about what the teachers are doing. I referenced this right at the beginning of my remarks — about the hard work that teachers put in. I have three school districts in my constituency. School district 72 is the largest. It represents Campbell River, Sayward, Quadra Island, Cortes Island and Read Island. Read Island has a small, one-room schoolhouse that it's managed to keep open despite all the threats that have happened. It's been really quite amazing that we still have a school on Read Island.

I have school district 85, which is Port Hardy, Port McNeill and Woss. It includes Sointula. It did include Echo Bay, but that school closed. It did include Quatsino, but that school closed. It did include Holberg, but that school closed. We've seen three schools closed completely, three communities lose their schools in those communities. In Port McNeill we saw another school close down and another arrangement start up, and Woss is now under threat.

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So school district 85, which has an aboriginal population of First Nations students of 42 percent, is under a lot of pressure. Some 1,500 total, roughly, in that school district.

Then school district 84, Vancouver Island West, a very small school district. That school district is smaller than many of the schools I know in many of my colleagues constituencies — 480 students in the whole school district, but a number of schools that really have to survive. We've got Kyuquot, which is K-to-12; Tahsis, K-to-12; Zeballos, K-to-12. Gold River has both an elementary and a secondary school.

So different environments in different schools and different school districts. I'd like to quote from some of the teachers that got in touch with me from each of those districts. I have here one from a teacher in school district 72, which as I mentioned, is Campbell River.

"I'm currently teaching grades 7 and 9 math and science in a middle school. The average class has 28 students, with a minimum of seven 1701-designated students. This is just the students that meet the governmental guidelines for designation. Many others have learning or behavioural issues but do not meet these guidelines.

"With this type of classroom composition, not all students get the one-on-one help they need and deserve."

I'm sure the Minister of Agriculture would recognize this.

"So who loses out here? The kids, of course. In all my planning, student needs are number one in my mind. Yet I'm constantly put in a situation of not being able to meet the needs of all the students in my class. This is stressful. We are creating a situation where kids can't be successful, yet we pass them on to the next year in hopes it'll be better."

The teacher goes on:

"Money cannot be the bottom line. Our kids are worth more than that."

Our kids are worth more than that.

Another one from school district 72. Another teacher who is very concerned says:

"To the government:

"You say: 'We just announced the hiring of more teaching assistants to fill the gap and give the students more individual attention. Problem solved. Be quiet. Go home.'

"While I welcome new funding for new EAs, because it will allow me to better support students, EAs are not teachers. They do not write IEPs, individualized education plans, which have become incredibly cumbersome documents under this Liberal government. They don't do screening tests, complete ministry checklists to see if students qualify for funding, and so on.

"In short, while your government gives great lip service to supporting education of students, the actions tell a really different tale."

I have another from school district 84. As I mentioned, that is the west coast, which has 480 students. This teacher has worked in a number of the schools over on the west coast.

"Six of the students" — in the class she was teaching, a grade 3 class — "were at least a year behind their grade level. Ten students in the class were First Nations. One student is autistic, another stu-

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dent is FAS" — fetal alcohol syndrome — "and a severe behaviour problem. One child has cerebral palsy.

"Many of the students were being pulled out for 15-minute remedial sessions, so they miss vital lesson and classroom help. They also disrupt the class with continual leaving and returning to the classroom.

"The First Nations students collectively received only 1½ hours a week of support, not nearly enough. The autistic child and the behaviour problem child had to share an aide, which meant one was often left unattended.

"The need was so great in this classroom I was unable to maintain the standard of teaching I was accustomed to."

The teacher goes on:

"I'm very proud of my union for standing up and forcing the necessary change so drastically needed. It's beyond me how the leaders of this province" — this government that's been in power for 12 years, I add — "can have so little regard for the children of our future and the very people who are put in charge of shaping them."

I think this is the crux of this. These are the children who are going to be, in 15, 20, 25 years time, hopefully leading this province. Here we are selling them short — selling them short because this government refuses to allow proper negotiations to take place — by imposing contracts, by looking at the classrooms and saying: "That's it. We are saying what can be."

I continue. I'm going to quote just one more letter here. This is from school district 85 in the north Island.

"I'm a primary teacher. I've worked with five- to eight-year-olds for the past 21 years, and I have seen what stress and going without support does to an individual and to a class of students.

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"I have, at times, felt like I'm running a three-ring circus. I've been emotionally drained and exhausted by the end of the day. I've taught children who fall between the guidelines for designation, whose behaviour leaves you distressed and without support. I have been in a classroom of children who have suffered anxiety attacks and tummy aches over and over again because of their reaction to another child's severe behaviour."

So it goes on. I'm sure that the Minister of Agriculture, as I say, will recognize this.

If I might quote one more from his constituency, school district 71, perhaps a colleague that he may