1982 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 32nd Parliament

Hansard

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

( Hansard )

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1982

Morning Sitting

[ Page

9491 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Ministerial statement: Vancouver Island natural gas pipeline.

Hon. Mr. Smith –– 9491

Mr. D'Arcy –– 9491

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

Hon. Mr. Heinrich –– 9491

Mr. Cocke –– 9492

Hon. Mr. Schroeder –– 9494

Ms. Brown –– 9496

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 9500

Mr. Levi –– 9502

The House met at 9:30 a.m.

MR. REE:

Mr. Speaker, today we have a gentleman — he was up at I don't know what

hour to catch the 7 o'clock ferry — who is anxious to see this House in

session. He is from Vancouver. I'd ask the House to welcome Mr. Frank

Hendy to the Legislature and to Victoria.

VANCOUVER ISLAND NATURAL GAS PIPELINE

HON. MR. SMITH:

Mr. Speaker, I rise to make a ministerial statement. I wish to announce

today that the government has established an accelerated review of the

proposals relating to the Vancouver Island natural gas pipeline. We

have appointed Mr. Robin Abercrombie to conduct the review. Mr.

Abercrombie will work with the ten proposals that have been received to

bring natural gas to Vancouver Island. He will immediately do a full

economic and technical review of those proposals. That review will be

completed by the early part of December, following which public

hearings will be held by the Utilities Commission to determine the site

and feasibility of the project. The Utilities Commission will have most

of the technical and economic data that it needs to make that decision

and will be able to deal with the concerns of the public at that

hearing. It is anticipated that the public hearings will be completed

in January, and we would expect that an early recommendation would come

to cabinet.

I should also tell the House that Mr.

Abercrombie is a very experienced pipeline executive. He has been a

senior vice-president and director of Nova for a number of years. Also,

during the past six years he has been involved with the trans-Quebec

and maritime pipeline project. His experience as a businessman and as

an economist will be absolutely invaluable in giving a technical and

economic review of these projects.

I should say that the

commitment of this government to bring lower-cost energy to Vancouver

Island remains strong and that the reason for the appointment of Mr.

Abercrombielis to expedite that procedure, to ensure that this matter

is dealt with and that the selected project can go ahead. I have great

pleasure in making this announcement this morning.

MR. D'ARCY:

We in the opposition welcome the announcement, as we have welcomed

every government announcement regarding natural gas to Vancouver Island

since the Socreds started to make them in 1956. We're hoping that this

accelerated review which the minister is announcing now will move a

little bit faster than things have moved under Social Credit during the

last 26 years regarding natural gas to Vancouver Island.

We have long taken the position that Vancouver Islanders should not be denied

access to B.C.'s major fossil-fuel resource, natural gas, in the same way

that Vancouver Islanders are not denied access to hydroelectric power generated

on the mainland. We hope that as part of the terms of reference for the review,

Vancouver Islanders will enjoy a postage-stamp rate at the wholesale level,

as other British Colombians do.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: I ask leave to proceed to public bills and orders.

Leave not granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Second reading of Bill M205, Mr. Speaker.

RESOURCE INVESTMENT CORPORATION

AMENDMENT ACT (VOTING RIGHTS)

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I notice the absence in the chamber of the first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber).

AN HON. MEMBER: He's sick.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Again? I'm sorry.

Second reading of Bill M268, Mr. Speaker.

JOB CREATION COUNCIL OF

BRITISH COLUMBIA ACT

HON. MR. GARDOM: That member doesn't appear to be here either, and the next ones not printed.

Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 89, Mr. Speaker.

SCHOOL SERVICES (INTERIM) ACT

(continued)

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I'm glad we concluded

on a note of levity and good spirits on both sides of the House

yesterday. It was really a treat to see, as it so seldom occurs.

the few minutes left to me, Mr. Speaker, I think I would like to go

over in a capsule form what I feel to be some of the main points. The

first item is that the bill proposes a framework for school districts

and teachers' associations to resolve a problem which some of them were

unable to. I don't think it was without some effort on their part, but

a little assistance was required. The legislation now provides that

framework. I think it also gives them the opportunity to resolve their

problems prior to October 15. I think we should remind ourselves that

the budget, even with the reduction and with restraint, still provides

an overall increase of 15.9 percent. It is also interesting to note

that many school districts in the province responded prior to the

introduction of the legislation. But with the number that were

outstanding.... I think the people of the province are not interested

in confrontation at this time, but in resolution of problems.

repeat, the objective of the legislation, in addition to providing the

framework, is to preserve jobs. Preserving jobs seems to be the major

concern of those from my constituency who were faced with some degree

of uncertainty. It's also to preserve education services. It seems to

me that with the addition of some few minutes each day in the spring it

provides the opportunity for not only the teaching staff, who are quite

prepared, quite willing to give a little bit more time so that they may

make their contribution to our steppingstones to recovery during a

difficult economic period.... It's fair to teachers and administrators

who want to contribute to the restraint program. The administrators

will be losing some income but will be required to work. Most important

[ Page 9492 ]

all, I think, is that we have to consider the taxpayers and their ability to pay.

would like to repeat one item which has been mentioned by other

speakers, and that involves special education. As the former Minister

of Education and the present Minister of Education have said, the

budget in that area had been increased by 19 percent.

With

the idea of flexibility and the date which was put within the bill,

October 15, the flexibility is there to work out some kind of

resolution. I don't think that it should go unnoticed that in every

area, wherever there is a particular organization, association,

professional association, or group having a vested interest, in this

day and age they always elevate any such disputes to a profile which is

well covered in the media. We experienced this problem, and the

subsequent resolution, with the medical profession. We experienced it

with municipalities. The UBCM passed a resolution on the floor of its

convention last week adopting the restraint program, entitling it

"Partnership in Restraint: a Partnership Between Local Government and

the Provincial Government in Zero to Five." With the exception of

one.... No. I think there were about half a dozen delegates out of

close to a thousand. You could really say it was unanimous.

Also

with respect to restraint, the government employees' memorandum of

agreement has been recommended for ratification by the leader of the

membership. It contains the parameters of restraint and was adopted and

acknowledged by both parties; other professionals have done the same.

seems to me that only the MLAs on both sides of this House, who showed

leadership, with the support of a bill reducing the amount of our pay,

which I suspect probably works out to something like $400 per month....

It seems to me that we find again and again and again.... Every group

in British Columbia which feels as though it has an interest to

protect.... Their leadership is elected to protect that interest, but

their leadership is also realistic. Before long we find badges, and it

seemed to me for a while that there was not a day without a badge that

was being sported by the members of the opposition.

I don't think we should lose sight of the fact, when we compare the costs of education on a per-student basis.... In

1978 the cost per student was $1,824 per year; in 1982 the cost was

$3,283 per year — a 76 percent increase. I think when you take that 76

percent increase and you look at that, and compare it to the cost of

living over a period of time and the increases with respect to other

people within the public sector, you will find that it's being most

generous. The budget allotted to education by the province of British

Columbia is the second highest item, next to health, and now it's well

in excess of $1.5 billion. So what's the bottom line? The bottom line

is a few minutes of extra teaching time in the spring to preserve the

instructional periods of 935 hours. That's to be preserved, and I think

that is what the public is interested in.

I go back to a

statement which I made yesterday and have made before — and it doesn't

matter what dispute we've been involved in, Mr. Speaker, with every

association, organization or trade union in the public or private

sector. The statement is that in the private sector there has always

been the bottom line in the financial statement; in the public sector

there is only the resolve of governments to say no when common sense

dictates that it must be said.

We can make no mistake about

it: there must be a bottom line. We cannot have two classes of citizens

in this province, one which is always vulnerable to the business cycle

and one which is not. When we talk about contracts and the sanctity of

a contract.... In my view, those people who are members of the INA and

working for the forest industry also have a contract. but economic

circumstances and the fact that global market conditions are rather

depressed mean that they are laid off. In their case it's not a matter

of losing a day a week or working a few more minutes in the following

year with no pay; it's one week, one month, two months or three months

without employment. Therefore I don't really see why there should be

any objection to this type of request of the administrators, the

supervisors, the teaching profession and the local school boards to be

given an opportunity to put their shoulder to the wheel.

Knowing

that my time has run out, Mr. Speaker, I still think this is a bill

worthy of support from the opposition. I have constantly heard an awful

lot of opposition to debate any proposals put forth by the government,

but when it comes down to the crunch I notice there's always support

from the opposition.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would

again like to congratulate the Minister of Education for having the

courage to face up to what was a difficult situation and introduce this

legislation. I support the bill.

MR. COCKE: I want to

make it amply clear that the opposition does not support this

legislation and will not support this legislation under any

circumstance.

This bill says how to fight fire with

gasoline. That's precisely what this bill does. On the backs of our

children, the Premier of this province has the audacity to try to find

an election issue. The children in this province will never forgive

this government for turning their backs on education. We've seen

barbarism in this province under Socreds. The creation of chaos in the

classroom is what's happened.

I go back to September 17,

when the minister acknowledged that the boards had pretty well put

together all the situations that were required by his guidelines. But

that wasn't enough. The Premier went to the minister and said: "For

heaven's sake, we've got to get something going out there. We've got to

start a fire." That's precisely what they have done, I would suggest

that later this morning we're all going to see what's going to happen

as a result of this bill being put forward. If they think that they can

make political footballs of the children of this province and win an

election on that issue, they're crazy. The people in this province know

the issues. They know it's because there are close to 300,000 people in

this province out of work. They know that the Socreds have been laying

on the oars for the last seven years, and they will turf them out.

Meanwhile,

back to this bill, Mr. Speaker. I guess one could, at this late hour,

call for a plea for sanity. I've seen very little evidence of it to

date. I saw less evidence of it when I saw the Minister of Municipal

Affairs (Hon. Mr. Heinrich), the former Minister of Labour and before

that a lawyer, stand in this House and tell us that it's okay to break

a contract. Imagine! A lawyer, a Minister of Labour and now Minister of

Municipal Affairs telling us that it's okay to break a contract. That's

precisely what this bludgeon does.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Where are you going to get the $60 million?

[ Page

9493 ]

MR. COCKE: The Minister of Education will have ample opportunity to

reply to anything I say when he closes debate. "Where are you going to

get this, and where are you going to get..." I'll tell you where I'll

get the $60 million, if you really want to know. I'll take it out of some

of those monuments that you're building to Socreds and put it into looking

after the children in our province.

Mr.

Speaker, we hang our heads in shame in this province. Why do we hang

our heads in shame? I'll tell you why. We are one of the lowest

provinces, in terms of expenditures on children and the education

process, in all of Canada, Not only that, we are the very worst

province in all of Canada in terms of the percentage that the

government puts up vis-à-vis what the property owners do. After the

July restraint, the government now puts up 32.6 percent of the total

money going into education; the remaining 67.4 percent comes from the

property owners in our province, They've been divesting themselves of

their obligation ever since they've been in office. Alberta — compare

it.

HON. MR. FRASER: Socialist arithmetic!

MR. COCKE:

These are the B.C. School Trustees Association statistics, and when you

go home you might tell your school board what you called them and every

other school board in this province, Mr. Minister of Transportation and

Highways and Blacktop.

Mr. Speaker, compare us with Alberta: 62.1 percent comes from the

government, 37.9 percent comes from the homeowners; Saskatchewan — 53

percent from the government and 47 percent from the property taxpayer;

Manitoba — 54 percent from the government and 48 percent from the

property taxpayer; Ontario is almost fifty-fifty — 50.6 percent from

the government and 49.4 percent.... But listen to this. What an abysmal

record! B.C. gets 32.6 percent from the government and 67.4 percent....

And they are crying poverty, but they're not too impoverished to

subsidize northeast coal, not too impoverished to buy monuments such as

stadiums, convention centres and so on. They are impoverished when it

comes to spending money on the children of our province.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Garbage! What a bunch of crap!

MR. COCKE:

If that minister would get in his truck and move around from school to

school, he would know what I'm talking about. He has heard example

after example from this side of the House, where children are being

sacrificed at the altar of the bottom line that all those people know,

Mr. Speaker, except when it comes to building monuments to their own

grandiose ideas.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Turkey!

MR. COCKE: Mr. Minister, when you call me a turkey it comes not as an insult; it comes as an expected remark.

I have talked to school board after school board. When this bill first came

in, one wondered, looking at it — not being a lawyer — what the results of it

might be. I have talked to school board after school board in this province,

and what have I heard? "They are taking out our ability to transport children

in sports." There will be no more interschool sports. You say: "Well,

so what? They must be restrained." I would say yes, Mr. Speaker, you have

to make certain cutbacks, but you don't make those cutbacks on the backs

of children. You don't make those cutbacks on the backs of health care,

and that's precisely what we're doing in this province, what we have

been doing ever since day one of their concern over our finances. That wild

bunch of spenders over there, who can go to New York, rent limousines, go to

Broadway shows and just have a gay old time — drink Pouilly-Fuisse.... Then they

come into this House and tell us to restrain, restrain, restrain. I think it's

absolutely devastatingly disgusting.

What

has this bill done? It has created pandemonium in our schools. It has

created the lowest morale that we've seen in our history. It was bad

when McGeer was there, but it's worse now that Bill is there. Guess

who's pulling the strings? It's the Premier that's pulling the strings,

and he's prepared to ride on the backs of children to find himself an

election issue. Shame on him! Shame on all the Socreds for being party

to this disastrous situation that we face.

Mr. Speaker, let

me give you a few ideas about what has happened in the school system

since they have introduced this "restraint program" — not this one,

there have been three in a row. Administrators' and teachers' time

alone has been estimated in excess of $5 million to try to juggle

budgets and spend all their time working at that level instead of

teaching our children. What happen beyond that? The morale starts

dropping. When the morale starts dropping, with everybody uncertain,

who suffers? Your kids and mine suffer. It's an absolutely shocking

situation.

MR. MUSSALLEM: Baloney!

MR. COCKE:

That member for Dewdney can very well say "baloney," because he's not

going to run again. He's not going to have to face the public and

answer for being party to this disaster that's been put forward in the

name of restraint.

This bill, Mr. Speaker. Is not really a

piece of legislation. Let me tell you why. Have you ever heard of

embellishing legislation with flowery words? I have read legislation

since I've been in this House since 1969. Mr. Member for Dewdney, have

you ever seen a bill that says words like: "in order to maintain the

quality and diversity of educational services in the province and to

preserve jobs..."? Have you ever heard anything like that in

legislation? Where's the legalese? Have you ever in your life seen such

a disgusting piece of political propaganda that if you really get to

the heart of it, then you know the government will stoop to anything,

because they know there will be people that will pick this bill up and

interpret it properly. Teachers will pick it up and say: "What are they

trying to do to the system?" Then the government will turn on the

teachers and say they are only worrying about their own hides, in spite

of the fact that they are saying: "Protect the system for the

children." It might be interesting for you to know that the B.C. School

Trustees Association is no longer being the pawn of the government

through the present president. No, because they are now demanding this

bill be withdrawn for a week so that they can meet and discuss the

whole question. You'll get the letter momentarily. It's ridiculous!

fledgling Socred candidate announces from Toronto that it looks like

not a bad bill — a bill he'd never seen. How could lie have? He was

3,000 or 2,500 miles away. Mr. Speaker, this bill was never designed to

be anything more than political propaganda for a government that is

worn out,

[ Page 9494 ]

for a government that lacks any kind of credibility, and for a government that lacks wit. Yes, we're all ready.

Mr.

Speaker, this bill was not drafted in the normal area of drafting

bills, by legislative counsel. It was drafted by science fiction

writers. What an utter disgrace, that we should be standing up in this

House having to defend our children, and then read a bill that has that

kind of flowery language, trying to make itself something that people

will like. Oh, yes, you can fool some of the people some of the time,

but that government has been fooling the people in our province for far

too long. This one will not wash.

It won't wash for several

reasons. It won't wash because people have a sense of fair play. People

are prepared to demand that the sanctity of contracts be honoured.

Imagine, a "free enterprise party" who destroy contracts by

legislation. Can you imagine? Secondly, it won't wash because virtually

every school board had already negotiated days off, etc. to meet the

demands of this autocratic group across the way. Those are two reasons.

But third, and most important of all, it will not wash because people

realize the most important resource that our province has is children.

The whole future of this province, country and world is invested in

children. If you deny children access to proper education for any

reason, you're turning your back on the future. That will not wash.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Doom and gloom.

MR. COCKE:

That minister doesn't like the truth, but he never has. He and his

colleague beside him obviously wouldn't recognize it if they saw it

staring them in the face.

It's very easy for me to talk

about the children. I've already seen enough examples. I've had

examples of my own. It strikes me that when you treat children in this

disgraceful manner, you can be put in the category of child-beaters.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Did you say child-beaters?

MR. COCKE:

Child-beaters, yes. I'm accusing the government of battering our

education system. I'm accusing the government of battering our

children. As far as I'm concerned, it's unforgivable. I'll tell you

something right now: the public will not forgive you for it.

HON. MR. HEWITT: You must be sick.

MR. COCKE:

You've created pandemonium out there. I have talked to school-board

person after school-board person across the province. Phone your own

school board, Mr. Member for Boundary-Similkameen, and find out what's

happening up there. There's the same kind of disgraceful pandemonium

there, in Prince George, in Chilliwack and in every other area of this

province. Nowhere are they happy.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I spoke to them last night, and they're all in favour.

MR. COCKE: Smile when you say that one. They burnt your ear right off.

guess that what we have to do here is just say that it's bad

legislation and it's really nothing more than the kind of political

propaganda that this government has been putting forward for the last

three weeks. Nothing is going to committee stage and nothing is going

to third reading. It's just window-dressing so they have an opportunity

to go out and fly the flag. I made a prediction yesterday that the bill

we were discussing then would not go to third reading in this

parliament. I make the same prediction on this bill. It will not go to

third reading during this parliament.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: I make that prediction, and nobody knows better than the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot) what I'm talking about.

talked to somebody yesterday who has been a school trustee for years

and years. This person is a highly respected school trustee. This

person said that this bill does not treat the illness. It treats the

symptom, not the disease. It will create nothing but pandemonium.

Further, it is the heavy hand of centralism epitomized. I have to

smile. The Minister of Education looks at me with a sort of stunned

glance and says: "Hurrah." The fact is, I have never seen a more

centralist minister in my life. He reminds me of Joseph Stalin, with

all the reins of power in his hands. He was a fascist autocrat and it

would seem that the kinds of things that this minister does....

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: He was a socialist.

MR. COCKE: He was no socialist. What are you talking about?

There

is only one way to cure the disease that we have here, and that is to

restore the funding required for education in this province. If that is

not enough of a priority.... If a rich province, with our heritage of

always having had a good, decentralized school system — a good system

in which the local people have input into the way that system is

run.... Suddenly the Minister of Education, with his iron hand, has

moved in and said: "I'm taking over, brothers and sisters, whether you

like it or not." Disgrace! They're riding on the backs of our children.

They will never be forgiven for riding on the backs of our children.

They will never be forgiven for having created pandemonium in our

school system and chaos in the classroom. to the end that the one who

suffers most is that child trying to get an education.

One

or two of my colleagues were out yesterday, meeting with people in

schools. What did they find? The morale of everybody is down the tube.

Well, I can't say congratulations, but I can assure you of this: you

will not find the member for New Westminster voting in favour of this

bill. I will oppose this kind of legislation as long as I have breath

in my body.

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: I have listened to a

lot of exaggerated language here today and yesterday. I thought I would

like to take

part in it. Mr. Speaker, if you will permit me to

exaggerate to the same extent, I think we can not only have some fun

here this morning but perhaps we can also put to bed some of the myths

being expounded here.

I would like to ask a few questions.

How did we get to the problem that we're discussing today? How do we

solve the problem that we're discussing today? Who will need and who

will want to solve the problem? Can all segments of society do their

share in helping solve the problem? How will the program that is

suggested as a solution work? What are the alternatives to the program

here? Those are the things I want to discuss for just a few minutes.

[ Page 9495 ]

There

is a myth out there which the opposition would like to amplify. They

would like the citizenry to believe it: they would like the teaching

professionals to believe it; they would like the school boards to

believe it. But when you come down to the hard rocks, the truth has to

be known. The myth is this: that the money we're talking about, the

money we anticipated at the beginning of the fiscal year, would be

there. The myth says that it is there. The myth says that a stingy and

irresponsible government is priorizing expenditures, that it has

wilfully singled out certain segments of society and said, "Money will

be withheld from you, and money will be withheld from you, only because

you were bad boys, bad girls or whatever, or for some other reason."

The myth is that the ideal, which we had anticipated at the beginning

of the fiscal year, is still possible. That's just not true.

[Mr. Mussallem in the chair.]

Whenever

you budget at the beginning of a year, you look at the tax structure

that is in place and anticipate what that tax structure will generate

in dollars. Anticipating, playing God one whole year in advance, you

say it is going to generate, in our instance, $7.2 billion for the

year. Having played God — foolishly — it is then the responsibility of

an administration to take those $7.2 billion dollars and say: "Okay,

according to our policy and philosophy of government we will apportion

this money hence: $1.5 billion for education, $2 billion for health."

Having designated those dollars for those purposes, believing they will

be there, and having made those budgets public — indeed, having debated

them right in this chamber to see whether or not they were enough or

not enough.... In some instances, apparently, according to the

opposition they were not enough, because they voted reductions in

these. Assuming that the Legislature in its wisdom has apportioned the

proper amounts to each publicly, then the expectation of each segment

is raised — and the Ministry of Education is no stranger to this fact —

that $1.5 billion will be available, and they are asked to arrange

their own budgets internally. They designate their dollars, hire their

people and put their programs in place, expecting the $1.5 billion to

be there.

Along goes the fiscal year, Mr. Speaker — my, how

you've changed — and by the time you get to the halfway point in the

fiscal year it is obvious that changes will have to be made; although

ideally one-half of the $1.5 billion for education would be available

now, it's not. Therefore everyone needs to be told that it's not there,

and everyone needs to be told that the expectations cannot be realized

and that everyone is going to have to contribute to some kind of

savings which will allow us to survive the shortfall in cash. That's

not just true in education; it's also true in health. It just so

happens that when you add health and education together you've got $3.5

billion, which is half the total budget for the province. Those two

segments are going to feel the impact the hardest, because they happen

to be the two biggest segments.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

How

did we get here? We got here because the anticipated revenue is not

here, and as a citizenry each and every one of us has to accept the

responsibility to operate with a few dollars less than we originally

anticipated would be there.

The member for New Westminster

(Mr. Cocke) discusses morale. Of course it affects morale. If I tell my

wife she's got $350 for groceries this month, she goes out, does her

shopping as only Little Red can do, and buys the most for a dollar. But

having now come to the halfway point of the month, if I say: "Sorry,

Little Red, but you don't have $350 for groceries; you've only got

$300; were going to have to find savings for $50 somewhere," sure it

affects her morale. She says: "Holy mackerel, Harve, I've already

bought certain things. I've already made commitments." Sure, it affects

morale. The member for New Westminster tells the truth. But does it

assist that morale if we have an irresponsible opposition that goes to

these people and says: "The myth is really true. The money is there;

somebody is just withholding it from you"?

Guess what the

Leader of the Opposition says to those people out there who are

trusting this administration to administer properly? That Leader of the

Opposition goes out onto the highways and byways and says: "If I were

Premier" — Lord help us — "I would spend the S60 million." What $60

million dollars? Tell me, what $60 million? It's not there. How is he

going to raise $60 million that's not there? Is he going to borrow it?

How did we get here? We got here because what we anticipated at the

beginning of the year is not materializing. How do we solve the

problem? Each segment is going to have to say: "Hey, we're willing to

do our share." Do you know that the first people to say that were the

ladies and gentlemen who sit in this chamber; not a whisper in this

chamber — I commend every member. They said: "We'll do our share and

take a rollback of an increase which was earned in the previous year."

This was not an increase that was anticipated for the next year, but

one that was earned in the previous year. The members of this chamber

said, "We'll do our share," and they did.

The civil service

did their share. Sure, they didn't do it as willingly as \we may have

wished; but they were confused by someone who was "ranting them to

believe the myth that I was talking about. When somebody finally told

them what the case really was . they said — — 'Oh, well, then we're

willing to do our share, " and they did,

The medical

profession. I have a keen respect for the medical profession. I owe my

life to them. But after they understood what the problem was, were they

willing to do their share? You better believe it. It's not completely

solved yet. I don't think the cheque for $30 million has been

deposited. But they sat down as a group and said: "We want to do our

share." The medical profession is to be commended. How do we solve this

problem? We'll solve it if every segment of society says: "We'll do our

share."

Now we come to education. Is education capable of

doing its share, and is its share the lion's share? Is it a heavier

thing we're asking them to do than we've asked anybody else to do? Some

say no. I say yes, because they happen to to be the lion's share of the

budget. They're going to have to be willing, in total number of

dollars, to do far more than anybody else, although, if every one of

them cooperates and participates, then the load is no heavier for each

one.

My question is: do they want to help? The answer is

yes. The second question is: could they help? Not under the legislation

the way it was. Could salaries be reduced for professionals in the

education field under existing legislation? No. So we had to have some

kind of a change so that the teachers and other professionals in

education could do what they already wanted to do, having got past the

myth that that

[ Page 9496 ]

crew

over there would like them to believe. Guess what? If they will do

their share and join the other groups that have already committed

themselves, I think we can survive this year in which our anticipated

revenues are not materializing and each one of us is going to have to

do something which is not fun.

We're going to have to say:

"Hey, we don't have all of the money to do all of the things which are

legitimate, desirable and necessary, some of them even critical. We're

going to have to bypass a few of those things for a short time. That's

what most people seem to overlook. This is for a short time, because

when recovery happens, all of these things which are necessary,

reasonable — and critical — can and should and must be done. But we

must recover first. Anybody who was thinking reasonably should have

said: "Harv, you should have been carrying out your responsibility to

this chamber as a member and as the MLA for Chilliwack. You should have

been here. You said you would. You were paid as though you were, and

everybody expected you to be here." But, bless your socks, I had to

recover first. That's all that's expected of our economy. When we

recover, those dollars which had been anticipated to be spent on

education most surely will be spent there again.

What I like

about the program that's in place is that if every individual wishes to

contribute the part that is suggested by the legislation, all of those

gory stories that are being suggested by the opposition as to what's

going to have to be cut out...it will not have to be cut out at all. If

the $60 million can be saved by each one participating, none of those

programs will have to be cut out. Am I telling the truth? Of course I

am. So they can put all those gory stories to bed each one having

participated.

Mr. Speaker, I commend this program to you. I

can't believe that every member of this chamber, knowing the economic

facts of the day, having already committed themselves each to his own

share, wouldn't join hands with everyone and say: "Okay, let's

everybody do it. Let's make the load as light as possible." But do we

hear that? No, we don't. We hear from the opposite side that they're

going to oppose this. I can't believe it — ten bills in a row in which

we constructed the economic recovery of the province, and they said:

"Yeah, man, go for it." These are the programs that are going to be

dollars expended. The minute we bring in a program that says we're

going to have to create the revenue so that those programs can exist,

they say: "Uh, uh." It tells me something about the economic philosophy

— the non-existence of the economic philosophy — of that crew over

there. They have no idea that if your're going to have some

expenditure, you must first have revenue. That's the problem with the

bill that we're discussing today. They believe that you can have the

expenditures without revenues. That's the myth that I talked about when

I started, Mr. Speaker. I can't believe, from people that won't even

bring their files back....

MR. LAUK: No wonder we made you Speaker.

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: Thanks, Gary.

would think that the only reason the opposition is opposing this

measure is that they've made a promise to the leadership of an

organization which believes they have the responsibility for teaching

professionals in the palm of their hand. They have made a promise to

those leaders that says: "Hey, if you vote for us, we'll promise you

the $60 million we haven't got." I think it's for political advantage

that they are opposing this bill, I think the leadership alliance that

they have been themselves and that leadership, which believes they

represent education when they really don't, is strong enough for them

to try to extend the myth — right here in this House, out on the

hustings if necessary. But to make a promise they know they can't

keep....

I think the program can work. It's not perfect.

Perfect would be if the dollars were there and everyone's expectations

could be filled. That not being the truth, we've got to take second

best. This is what I believe this is, and, sir, I support the bill.

MS. BROWN:

Mr. Speaker, it was really interesting listening to the reverend member

from Chilliwack talk to us about myths. If there is a myth out there

that there is a lot of money in the government coffers, it's because

that's what the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) said when he

brought down his budget at the beginning of the session. The Minister

of Finance was the one who said there is money out there, and these are

the expected revenues. When the opposition critic, the member for

Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich), said that is not accurate, "You are

exaggerating," the Minister of Finance denied this and said this is an

accurate budget. The opposition has always maintained that those

figures were not correct. The myth that there was a lot of money out

there was created by the government and by the Minister of Finance.

That's where the myth started.

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I'll ask the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Schroeder), to come to order, please.

MS. BROWN:

Mr. Speaker, the member.for Chilliwack went on to say: "How can you

spend money which you haven't got?" He gave us this nice little homily

about sending his wife out to buy $350 worth of groceries, then halfway

through the month saying to her that he doesn't have $350, he only has

$300. She is demoralized by this, and so she should be because she

knows that he spent that extra $50 on booze and cigarettes. That's the

problem we're facing over here. That's the reason there isn't the $50:

it's been mismanaged by that government. Everyone knows that you have

to live within your budget, but when you have a profligate person in

charge of the budget, when there is profligacy and waste.... The member

used the example about the wife not being able to buy the groceries,

she is unable to buy the groceries and she knows it is because the

money was misspent. That's the reason she was demoralized, and that's

precisely what the opposition is saying now.

First of all,

the government created an impression that there were revenues coming

in, which they knew were not coming in. Secondly, as a direct result of

their mismanagement and their profligacy, money that should be there to

be spent on the education of children is not there. That's what the

opposition is saying. We've listened to these beautiful little

analogies, little fairy tales and stories, in the reasoned manner of

that member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder). He doesn't understand what

he's saying. He's suggesting to us that this piece of legislation is

going to right the budgetary wrongs in education. It isn't going to do

it. If the legislation in fact were going to do that, then the

opposition would be supporting it. But the legislation is not going to

do that. The member went on to say that the reason the opposition is

[ Page 9497 ]

supporting

this legislation is because we've made a promise. We have made a

promise. We made a promise to the children of this province that we are

not going to allow the education system to be eroded through the

mismanagement of a profligate government, and we intend to stand by

that promise.

Mr. Speaker, the only thing that this government has done since coming into

office is to create deadweight debt, and to take money that should be spent

on education to try to deal with that deadweight debt. It is not good enough

to come into the House and say: "Everyone has to pull in their belts and

exercise restraint" so that they can continue to feed that deadweight debt.

You don't sacrifice children's education because of your own incompetence.

It's one thing to talk about the doctors contributing to help you pay off

your debt, and another thing to say that public-sector workers may be contributing

to help you pay off your debt. But when you start to sacrifice the education

of the children of this province to pay off interest and deadweight debt, then

it's time for the opposition to say: "No, we are not going to be a

part of that."

This

piece of legislation is part of a coordinated, integrated, planned and

systematic assault on the children of this province. If you want proof

of that, look at the way children are treated by different ministries.

Look at the cutback in special services to children under the Ministry

of Human Resources. Recognize that this is one of the only provinces in

this country that does not have a superintendent of child welfare, does

not have a public advocate for children, nobody to look after the

children of this province. Look at the cutbacks in health care services

for the children of this province, and the disgraceful way in which

Sunny Hill Hospital, which administers to sick and disabled children,

has its funding cut by this government — the Children's Hospital, the

psychiatric services to these children. Look at the way in which every

sector, every ministry, when it addresses the needs of children,

sacrifices those children — because children don't vote. That's what

it's all about. And when the government has to cut the fat somewhere,

when they have to make sacrifices somewhere, the first group they zero

in on is always the most vulnerable group, the group with the least

power. Usually they are the disabled, the children, senior citizens or

women. That is why this legislation is just part of a package of the

general assault by this government on children.

Earlier this

year, the opposition pointed out that this government could have saved

$178 million simply by cutting back on their expenditures for office

furniture, their advertising budget, their travel, and the various

other sums of money that they spend on themselves as ministers.

Wouldn't that $178 million be better spent on delivering educational

services and health care to the children of this province? But that was

not their priority. This government's priority is always to look after

themselves first, then to look after their friends, and children and

the disabled come way down the line. If at all.

By all

international standards, this province stands out as among the worst in

the treatment of children, whether you compare us with other Canadian

provinces or other nations around the world, even nations without our

kind of gross national product. In the treatment of our children we are

a national disgrace, by whatever measurement scale you look at. This

province in particular has a lot to answer for. Look at the high

suicide rate among our children. Look at the high level of death by

violence among our children. Look at the poverty statistics: more than

half of those on the welfare rolls in this province are children. I

want to repeat: by national or international standards this province

stands condemned. It is an absolute disgrace the way the children of

this province are treated. In addition, now they are trying to service

their deadweight debt by eroding and undermining the education of the

children of the province, and then they have the nerve to make comments

about children being our most important resource.

The last

member who spoke — who could ever forget when he was sitting in

opposition over here and we were debating the issue of removing the

strap from the schools. He was opposed to that. What was his argument?

How would the children know that you loved them if you didn't beat

them? That was his argument. If you don't thrash kids, how do they know

that you love them? That was the argument and basis of his opposition

to that piece of legislation. You prove your love by beating up on

them. You prove your love by assaulting them. If that's the case, this

government loves kids, because it sure has beat up and assaulted the

kids of this province.

Bill 89 is going to result in an

increase in class sizes, in chaos and turmoil in the schools, and it is

not going to solve the budgetary problems of the school trustees. That

is the reason we in the opposition are opposed to it. What kinds of

things happen when you increase the class sizes that teachers in the

school have to deal with? First, the minister tells us that the

solution, of course, is simply to tack on 12 minutes and 48 seconds to

each day. This kind of simplistic short-term solution shows that he

really doesn't understand how the school day works. What are you going

to do when you have eight subjects — tack on one minute and fifty-six

seconds to each subject? Is that the way it's done? The minister has

children in school, I have children in school. This is what the kids

are saying: "What does that mean? That instead of being in the

classroom for 40 minutes, I'm now going to be in for 41.56 minutes?"

What absolute nonsense! How simplistic! What kind of short-term

solution is that? In any event, at the rate we're going we know that

next year most of these classes will be shut down as a result of the

inept management of this government.

You cannot shortchange

children. We are living in a world that's quite different from the

world that the Minister of Education was born into or graduated from

high school in. It's a different world from the one I was born into or

graduated from high school in. In order to survive in the twenty-first

century you need more education; you need better skills; you need more

knowledge, not less. Part of our problem is that we have a

nineteenth-century Minister of Education trying to administer the

education system in a province at a time when we're moving into the

twenty-first century. It's not enough to say that all you have to know

is how to write good and spell good and read good and a little bit of

arithmetic. That may have been okay when the minister graduated; it was

okay when I graduated; but it's not okay for the world in which my

children graduate and in which their children will graduate.

What

are we going to do? We talk about a world in which we need skilled

labour. The Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon.

Mr. McGeer) is always talking about the fact that we cannot meet the

need for skilled labour in this province. The option then is to import

it. Why are we doing that? What we are saying by this policy is that

it's okay for our children to be hewers of wood and drawers of water,

that the skills should come in from other provinces and other

countries. That's what this government's policy is doing. It's

[ Page 9498 ]

condemning

the children of British Columbia to be hewers of wood and drawers of

water — that's what it's doing — and saying that all the skills and

advanced technological education that people must have to survive in

this world will come into the province from other parts of the world

and from other provinces.

I can't remember which minister it

was who stood in his place yesterday and said that to say that special

education in the schools was being cut was "tommyrot." Of course the

special education budgets have been cut. They have already been cut.

They're not going to be restored by this piece of legislation. In

Vancouver, for example, the school board asked for $29 million to be

spent on special education. They were granted $17 million first of all,

and then this was slashed to $14.5 million. Is that money going to be

restored as a result of Bill 89 being passed in this House? Of course

not.

The children who need that special attention — the

children with dyslexia, the children with learning disabilities, the

language and the disabled children who are being phased into the public

school system, of which I approve — are not going to get the kind of

service they need as a result of this legislation being passed. Burnaby

School Board asked for $5.2 million to be earmarked for special

education. They were granted $4.8 million.

Within the

Burnaby School District there is a school known as the Donald Paterson

School for the disabled. It's one of the best schools in British

Columbia, and probably the only one that really caters to the multiply

disabled child — the child who has more than one or two disabilities.

Do you think this government would recognize the importance of the

service delivered by that school, and see to it that it was adequately

funded? Not on your life. The Donald Paterson School has had to cut

aides and staff. There is no one on the staff to help those children

who are so disabled that they have to have help to go to the bathroom,

put on their clothes, put on their shoes or whatever. A vital therapy

those children need is swimming. That had to be cut.

The

Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Schroeder), the member for

Chilliwack, stands up and talks about myths. The way this government

treats disabled children in this province is not a myth. It's an

absolute disgrace. If the minister is going to bring in legislation

that says: "Let us move money from here, helping these children who

don't need as much assistance, to help those children who need more

assistance," that's one thing, but that's not what happens at all. What

the minister does is to bring in legislation that takes money and sucks

it right out of the educational system altogether so there is money to

surface the dead debt that government has managed to accumulate during

its short term in office.

The school board of Delta had

$22,000 cut from its special education budget. Always, when this

government cuts, it goes for the most defenceless first. It always

attacks the most vulnerable first, every single time.

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER:

I'll ask the hon. Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr.

Hewitt) to withdraw that remark. It's unparliamentary. Please withdraw.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, at your request, I'll withdraw.

MS. BROWN:

As long as the minister is listening and hears, that's all I care

about, because this is information that has to get out to the members

on the government benches. They have to have some understanding of what

they're doing, so as long as he hears what I'm saying, that's all I

care about.

At Hawthorne School, another school that works

with disabled children in the province, aides are being laid off.

Autistic children, for whom attempts are being made to phase into the

general educational system, are being returned home. They're being told

that without aides the teachers can't cope and so they cannot be fitted

into the system.

The district of Langley — three full-time

equivalents in special education lost. As I said, the money is being

taken from the children who need it most: they're the ones who are

losing. That's why the opposition cannot support this piece of

legislation.

Let us look at Burnaby, for example. The

homeowners in Burnaby were told that they had to pay increased taxes

toward the education system, because it was necessary. And they paid

it. Many of them couldn't afford it. Many of them went into debt, had

to borrow the money to pay it. But they paid it. They paid their taxes

so that the educational system that their children use would be funded

adequately. Now that they've paid their taxes, they are being told that

they can't get the kind of education they paid for. Where did that

money go? That's what the residents of Burnaby-Edmonds are asking.

"We've paid our taxes. You told us to pay the taxes; we paid the taxes.

We made the sacrifices, we borrowed the money, we paid the taxes,

because we believe in the education of our children. Now you're telling

us that our children can't get the education we paid for. Where did the

money go?" The money has gone to pay off interest on the dead-weight

debt which a financially irresponsible and incompetent government has

built up during its term of office. That's what's happened to the

money: sucked out of services to children; sucked out of their

health-care needs and their educational needs to service deadweight

debt, which a financially irresponsible, inept and incompetent

government has built up during its term in office.

Burnaby five schools have already been closed in an attempt to

consolidate the educational system and save money. Every time they come

to the school board and say, "Cut back, cut back, cut back, " the

school board does. It tries, it really tries. Five schools closed — two

senior secondary and three elementary schools. Special programs and

class contact time have been shrunk, reduced. Library hours, physical

education, music, French immersion, counselling time, learning

assistance — all of those programs have been cut back. The time

allotted to them has been contracted, shrunken.

Now after

all of that, when the children are at this point getting a skeleton

education, they are being told again that that is going to be curtailed

further. They are going to have fewer course options. What we're going

to find, of course, is that, as the class sizes get larger and the

teachers become less capable of dealing with these increased class

sizes, behaviour problems in the school are going to become behaviour

problems on the street. They are going to end up under the auspices of

Human Resources, then under the auspices of the Attorney-General.

Instead of putting the money in at the beginning of the educational

system to prevent that and to save a child, we're going to put the

money in at the end to pay for the incarceration of an adult who was

spewed out, thrown out by a system that didn't care for him or her.

[ Page 9499 ]

That's

the kind of thinking that that government exercises over there. Instead

of spending money in a positive way, in preventive services in the

educational system — cut down on the class sizes, give the children

more options, give them a better education, make them better prepared,

fund your special services, deal with the children with learning

disabilities, deal with the children with other disabilities — that

doesn't happen and that money is sucked out of the system. Then it's

going to have to turn around and put it back in services through the

Attorney-General's department, through the Minister of Human Resources,

or through the psychiatric services of the Ministry of Education.

Short-term thinking. Mr. Speaker, I just want to read a couple of

letters into the record. One is from a special-education teacher. She

says:

"As a teacher of special-needs children, many from

poor, single-parent families, I see the writing on the wall as far as

their future is concerned. I have worked incredibly hard for 17 years

as an advocate for the underprivileged child, only to see my hard work

and that of many other teachers destroyed by the stroke of a pen. These

children are now going to be forced to compete with average or

above-average children in classes of 35 or 40, only to experience

frustration and failure and eventually drop out of school to join the

ranks of the undereducated."

That's from a teacher. That's

her response, Mr. Speaker, to what is going to happen to those children

as a result of this piece of legislation.

It doesn't address

itself at all to.... The B.C. teachers, in a paper they released

recently, told us that British Columbia has more students completing

their education with more problems and special needs than ever before.

Bear that in mind at a time when we are cutting back on funding for

special-needs children.

"Studies show that

these modern children have less motivation and less power of

concentration. They are more violent and combative and have a lower

sense of self-esteem, say educators. So teachers must not only teach,

but they must also provide new language, emotional and other

counselling services. Today, after disabled children have joined the

school mainstream, 23 percent of British Columbia's 500,000 students

require special services of some kind."

That's an estimate

provided by the Ministry of Education. That is the situation in British

Columbia today, at a time when this government has decided that the

time has come to cut back on funding to schools, so they cannot supply

the kinds of special-needs services and special-education services that

these children need.

I have a number of letters here from

teachers in various community schools. Stride Avenue Community School

in Burnaby says: "Surely a social and fiscal problem should not be

solved at the expense of future generations." Another says: "As the

librarian in an elementary school in Burnaby. I anticipate severe

detrimental changes in the quality and quantity of library services."

Another teacher says:

"Seven of the children

in my class will be deprived of assistance in language arts. Six

children will be unable to get extra tuition in math. Two students will

no longer have special-help tutors. Handicapped boys' support is

severely reduced. Field trips, an essential part of learning in this

community, will be curtailed. The music program will be cancelled."

And

a government minister over there told us yesterday that to say that

there have been any cutbacks in services to children is tommyrot.

Another letter from another teacher says:

have three children in my class who have severe learning disabilities

and many other children with behavioural and learning problems. At

present, these children spend a large portion of each day in the

learning-assistance centre, thus enabling me to give more time to the

other children in the class."

This learning-assistance

centre is now going to have to be closed in this particular school.

What's going to happen to the quality of education for the rest of the

class when this teacher has to spend more of her time with these

children needing a special education?

Another teacher says:

"In my grade 1 class

at Stride Avenue Community School I anticipate the following

detrimental changes will result from a loss of support services:

increase in class size; reduction in counselling. learning assistance

and time spent with the nurse: reduction in basic supplies, such as

paper and books; reduction in the staff working with us, such as

secretaries, janitorial staff and teachers' aides; and the daily field

trips, P.E. and French are all going to be curtailed. I urge you to

apply pressure on behalf of all the children in our province."

It goes on and on.

you know how the president of the B.C. School Trustees Association,

Gary Begin, refers to the action of this government? He says:

"It

has become more and more apparent that public education in B.C. finds

itself in a state of crisis, because the provincial government insists

on pursuing political objectives which hold the best interests of

education in callous disregard. Their position is morally indefensible."

want to associate myself with the statements of Mr. Gary Begin, the

president of the B.C. School Trustees Association. The government's

position and attack on the education of our children is morally

indefensible.

Mr. Speaker, I'm not quite sure how much more time I have.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Too much.

MS. BROWN: The Minister of Forests says that it's too much, because he doesn't like to hear the truth.

want to talk about another group of people who are going to be affected

as a result of this piece of legislation. We heard the member for

Okanagan North (Mrs. Jordan) talk about the teachers and their average

salary of $33,000 a year — I think that's the figure she presented to

us. The problem with statistics is when you start talking about

averages. Fifty two percent of the teachers in the B.C. school system

are women. The average salary of a woman teacher in the classroom,

according to the Ministry of Education's statistics, is not $33,000,

it's $25,000. but nobody mentions that. Everyone stands up and bandies

this $33,000 around as if that were a truth which we should hold to be

self-evident. The Minister of Education's statistics tell us that 52

percent of the teachers in the system are women, that most of these are

in the elementary school system, and that their average salary is

$25,000 a year. What that means is that some of them make

[ Page 9500 ]

less

than $25,000 a year, and some of them make more. But on an average the

figure is $25,000. We know that a large percentage of these women

teachers are single parents; they have a family to support. So when we

start talking about "greedy teachers" and "gouging teachers," I want us

to keep that particular statistic in mind, that 52 percent of the

people we are talking about make an average of $25,000 a year and that

a large number of them are single parents with families to support. So

let's use that statistic, Mr. Speaker, which comes from the ministry

and is more accurate than the statistic used by the member for North

Okanagan.

Cutbacks. Women in the system really have already

been hard hit by the cutbacks. The majority of the people laid off have

been substitute teachers, temporary and part-time teachers. There's

where the women are. They are the substitute teachers, they're the

part-time teachers, they're the temporary teachers — 1,000 of them have

already been laid off. They've already felt, as the member for North

Okanagan said, the ultimate restraint in terms of their jobs. They have

no income at all. The teacher's aides, women who were cut, were

primarily in the elementary school system. Another statistic I think we

should know about the elementary school teachers is that they have

something in the neighbourhood of 0.2 preparation time.

Everyone

over there talks glibly about non-professional days. What do they think

teachers do on non-professional days? Do you think they go to the

racetrack? Education, if it's any good at all, is continually changing.

It's dynamic. We're getting new knowledge and new information every

day. We want those teachers out there keeping up with the new

information and the new knowledge, and that's what they do on those

days. They're upgrading their skills. They are keeping up with the

changes in scientific information, the changes in technological

information, and the changes in philosophical thinking. That's what

they're doing on those non-instructional days: upgrading their skills

so that they can be better teachers. I don't want anybody teaching my

kids today who hasn't improved on their body of knowledge since they

graduated in 1950. Those teachers cannot do a good job for my children

or for your children. We should be giving teachers more

non-instructional days. We should! The minister said: "Doctors don't

have it. Lawyers don't have it." That's not true. Family practitioners,

general practitioners — all of your professionals in medicine, whether

they're surgeons, neurosurgeons, psychiatrists or whatever — are

continually taking time off to upgrade their skills. They continually

have to bring their body of knowledge up to date with the results

coming out of continuing research and experimentation that's going on.

The kind of education that the Minister of Education says the children

need.... Sure, teachers who are only going to teach children "to read

good, write good, and do a little arithmetic" don't need any days to

upgrade their skills, but those teachers have no place in today's

school system, because they cannot do the job — certainly not for the

children who are going to become the adults of tomorrow and try to run

a society much more complicated and sophisticated than the one in which

the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) and I were born and in

which we now live.

Vital programs are going to be lost;

vital skills are going to be eroded if the teachers have to give up

those professional days. They participate in workshops in the latest

that's going on in their particular field, whether in science, music,

maths or in new fields of consciousness-raising such as learning

through women's studies programs, learning more about the development

of children and the various advances taking place in society. They

upgrade their skills, and they participate in developing their

communication skills. I don't want teachers to lose those professional

days. The member for North Okanagan, as a nurse, knows how important it

is to keep up with changes in the medical field. I don't want anybody

nursing me who hasn't gone back to read a medical book since they

graduated in 1932 or 1947. I don't want anyone teaching my kids who is

not keeping up with the changes going on in our society today. To

deprive teachers of professional days is to deprive the children of the

best education they can possibly have.

Mr. Speaker, another

group is going to be affected by this legislation. When the schools

close, the support staff are out of work too. Most of the support staff

in the school system are the maintenance staff, clerical staff,

teacher's aides and janitorial staff, and a large percentage of these

are women. Sixty percent of the members of CUPE are women clerical

staff. In the Burnaby local alone, 50 percent are women, and 260 of

these women are on clerical staff. These people are also going to end

up losing 11 days. We're talking again about people who make $10 an

hour as an average, many of whom are sole-support parents. We're

talking about people who have already been laid off — 24 full time

positions have disappeared in terms of support staff in Burnaby. When

the minister introduced this bill and talked about preserving jobs,

he's making a mockery of reality. The jobs are already lost and more

jobs are going to be lost as a result of this piece of legislation.

Clerical jobs are going to be lost. Teacher aides are going to lose

their jobs. Maintenance staff, cleaning staff and janitorial staff are

going to lose their jobs too. When the schools close down, the support

services don't continue.

Mr. Speaker, I hope you got the

basis of what I had to say as to some of the reasons why I'm not

supporting this legislation. First, it is a continuation of the assault

of this government on children. Secondly, it is a continuation of the

assault of this government on the most vulnerable and unprotected group

in our society. We cannot afford as a society to let our educational

system to be destroyed and eroded by people who are only interested in

financing and servicing the bad debt which they have managed to develop

over the years as a result of their fiscal incompetence and ineptness.

HON. MR. McGEER:

Mr. Speaker, I don't suppose we have heard as much exaggerated rhetoric

over any issue, or any bill, in the close to 20 years I've sat in this

House. I think the speaker who just took her place may have set a new

record for irresponsible exaggeration. It seems to me that if you want

some credibility to your position, you need to have some solid basis

upon which you can raise your arguments. In the last couple of days

we've seen headlines talking about slavery of teachers. Did you read

that? We've heard the member who just took her place telling us that we

had destroyed the school system with this particular bill. We now have

the opposition firmly on record as being opposed to this bill. Frankly,

I think that is the issue. It separates very clearly the members on

that side of the House and their demands for special interests — and

I'm going to come to that, Mr. Speaker — and the members of this side

of the House, who speak for all of the people of British Columbia, and

who stand for responsibility. Why do I say that, Mr. Speaker? I say it

because today in British Columbia one person in eight is unemployed.

One person in eight has no wages or salary at all to take home. One

person in eight has to keep a family going and be able to pay

[ Page

9501 ]

school

taxes in order to benefit others who are employed. This bill is not

about education; it's about teachers' salaries. That's what the bill is

about.

Today we have a headline, "School Heat's Off Because

Of The Budget Freeze." Somehow the school district in Victoria can't

manage to turn the beat on in the schoolrooms. Are we really to believe

this? This is a time of record unemployment in British Columbia, when

there is genuine suffering because of the downturn in the economy; poor

markets for lumber, poor markets for lead and zinc, poor markets for

pulp, poor markets for coal, people who are wanting to work and willing

to work, unable to man the plants because the production can't be sold

abroad. Faced with all of that, are we to believe that a 17 percent

increase isn't enough? That at a time like this, teachers' salaries in

British Columbia up from $28,000 to $33,900 isn't enough? That at a

time like this school budgets were supposed to go up 21 percent? That

was not set by this provincial government, not set by the taxpayers,

not set by the unemployed; that 21 percent was set by arbitrator's

bargaining between teachers and school boards.

Mr. Speaker,

what this bill says, in effect, is that at a time like this 17 percent

is enough. Many who've lost their jobs, or who are earning less, or who

feel their school taxes are maybe a bit too high, might think that at a

time like this even a 17 percent increase is a little much. I suppose

their reason for thinking so is that practically nobody else in society

is able to enjoy a 17 percent increase. Some with no job at all are

able to turn the heat on and keep the youngsters warm at home, when

apparently they can't be warm enough in school because all the money

has gone into teachers' salaries.

[Mr. Mussallem in the chair.]

I honestly do not believe

that the average teacher in British Columbia is that selfish. I think

the average teacher is just as embarrassed and ashamed as we are by

what the president of their federation is saying, and by what the

members opposite are saying. The teachers, in their communities, have

to face the parents and the electors, just as we do. They have to be

able to justify to the people in their community why it is, when people

are unemployed in their community, that 17 percent isn't enough for

them. One of the people who is eloquently crying for more, the member

for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann), was part of an arbitration panel that

gave one of the highest increases in British Columbia this past year.

Is it too much to ask that maybe those who are in control of the school system,

whether members of the B.C. Teachers Federation, the B.C. School Trustees Association

or heads of school boards, should give just a little bit of consideration to

everyone else in British Columbia? After all, this bill does only three things.

When everybody else is accepting a little restraint — those in the health system

and in the university system, those in the private sector who have no choice

— it says that maybe it's fair that those in the school system exercise

just a little bit of restraint and keep their demands down to 17 percent. The

second thing it says is that you're going to have to share around. It isn't

fair that some get 22 percent and others get fired. You take the money that's

there, because 17 percent is not a bad extra helping, and you share it around.

The minister can move in if there are those who say: "Seventeen percent

isn't enough; we're going to take more and fire some," and that's

a reasonable thing to do, it seems to me. The third aspect is that it says if

you've got to trim, don't trim from the people who most need protection.

Perhaps it might have been included in the bill, if anybody could have anticipated

it, that the head of a school district would need clearance from the minister

before he shut the heat off in the schools. That would have been a reasonable

thing to include, along with retaining special education for the handicapped.

Of course, most of us would not have anticipated that the least important thing

in the school system was the heat for the classrooms, but apparently those are

the circumstances in the city of Victoria.

Mind

you, the members opposite have clearly gone on record as saying that 17

percent is not enough: "Even in a time of unemployment and restraint,

we have to have more." Perhaps the opposition could help out the

members on this side of the House and the public of British Columbia.

I'd like to ask them, how much is enough" People have to pay their

taxes. If the school system is going to be destroyed by a 17 percent

increase, then I think the members opposite have an obligation to tell

us — and through us, the public of British Columbia — how much they

need to send in, in the way of taxes, so that the heat can be turned on

in the schools, so that Johnny and all the other people can get some

kind of service and the teachers' appetites can be satisfied. Can they

give us a number?

Here's what has happened in the last four

years. We have respected education. We've made it a priority. We have

contributed generously to sharply increasing budgets. What's happened?

Salary costs per pupil — not the heat, light or all those things — have

gone up over the last four years by 76.2 percent. What

salary-cost-per-pupil increase, can I ask the members opposite, is

enough? If 76 percent over four years is not enough, what will do?

don't want to be accused of inflicting slavery on the teachers. We

don't want to be accused of denying special education to the

handicapped. We don't want to be accused of turning the heat off in the

schools. But we do want to be able to tell the unemployed, the

taxpayers of British Columbia and those who are trying to manufacture

and export their products, but have to pay these school taxes, how much

is enough. Seventy-six percent in four years isn't enough. An average

salary of $33,934, up from $28,516 last year, isn't enough. The 193

days, less five or six non-instructional days, is too many. The five

hours and 15 minutes of daily instruction is such a heavy burden for

187 days a year that the proposal of the Minister of Education is

unreasonable. That workload is more than people can bear.

Mr.

Speaker, perhaps the members opposite can enlighten us on this. Tell us

how much is enough; tell us how much work is too much — not for our

benefit over here, but for the benefit of the unemployed, the

taxpayers, the businessmen who are going bankrupt because they can't

pay these costs, the senior citizens who have to bear their share of

it, and all the others who contribute to this system that we as a

government have allowed, if not encouraged, to increase this much. At

least this year, we've said that maybe, if salary costs have gone up 76

percent while the cost of inflation has gone up 44 percent, if five

administrators in the city of North Vancouver who together are

collecting close to $400,000 a year — it's in that $65,000 to $90,000

range to be an administrator of a relatively small school district....

This year maybe that's a little heavy for the taxpayers to bear — just

a bit. That's what this bill is about.

We didn't think that by bringing the bill in, saying 17 percent was enough, that we were destroying the school

[ Page 9502 ]

system,

as was suggested by the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown) and the

member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk). They have said that. They have

told the taxpayers and the unemployed that it's not enough — send in

more. So we ask the members opposite: if what the government has done

is so cruel and unreasonable, if it's going to bring about slavery, as

some have said, or destruction of the school system, as others have

said, what must we do to provide freedom for the teachers in the school

system, and what must we do to prevent its destruction?

Translate

that in terms of taxes and increases, and make that your program for

the future, but make it convincing — certainly more convincing than the

debate we heard from the member who just took her place and those who

sit in this assembly now. Because if it isn't more convincing, it could

just be that the public will consider the members opposite as

unreasonable as they did in 1933 in rejecting them; as unreasonable as

they were in 1937, 1941, 1949, 1952 — when, heaven preserve us, they

nearly won an election — 1953, 1956, 1960, 1963, 1966 or 1969, because

in all those elections the people felt that the CCF and its successor,

the New Democratic Party, were putting forward unreasonable arguments

on behalf of vested interests and some segments of society, trying to

turn those segments against others, never speaking for the population

as a whole or for the genuine common man, only speaking for the people

they represent, the special interests, those with a peculiar approach

to economics, those in the labour movement and now, apparently, those

in the Teachers Federation. That's not good for British Columbia.

Interjection.

HON. MR. McGEER:

Oh, yes, you won an election in 1972, not because you spoke for a

higher percentage of the population or because you received more

popular support, but because there were too many people trying to

improve the free enterprise side of British Columbia. As the former

Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Strachan, said, if the former member for

Oak Bay, Scott Wallace, hadn't appeared on the scene to offer his

special brand of free enterprise, they'd have had to invent it. Even

Mr. Strachan, one of your great figures of the past, realized that the

New Democratic Party, in all the arguments he offered over the years,

weren't speaking for all the people of British Columbia. They were

speaking for limited vested interests. The hope was that the average

person would become so confused by the free enterprise competition that

they could slip in the back door, and they did. The tragedy was that

they were able to put all of their policies for the vested interests

into action. What a disaster it was for British Columbia. The public

regained their common sense in 1975.

MR. LAUK: What's a vested interest? Children?

HON. MR. McGEER:

Oh, speaking on behalf of one group, it might be for 17 percent

increases for teachers. As I said, Mr. Member, this is not a bill that

has anything to do with education at all. It has to do with teachers'

salaries.

Should one professional group in society have a 17

percent increase and want more, when others, including MLAs, doctors,

professors, etc., are taking cuts? Should one get very special

treatment? And is it right for the opposition to speak on behalf of one

special interest group? They're opposing this bill, and therefore they

are speaking on behalf of the special interest. That's the only point

that I'm making, Mr. Speaker, and why I'm saying that the New

Democratic Party lost in 1933, 1937, 1941, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1956,

1960, 1966 and 1969 — because they spoke for these special interests.

They did win in 1972 not because they stopped speaking for the special

interests. They won in 1972 because the public let their guard down.

The problem when they were government, why we had our own

made-in-British-Columbia depression — our New Democratic Party's

special depression just for British Columbians — was because they put

these ideas into practice. When 1975 came along, the public had its

common sense; when 1979 came along, the public had its common sense. I

only give to the members opposite some little advice from a long-time

member who was going to retire until I heard some of the things the

members opposite were saying: please gain some insight. Please

recognize why you keep losing elections. Please stop speaking on behalf

of the vested interests. Please begin to look at the overall good of

British Columbia and what's necessary. Please understand that this bill

isn't doing the things that the members opposite are howling about.

That's rhetoric that discredits itself. Go to your caucus over lunch,

think it through, repent on your ways and come back this afternoon and

support forward-looking, responsible, fair and reasonable legislation.

MR. LEGGATT: Will there be an exam on this?

HON. MR. McGEER:

I tell you, I'd hate to have failed as many exams as your party has

failed with the electorate of British Columbia. Except for one time,

when they got a C minus, the only grade they ever got from the

electorate was F — failure. I would say, Mr. Speaker, that if I ever

saw failure in debate it has come from the members opposite on this

particular bill.

I appeal to you....

AN HON. MEMBER: You're so charming!

HON. MR. McGEER: I'm being objective — not partisan, objective.

MR. SEGARTY: Get them a learning-disability teacher.

HON. MR. McGEER:

Slow learners — 50 years, Mr. Speaker and still not able to get the

basic lesson. The basic lesson for government is govern for all the

people, never for the special interests.

MR. LEVI:

Where is the member for Vancouver–Point Grey? He's gone. That 20-year

veteran of this Legislature is gone forever. As a ghostly figure he

stands over there, and in a quiet, obsequious way, he lectures those

poor people on his side. The whole drama of that man's hyperbole is

gone. He doesn't put his hands in his pocket anymore; he doesn't look

up at the ceiling. He's obviously been taking lessons from the member

for Chilliwack (Hon. Mr. Schroeder) — little homilies.

Once

that member had the audacity to write a book. I was just looking at the

very last page of that book. Every now and again when he gets up to

speak you can ask for the book and always find something that will hit

him square between the eyes. On the very last page — this is after....

[ Page

9503 ]

Interjections.

MR. LEVI: You've got to listen to

this, Pat, because one day you will eat these words. He said: "My own

conviction is, and I know this will be taken as my political statement,

as perhaps it should be, but it is also my deep, personal conviction" —

there he is; he's setting out to lay the groundwork for this incredible

statement — "that the verdict of history will be neither that the

Bennett administration achieved much in the areas of province's growth,

nor that it was less successful in such fields as schools and

hospitals." What incredible foresight that man had! He wrote this book

in the sixties, and he's talking about the Bennett government. Don't

tell me again that he's talking about the other Bennett government,

because it was this kind of acumen from that member when he was a

Liberal that couldn't win an election in 1963, 1966, 1969 or 1972. Then

he found the secret to winning an election: you just double-cross your

party, cross the floor, and go to the Titanic . He joined them.

He goes so far back that grandparents in this province wince and twitch that he's still around.

Interjection.

MR. LEVI:

Do you know why he's like that? This is the Minister of Education. He's

on one end of the scale. He's defending the bill which was brought in

by the intellectual leader of the Social Credit Party. They both have

PhDs. He has a PhD in some science and the other one has a PhD in

bombast, piled high and deep. That's what his PhD is in, in this case.

There's

a guy, a minister, and he has a hat trick — three times. He's the

minister of mishap. First he became the Minister of Human Resources,

but what a mess he made of that. He cannot stand up and say in this

House that he produced one program that worked, but he did come into

the House — the great intellect over there — and said: "We have a

program, PREP." I thought he was the Minister of Education when he came

in that day. He was going to do it. Then they had to get him out of

there, because after all he had so many shovels hanging on his wall

that the foundations of this building were having trouble.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, he shovelled it off the back of a truck.

MR. LEVI: No, the front of a car — that's where it went, not the back.

It's

no longer currency, because after all, when we have the Minister of

Highways (Hon. Mr. Fraser), who gallantly shovelled out $150 million in

overruns in one year.... Of course the member for Central Fraser Valley

(Mr. Ritchie) doesn't remember that. That member has real problems. I

was quite sorry to hear last night that there is going to be a

separatist candidate running in the Fraser Valley, and that we ain't

going to see this guy back in the House again. That's a great

disappointment to me.

It's interesting that the minister

tells us that what the bill is really about — I'm not talking about the

minister who introduced it, I'm talking about the former Minister of

Education — is teachers' salaries. Here's a government that's been

mucking about out there in the political arena for a year. First they

sit in the cabinet room and say: "Who are we going to take on so we can

get an issue?" So they take on the BCGEU.

They're going to

go after the public servants; they're making too much money; they've

got to cut back, give it back. Then unfortunately....

MR. RITCHIE:

Mr. Speaker, I apologize for interrupting, but out of courtesy to the

students of British Columbia, I'd like leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. RITCHIE:

It is indeed a pleasure for me to introduce to the House students from

St. Augustin's school, who are accompanied by Mrs. Brown. It's a real

pleasure indeed, as one who represents a constituency with a great deal

of strength in the private school system, to introduce these students.

Would the members please extend a very warm welcome to them.

MR. LEVI: I too would like to welcome the students. Stay around, This place is going to get a lot hotter before it cools off.

The

minister told us that it really is all about salaries, and it is all

about salaries. He's still looking for somebody he can hit over the

head, someone they can push into some action that would give the

government an opportunity to do what they've been wanting to do ever

since they've been in government: (

a) send some group of people back to

work legislatively; and (

b) maybe make that fly as an election issue.

I'm

speaking from the point of view of the riding that I represent. We

share School District 43 with my colleague from Port Moody.

Interjection.

MR. LEVI:

I would say en passant to the member for Kootenay (Mr. Segarty) that

you must not say things like that. First, you are just a one-timer;

you've only been here once. You've got to be careful.

Interjection.

MR. LEVI: Bring that member to order. Do you two want to go for lunch

early?

September 16, 1982... We've got to have that guy brought to order. We

can't run two debates in this House, Mr. Speaker. Otherwise, you will

be accused of running a disorderly House, and at your age that's not

very complimentary.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. We must have order.

MR. LEVI:

The Board of School Trustees wrote to the Premier on September 16. This

was the time when there was great chaos in the education system. We

didn't have that well defined until the minister himself, when he

closed his speech on introducing the bill, said: "I am hopeful that

school boards and local teacher federations will quickly implement

these measures so as to restore a measure of order and confidence to

our public school education system." There is great chaos out there in

the education system. He puts it a little more mildly and he talks

about "a measure of order and confidence." Those are the two basis

ingredients. Order in

[ Page 9504 ]

terms

of which groups make the decisions about the education system, and

there are at least three groups: this Legislature, the school trustees,

and of course the taxpayers.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

The

minister indicated yesterday that he wants a measure of order and

confidence restored. That was actually the tone of a letter that School

District 43 in Coquitlam wrote to the Premier on September 16. This is

what they said in part: "We wish you to know that this board took

seriously its responsibility to provide for local choices and input for

the educational program to be offered District 43 in 1982." These are

the people, the elected school board trustees. "We also took seriously

the provincial government assurance that it valued the principle of

local autonomy on educational matters." This is where I and the former

Minister of Education, the member for Point Grey, differ. He says this

bill is about teachers' salaries. It is not only about teacher's

salaries, Mr. Speaker; it's also about that thorny question of local

autonomy. We've had the minister in his previous role as Minister of

Municipal Affairs, and we know where he stands on the whole issue of

local autonomy, input and decision-making, so much so that he brought

in the Islands Trust bill. The bill was not brought forward again.

Now

we have the same theme, the centralist's theme: "We know better. We

will make the decisions." He did not explain, when he introduced the

bill, why it was that he was determined to take over the job that the

school boards were attempting to do. He said the deadline was September

15. Deadlines are not written in stone. They could have been given more

time. So what they've done is simply to create a great deal more chaos

and a lack of confidence. Those are the two themes that are out there;

that's the great tragedy.

In all the years that I've been in

public life and in this House, it's always been that the whipping boy

of every politician — whether on the government's side or in the

opposition, when going after the government — has been the educational

system. It's amazing the debates that have taken place in this House

around the question of education. Yet the theme that we've been

attempting to.... I listened this morning very carefully to the little

homilies of our blessed father from Chilliwack; it was very

interesting. I couldn't quite actually understand how he could send

Little Red out with three hundred bucks, then tell her that she didn't

have three hundred bucks. What was he doing — printing his own money or

something? Those kinds of homilies have no place in this particular

debate around the education bill.

Mr. Speaker, the minister

who introduced the bill is.... He's completed a hat trick. He's had

three "people" portfolios. Human Resources is a people portfolio; he

failed miserably in that one. Municipal Affairs is a people portfolio;

that's dealing with a lot of people at the local level. He failed

miserably on that one. And here he is, the Minister of Education. In

all of the wildest possible dreams and horrors that could take place

with any citizen in this province, you'd have to have had at least

three or four doses of LSD, compounded by listening to a couple of

speeches by the former Minister of Education.... You would never have

said in your wildest dreams: "While I live and breathe in the province

of British Columbia the first member for Surrey, the former Minister of

Human Resources, will be made the, Minister of Education." I can see

that susceptible little smile on the former Attorney-General's face.

He, knows what I'm talking about. I mean, after all, reaching is one

thing, but, good Lord, to make that man the minister.... It's very

difficult. What he's done is to apply in dealing with the problems in

education.... He's taken out the shovel, he's taken out the hammer. He

knows best; he's going to do it all and nobody else can have a say in

it at all.

Who is that man over there? He looks like King George V.

Interjections.

MR. LEVI:

That's right, it's King George V. I'm sorry. Just to go back to the

letter, I want to finish the last paragraph of the one from the school

trustees in Coquitlam:

"We ask that you

consider our views and our concerns. We ask that you consider that our

motives are those alone of serving education in this district. We have

no hidden agenda.

"Finally, we ask that you

add your voice to ours in speaking out" — and they're talking to the

Premier here — "for the principle of local autonomy in public education

matters, and for the maintenance of a progressive quality system of

public education. We ask that you call upon the provincial government

to rescind its cutbacks in public education."

Mr. Speaker,

compared to the rhetoric that has come from the other side.... These

are people with a mix of political philosophies. There is no one party

dominating the school board. All of them shared an opinion about school

and put it to a motion. The motion was then translated into a letter.

Regardless of that, the minister decides he knows best.

Last

week they worked hard to produce a bill. Let me just tell you, Mr.

Speaker, what they have produced a bill for. It is to do nothing more

than stir up the waters, agitate the various groups involved. Perhaps

they can get what they haven't been able to get for 11 months: an

election issue. That's what it's all about. It's not about education.

It's not so much about the issue of salaries. After all, you had

control of the purse strings. You were the people who said that you had

enough money to do everything. Of course, they are the same people who

someday are going to complete a piece of legislation which is going to

give them endless amounts of money in any case. I have very much come

to the conclusion that we basically are talking here about an attempt

to develop a very strong election issue. It has nothing to do with

education. It's simply one last attempt to pitchfork the Premier into

an election on the basis that he can really go on a high.

Well,

it's going in the same way as all of the other attempts that they've

made. It's weak, it fritters away, and basically, we have no trouble

voting against this. They say over there that I have commitments. We

don't have commitments. There has been no change in the basic approach

of this party in education in all the years it's been a party. People

know specifically where we stand. It's in writing, and people can

follow it. What we can't follow is where the government is going. We

have not been able to follow that. I think that when the members over

there get up — they had better come out four-square — and talk about

defending the bill, they'd better talk about the point of view from

which they're offering that defence. There's only one way that they're

offering it, in my opinion. They're out to continue the teacher-bashing

that

[ Page 9505 ]

they've done for years, with the hope that they can get some kind of issue out of it.

It's

cynical, very unprincipled, and it completely disregards the basic

reason for the school system: to see that our children get an education

and that they will have a chance, as they grow up, to participate in

our society. As it's nearly 12 o'clock, I move adjournment of this

debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 11:58 a.m.

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