1983 Legislative Session: 1st Session, 33rd Parliament

Hansard

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

( Hansard )

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1983

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

1565 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions.

UBCM resolution on Bill 9. Mr. Blencoe –– 1565

Cassiar Packing payments to fishermen. Mr. D'Arcy –– 1566

Placing of provincial parks services in private hands. Mr. Mitchell –– 1567

Sale of Beautiful British Columbia. Mr. Cocke –– 1567

Education (Interim) Finance Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill 6). Second reading.

On the amendment.

Mr. D'Arcy –– 1568

Mr. Lauk —1571

Mr. Barrett –– 1575

Division –– 1580

Mr. Stupich –– 1580

Mr. Blencoe –– 1584

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1983

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased today to

introduce four members of the Business and Professional Women's Clubs

of British Columbia and the Yukon, who are in your gallery. They are

the provincial president, Shirley White; the first vice-president, Joan

Currie; the regional president, Anna Thorpe; and the Victoria club

president, Phyllis Wrobel. The second vice-president and regional

chairman, Suzanne Dearman, although not with this group at the present

time, along with Shirley White presented to our Committee on Social

Services a very fine brief earlier today. I'd like to ask all members

of the House to welcome them.

MRS. WALLACE: As a member of the BPW, I would like to join in

welcoming the delegation, with a particular welcome to Anna Thorpe, who

is a constituent of mine.

HON. MR. CHABOT: In the galleries we have today a group of

people from the B.C. Wildlife Federation: Carmen Purdy, president;

Laurie Hall, president, Cariboo-Chilcotin region; John Carter,

director, Kamloops; Dan McCaughey, executive director; and Mr. Greg

Norton, president, Okanagan region. I would like the House to join me

in welcoming them.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery this afternoon is

a very prominent lawyer from Vancouver and New Westminster, who, I

hope, will be a Conservative candidate in the next federal election,

Mr. Robert Gardner.

HON. MR. McGEER: Those of us on both sides of the House who

travel abroad from time to time are never more grateful than when they

arrive back in Canada and never more proud than when they meet our

Canadian ambassadors abroad. Today in your gallery, sir, is the

ambassador-designate for the Philippines, Mr. Reg Dorrett, another

member of that corps of which Canada can be so justly proud. I would

ask the House to make him welcome.

MR. VEITCH: Somewhere in the galleries this afternoon is a

very good friend of yours, the president and chief executive officer of

Pacific Vocational Institute, Mr. Henry Justesen.

MRS. JOHNSTON: As a charter member of the Surrey local of the

Business and Professional Women's Club, I'd like to add my welcome to

the ladies who are with us today. The Business and Professional Women's

Club is one of the most prominent groups of women who work very hard to

promote and support women in public life. They must be commended for

the fine job they do. I would like to add my welcome.

MR. PASSARELL: Visiting the Legislature today is a well-known

British Columbian from the Sunshine Coast, who is here expecting an

apology from the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. McClelland). Would the

House please welcome that respected journalist, Allen Garr.

MR. CAMPBELL: Two very good friends of mine are here today in the gallery,

Bob and Helen McLaren. Would you please give them a welcome.

[2:15]

MR. REE: Today in the gallery we have six people from distant

parts of the world. They are guests of the Canadian Association of

Young Political Leaders of NATO-based countries, and are under the

sponsorship of External Affairs in this country. From Greece: Nicolas

Kalteziotis, MP; Basil Bekeris, MP; and Theo Georgiou; these three are

from the New Democracy Party. From Portugal: Antonio Lacerda, MP,

Social Democratic Party; Francisco Ribeirinho of the Christian

Democratic Party. From France: Philippe Briol of the Christian

Democracy Party. I'd ask this House to welcome them to British

Columbia, to this House and to Victoria.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, it gives me a tremendous amount of pleasure to welcome back the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barrett).

MR. PARKS: I take pleasure in advising the House that I have

two young constituents visiting with us today. They are Scott Hunter

and Grant Duch. I'd ask the House to make them welcome.

MR. MACDONALD: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker. There

have been in the galleries and the precincts of the immediate

Legislature in the last few days police officers, plainclothesmen,

RCMP, I suppose members of the SI. I recognize that it is important, in

terms of the security of the building, that we have control over the

building, but not in the galleries and not in the parliamentary

restaurant. I think that is a matter affecting the privileges of the

whole House. It has been traditional in Parliament, in the galleries,

like last night — and I think it's important in terms of the traditions

of Parliament — that there not be any kind of paramilitary presence in

the immediate precincts of the Legislature. That was established long

ago, I think in 1644, at the time of Col. Pride's Purge. Therefore I

ask the Speaker to take that under advisement and to consider whether

or not they should be in the immediate precincts of this House, because

I think that's irregular.

MR. SPEAKER: Without prejudice to the member's point, it will

be taken under advisement. I must advise members that the individuals

in question are here at the invitation of the Chair. Also, hon.

members, insofar as the restaurant is concerned, the Speaker has made

those facilities available to these people. Certainly I will bear in

mind the observations of the second member for Vancouver East, and I

will bring back a fuller and more complete decision on the matter as

raised by the member. Furthermore, hon. members, I would also bring

back at that time additional information on the control in other

jurisdictions.

Oral Questions

UBCM RESOLUTION ON BILL 9

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister

of Municipal Affairs. The UBCM convention last week passed a resolution

describing Bill 9 as "unacceptable and inappropriate to the needs of

British Columbia municipalities." Has the minister decided to accept

the UBCM recommendations that those provisions of Bill 9 affecting

regional planning be withdrawn forthwith?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: I have, up until this point, been quite open and willing to discuss this bill with the members

[ Page

1566 ]

and officers of the UBCM, and I will continue to be open to meetings with them concerning that legislation.

MR. BLENCOE: A supplementary. Is it not accurate that you

said to the UBCM, counter to what you are saying today, that you are

not open to any discussions, and that Bill 9 will go ahead?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: That is inaccurate.

MR. BLENCOE: Several speakers and convention resolutions

reflect on the trend toward centralization of power in Victoria under

this government. Again supplementary to the Minister of Municipal

Affairs, has the government decided to suspend the drift toward

centralism, and to forge a new partnership with local government?

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, I am going to advise the Minister

of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland), for the last time, that any further

outbreaks such as has been the case in the last several question

periods, will be dealt with most severely by the Chair.

MR. BLENCOE: It's interesting that the minister was not prepared to talk about a partnership with local governments.

A supplementary. The UBCM is also concerned about the prospective

cuts in revenue-sharing grants, particularly in light of the decision

to privatize parts of the B.C. Petroleum Corporation. Has the minister

decided to announce that revenue-sharing grants will be maintained for

at least the coming budget year?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: As announced at the UBCM convention, that announcement will be made when those figures are available.

MR. BLENCOE: Is it not accurate that you made a statement in

your speech that they would be maintained, but then in your press

conference you said there would be a cut? Can you tell the

municipalities of this province which is accurate — a cut, or

continuation of the grants as last year?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Speaker, I suggest to that member that

he get a copy of my speech, which clearly states that we would attempt

to keep that portion of the revenue sharing as close as possible to

last year's. If he understands the meaning of "as close as possible,"

he'll realize that that could be a little bit below.

CASSIAR PACKING PAYMENTS TO FISHERMEN

MR. D'ARCY: To the member for North Peace, the Minister of

Lands, Parks and Housing, and acting Minister of Environment. On August

31, the Royal Bank of Canada placed Cassiar Packing Company in

receivership — after the 1983 catch was delivered, but before fishermen

were paid, thereby maximizing the Royal Bank's cash position. On

September 13 the member for North Peace told this House that the

fishermen in question would be paid in full. Two days later, on

September 15, the receiver, Coopers Lybrand, said that only those

fishermen who kept supplying fish would be paid, and then at only 20

cents on the dollar.

In view of the minister's perhaps inadvertent failure to deliver on

his statement to this House and his commitment to those fishermen, has

he directly, or through intergovernmental relations, pursued this

matter with his Liberal Party colleagues in the Trudeau government in

order to ensure that the receiver honour its contracts with fishermen

who in good faith delivered fish to Cassiar Packing before the August

31 foreclosure by the Royal Bank?

MR. SPEAKER: The question is out of order.

MR. D'ARCY: Why is it out of order, Mr. Speaker? I asked if the minister had contacted the federal government regarding this matter.

MR. SPEAKER: That question is in order.

MR. D'ARCY: I'll read what I said again.

Has the minister, directly himself, with his ministry, or through

intergovernmental relations, pursued this matter with his Liberal Party

colleagues in the Trudeau government in order to ensure that the

receiver honour its contracts with fishermen who in good faith

delivered fish to Cassiar Packing before the August 31 foreclosure by

the Royal Bank?

MR. SPEAKER: Same answer, hon. member.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Speaker, can you tell me why it's out of order?

MR. SPEAKER: I would commend page 132....

MR. D'ARCY: I'm prepared to delete any part of the question that the Speaker finds out of order.

MR. SPEAKER: I'm sure the member, in retrospect, could

rephrase the question so that it would be in order. The member is free

to ask a further question.

MR. D'ARCY: Has the minister been in touch with his

counterparts in the federal government to help ensure that these

fishermen are paid according to the minister's own commitment to this

House?

MR. SPEAKER: The question is in order.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: The direct answer is no, Mr. Speaker. The

other thing is that I would like to say that I said I had received

assurance that all the fishermen would be paid. I did not say, as the

member indicated, that I guaranteed they would. I had received those

assurances; it turned out that they were not accurate. I have since

learned by checking into the matter that once the receiver was

appointed, all fishermen who delivered fish from that point on were

paid in full, in cash. Fishermen owed money by the company from before

that were guaranteed at least 20 cents on the dollar, and there is

still hope that before the end of the year they will be paid in full. I

admit the assurances I had received were not as I indicated.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Speaker, I do not have a further question,

but I would like to assure the minister that I appreciate his

forthrightness in recognizing the fact that the assurances he gave the

House were not completely valid.

[ Page

1567 ]

PLACING OF PROVINCIAL PARKS

SERVICES IN PRIVATE HANDS

MR. MITCHELL: I have a question for the Minister of Lands,

Parks and Housing. The parks branch operates a workshop in Langford

where they produce the majority of the tables, signs and outbuildings

for the provincial parks. This shop presently employs 15 regular

employees and two auxiliaries with a payroll of $350,000 per month. Can

the minister give any reason why the parks branch is now deciding to

close this operation, displacing the jobs in my constituency?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Mr. Speaker, considerable reorganization is

going on throughout the ministry. To give you full particulars on that

question, I will have to take it as notice.

MR. MITCHELL: I believe the parks branch has had various

experiences with privatizing or setting out to private contract some of

the work they normally do, when they have an overrun, and they have

found cost overruns and poor quality production. While he is checking

on this, will the minister give the assurance that he will check the

previous experience of the department or the shop in privatizing, which

it appears the minister wishes to do with everything in the parks

branch?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: The statement got rather convoluted, and

you lose track of the question. Yes, certainly I will investigate that,

because the reports I've had to date are contrary to the observations

the member has made.

MR. MITCHELL: Many of the employees at that shop are artisans

in their work, and many park signs on display throughout the province

are produced there. If they put it out to contract, can the people of

this province expect to see cheap plastic signs in place of the signs

which have been a traditional part of the provincial park sites, or

will they maintain the same standard and quality of signs?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: We're very proud of the signs that are

displayed through the parks branch, and I would assure that member that

we would expect the highest quality any way we do it.

MR. MITCHELL: In their reorganization, could the minister

assure this House and the people of British Columbia that they have

neither made any other moves at the present time to privatize any

additional provincial parks in the parks branch?

[2:30]

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Again, Mr. Speaker, I think I should correct that

member. We are not privatizing parks; we are privatizing some of the operations

that take place in Manning, and we are also planning to in Cypress. If you call

some of the cutting of wood and that sort of thing privatization of some of

those operations, then yes. But the parks are not being privatized.

SALE OF BEAUTIFUL BRITISH COLUMBIA

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of

Tourism, who was playing hookey yesterday during question period. He

came in a little after.

On July 8 the minister set a sale price for Beautiful British Columbia

magazine of $2.8 million. I asked the Premier about this yesterday. In

view of the fact that the magazine was sold for some $760,000, will the

minister advise what became of the other anticipated $2 million?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I'm very pleased that the member has asked

me this question again so that I can respond and set the record

straight. I will quote from the news release that I put out on the date

in question — July 8. I won't quote the whole thing, but in

part it

says:

"I pointed out that the anticipated revenue from Beautiful British Columbia

magazine, $2.8 million, was being totally credited to the ministry in

1983-1984 rather than to consolidated revenue, as was done in previous

years."

That's not the sale price, Mr. Speaker; it's the revenue anticipated before any expenses. The news release went on to say:

"When the estimates were prepared, a final figure

could not be established, whether from direct revenue from the sale of

individual issues or disposition through privatization. But I did want

to reassure the industry that the allocation of funding for the

promotion of Tourism has not decreased."

I hope that answers the member's questions and sets the record straight.

MR. SPEAKER: The bell terminates question period.

MR. ROSE: If I might, Mr. Speaker, I want to return to the

question raised by my colleague the second member for Vancouver East

(Mr. Macdonald) having to do with the presence of police officers in

the House.

MR. SPEAKER: No, hon. member. The Chair has undertaken the

matter, and the matter cannot be raised again a second time, nor can it

be added upon. The Chair has given an undertaking to report to the

House, and such will be done.

MR. LAUK: Under standing orders, when any point of privilege

is raised, it is discussed that the Speaker invites — albeit at his

discretion — helpful information from all members with respect to

tradition and convention concerning the point of privilege. I wonder if

Mr. Speaker would not consider hearing the very distinguished former

Member of Parliament, who might be able to assist Your Honour in these

matters.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the Chair has given an undertaking

on a matter raised earlier this day. We are not going to engage in

debate at this stage on a matter that was raised and taken under

advisement by the Chair.

MR. ROSE: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, I was not attempting to debate

the matter but to draw Your Honour's attention to a couple of citations

that might assist him in coming to his decision. It's a matter not unique

to this House. It's one thing for the Speaker to invite members of police

forces — either provincial or federal — within the precincts

[ Page 1568 ]

on special occasions, but I think it's a

well-established practice that Members of Parliament should be

consulted if there is a condition existing which would justify the

presence of police officers here on a more than temporary basis.

I cite Beauchesne's fifth edition. There are two citations on this

very subject. I wonder if I might briefly paraphrase them for His

Honour.

MR. SPEAKER: The member has now had an opportunity to cite

the reference he wishes to use. To read the reference would be to abuse

the right that the member has gained the floor with.

MR. ROSE: Could I cite the page number, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: Yes.

MR. ROSE: It's on page 19, citations 53 and 54, and is headed "Police Within the Precincts of Parliament."

MR. HOWARD: Mr.

Speaker, I rise pursuant to the provisions of standing order 49. I draw

to the attention of the House the notice of motion that I gave

yesterday. It is a motion of censure against Mr. Speaker, declaring

that Mr. Speaker Davidson has lost the confidence of this hon. House.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member.

MR. HOWARD: Pursuant to standing order 49, I ask leave of the House to proceed to deal with that motion now.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The member is within his right to

ask that under standing order 49 at the stage when we are at motions.

As soon as I have ascertained that we are at motions, I will advise the

member whether his application can be made at this time. One moment,

please.

If the member will consult his Orders of the Day ,

he will see that at this time we are not yet at motions. When the

member does arrive at that spot in the business of the House, the

application under standing order 49 will be in order.

MR. HOWARD: You must appreciate a certain difficulty, and I

ask your guidance in this, Your Honour. Standing order 25 says: "The

ordinary daily routine business in the House shall be as follows." Then

it enumerates prayers, presenting petitions, etc., and proceeds on

through. At no time does anybody read, under that item, the question

"motions and adjourned debates on motions." When question period is

over, there is an opportunity for standing order 35 and the immediately

following business is the calling of the orders of the day, which moves

out of that

section of routine business and into whatever the

government seeks to call. I submit that the only opportunity of a

precise nature available to raise this question as to whether we're on

motions or not is under "routine business," which is before orders of

the day are called.

If there were an opportunity.... If the Chair or the Clerk would

call motions and adjourned debate on motions, then we would deal with

it, but the Clerk does not do that. That prevents the opportunity to

raise the thing I'm raising, and the only time I have to raise it is

right now — unless Your Honour will clearly indicate the other time by

saying: "It is now time for motions."

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, on the matter raised by the member

for Skeena, firstly and clearly, it is not the practice of this House

to call motions. Secondly, Committee of Supply has precedence by order

of the House. Therefore, hon. members, there is a problem in getting to

that particular stage without leave.

MR. HOWARD: I am asking for leave to do that, Mr. Speaker,

just the same as the government House Leader occasionally asks leave on

Thursdays to proceed to something other than what is set down as a

priority matter. I'm asking leave to proceed to motions in order that I

may then ask leave to move the particular motion and have it dealt with

as quickly as possible.

Leave not granted.

MR. HOWARD: Did you hear "noes" from the government side, ML Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: I heard.... Sorry, hon. members.

MR. LAUK: On a point of order, it might be pointed out that

it is traditional that if such a motion is standing on the order paper,

it is to be moved quickly, and all members of the House usually agree

to have the matter disposed with as quickly as possible.

MR. SPEAKER: It's not on the order paper, hon. member.

MR. LAUK: The order paper, Votes and Proceedings .... Let's get on with it and clear the air.

MR. SPEAKER: There were several noes, hon. members. The motion cannot pass.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to proceed to public bills and orders.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I call adjourned debate on Bill 6.

EDUCATION (INTERIM) FINANCE

AMENDMENT ACT, 1983

(continued)

On the amendment.

MR. D'ARCY: I see my good friend from Prince George North is

in the House again, looking a little ashen, sallow and sepulchral; but

he's a good fellow and he's going to hang in there.

Before I was so rudely interrupted by the inevitability of the

adjournment clock at noon today, I was asking the minister if he would

pull this bill for six months, hopefully with the support of the more

reasonable people on the government side. It is quite clear to the

people of B.C., regardless of how they normally vote in elections, that

no ordinary mortal would be capable of making decisions on educational

matters

[ Page 1569 ]

for each and every one of the diverse communities and school districts throughout the length and breadth of this province.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Under Bill 6 as it is presently before the House, the minister would

presumably be making decisions as to whether there would be major

sports programs and counselling, and whether you would have it in

Courtenay or Cranbrook. He would be making decisions on whether a fine

arts program would be appropriate in Dawson Creek, but perhaps not in

Duncan. He would be making decisions on whether a recreation and

fitness program was appropriate in Victoria, but not in Chilliwack. And

there are many other special programs in the schools that have been

worked up with local electoral mandated support, such as sociology

programs and special programs for gifted children.

[2:45]

The minister knows all this, but I'm reminding him; I'm hoping that

sweet reason will come through to him. Children with special needs,

students who need training in personal management skills to assist them

in coping with the regulatory world that they find they're surrounded

with when they leave school.... Perhaps of major importance, especially

in a constituency like mine, and I think in the minister's as well, are

I know the minister and the apologists for Social Credit

authoritarian centralization in this province are going to get up and

say they have a problem with ability to pay. I recognized this morning

that the education industry, shall we call it, is a very expensive one

and takes up a major part of the B.C. economy. Nonetheless, it's a very

important one. One of the reasons the government has difficulty with

this is that we have in British Columbia a situation where....

Mr. Speaker, I know you're from out of the province, but I believe

you've been here for a number of years. When you were in Winnipeg or

the Prairies, or wherever, you might have seen Len Norris cartoons from

the fifties, sixties, and even the early seventies. We all found them

very funny. He used to have this creation on the wall which he called

"Ye Socred Cow." That was found very funny by Social Crediters, as well

as by New Democrats and people of other persuasions. We now have in

British Columbia what we could best call a Socred bear. All around the

world — New York, Toronto, Hong Kong, all the stock exchanges — we have

a bull market. They're setting records. But in Social Credit British

Columbia, the Vancouver Stock Exchange is exactly at the other end.

It's setting records by being lower than ever before in its history.

That is Social Credit economic management in this province. The

minister knows full well that that gives him a financial problem when

he goes to his colleagues on the treasury benches for funding. The

economy of B.C. is so badly managed by himself and his colleagues on

the government benches that even in a major resource-based economy like

British Columbia, the government feels it needs, and will have to bring

in, this centralized control of education in order to hide the economic

facts from the school boards, students and teachers out there in the

communities.

MR. REYNOLDS: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I rise under standing

order 42. We're talking about a hoist on Bill 6 and it really has nothing

to do with the Vancouver Stock Exchange.

MS. BROWN: That's not a point of order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That's actually well taken, hon. members. We

are on a hoist to an education supply bill. I think 43 would have been

the more appropriate standing order, but I'm sure the hon. member for

Rossland-Trail can continue his debate in order and without any more

interruption from the House.

MR. D'ARCY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The reason we wish the minister to consider delaying this bill for

six months is that we recognize that he has an economic problem, that

he and his colleagues have an economic problem, and we recognize that

they do not wish that problem to be exposed to the school boards, and

to the people out there who elect school boards. We recognize that fact.

I want to give the minister a break. I'd like to give him a break,

so I have a suggestion for him. They love talking about the mandate,

Mr. Speaker. You've heard that: "The mandate of May 5th." At some time

in November there will be a new mandate for school boards in this

province. I suggest that the minister and his Social Credit colleagues

get out there on the highways and byways of this province, organize

those elections at the local level and see if, in the democratic

process, they can get school boards with a mandate to support the

provincial government. Then I would have to agree that perhaps Bill 6

as it's presently written would be more appropriate. I want to give the

minister that kind of an opportunity to stand back, take a look,

consult with the professionals out there. After all, the minister is a

lawyer. I've no idea whether he's good, bad or indifferent, but he is a

lawyer. I'd like to give him a chance to consult with the professionals

out there in the education field. And when I say the professionals, I'm

not talking about just the paid professionals, the educators; I'm

talking about the administrators, the business managers in the school

boards, the property owners, large and small. I know the government

doesn't care too much about the residential property owner, about the

homeowner, the apartment owner and the tenant, but I know they care —

at least they say they care — about the owner of business property,

commercial and industrial property. Give him a chance to go out there

and consult with these people, because this fundamentally is a finance

bill. This is fundamentally an education finance bill.

As we discussed this morning, the government, each and every year,

including the present budget — and perhaps we're not supposed to

discuss the budget, so I'll just refer to it in passing — has reduced

the proportion of money going into education that the government

supplies, and increased.... The government supplies some general

revenue, and has increased the amount that comes off local property

owners, whether they be large companies like Noranda, MacMillan

Bloedel, Cominco, or small individuals such as pensioners and ordinary

citizens. Each and every year the government has unloaded financial

responsibility on to the local taxpayer, at the same time demanding,

and taking, more and more authoritarian centralized control unto

itself. If the government is to make a discretionary political decision

— not just this year but each and every year — to give more and more

taxing responsibility to local property owners, who elect school

boards, then the government must

[ Page 1570 ]

grant more and more autonomy for those elected

people who have a mandate to make decisions regarding how much money is

collected and how it is spent. Instead, they're going exactly the

opposite way. While preaching a gospel of "less government is good,"

and "the government that governs best, governs least," as they like to

say, the fact is that they're governing more and more and more in

Victoria, taking more and more control.

I have a concern that in this province there is a lack of confidence

in that government here in Victoria, including that minister. And

because of that lack of confidence, investors, whether they be large or

small, multinationals, whatever, are withdrawing their investment

plans. Private investment in B.C., in actual terms, is down by 20

percent in 1983. Consumer spending is low. The 20 percent drop in

attendance at the PNE was no isolated incident. It's representative of

the general state of confidence in this province. That minister could

start restoring confidence in this government, in himself, with these

hundreds of millions of dollars worth of education money, over which he

has jurisdiction. He could start by going out to the people of British

Columbia, to the people who give their school boards whatever mandate

the local school district electorate wants them to have, and explain

that he has confidence in people, confidence in the electoral judgment

of those people when they elect their school boards, and he is prepared

to consult and work with them. He talks, and so do the government

apologists, who are too lazy to stand on their feet and make a speech

in this House, but who love to interrupt and chirp.... The government

apologists love to talk about their mandate, but they don't recognize

anybody else's mandate. They don't recognize the electoral mandate of

school boards; they don't recognize the electoral mandate of the GVRD

when it comes to planning decisions; they don't recognize the mandate

of the federal government. They have a mandate too. We may think

they're disgusting, but they have a mandate. Mr. Speaker, the Socreds

in this House, in their authoritarian, centralist demagoguery, think

that democracy and a mandate only applies to them. It doesn't apply to

local government, to school boards, or at the federal level. It only

applies to them. It doesn't apply to regional government.

It's been said editorially and in other areas that the government

wants to set the clock back. Well, I disagree with those statements. If

the government was willing to set the clock back, at least we could

recognize where they were coming from. Whether it was Herbert Hooverism

or Genghis Khanism or early Maoism, or whatever, we could recognize it.

But that government over there is unique. They don't want to set the

clock back; they want to invent a new clock. They have these fantasies

that somehow they're going to establish authoritarian centralism, and

that's going to be efficient. It has been shown that authoritarian

centralism, whether it says it's of the right or of the left in

government, democratic or autocratic, corporate or trade union....

Large, authoritarian, centralist bureaucracies are inevitably

inefficient and do not serve the people who are paying the bills,

however benevolent the administrators may be. As I said this morning,

the minister may be benevolent, he may wish to be benevolent, he may or

may not fill the bill, but the fact is that when he takes all this

authority over people under his control — authority which in the past

in this province, in other jurisdictions in Canada and in other

democratic jurisdictions around the world has, by governmental

evolution.... Systems of government do evolve, and that authority has

been given out to the local level. By taking that authoritarian

centralism here into Victoria, it's not setting the clock back, Mr.

Speaker; it's making a new clock. I believe that a case could well be

made that even in the colonial period in this province, prior to this

province joining Canada in 1870-71, the people of that loose collection

of colonies in the western part of British North America in fact had

more local autonomy, even with an appointed government, than they have

under this rag-tag bunch of neophyte, evangelical, authoritarian people

with their dogmatic, doctrinaire ideas about what the future should be.

Mr. Speaker, it's rather interesting that the member for Okanagan

South (Hon. Mr. Bennett), who's perhaps off receiving his delivery of

blankets in his office, at one point didn't think this way — or at

least he said he didn't. I'm going to assume that at one point he

didn't think this way. This was after he was elected. He was a member

of this House and he made a series of statements which — unfortunately,

I think, for him — show that he has had some sort of conversion when it

comes to local autonomy. At one time the member for Okanagan South

actually was in favour of local autonomy — or at least he said so. And

you know, many people in this province believed him. They believed that

he, or a government headed by him, would never bring in legislation

like Bill 6. I would like to give the member for Okanagan South, as

chairman of the treasury benches and as Premier of this province, a

chance to perhaps reread some of his statements from the

not-too-distant past, when he claimed — inevitably — that he did not

believe in centralizing authority by a central government. In fact, the

member for Okanagan South used to say things like: "The Minister of

Education seems determined to gain control of all educational

facilities within our province at the expense of local school boards."

The member for Okanagan South said that. It wasn't the member for

Vancouver East. It wasn't Marcus Roseus. It wasn't even Gary Begin. It

wasn't even somebody from the B.C. Teachers' Federation, or the school

trustees. It was the member for Okanagan South.

[3:00]

Back in 1975, referring to the principle of this bill, which he

perhaps never would have brought in then — or at least he said he

wouldn't; but a minister under his jurisdiction, his appointment, has

brought this bill in — he said: "We" — in government — "would also work

to return dignity and responsibility to individual classroom teachers —

trained professionals who deserve more authority" — more authority, Mr.

Speaker — "in setting educational objectives for their pupils."

Further, the member for Okanagan South said back in '75, when he wanted

to be Premier:

"The current system of financing education out of

property taxes is outmoded and places an unfair burden on the property

owner. We would look to tax revenues from our resource-based

industries. This new approach would help to hold the line on property

taxes, while meeting the increasing costs of education resulting from

inflation."

But he didn't stop there, Mr. Speaker. He said that when they were

in government they "would increase direct payments to local school

boards, while decreasing the cost and importance of the central

bureaucracy." I hope that the government members who slavishly back the

member for Okanagan South will consider what he said back then, and

what some of them said and paid lip service to when they wanted to be

government, when they wanted to establish what they felt

[ Page 1571 ]

was going to be a positive regime here in Victoria. They established that regime, but it has certainly not been positive.

For the moment I have one last quote from the member for Okanagan

South. He is referring to the policies which he has advocated. He said:

"The end result of such policies would be a better quality of education

for our young people, a more meaningful education, based on policies

developed at the local level" — developed at the local level, Mr.

Speaker — "and an educational system which can grow and develop without

burden to local taxpayers." Those are the kinds of ringing rhetorical

statements that we had in the past when Social Credit wanted to be

government. Now in 1983, when they are government, endorsed by 49

percent of the voters and rejected by 51 percent, they feel they have a

mandate to take pieces of legislation like Bill 6 and jam them down the

throats of the people in B.C. — the students, the professionals, the

taxpayers and the property owners out there who have seen their taxes

escalate each and every year. Every time there is a 4 or 5 percent

increase in school costs, property taxes go up by 10 or 15 percent

under Social Credit. It happens every year. It happens in every school

district in the province.

Interjection.

MR. D'ARCY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll try to contain myself within the allotted time span.

We on this side of the House know, and the government, in their

heart of hearts know, I believe, that their policies are bad for

British Columbia. But they have decided that they are going to take

this authoritarian, centralist approach because they want to hide their

policies as much as they can from the people of B.C., so that the

public will not see what is going on. They want to do everything in the

back rooms by regulation. They do not want a consultative process out

there, where a government is not only fair and reasonable — admittedly,

with the financial constraints placed on government these days — but

also seen to be fair, reasonable and direct. Everyone who has ever had

anything to do with government knows that there are times when you have

to make unpleasant decisions and give out the bad as well as the good

news. We also all know that if a government is direct and upfront and

lets the sun shine in and says, "This, folks, is the true story, this

is what our options are, and we have chosen to go this route on this

issue because we think that's reasonable and sensible," a surprising

number of people, regardless of where they come from politically, will

endorse that sort of philosophy. This government wants to hide. It

wants to centralize. It wants to take authoritarian control of matters

which have never been centralized in this jurisdiction or in any other.

I will make an exception to that. I believe that some of these

centralization policies have been followed by the authoritarian

government in the province of Quebec as well.

Nonetheless, Mr. Speaker, I have enjoyed discussing this with the

minister. I see he is a reasonable person. He has been listening and he

is awake. I want to give him full credit for hanging in there through

this debate. I will be delighted to speak again on these matters when

the time is appropriate.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The second member for Vancouver Centre. [Applause.]

MR. LAUK: I am deeply moved by that thunderous ovation from

the government side. But that won't let you off the hook. You are not

going to escape that easily simply because of a demonstration of

solidarity. I was thinking that it was a long night. We have all

acquitted ourselves very well. I have noticed that the minister is

prepared to start taking notes, and I promise that I will not repeat

any of what I said in my previous speeches on education.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: It was all good, but I don't want to be tedious and

repetitious. Do you want to know something? The most tedious and

repetitious thing that has ever happened in this House is the total and

complete abdication of responsibility and duty on the part of the

Social Credit backbenchers.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: Are you okay?

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: Nurse, could you bring the minister's hot milk, please. Are you okay, Mr. Minister?

I am going to keep this a secret within these four walls. I won't go

to your constituencies and tell them that you sat on your hands for

three months without saying a word on this legislation.

MR. REID: It wouldn't be true.

MR. LAUK: It is true.

MR. REID: Not true.

MR. LAUK: It is true, let me tell you. The record is clear.

The first member for Surrey (Mrs. Johnston) has spoken twice in three

and one half months.

HON. A. FRASER: How do you know? You haven't been here.

MR. LAUK: Every day.

They are upset and I don't blame them for being upset. They have

been ordered to keep quiet and they obey orders. That's one thing a

Social Credit backbencher knows how to do well — obey orders.

MR. REID: And work.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

MR. LAUK: When it comes to justice, they say: "Well, I just

obeyed orders." Where have you heard that before, Mr. Speaker? "I was

just obeying orders. It wasn't my fault. I didn't know what was

happening. I was just doing what I was told to do."

This is a government that is trying, as my colleague for

Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) so eloquently stated a few moments ago, to

set the clock back — so much so that I noticed two members from the

Buildings Corporation carrying a sundial into the Premier's office the

other day. I think they are trying to set the clock back in all of this

legislation, and that's why I urge all members of the House to support

this motion to

[ Page 1572 ]

delay the second reading of this bill for a period of six months.

I want to quote from a great parliamentarian, a well-known

parliamentarian in the British parliamentary system, who said: "With

the government demanding rather harsh discipline of them, government

backbenchers tend to remain silent during debate, and no other single

fact has contributed more to the deterioration of our parliamentary

freedom." A great parliamentarian once pointed that out, and I am glad

that you are embarrassed to hear those remarks. No other single factor

has contributed more to the deterioration of our parliamentary freedom

than the silence of the government back bench. It certainly has been a

scandal in this Legislature that 31 bills, most of which are attacking

fundamental human freedoms and civil rights within this province, have

only had one or two backbenchers up to speak once only — a bill or two,

and that's it. The record is clear. Cabinet ministers have not defended

other ministers' bills, which has been a practice in this chamber for

generations. It is the most well disciplined.... I have to compliment

the Social Credit caucus as a whole. This is the most disciplined

caucus I have ever seen and I have certainly heard of in democratic

history. Democracy is not blind obedience. If you support these bills,

then for heaven's sake, get up and say so. I know, because I have seen

enough of some of the new Social Credit members to know, that there are

one or two of you who would really like to get up and defend your

government's position. But you don't even do that. You don't do it

because you are told not to do it.

I also want to quote for the Minister of Education....

I've just received this little book of quotations. It's not Chairman

Mao. It's a great modern philosopher who has a series of sayings that

will help us through these trying times, as we're dealing with these

draconian measures: Obi-Wan Kenobi. Now Obi-Wan Kenobi is probably the

greatest philosopher of the day, and I want to read you some of his

great quotations.

Interjections.

MR. LAUK: Oh, you can laugh. You are laughing. But we might

find some comfort.... Obi-Wan Kenobi said this. Are you ready? "Our

emotions are the steam which we give ourselves in order to fortify

ourselves in the direction in which we want to move." I'm rather

partial to that one. "Our emotions always support our real intentions."

That's not bad. "No habit is maintained if it loses its purpose." Now

if you want to become a Knight of the Jedi, you listen to this very

carefully — I say to the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid), I know

he's rather hopeful. And here's something for the member for Omineca

(Mr. Kempf). Listen carefully. This is from the great Obi-Wan Kenobi —

speaking directly to the member for Omineca. He says: "If we have a

benefit in being sick, we stay sick." That's what he said.

MRS. JOHNSTON: This is really contributing a lot to the debate.

MR. LAUK: Well, I'm getting to the point. I wish you'd contribute something to this debate.

MRS. JOHNSTON: The bill speaks for itself.

MR. LAUK: I've heard that before. I wish the hon. member would speak for herself.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: Just a minute now. "We become free...." This is

particularly for the Minister of Education. "We become free if we stop

being concerned with our failures and successes." What do you think of

that? That's pretty good stuff, isn't it? Isn't that great? And that's

taken up 10 minutes. Now to the bill.

Let's deal with this hoist motion, Mr. Speaker. It's a valid hoist

motion. I'm the twenty-second speaker on the hoist motion from the

opposition side.

AN HON. MEMBER: They saved the best for last.

[3:15]

MR. LAUK: Hmm? That's true.

Here we have a government that is still stubbornly — ideologically

stubbornly, with a doctrinaire, inflexible approach — defending these

31 draconian bills as a restraint measure. I think many of them are

giving up trying to sell it as a successful restraint measure, because

in August and September of this year we can see what the provincial

policies of the Social Credit government have done to the economy of

this province. Unemployment is up. It's the highest in Canada. Job

creation has slowed to a standstill. As long ago as February we were

promised that restraint would create jobs. If we reduced government

spending we would create jobs. British Columbians have less purchasing

power than anywhere else in Canada now, compared to what we had before.

And this is to the minister: we have the worst-funded education system

in the country — per pupil. No other province in Canada spends less per

student than does the public education system of British Columbia. The

figures....

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: Well, I asked for figures. I'm glad the minister's

asking me that question. He's falling steadfastly forward into the

trap, perhaps.

I'll give you one more. I'll throw out one more piece of bait for

you. Mr. Speaker, I asked for figures from the ministry last year, and

I've been able to find out some figures this year. The ministry is

designing figures in such a way as to show that in some areas the

province of British Columbia contributes more per pupil than some other

provinces. But in fairness, if you take what the BCSTA have done and

you take the total amount of money per pupil from all three levels of

government — if there are special programs — in the K-to-12 system in

British Columbia, and compare it to all funding per pupil in the

K-to-12 systems in all other provinces, we are the worst-funded per

pupil in Canada. And that's the bottom line, the total funding. Don't

tell me that you're paying more as a provincial government than some

other jurisdiction. Don't turn around and say the homeowners are paying

more towards education in some school districts, per province. I've

never heard such an argument.... I heard this last year on the first

version of Bill 6 from the minister's predecessor. He and his

colleagues, and his predecessor, spent the last several years taking

the financial responsibility for education away from the provincial

government and foisting it on people where there's no test for ability

to pay — that is, the homeowner; and commercial-industrial, but the

homeowner is the one who suffers — and then turned around in debate

last year and told me in a discussion on statistics of funding that if

you compare school districts to other jurisdictions, to other

[ Page 1573 ]

provinces, we spend more on our kids. Do you see

the devious way in which they deal with statistics? In other words,

property taxes, which are overburdened, have a larger share of school

taxation in B.C. than most other provinces of Canada. In other words,

the homeowner in British Columbia — and the commercial-industrial

property tax payer — pays more than in any other province in Canada in

terms of taxation for education purposes. This is the disaster that

we're asked to accept from this government and that the minister wants

to perpetuate in Bill 6: the worst-funded system in all of Canada.

At the same time, we've had — and I'm not directing this critique

directly at this minister; we've had a number of ministers in that

chair.... If you blink your eyes or turn away for a moment there's a

different minister in the chair. We've had more different Ministers of

Education — again, we are breaking all kinds of records — in the past

two terms of government than any other province in Canada. Now why is

that? The Social Credit government has had a hard time in even selling

itself on the centralization of the education system. They naturally

have that bully instinct, Mr. Speaker; you recognize that. Even though

many of you are polite and gracious and gentlemanly, the Social Credit

personality is essential that of a bully. Bullies want to control.

They're into the power game, into the struggle for win-or-lose,

failure-success. This is the kind of narrow mentality that we've had to

put up with.

Is it good for education that there be centralized control? The

answer is no. Every piece of evidence in the whole wide world indicates

that that's disastrous for education. Why is it disastrous? Because it

increases bureaucratic officiousness at the central ministry level and

decreases the flexibility and input at the local level that makes

education interesting, vibrant and something valuable to our children

and to our future, our culture and our economy as a province. Do you

know that last year in Atlanta, I think it was, at an education

conference they used Quebec and B.C. as examples — in the western world

— of ultra-centralization of the education system? I wonder if the

minister would ask his deputy about getting some of that reference

material. It's a scandal. You now represent the most centralized

education system in the western world. Two Canadian provinces do.

That's very embarrassing. It seems to me that with those facts the

government should have a second look at its centralization policies.

They don't work. Education is not....

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: Someone's saying: "What about efficiency? We've got

to save money in the education system." Yes, you can do that. There are

all kinds of ways to do that at the local level too. But the most

efficient thing you can do with education is shut the schools. Shut

them all down: you'll save all the money.

Somewhere along the line the government has to discuss what the

goals are for an education system. What do you want for your kids?

We're running around as parents, for example, talking about the three

Rs and the basic core curriculum and so on. Most of us don't have any

idea what we're talking about; we don't even know what's going on in

school. And I'm not excusing teachers. I know there's a lot of

deadwood, a lot of feather-bedding and a lot of people who are

uninterested in their profession. I would say that comes to our

attention at the community level more often than in any other

profession that has the same degree of deadwood. I don't think we

should allow any kind of inefficiency, and we have to straighten out

the teaching profession and encourage teachers to improve and do

better. But as I say, somewhere along the line we have to ask what the

goals of the education system are. What are they? Good teaching is only

one aspect of it. Opportunity for new educational experiences is

another. What do you want for your children?

Someone said to me, "I want to get back to the three Rs, and the

basics, that kind of thing." I heard the hon. member for

Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose) speaking yesterday morning, at around 4:30,

and he was quite eloquent. All those in the chamber except myself were

asleep, so I heard what he had to say and I was deeply moved. He said

that as a university teacher he had found that this nonsense about kids

not been literate and so on was so greatly exaggerated that it was

really a bum rap, and he wanted to set the record straight. He said

they are just as good or better than a generation ago, and that this

mythology about the public school system has done nothing except

demoralize it. This is why I brought out this book of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

He talks about the self-fulfilling prophecy: by prophesying something,

you make it come true. You've heard that before. This is what's

happened.

The member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Hon. Mr. McGeer), who was the

first Minister of Education under this administration, went around the

province saying: "The public education system is rotten. Send your kids

to private schools." We know that the member for Vancouver–Point Grey

is the classic elitist. His idea of a great society goes back to Henry

of Navarre. His idea is a feudal structure. Henry had a good time but

nobody else did. You remember Henry, Mr. Speaker? Henry of Navarre was

the first politician to promise the peasants a chicken in every pot.

That's true. He became King of France — not by the ballot box, mind

you; he had to convince a few peasants. So he said: "I promise you a

chicken in every pot." And Trudeau came along and promised a little pot

in every chicken.

Mr. Speaker, the structure which that first Minister of Education

would like to see in our society and in the education system is an

elitist one. He started attacking the public education system to the

extent that the prophecy is fulfilling itself; and the system is

becoming demoralized. In fact, you can see some cracks in the system

and some deterioration.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

The attack on the public education system by this government has

been relentless. Minister after minister after minister has attacked

the local autonomy and the integrity of the education system. While

there are lineups and waiting lists for kids to get into the private

schools, the public schools are suffering from lack of funding, from

undermining by the very government and ministers that should be

supporting it. Indeed, we are witnessing the death of public education

in British Columbia, and it's very sad indeed.

I know that this has been referred to before, but a gentleman by the

name of Crawford Kilian.... I think I recognize that as the name of a

trustee on the North Shore. Well, we'll read a paragraph or two.

"First, a whole level of government has been gutted.

School trustees now have no serious powers. Their function for the next

three years will be to preside over the dismantling of the system they

have spent decades building."

[ Page 1574 ]

I think that's very eloquent, don't you? I don't think it can be said often enough.

[3:30]

"School boards are now so degraded that they have no

real reason to exist except to draw fire away from the ministry and the

cabinet."

This new budget, says Kilian, creates a group of

satraps. Do you know what satraps are? They are the sort of vice-regal

representatives of the tyrant. That's traditionally what they are. They

are higher than the highest general in the army. They're the personal,

designated envoys and governors of the tyrant. I would say that Mr.

Kilian chose a very appropriate choice of word.

"Those satraps will answer to Deputy Education

Minister James Carter" — that's not the former president — "whose power

is now virtually total.... Carter, as deputy minister, may exercise all

of the powers of the government under this act."

MR. REE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to help

the member. I understand he was asking about Crawford Kilian. Crawford

Kilian was a school board member in North Vancouver who was defeated in

the last election. I understand he is now teaching, or will be going to

teach, in Communist China.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, while interesting and informative,

and with all deference, that statement can hardly be considered a point

of order. To interrupt another member's speech for something that is

clearly not a point of order is not in keeping with the rules of this

august chamber.

MR. LAUK: Thank you for your very agile and eloquent defence, Mr. Speaker.

He says Crawford Kilian is going to teach in Communist China. It's a

devastating attack. I heard that he was a bagman for the Social Credit

Party on the North Shore.

What are some of the programs that are going to be eliminated by

Bill 6, and the reason we want it delayed? Elementary counselling.

Anybody who has a cursory knowledge of education knows that the kind of

counselling techniques they're developing today are not sinister.

They're unique and highly skilled. The argument is that counselling is

at its most effective at the elementary school level, so the ministry

of Education has tried to encourage local school districts to increase

their skills in that area for our elementary children.

Again, let's discuss the goals of the education system. The goals

must be to provide a variety of educational experiences for our young

people. Wherever you look in the western world, the more highly

educated that a population is, then the more sophisticated its culture,

the more prosperous its economy, and the greater the variety of

cultural and social activities within that community. This is as a

result of the enhancement of the educational system. The more variety

that you create, the more direct benefit, even economically, there is

to the society that takes that point of view.

Social Credit is anti-intellectual. Most feudal right-wing parties

are. Do you remember Henry II? Some people say Major Douglas founded

the Social Credit Party. That's an absolute falsehood. It was Henry II

of England. He had only one intellectual friend, and 500 barons who

were about as intellectual as a salt shaker. He called them his trusty

hounds. Do you remember that? That was Henry II. Well, the same theory

prevails in the Social Credit Party. They have an anti-intellectual

attitude, really. They also have an elitist attitude towards education:

only the very top people in society should receive an education.

Counselling at the elementary schools is disposable. It falls under the

axe of restraint. That's okay. We don't need that. They're just little

kids.

How about the locally developed education programs? Now there's

another area that's going to suffer under Bill 6. You didn't consider

this, did you? Your grandchildren could benefit from these locally

developed programs because....

AN HON. MEMBER: They'll have a better education than you ever had.

MR. LAUK: Hah! You know, that might not be the measure of

what your grandchildren should have. I may concede that. So bear with

me for the moment, with your rapier-thrust wit. Be patient.

Mr. Speaker, locally developed programs, particularly for the

elementary school level, have been underway for some time in the school

districts, and encouraged, supported and, to some creative extent,

contributed to by the ministry. It seems to me that this is going to

fall under the axe of restraint.

Again, what are the goals of education — the three Rs? Well, we had

that. Is it some sort of prison-like setting, some sort of

black-and-white discipline? I mean, is there no creativity? Is there no

civilization in the philosophy of the Social Credit Party? Don't they

see the opportunity we can give to a whole generation of young people?

But we're so cheap we can't do it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: our parents who came out

of the 1930s — your parents and mine — made a solemn promise that their

kids would get an education. They made a solemn promise that that

generation of Canadians would get an education, and they kept their

promise come hell or high water. At the first sign of economic

adversity, rather soft compared to the Great Depression, this

government runs for cover. Penny-pinching, niggardly, cheap,

parsimonious. I can't believe the kind of mentality this government

has. I might add that they're cheap with the taxpayer's dollar, except

when it comes to furniture for their offices, ministerial travel or

government advertising — peddling Social Credit propaganda. In those

areas they love to spend the taxpayers' money, but when it comes to

locally developed elementary programs, no, that comes under Bill 6.

Elementary summer school — there's another example. They're

eliminating not only summer school for elementary but also for

secondary. They’re going to be cutting back on those in the district

levels. The minister knows this. Look at what they're doing to these

young people. It's no great crime if a kid doesn't do well in the last

term or in the middle term or something, and he has to take a couple of

courses at summer school. Why make him take the whole year over? That's

what you're doing. That's economy, isn't it? Keep the student in school

for an extra year, at whatever tremendous cost. But don't let him take

the three-week summer school course to pass the course.

MR. BARRETT: Look what you're doing to the member for Okanagan North (Mr. Campbell).

MR. LAUK: There's what lack of elementary summer school has done to the hon. member for Okanagan North.

[ Page 1575 ]

There is the result of the core curriculum. Now you can see why, in

desperation, we're asking hon. members to support this hoist motion.

MR. REE: Mr. Member, that member can buy and sell you in hard work.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, would you protect me from Benjamin Disraeli over there?

Locally developed programs for secondary school levels are going to

fall under the axe as well. What kind of a bill is Bill 6? Locally

developed programs for both elementary and secondary school levels....

If you have two or three children, and you have invested your hopes and

dreams in those children, don't you want the very best for them? What

right do you, as a Social Credit Party in this generation, have to say

to a generation of kids: "You have got to go second-rate"? What right

have you got to say that? To your own grandchildren you are saying

that; it's a scandal. Why should we take second best? Why have we got

the worst-funded education system in the country? Why do we undermine

the education system time after time? Why are they pinching pennies

without even looking at or understanding what is happening to ordinary

kids who want a future in this country? Shouldn't they take that one

step beyond and have a prosperity mentality for themselves and for

their kids that will say: "There has got to be something better than

this. Sure, British Columbia has done well by us. There has got to be

something even better"? It doesn't have to be richer. I think most of

us believe that we have reached the end of the golden age of

materialism. We know that, but there has to be something more in a

civilized way....

MR. REE: Do you do that with more money?

MR. LAUK: No, but you don't do it by cutting out a summer

school program and forcing the kid to take the year over again at three

times the cost. It's dumb; it is really dumb. It is the stupidest thing

I could possibly think of: the kid in high school can't take his math

course again, so he has to repeat a year for two courses. What absolute

dumbness! That is the epitome, the acme, the zenith, the height, the

pinnacle of dumbness.

Correspondence school has been cut back. Now I recognize that there

is the Open Learning Institute that is in some way duplicating, but at

the same time there are remote areas of British Columbia.

Correspondence schools and the great continuing education movement,

which Mr. Speaker supported in Prince George and which people supported

everywhere, came out of the Depression, where adults got together in

groups and decided that they would educate themselves. Even in the

depths of the Depression, people like — and I don't often tout Gerry

McGeer.... Continuing education has been supplanted and undercut. Even

in the thirties they found the money to support the continuing

education program, but in the 1980s this cheap, miserly government is

pinching pennies.

[3:45]

Community use of facilities is a whole speech I gave three years

ago. People don't remember my speeches: I found that, you know. I go up

to people on the street and I say, "Do you remember my education speech

of 1973?" and you know, they don't. They don't remember; it shocked me

that people don't remember those things. I made a speech about the

community use of facilities — the education plant. We underutilize

them. Instead of seed money in funding to make sure that plant is used,

like the Britannia complex.... Have you ever been out there, Mr.

Minister? It has improved since the Leader of the Opposition left.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The time under standing orders has expired, hon. member.

MR. LAUK: I want to speak at great length about the community

use of facilities. I will ask leave. Could I have leave to continue on

community facilities?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member is asking leave to proceed past the allotted time limit on the amendment. Shall leave be granted?

Leave not granted.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, that being an intervening item of business, I move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 18

Macdonald

Barrett

Howard

Dailly

Stupich

Lea

Lauk

Sanford

Skelly

D'Arcy

Brown

Hanson

Lockstead

Barnes

Wallace

Passarell

Rose

Blencoe

NAYS — 27

Chabot

McCarthy

Nielsen

Bennett

McGeer

A. Fraser

Davis

Kempf

Mowat

Waterland

Brummet

Schroeder

McClelland

Heinrich

Richmond

Ritchie

Michael

Pelton

Johnston

R. Fraser

Campbell

Strachan

Veitch

Segarty

Ree

Reid

Reynolds

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, the amendment to the motion in

front of us is to have this bill, Bill 6, set aside for six months to

allow the community of British Columbia to discuss its contents and

their impact before it is rushed through this Legislature.

It is a reasonable request, and any government that trusts the people would

take such legislation as this back to the people through, perhaps, a legislative

committee or through public hearings, to permit the citizens of the province

of British Columbia, who were not told in the recent election campaign that

there was going to be any such effort as that manifested in this bill to centralize

power in the provincial

[ Page 1576 ]

government's hands and away from the democratically

elected boards of school trustees.... In British Columbia we have

always trusted in democracy.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

We have always trusted that people had the right, through the

principle of subsidiarity, to elect local governments to determine, as

close to the local level as possible, what the needs of the citizens

they represent are.

This bill is affected by another bill presently under debate which

would put under direct control duly elected citizens representing

school boards and municipalities subject even, in an unprecedented

fashion, to this: unless the elected officials follow the dictates of

the provincial government, they can actually be taken to court and

fined for not obeying orders from the provincial government. There is

no other such legislation anywhere else in the free world; there is

certainly no such legislation in any Commonwealth country. This

legislation is part of a package that is seeking to place unprecedented

power in the hands of a few cabinet ministers. Not many citizens in

this province may be aware of the fundamental change in the

relationship between school boards and the provincial government, the

taxpayers and parents that is proposed in this bill. If this bill

passes, no longer will citizens at the local level have any direct

impact on the nature and quality of the education their children are to

receive.

The government has forgotten that they do not spend any money of

their own; that the very basic principle of parliamentary democracy as

we know it in the British Commonwealth is the delegation of authority

to elected representatives to spend the people's money. This government

has been operating on the arrogant assumption that the money collected

by taxes somehow comes from them personally and is to be handled by

them personally. They have escaped the time-honoured responsibility of

recognizing that it is a sacred trust of the citizens in a free society

to delegate to elected officials the right to spend money for a limited

period of time.

What this minister is now asking for is the authority, beyond that

already delegated by the citizens to a government, to order elected

officials to follow his dictates or else to be subject to a fine. What

is the point of electing municipal or school boards? If all authority

has been taken from them, if their decisions are subject to the whims

of that minister, who may or may not be in a good mood, depending on

what banquet he has attended and who he has spoken to.... I see a

flicker of a smile on the minister's face. It's safe to smile; the

Premier's not here.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: It's always safe to smile anytime, anywhere.

MR. BARRETT: Not in this chamber. You get thrown out if you do that, Mr. Member.

[4:00]

I'm glad I've got the Minister of Education's attention. It's safe

to smile, Mr. Minister, because the Premier isn't here, but would you

care to repeat those remarks about your cabinet colleagues, and about

the government that you sit in, that you made, sometimes in jest, at a

banquet, at the UBCM? I expect to hear you stand up and repeat those

remarks about how you view your colleagues and the legislation that

you're forced to deal with, and what you say privately and what you say

publicly, Mr. Minister. You're not kidding anybody in terms of trying

to protect your own image in the face of what this government's doing

and the bills you have to bring in.

Mr. Speaker, there isn't one other cabinet minister, not one, that

privately goes out and endorses this grab for power, but they're too

frightened to stand up in cabinet and speak against it. We know what's

going on. We know the little asides and the innuendoes that are going

on throughout this province. When cabinet ministers are approached they

say: "Oh, it's not really my idea. I'm really more of a Liberal." I'm

really more of a Liberal! Some of them were Liberals. Some of them have

been so beaten up by the association they've come to in joining Social

Credit that they no longer recognize their own dignity. Some of them,

who shall go unnamed, joined this coalition purely to seek power, and

in seeking power they abandoned any of the principles, philosophies and

policies that they espoused before they got elected.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: When? When once, during the recent election

campaign or during any public speech, did any one of those who stood

for office for Social Credit say they would stand on the basis of

stripping power away from the school boards? When once, during a debate

in the recent election campaign or in a publication of the Social

Credit Party, which they espouse as being their political faith, did

they publicly state that they would be bringing in legislation like

this? When once, in speaking to school trustees, parents or civic

groups, did they ever state clearly that they intended to subject other

lesser elected officials to charges and fines if they didn't take

orders directly from cabinet ministers? Where else in the British

Commonwealth, if this package of legislation passes, will cabinet

ministers be allowed to call up files of police officials on their

desks, along with school trustees' files, and scrutinize those

personnel files?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, we are now straying and anticipating another bill. We're still on Bill 6, which is the school board financing.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, the motion to hoist is inextricably

bound to the package of legislation. What I allude to as the

consequences of this legislation is also part of that package. If this

specific legislation, this specific amendment, is allowed to pass, it

means that cabinet ministers can directly interfere with the personnel

files of employees of school boards — subject to the passage of the

package. That same package also means that in an unprecedented manner,

they can call up on their desks the files of school principals, chiefs

of police, ordinary policemen or teachers, and scrutinize those

personnel files.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, once again I will advise the

hon. member speaking that he is anticipating other legislation. Bill 6

clearly supervises budgets and expenditures of school boards.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your admonition, but

is this not a bill to give authority, by the cabinet minister

concerned, over the budgets? Under those school

[ Page 1577 ]

budgets, who shall pay the fines that may be levied

on school trustees if they disobey the government? It must come from

those budgets. Surely the government is not anticipating, in this

legislation, that duly elected citizens in a free society are

personally liable for the whims of fines from cabinet ministers? Where

will those funds come from? It surely must be dealt with in this small,

seemingly innocuous bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It's not contained in the principle, hon. member.

MR. BARRETT: It is, Mr. Speaker. To be in order, Mr. Speaker,

because I have precious limited time, for your edification, and to

clear up the confusion of some perhaps novice members who have no

understanding of how we must treasure the rights of members in this

chamber. "Section 12 (

l) of the Education (Interim) Finance Act, 1982,

is repealed and the following substituted: The minister may issue

directives at any time before May 1 in a year establishing the amount

of or a portion of the budget, including the portion for special

education programs, of a school district for that calendar year...."

That, sir, includes fines that may be imposed at the whim of cabinet

against school trustees. Yes, indeed. And by definition it means that

those fines may be imposed by a cabinet minister on a principal or a

school teacher who may have spoken out against Social Credit, or had

the temerity to suggest the curriculum was not sufficient to meet the

needs of a child, or some school board that shows a revolutionary

attitude by suggesting they want to initiate programs of their own

because they have special needs in special districts for special

children. Subject to fines at the whim of the cabinet; subject to

scrutiny of their personnel files. The year 1984 is only four months

away. Perhaps the legislation will be passed in time so that this

Orwellian nightmare can be implemented in this province. It is nothing

more than doublespeak and doublethink by a government that is obsessed

with fear of its own power and its own sense of how the parliamentary

system works.

Suppose that Ottawa brought in this kind of legislation and said it

wished to call up the files of deputy minister or any one of the

ministers of the Crown. Would the government be upset? Can't you see

the screaming headlines now? "Trudeau or Mulroney Interferes With the

Rights of the Province." If the municipalities and the school boards

are the children of the parent, this Legislature, then this Legislature

is indeed subject to the same federal legislation. That's why it's

precedent-setting. Can you see a federal government receiving the

endorsation, the hugs, the yeas of support from a provincial government

willing to give up its duly elected responsibility and accountability

to this Legislature? Can you see the yells of pain and anguish, the

eloquent emotionalism from the cabinet benches against the Prime

Minister and his cabinet should they dare bring in such legislation

against the provinces? But they are doing it to the school boards.

They're doing it to the municipalities, What they would not dare allow

to happen to this jurisdiction in our confederation they are doing with

malice to the school boards and municipalities in this province.

Mr. Speaker, my chagrin could be muted if this were purely an administrative

mode. My concern could be dismissed as one

interpretation of challenging powers.

But as my colleague from Vancouver Centre and other members on this side have

said, there is another matter involved in this: that is, the rights of children

to expect the best possible education interpreted for them at the local level

by elected officials representing the parents of each community in this province.

Tell me, Mr. Speaker, what the matador from Kelowna knows of the

needs of the children of the city of Vancouver. Tell me what right a

lawyer from Prince George has to dictate what the children of Kootenay

should learn. Tell me what the highly principled, serene member for

Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. Michael), who has a deep-rooted history of

support for right-wing governments, knows about the needs of children

on Vancouver Island in terms of dictating through this Legislature what

a child should have. Tell me what special knowledge this cabinet

presumes to have to order school boards around — just dismiss them, put

in computers, press buttons. Then if the computer doesn't behave, sell

it off to private enterprise.

There is no overriding philosophy around this kind of legislation.

There is no obedience to some clearly articulated, long-sighted goal

about a restructuring of society. There are no right-wing, laid out,

Friedmanesque economics dictating this legislation. It is simply the

extension of a frightened government seeking power for political

purposes, to justify its own continuation in office. Scared of your own

shadow, frightened of democracy, unwilling to allow citizens to govern

the expenditure of their own money, you bring in this kind of

legislation telling school boards that you know best. Individually, as

citizens, some of you do know best. Some of you, however, know better,

and that's the shocking thing. Some of you know better than to support

this kind of legislation, but you won't do it. You have succumbed to

the blandishments and the appeals of the Lorelei of power. Like

drifting ships in a fog, you look for the Lorelei to maintain power.

The minister has run off out of the House because he can't take a little bit of heat at the windup of this debate.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Well, Madam Member, whether he believes it or

not, he has a different story to tell in private than what he says

publicly. That's why he ran out of the chamber, and that's why, as the

last speaker on this bill, the minister has decided that discretion is

the better part of valour and has headed for the corridor.

A sleepy afternoon in sleepy British Columbia. In this province that

some of us have come to believe has been in the forefront of trusting

people, a vibrant, exciting and alive community that is essentially the

cutting edge of all new ideas and thoughts, which leads Canada in

understanding and openness, particularly in health care and education,

all that history is now being shut down and wiped out. What do you have

against democracy? What do you have against the ordinary toiling

citizens of this province, who may be parents or grandparents, who have

as the object of the sacrifice, hard work and dedication that they have

put into building this pioneering province the desire to provide their

children with the best possible opportunities and options in education

they can participate in?

Universities are now turning away students. Classrooms are packed.

More than ever before, public money is being squandered on northeast

coal to subsidize energy products for a foreign nation. Money is being

squandered on questionable borrowings that no longer have any

accountability

[ Page 1578 ]

through the Crown Corporations Committee. Public Accounts is

being stymied by a government that is frightened of its own shadow. And

now they bring in legislation which says to the ordinary citizens of

British Columbia: "Yes, you can vote for a school board, but once

elected they can't do anything." Why?

[4:15]

There has not been a single, reasonable explanation given by any

cabinet member as to why they want this power. I notice the complete

and rapt attention that I am receiving from the government benches. It

is the most civilized reception I've had in years for a speech I've

given. Not a comment from the benches. Look at them, sitting there

displaying their total collective talents and abilities. Not one of

them is present! There are just a handful of clacking backbenchers who

can't quite make it to the door, and one cabinet minister who wishes he

had made it to the door.

Not one rational defence from the so articulate, semi-Rhodes scholar

in the back, standing up saying why he thinks school boards should be

allowed — to only be elected and never have a word. That member for

North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis), who yesterday eloquently protested

that he wanted to speak.... Let us hear him speak on this bill, Mr.

Speaker, and tell us in his cute phrases, with his tortured political

past, why he's come to the depth of supporting this kind of legislation

— through you, Mr. Speaker, in all humbleness. Will that member now

demand to take his place in this debate and tell us with his great

Liberal past why he, too, has come to see the necessity for this kind

of centralized power? I was impressed yesterday by his eloquence in

demanding his time to speak. Oh, Mr. Speaker, do you think we shall see

that member rush to his feet and give us an articulate examination of

why dictatorship should prevail over the risks of democracy?

Kicked around and fearful so much, driven by a psychological group

need of power, they have brought into reality the warning of Lord

What did that eminent peer have to pass on to future generations in

terms of warning us who serve in the legislatures of the Commonwealth?

Mr. Speaker, do you recall — I'm sure it is part of your bedside

reading, along with those other great adherents of right-wing

philosophy — Lord Acton, who was a right-winger, saying: "Power tends

to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely"? That is what we are

witnessing. This government received a 3 or 4 percent increase in vote,

which it interprets as an absolute power. It has abandoned any of the

time-honoured traditions of the principles of subsidiarity that we have

enjoyed in British Commonwealth parliaments regardless of being

socialists, capitalists, liberals or whatever. Indeed, there are

traditions in these chambers going back some 350 to 400 years. That is

why we are never called by our name in this chamber or in any other

chamber in the Commonwealth. That is why the practice came up over the

years of only recognizing the seats, not the human beings, because

human beings pass but the seats are permanent. It is a demonstration of

a faith, a belief that people have the right in a free society to speak

for themselves — even if they're not consistent in their philosophy.

But at least there should be reason to the speech: at least there

should be logic to the legislation.

As a government you have not yet said why you want to tell school

boards what they should or shouldn't do. You have not yet said to the

people of British Columbia: "What's the point of having school board

elections if they're not free to think and act for themselves as

delegated by the taxpayers?" In our society we built up a parliamentary

system based on delegating authority to people who spend taxpayers'

dollars. Whether you are a millionaire or a pauper, it is one vote for

one person. That delegated authority in a democratic society was tested

in two world wars. This is not the stuff of great beer-parlour-nuance

debate. This is not the stuff that will rend husband and wife in

intense discussion tonight. This is not the stuff that will fill

newspapers with rational examination. This is just a mild one-page bill

that strikes at the very heart of what parliament, democracy and

representative government is all about. You don't believe in people;

you don't trust people. Any government that would bring in this kind of

legislation and then actually fine people for not taking their orders

is Orwellian. Perhaps George Orwell was indeed the intellectual

grandchild of Lord Acton.

In this rapidly changing society, that even politicians have

difficulty in dealing with because of the complexity of communication,

social structure change and intertwining legislation, perhaps it is

only on the basis of fear and lack of trust that you've brought this

in. I'd like to believe that, but I think it's more. I think you don't

know where you want to go as a government. The fact that you never said

anything about this kind of legislation in the election campaign

reveals that you have not thought out what the future holds and what

the challenges are. I don't think the government has fully grasped that

without an educated population, without a flexible, small-"l" liberal

philosophy in providing the widest number of choices at the local level

for every child to reach his or her maximum potential, you are denying

the very future the pioneers of this country hoped for and invested in

a public education system.

Public education should be just that — an education of the public,

by the public, for the public. You're destroying a 100-year-old

tradition in this chamber that has unified debate in this House between

Liberals, Conservatives, Socialists and Social Crediters in the past.

When it has come to education debates in this province, we have never

before disagreed on the philosophy in terms of administration. We have

had debates over nuance and approach, but we have never once assaulted

the fundamental commitment given in this chamber for over 100 years

that parents had the right to say, at the local level, what kind of

education their children should receive through their school trustees.

Why that change now? Why that change now? Why should the children of

the taxpayers of this province be subject to that change now? I repeat

that I think it is a basic and fundamental psychological weakness in a

political group that governs without philosophy. It is a fundamental

weakness of a group that has come together purely for power. It is a

fundamental weakness in that there is no strength of the individual to

stand up in cabinet and defend the rights of the ordinary taxpayers and

parents of this province to have their say.

That member who spoke so eloquently yesterday about having his right

to speak is now leaving the chamber without having spoken on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I find it necessary to see on record in Hansard

that he quietly slipped out the door while this debate was coming to a

conclusion. The minister of the Crown who is responsible for this bill

did not sit through the windup, and only one minister has been present

throughout it all, and that minister has been harmlessly affected

because logic has never permeated his presence before. So be it.

[ Page 1579 ]

So we witness on this sleepy September afternoon the termination of

a debate on the hoist of a bill that will fundamentally alter the

structure of providing education for the children of this province.

This bill has been lost sight of, because it's part of a package.

Because of the overwhelming number of changes presented in that

package, this little bill has been set aside as almost meaningless. We

can all have agreements or disagreements as to which legislation the

government is proposing is most dangerous, but in my opinion this ranks

as the most dangerous. It's just a page, just a simple change, but what

it means is the ending of democracy and the end of the role of parents

having a direct say in the education of their children.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, Mr. Minister, I'm an ex-leader. I'm through

after 23 years in this chamber, oh yes. Anything else you want to say,

go ahead and say it. The fact is that while I'm here and on my feet and

after spending 23 years in this chamber, I have never seen such

disgusting legislation with an attempt by a government to ram it

through the House. This is mistreatment of the people. The people have

a right to vote for who they wish, and they have a right to be wrong,

but you're even taking away that right from the people when it comes to

electing school boards. You don't believe in democracy.

Mr. Speaker, if the minister is to speak, he must return to his chair. There are some rules left in this chamber.

You don't believe that the people should have the right in a democracy to be wrong, according to the way you view the world.

I want to thank the minister for coming back to listen to the last few minutes.

MR. MICHAEL: You didn't miss much.

MR. BARRETT: No, you didn't miss much either in your climb to

success. You abandoned your principles a long time ago, Mr. Member.

You're well at home in that group. Every one of them has jumped on some

other political party. But let the voters of your area discover that.

Ambition should never be the cloud of responsibility.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: If you don't like it, stand up and say so in the House.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The House will come to order, please. To the hoist.

MR. BARRETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I love to hear those

catcalls from those so-called freedom lovers. When they have the chance

to stand up in the House and defend this kind of legislation, there's

not a peep, not a murmur and not a twit. I'm not describing them, Mr.

Speaker, I'm describing sounds, because "twit" cannot be applied to

members, only to sounds. But they'll support this kind of legislation.

What is it that drives them? It is simply the desire to be called "the

honourable minister." Some of us become recipients of the definition of

"honourable" by service in this chamber. That tradition is carried

throughout life.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: That poor, misguided new member has received my

undivided charitable attention, because anything under 75 on a hot day

on the IQ test deserves fond attention. He too will be subject, if he's

forced to go back to school and take an exam on becoming an MLA, to

this kind of legislation.

MR. REID: I'll be here long after you're gone.

[4:30]

MR. BARRETT: Should I dare insult that member? It is not possible even if I did dare. Let me say this, Mr. Speaker....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Perhaps if we stop the heckling then we can avoid personal references and return to the principle of the hoist.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I have no ill-will about the heckling; I just look at the source.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: "Lots of practice," he throws across. Tell us

about your political history, Mr. Member. You live with your conscience

and you live with your vote, but there is a condition in North America

that threatens our survival as a democracy, and it is based on a

philosophy that is essentially amoral. It's amoral in terms of a

commitment to an understanding that even with the delegation of power

there is a responsibility in the use of that authority, and no

government has the right to abuse the principle of subsidiarity and

allowing people in a free society to make their own decisions, right or

wrong, through the electoral process as school boards or municipal

officials.

This bill will pass. This bill will come into legislation. This bill

will be a signal to every good mother and every good father and every

good grandmother and every good grandfather in this province that if

they are willing to serve as school trustees with the commitment and

emphasis on the word "trustee," there will not be trust in them by this

government. What they want for their children and their grandchildren

will not be subject to their accumulated wisdom as parents, or their

accumulated experience, either by education or by toil, but will be

told by a dictatorial government. They must do as they are told from

Victoria. I repeat, how would they feel if Mr. Trudeau in Ottawa

brought in similar legislation? The first group to be out there crying

paeans of alligator tears would be none other than the Social Credit

group over there.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Three minutes, hon. member.

MR. BARRETT: Three minutes, Mr. Speaker? I thought I had a

longer career than that. Be that as it may, Mr. Speaker, I am thankful

that I have been allowed to speak today.

It is another sick day in British Columbia where we begin to see the

deliberate erosion of delegated, democratic responsibilities. We can't

stop this bill. We can expect explanations.

[ Page 1580 ]

But who will correct the damage that it does? Who will tell, in this

chamber, in the debates 50 years from now, God willing, about education

passed in this province? Who will those legislators blame then? I give

you the answer now. The blame will rest squarely on a government that

is frightened of itself, frightened of the people and afraid to allow

people to believe in themselves. That's exactly what this bill is all

about.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 18

MacDonald

Barrett

Howard

Cocke

Stupich

Sanford

Gabelmann

Skelly

D'Arcy

Brown

Hanson

Lockstead

Barnes

Wallace

Mitchell

Passarell

Rose

Blencoe

NAYS — 24

Chabot

McCarthy

Nielsen

Bennett

Davis

Kempf

Mowat

Waterland

Brummet

Schroeder

McClelland

Heinrich

Richmond

Ritchie

Michael

Pelton

Johnston

R. Fraser

Campbell

Strachan

Veitch

Segarty

Reid

Reynolds

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I'll just wait till the rush dies down a bit from both sides of the House.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, the minister just made the

observation that I was pretty good at 4 o'clock in the morning.

Actually it was 5:05 in the morning when I started — almost 12 hours

ago. In another 25 minutes it will be 12 hours between speeches on the

same bill, and he's wondering whether I have more to say. If I thought

for one moment that the minister could be influenced by any arguments

that I would make, then I would be quite happy to be the designated

speaker on this subject and go on indefinitely. However, I fear that

the minister is not in a position to be influenced by any arguments

that I might make or that anyone else in the House might make, because

the person who would tell him what to do has left the chamber. He is

leaderless; he can't go his own direction.

I rather think that this minister would like to accommodate the B.C.

School Trustees' Association — would like to move some, at least, to

accommodate some of their concerns about the effect of the legislation

we are now dealing with, the effect this legislation will have on the

future of education in the province of British Columbia. I really

believe he would like to. I have met with that minister on occasions

when he was the minister of a different ministry, and have found him

very good to deal with — prepared to try to accommodate the needs of

the people. I have been saying over and over in this session that the

Lieutenant-Governor, when we were called together, urged us to consider

the needs of the people of the province. I really would like to think

that that minister would want to do that if he were given the authority

by the Premier to do so.

However, we are dealing with Bill 6, which is before us. To

recapitulate just a little, I dealt with the sections of it, but not in

detail, since this is second reading rather than committee stage, and

expressed my concern about the changes in the Education (Interim)

Finance Act. The legislation that was approved in the House over a year

ago, in 1982, gave the authority to set the limit for a school board

budget, gave the minister the authority to set the amount of that

budget that might be spent on special education, and also included a

cutoff date. It assured the school districts that while the government

felt that there was an emergency financial situation in 1982 — and

there still is.... But because of the emergency that existed in the

spring of 1982, the government felt that it needed this authority to

deal with the school boards. It assured the school boards that if they

were prepared to cooperate, the authority would not be exercised. It

changed the ground rules several times for the school boards. This is

all recalling the

summary of what I said yesterday evening.

[4:45]

There were those assurances given, and in spite of those assurances,

not this minister but the then Minister of Education proceeded to

ignore his own agreements, his own assurances given to school boards,

and to pull the ground out from under the school boards on three

different occasions. That same minister had perhaps gone about things

in a way that we can respect and in a way that we can support. Perhaps

not in the details of his examination, but he travelled around the

province, ostensibly with a view to hearing from people all over B.C.

as to what they thought of the education system, how it was working,

what changes might be made and what improvements might be made.

Precious little of what he heard was included in the legislation that

was introduced in the spring of 1982, if we can gauge by the reaction

from the school boards, because certainly there was no support that I

am aware of from any school board for the Education (Interim) Finance

Act, which was introduced to the House early in 1982 and passed by the

House.

The idea that the minister could set the total budget was abhorrent

to the school boards. They thought they should have the right to go to

their own ratepayers, and if those ratepayers could be persuaded that a

particular program was worthy of support and were prepared to finance

it, then they should indeed have the right to do so. They did not like

the idea that the minister was going to set a limit on the amount that

was going to be spent on special-education courses. They felt that if

they wanted to go a little further, if there were special needs that

they identified and that they were prepared to finance locally, then

they should have that authority.

Of course they didn't like, on top of everything else, the fact that

this restraint program being imposed upon them, this centralist

approach on the part of the government, was going to be in effect

whether it was needed or not. Quite apart from whether there was any

economic recovery, whether there was any need for the program, it was

going to stay in effect until December 31, 1984. They felt that was far

too long to be tied to something they didn't like, in the absence of

any evidence that it would be necessary in anyone's mind to impose such

limitations on them for that long a period.

[ Page 1581 ]

Now we have Bill 6. The legislation that we are dealing with today

makes the legislation introduced in 1982 look like something that

everyone wanted. It is so bad by comparison with the bad legislation

that was introduced in 1982. The legislation we are dealing with now

not only gives the minister the right to set the upper limit on the

school board budget, but it gives the minister the power to set the

limits in detail for the various items included in the school board

budget. He may set the figure for every one of those votes. We call

them votes here in the Legislature; there are other descriptions for

them in the school boards. It gives the minister the right to say how

much will be spent for the various kinds of special-education courses

and special-needs courses that a school board might be authorized to

provide; not the courses they want to provide; not all of them, some of

them — only those which the minister in his wisdom feels should be

provided in that particular school district.

Worse than everything else, it takes out the reference to December

31, 1984. There's no cutoff date at all. The minister, for all time —

at least until such time as this administration is turned out of office

and replaced by one that does not believe in centralizing all power

with respect to education in the hands of the Minister of Education....

Unless an administration is elected that has a different approach and

believes in democracy, and in restoring some authority and

responsibility to locally elected governments such as the school

boards, then for all time the Minister of Education, under the kind of

administration that we have today, will be the only real power and

authority when it comes to preparing and finalizing school board

budgets.

[Mr. Pelton on the chair.]

This legislation has not gone unnoticed. It has been said that it is

one of a package of 26 bills introduced on July 7, budget day, most of

which follow the same pattern. They are designed to centralize

authority and power in the hands of cabinet ministers and to take it

away from locally elected regional districts, municipal governments,

school boards and hospital districts, leaving them as mere vassals of

the provincial government, to do whatever the appropriate minister

considers they should be doing. He in his wisdom — or she in her

wisdom, as the case may be — are going to make all of the decisions

that mean anything.

The locally elected school board representatives will be the ones

who will have to face the questions, the concerns and in some instances

the wrath of the local people who are face to face with the kind of

education system that is being delivered locally, the local people

whose children are going to those schools and are being denied the

educational service the parents feel should be provided them. Perhaps

they are being crowded. Perhaps classes are too large, and in some

instances handicapped children are not getting the kind of attention

they need to progress in that kind of environment. Perhaps gifted

children are not being given the opportunity they should have in order

to develop to their fullest. Parents will discuss all these problems

and bring them to the local school board office, to school board

members and to school board meetings. At those school board meetings

the only defence those people can have is just to say: "It's out of our

hands. The provincial government, in its wisdom, has centralized all

real power in the hands of the Minister of Education. The only thing we

can do is write a letter to the minister on your behalf and hope that

he will hear your case, listen to your argument and maybe come part way

to meet it." It's not a very satisfactory position for local school

board representatives to be in.

One would wonder, Mr. Speaker, whether it will be possible, once

Bill 6 is passed, for people with any real appreciation of what we

should be doing in education to run for school board. Why should they

run, take all the flak, and have no real authority and responsibility?

What is there in it for them? They will be able to do nothing to

improve the delivery of educational services within their community

unless they are able to persuade the minister or the Premier, or unless

they can persuade whoever is going to have the authority, to allow them

to move ahead whether or not it costs money, whether or not it means

that there could be some shifting of finances between various services

that are being offered.

That's one answer. It's quite possible that a school board might

want to spend more money on one program and less on another because of

the particular needs of the children in that particular community. They

will not be able to do that without getting the authority of the

Minister of Education, who in turn will probably have to go to the

Premier. Under the legislation that we didn't like over a year ago, at

least the school board could manoeuvre within the limits of a total

budget. With the legislation being changed as it is by the bill before

us now, there is no manoeuvrability left at all.

Yesterday evening I was going through a number of clippings and

documents of one kind or another which I had been quoting from.

Unfortunately at 5:45 I ran out of time before I ran out of references.

I would like to refer to a few more of these between now and 5:20 this

afternoon. I did refer to a photocopy of a report from the Globe and Mail ,

dated July 20, 1983. I read the headline to the House this morning at

about 5:30: "Socreds Catch B.C. Offguard. No Hint of Plans During

Election."

On those rare occasions when the Premier graces this chamber with

his presence he boasts about the fact that he won the election. He says

he has a mandate to do everything he wants to do, and he may well feel

that way. He may well feel that he was under no obligation at all to

tell the voters what he really intended to do to them. He may feel that

he led his party to victory and can do whatever he wants from here on

in; so long as he can maintain the support of the other 34 members of

his caucus he need worry about nothing. He need not worry about the

electorate, at least not for another four or five years — quite some

time down the road. And he may feel that by that time there will

perhaps be another weather man available who will be able, with his

help, to persuade the people of the province that once again they

should re-elect that government, in spite of the fact that that

government acted quite contrary to the promises it made during the

election campaign, and in many instances did not give any warning at

all what it was going to do if it were successful in the election

campaign. That's why the headline is so appropriate: "Socreds Catch

B.C. Offguard. No Hint of Plans During Election."

"On election night Mr. Bennett had stood in his cramped,

steaming campaign headquarters and said: 'For our teachers, for our public

servants and for all those who are British Columbians...ours will be a government

for the many. Ours will be a government...that will recognize the specific

concerns and the concerns of every group in society.'" Perhaps the Premier even believes that this is what he is doing in this instance.

Perhaps he believes that he is the only one with the wisdom to make the decisions

as to whether or not

[ Page 1582 ]

what he wants to do in education is the best thing

for everyone who is involved in the delivery of the education services,

and best for the people who are going through school, colleges or

whatever. Perhaps he feels he's the only one who should make the

decisions as to what service should be delivered, how it should be

delivered, how much it should cost, what the emphasis should be on each

part of the program. So it may be that in his mind he is doing exactly

what he said here: recognizing the specific concerns and the concerns

of every group in society.

There have been times in the past when people have said that the

best and most efficient form of government is a benevolent

dictatorship. But that's not the kind of government we're supposed to

have here in British Columbia. We're a member of the British

Commonwealth of Nations. We're supposed to have a democratic form of

government. The people are supposed to have the opportunity to make

mistakes if they want, but at least the opportunity to elect their own

representatives, who will make decisions at the local level when it's

matters that affect people at that level, at the provincial level when

it's matters that are assigned to the jurisdiction of the province, and

federally when it's matters that are assigned to the jurisdiction of

the federal government.

There are many different forms of government available in this

country, all of them elected. In some instances people are appointed to

various boards and councils of one kind or another, but in every

instance they're appointed by people who have been elected and who have

the authority to appoint them. The basis of the entire system is the

democratic form of government. So while the Premier may feel that the

benevolent dictatorship he is now running in the province is the most

efficient form of government, it is not the kind of democratic system

of government that you and 1, Mr. Speaker, were elected to serve under.

To continue quoting from this story: "Throughout the campaign, party

advertisements touted the 18-month-old restraint program that 'is

protecting jobs now....'" I wonder what some 3,000 teachers in the

province who have been or are right now facing layoff notices would

have to say about the Premier going around the province throughout the

campaign, and the party advertisements touting the 18 month-old

restraint program that "is protecting jobs now."

Mr. Speaker, do you recall in the fall of last year, when the

government first started tampering with the school board budgets —

sending them back for the first, second and third times, telling them

to revise them — the emphasis that the government placed on maintaining

employment in the delivery of education services? They did not want the

school boards to lay off teachers. They interfered in the rights of the

school boards to handle their own funds, and told them they were going

to be limited in funds. There were limits to what they could and

couldn't do, but one thing they couldn't do was to actually lay off

staff. You and I both know, Mr. Speaker, that since the election some

3,000 teachers have lost their jobs, or are in the process of losing

them. And that process hasn't finished yet. There are still schools

that really don't know what they're going to do with the budgets that

they have, and how they're going to sort out their pupil-teacher ratios.

[5:00]

So the assurance given by the Premier prior to the election in no way measures up to what the Premier, through the Minister

of Education, has done following the election. Under the new

legislation, school trustees can be fined up to $2,000 for disobeying a

cabinet directive. That doesn't tie directly into Bill 6, it ties into

Bill 3, but it's part of the package. I won't refer to that any more

now because in all likelihood we'll get an opportunity to discuss that

bill further at another time.

"Port Coquitlam mayor Len Traboulay said it reminded him of Poland and

martial law." Those are not my words; they're the words of a mayor

who is reacting to the legislative program that was included in the package.

"'My first reaction was that Lech Walesa was a lucky man not to be

in B.C.' Even Gary Begin, former British Columbia School Trustees' Association

president and Burnaby School Board chairman, who was a Socred candidate during

the election, said he wouldn't have run for the party had he known what

was planned." I wonder how many of the 35 members who were elected as Social

Credit standard-bearers in the election on May 5 would feel the same way today,

if they dared to stand up and say it. I wonder if any of those members who are

in this Legislature now would say, as Gary Begin has said, that if they had

known what the government they were pledged to support really planned to do,

not for but to the people of British Columbia, they would not have run as Social

Credit candidates.

I would like to think that there are a few among them who are

embarrassed about what their administration is doing, who are

uncomfortable about it, who may even be trying to change some of the

legislation in caucus meetings. I hope there are some; if there are, I

wish them every success, because this package of 26 bills, including

the budget, is, in the main, bad for the people of British Columbia. It

is a bad package; it will work harm on our economy for many years to

come. It will hurt the delivery of education, and we will suffer for

that for many years. If there are people who did get elected and who

feel like Gary Begin, who didn't get elected — that is, that they

wouldn't have supported the Social Credit Party if they had known what

the Premier had in mind — then I wish them success in their

deliberations within caucus.

It is not just the package that angers people, but the method by

which the government chose to introduce it — the fact that it was

sprung on people, that it was not talked about during the election

campaign. Restraint was talked about in very general terms, but along

with that restraint was the promise that there would be no layoffs.

There would be some reduction in staff, but this is something that

would happen by attrition, not by layoff. As reporters and everyone

else in the province were trying to digest the contents of the budget

late in the afternoon of July 7, bill upon bill was carted into the

press gallery, and minister after minister rose in the House to

announce them. Nothing had been said beforehand to prepare people for

the avalanche, and nothing in the province's history indicated that a

government — any government would proceed in such a manner.

There are some on that side of the House who are fond of criticizing

the NDP administration that served the people of this province for over

three years, but nothing done by that administration would compare in

any way with the 26-bill package that was tabled on July 7 along with

that budget. There were day and night sittings under the New Democratic

Party government between January 25 and April 18, 1973, and 98 bills

were passed. Day and night sittings — there are different ways of

looking at that too. I sat in this House for evening sittings. When I

was first elected it was the pattern to

[ Page 1583 ]

have evening sittings twice a week. At times those

sittings would run for quite some time. The normal procedure was to

adjourn the evening sitting at 11 p.m., but towards the end of the

session, when the Premier of the day thought it was time for the

Legislature to adjourn, the sittings became longer; we'd find ourselves

sitting until midnight, infrequently until one or two. But this was

late in the session. This was when we were in a hurry to wrap up the

business of the session, wind it up and adjourn it until the next

session was called.

I can recall that between 1963 and 1969 the latest session we ever

had went until five in the morning. I can recall that year starting a

discussion of the estimates for the Ministry of Recreation and

Conservation at 4 a.m., and thinking how bad it was that at 4 a.m. we

started talking about the estimates of one of the smallest ministries.

But even then we wound it up by 5 a.m. The sitting that started

yesterday at 2 p.m. continued until 9:10 a.m. today — 19 hours in one

sitting. It's been termed "legislation by exhaustion." We're warned

that the government intends to proceed with this legislation by

exhaustion until it gets its legislative program through. The Premier

certainly didn't tell us anything about that during the election

campaign. He didn't tell us that he was going to bring in a package of

legislation, of which Bill 6 is one small part, that would be so bad

for the people of the province that the opposition would feel that it

had to do everything it could to delay passage, so that there would be

widespread knowledge of the effect of this bill and so that the people

affected would be able to have every opportunity to approach the

minister and members on that side of the House and try to persuade them

to make some changes. There was no warning of that at all. So we sat

until 9:10 a.m., and then we resumed our sitting at 10 a.m. Goodness

only knows how long it will last today.

Mr. Speaker, there is a way. It can happen. The government will get

its legislative program through if it continues to sit round the clock.

But, really, is that the way we should be doing it?

To continue to quote: "B.C. had seen legislation by exhaustion; now

it was legislation by inundation. Moreover, the legislation came within

weeks of Mr. Bennett giving two close aides increases well above the

restraint guidelines." Restraint, as such, is not directly a part of

Bill 6, except that the minister has the authority to say how much

shall be spent on each item in the school board budget, including the

cost of administration, which certainly does tie in with restraint.

While the Minister of Education will have the authority to say how much

the Nanaimo School Board shall pay out in administrative costs —

perhaps even by individuals; there's nothing in the bill to indicate

otherwise....

At the same time as the minister was going through that exercise,

the Premier gave two close aides increases well above the restraint

guidelines. "Douglas Heal, the Premier's communications czar, was given

a pay and benefits raise to boost his compensation package to $72,000

from $65,000." Will the Minister of Education have the same authority?

If he thinks it is warranted, will he be able to approve the request

from a school board that an individual's salary be increased by that

amount, whether or not the figures are the same, or by that percentage

even? "Michael Bailey, whose title was changed from executive assistant

to executive director for the Premier, received a 50 percent increase,

to boost his annual salary to $45,000 from $30,000." It was rolled back

nominally by Mr. Peck. Will the Minister of Education have the

Premier's authority to grant an increase of 50 percent, in the event

that a school board puts forth a case that, in their mind, justifies

that kind of increase? I doubt it very much. If that were the case, why

are we going through this whole exercise? "Exacer