Third Session, 41st Parliament

(2018) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Monday, February 19, 2018

Morning Sitting

Issue No. 79

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Orders of the Day

Private Members’ Statements

Working together to end homelessness

S. Chandra Herbert

R. Coleman

Mental health and addictions

J. Thornthwaite

M. Dean

Artistic expression as a quality of leadership

J. Routledge

S. Gibson

Addressing family physician shortages

L. Throness

J. Rice

Private Members’ Motions

Motion 1 — Affordable post-secondary education

G. Begg

S. Cadieux

M. Elmore

M. Morris

L. Krog

G. Kyllo

R. Singh

J. Thornthwaite

R. Kahlon

M. Stilwell

R. Leonard

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2018

The House met at 10:03 a.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Prayers.

[10:05 a.m.]

Orders of the Day

Private Members’ Statements

WORKING TOGETHER

TO END

HOMELESSNESS

S. Chandra Herbert: Last night was cold. It was even colder if you were living on the

street.

I’m speaking today about the work we need to do together to end

homelessness. This is a topic that’s important to me, and it’s been

something that I’ve worked on for many years of my life, because you

can’t have a good life if you’re homeless. You can’t have the safety you

need, the stability you need to follow your dreams, if you have no home

to live in.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

When I think of homelessness, I think of coat hangers in the

woods. I’ve done the homelessness count most every year, and an image

that will forever stay with me is going through the woods of Stanley

Park and coming across somebody’s home — what they tried to make a home,

anyways.

They’d hung coat hangers in between trees, with their T-shirts

arranged very nicely. The trees had, of course, gotten wet, and the

clothes got wet. The clothes had been there for I don’t know how long,

but they were covered in what looked like moss because they’d been there

so long.

A little ways down the path, there was a man living in a stump.

How he ended up there, I’m not sure. He lived there, he said, because it

was safer than the single-room-occupancy hotel that he’d been living

in.

When you walk up Davie Street, you pass Hornby. Right on a little

patch of concrete, you can still see a burn mark. That’s where Tracey

burned to death, shortly after I was first elected to this place. I’d

met her once, maybe. Many had. She burned to death on the street because

she had no home.

I think of Peter. Peter, who was in and out of my office many

times, attacked a number of times while homeless. He is housed now, and

I can tell you it’s made a world of difference.

I think of the woman I met who was homeless because of

renovictions. Because, unfortunately, the law had not been properly set

out to protect her, she ended up on the street — terrified, with a big

dog, hoping that nobody would attack her.

I think of the youth I’ve met on the street. In some cases,

fleeing homophobia from their parents, and they end up in

Vancouver.

Now, these are all people. I speak about the people first. Too

often we hear about the homeless, and it becomes as if they’re an object

or something different. We count homeless. Well, these are people. In

Metro Vancouver last year, we found 3,605 people homeless. That’s up 30

percent from 2014.

In a province that could boast of billions in surpluses, think of

thousands and thousands of our fellow citizens sleeping homeless — on

the streets, on a couch, at a friend’s place, in their van. We’re seeing

more and more RV’s and vans across communities, more and more

homelessness in every community. It used to be a Vancouver issue: “Oh,

those Vancouver people.” Now it’s an every community issue.

Now, how did we get here? How has it got so bad? Why? Well, I

would argue it’s because we haven’t taken enough of a systemic approach

to this. We haven’t looked at it in every community. We’ve focused on

anecdotes rather than actually trying to end it systematically, trying

to stop people from spiralling into homelessness. It’s not just about

building homes and getting people off the street into homes, but making

sure they don’t end up on the street in the first place.

That’s why I’m so glad that finally, finally, the government has

committed to bringing in a homelessness action plan. The proof will be

in the pudding, so to speak, but you can’t address a problem unless you

acknowledge you have one, and finally the government has acknowledged

there is a serious, serious problem in every community.

Modular housing has been announced, $291 million to provide

quick-start solutions to get people in immediately so that they’re not

sleeping in the cold. It’s a good start.

[10:10 a.m.]

Building housing takes time. Modular housing cuts that time almost

in half, if not faster, depending on the style of housing you are trying

to build. These are solutions, and I know people who’ve gotten into the

housing now who are already finding a better life because of

it.

Now, I was once asked by a constituent: “Why do you think we have

to address homelessness? Why do you focus on this in this way?” I said:

“Well” — he, at least at the start, seemed to me to be rather

unsympathetic — “financially it’s just stupid to leave people on the

street because they get sick. There’s a financial cost for the health

care, the legal cost if the police get involved. It’s on and

on.”

He said: “Well, that’s rather cold.” I said: “Well, I’m glad I can

talk to you from the heart.” For me, yes, the financial side makes a lot

of sense. But for me, it’s always been about the heart because I don’t

think that you can be strong as a community if some of your members are

struggling and falling and failing. You can’t feel good about your

community if you have to step over a homeless person in order to get to

a shop.

I know some people start to not see homeless people, start to

ignore them, because we can’t, I suppose, face up to the fact that there

is that level of deprivation in our society. But that’s not the right

way. We need to focus on it, see the people, address the needs and raise

them up.

Homelessness comes from a variety of ways. I talked about

renovictions. I talked about discrimination. It’s also poverty. We have

a poverty problem in this province, and we’ve had it for far too long.

And you can’t address poverty unless you have a plan to address it. So a

poverty reduction strategy is the right way to go.

I’m glad our government is also addressing that because you can

build the housing, but if more and more people end up on the streets,

you’re always going to be playing catch-up, rather than saying: “Let’s

make sure people have the stability they need in their lives so they can

stay in the housing that they have, so they can get the addictions

support, the mental health support, the family support, the financial

support — if that’s, indeed, what happens — so they can get that extra

little bit of care that we each owe each other.”

That can help end homelessness before it begins, and that’s where

we need to be focusing on — ending it before it begins.

R. Coleman: Thanks to the member for his comments.

I should start out by saying I don’t think anybody on either side

of this House is interested in not doing something about homelessness. I

think there’s a significant record with regards to it. Back in just

2001, we had 835 spaces for shelter in the entire province of B.C. None

of them were open 24-7. None of them provided meals. Today there are

over 2,000 of those so people can actually get meals for

stability.

The important thing to understand — and the member hit on it —

with regards to homelessness is that it’s about the people who are

homeless. There is no single piece that you can actually fix other than

you can provide the housing, but you better have the supports behind the

people.

A lot of the people on our streets today suffer mental health and

addictions, and they have multiple barriers. So not only do you have the

challenge when you get them into housing that they would stay and feel

comfortable, but when they’re there, you need to have the services to

wrap around them, whether it be the teams that we now have out there for

our youth across the province or whatever.

There have been literally thousands of units and hundreds of

buildings bought and renovated for the homelessness in B.C. over the

last number of years, in the billions of dollars. Operating budgets are

three or four times what they used to be, simply because we’re trying to

catch up to a problem that seems to sometimes move on us in quick

periods of time.

Sometimes, within six months, you can see a dramatic impact and

the increase of people in homelessness, like we had with the camp,

particularly here in Victoria, and we ended up buying a number of

buildings and renovating. But our cohort that was in that camp wasn’t

actually British Columbians. It was coming from elsewhere across our

country. Of course, in our country, we take care of everybody, no matter

where they are, if we can.

I think the first thing to understand is that both sides of this

House want to work on this. I think the fact is that there are over

10,000 families today that actually have rent assistance, and the

government has now decided that they understand the importance of that —

20,000 seniors.

The other piece, though, is that little untold story. The outreach

workers had started to be put into the system back about nine or ten

years ago. We expanded that across the 40 communities. The result of

that is over 7,000 people a year are being connected into housing and

supports through our shelter system and our outreach workers in this

province.

[10:15 a.m.]

As we’ve learned more and more about the cohort itself, the

difficulties it has in adjusting, we have increased our teams to have

clinical psychologists and health workers and what have you with our

outreach teams so they can start to wrap around right at the very

beginning.

Then the biggest challenge of all this comes when you actually

want to do something. It doesn’t matter which community you’re in. I can

guarantee that as soon as you say you’re going to build a shelter — even

if it’s at 3030 Gordon in Coquitlam or whether it’s the Salvation Army

in Langley — you’re going to have a very large anti-project of people at

a public hearing that municipalities have to deal with. It’s a challenge

for them. They’re actually trying to make a change, but the community

doesn’t ever want it anywhere near them.

I’ve been to communities many times where people say: “Well, we

want a shelter.” They point me to the industrial area where there’s not

a single residence or any services because that’s where we can get it

sold. The reality is that we as a society have to understand something.

This is about humanity. It’s about people.

Although we sometimes get partisan in our criticisms, I don’t

think anybody can be critical of the fact that people have been

investing; trying to get it done; working with MLAs across the province,

no matter what stripe they are, to try and do it. That needs to continue

— and with funding to help with that.

Of course, we will have to step up over time and help the local

governments with education and understanding about…. Just because

someone builds a shelter somewhere doesn’t mean your crime goes up. In

actual fact, shelter and supportive housing can actually do the

opposite. But there’s a fear of mental illness and addictions in people.

That’s a challenge for all of us to get through. We should continue to

do that and continue to invest.

I’m actually proud of the investment and the work we’ve done over

the last decade in housing. It’s never perfect. You won’t get it all the

way, but you need to set the foundation. I believe we’ve done

that.

S. Chandra Herbert: I thank the member for his comments. I think he’s really pointed

out the challenge. It’s that you can increase the amount of housing —

and we have seen an increase after a time when we didn’t have much

supply for years — and shelter, as well. But if the numbers keep going

up, as they seem to be, we’re not keeping up, unfortunately.

I think the challenge has been catching the folks before they

fall. How do you help somebody so that they don’t spiral into poverty;

so that they don’t take the step into addiction, mental health

challenges, sometimes conjoined; so that they don’t end up being thrown

out of a home due to hatred or because they simply don’t have enough

money? It may start with money, but it doesn’t always end with

money.

I think about the challenge that we’ve got around modular housing

and the issue of community acceptance and the need for community support

to be able to house homeless people. In my neighbourhood — close by, in

Coal Harbour — you can go through the parks, you can go through the back

areas, and there are homeless people there. Now, I talk to some

residents, and they say: “What do you mean?” I say: “Well, what time do

you get up in the morning?” Oh, okay. Yeah, they don’t get up so early,

so they may not see them.

When I raised the issue of modular housing, one of the first

things constituents in that neighbourhood said was: “Well, but they’re

not coming here, are they? They’re not meant for us in this area.” I

said: “Well, but you were just complaining to me about the panhandler.

You were just complaining to me about the fella who sleeps under the

tree out in front of your condo with a multi-multimillion-dollar

view.”

These are our neighbours. I think the key

part is to remember this

could be any one of us. Unless you provide the social supports, these

folks, in some communities, will never believe that they can be safe.

They’ve zeroed in on the fact that some people who would potentially be

in the modular housing could be addicted, could have a mental health

challenge. When I point it out — that could also be their neighbour in

their very own condo building — it’s: “Oh, well, that’s not the same.”

Well, it is the same.

We don’t have the right to decide who our next-door neighbour is,

so we better start accepting that homeless people are our neighbours

too. We don’t want them to be homeless for long. If they’re not

homeless, they’re going to be a healthier neighbour and a better

neighbour than if they’re living on the street.

I don’t think we can take our eyes off this issue. The moment you

do, more people are on the street. The moment you do, then you start

hearing from the business people. You start hearing from the communities

who don’t feel safe because their park has people living in it. You have

to focus on this completely, all the time, and that also means the

federal government needs to be there too.

I’m honoured to be able to speak on this issue. I’ll keep working

on it. I thank all members who’ve worked on this issue over the

years.

[10:20 a.m.]

MENTAL HEALTH AND ADDICTIONS

J. Thornthwaite: Under the previous B.C. Liberal government, our province became

the recognized leader nationwide in harm reduction, from opening North

America’s first supervised injection site in 2003 to declaring a

provincial public health emergency in April 2016. This provided more

resources and services, which continue to save lives. It’s working, but

it’s not enough.

Given that the most recent statistics of overdoses for the last

year indicate that overdose deaths are still rising within the current

system, the question remains: how do we get to the root of the problem

and prevent people from turning to drugs in the first place? How do we

address and treat an underlying mental illness when the first signs of a

problem are identified, before the symptoms get worse and people find it

difficult to cope with stress, anxiety, depression or underlying trauma,

neglect or abuse?

The answer is quite simple: we have to do it all. British Columbia

needs a full continuum of care, ranging from mental wellness programs in

schools and communities to harm reduction treatments, plus the

availability of abstinence-based recovery programs for all

incomes.

How do we get people off drugs completely? It is recognized that

for some, this may not be possible, but there needs to be more attention

and effort put into abstinence-based recovery for everyone who is

seeking help — when they are ready. Continuing to pour more money into

harm reduction services, including replacement therapies and drug

testing kits, may help save lives today, but they won’t end the cycle of

addiction.

Right now, across the province, there are an abundance of beds

available in private recovery facilities with a proven track record of

getting people off drugs — beds that sit empty because government is not

funding them.

In 2001, Portugal took the step of decriminalizing the possession

and consumption of certain levels of drugs, taking the issue out of the

legal system and putting it into the health system. British Columbia,

and Canada as a whole, should follow Portugal’s lead. However, what is

often lost in the conversation about the Portuguese model is that their

goal is to get people well and to have people not using drugs at

all.

Portugal’s model includes prevention, dissuasion, harm reduction,

treatment, recovery and reintegration. I think, right now in British

Columbia, we are making great strides in harm reduction, but we’re

lacking in prevention, dissuasion and, most importantly, treatment,

reintegration and recovery.

In Portugal, individuals with substance use disorders are

considered to be individuals that need health and social care, not a

criminal record. When a person is found using or is in possession of

drugs for personal use, they are referred to the Commission for the

Dissuasion of Drug Addiction within 72 hours. There they are assessed

for a variety of factors, including family and social history,

psychosocial status and more. The intervention is targeted for the

individual’s need. If they are found to be in possession of amounts over

the limits of personal use, they are sent to jail.

In Portugal, there are support systems in place for families, all

centred on the Commission for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction. There

are a variety of options when someone is caught using drugs or

overdoses, ranging from a fine to assistance with recovery and

treatment. What they don’t want is people to be in a vicious cycle of

treatment in, abstinence-based treatment centres.

The framework for Portugal’s approach is based on the idea that

substance use should be stopped and that government has a strong role in

pushing individuals in that direction. In Portugal, people with

substance use disorders are guided through recovery to get well. The

goal is to help those who want to get back to becoming participants in

society back to health.

Our local societies, like the Last Door Society and Cedars, at

Cobble Hill, are currently providing long-term help for people and their

families and have beds available today. Right now only the very poor,

those with means or those with extended health care plans can access

these types of recovery facilities. If we’re going to tackle this crisis

head-on, we need a multifaceted approach that doesn’t lose sight of all

the options on the table to help those with substance use issues. This

includes prevention, assessment, treatment, harm reduction and stable

recovery.

Stable recovery recognizes the personal, social and environmental

resources that can be brought to bear on maintaining remission and

long-term recovery. We need to get to the root of the problem, which

could involve childhood trauma, abuse or neglect. We need to recognize

that stable recovery can take a long time and can come with relapses,

just like any other chronic physical illness.

[10:25 a.m.]

Recovery includes relapse prevention skills, healthy lifestyles,

exercise and nutrition, with a focus on mentoring and family

involvement. People in recovery can become healthy, productive community

members, and investments in recovery community centres or schools have

been shown to work in many jurisdictions.

I look forward to continuing my discussion in a moment.

M. Dean: Thank you so much to the member for North Vancouver–Seymour. I

couldn’t agree more that we do absolutely need a range of services. They

need to be accessible. They need to be non-stigmatizing as well. What’s

really important in delivering services in this area is understanding

the need for prevention and understanding the causes — the impact of

trauma and of a range of vulnerabilities that can actually exacerbate

issues as well.

I’d like to take this opportunity to say how very proud I am of

this government for creating a Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions.

We have a minister whose sole responsibility is making sure that this

government addresses these issues. Already, in my community and across

the province, I know that there are fantastic people working in the

profession, in the sector, who are engaging in research and looking into

best practices models and who would like to implement those on behalf of

British Columbians.

Myself, I’ve had three decades, nearly, of working in this area,

and I’ve had concerns. I’ve been delivering mental health and addiction

services in my constituency of Esquimalt-Metchosin. Even in a community

where we had some of the fastest-growing communities in the whole of the

province, over the past ten years, we actually saw cuts in services for

community-based mental health and addiction services.

A particular program that used to serve about 100 adults in the

community in any given year was cut, and within three years, RCMP saw a

50 percent increase in the number of incidents that they were responding

to where there was a mental health concern in the community. So I’m

really pleased, today, to be able to respond to the member and talk

about what our government has done and how seriously we are taking this

issue across the whole spectrum.

Of course, it is a crisis as well. There’s an overdose crisis that

we need to tackle as well as the whole spectrum of mental health and

addictions needs. There were 1,422 overdose deaths in 2017, which was a

43 percent increase, compared to 2016. Last year was the deadliest for

overdose deaths in the province’s history, with an average of four

deaths per day. These are people. These are the neighbours that we heard

our other member talk about.

This is a provincial issue, and in the constituency of

Esquimalt-Metchosin, it is a community issue. We have hot spots in our

community where the rates of overdoses and deaths are actually higher

than the average. Our first responders are exposed to human crises

outside their offices, on the streets, as well as on call-outs. The

numbers of people dying are staggering, and the human impact is

unspeakable.

Families in my constituency regularly talk to me and tell me about

how they want our government to address this crisis. We’re all saying

that we can do more and must do more to end this. Today I say to

everybody: think about what you can do, and please take action. I want

to say how proud I am of all of our first responders and how they’ve

been handling this public health emergency.

It’s very complex. There isn’t just one simple solution. Our

government is taking an all-of-government, whole-province approach to

the overdose crisis. We’re focusing funding on the ground, in

communities, to fight the crisis and to make sure that funding is

invested where it’s needed the most — to save lives and create a pathway

to hope and recovery.

In September last year, our government announced $322 million in

funding over the next three years to combat the overdose crisis. In

December, we launched our new provincial overdose emergency response

centre, building community action teams on the ground in communities

that are hit by the overdose crisis. We’ve also dedicated an additional

$1.5 million of funding from this year’s budget for grants for other

communities that need the resources to fight this issue. We’re expanding

the availability of naloxone kits, and we’ve made drug testing more

widely available as well.

[10:30 a.m.]

Government is working with Indigenous partners, too, and other

sectors to save lives and provide better and more culturally appropriate

support to First Nations and Indigenous communities to address this

crisis. We are taking an all-of-province approach and a whole broad

spectrum of approach to develop a better system for mental health and

addictions care.

We know that we need understanding of the causes of mental health

and addictions issues and how people are most vulnerable and how people

are working hard to put the building blocks in place across the levels

of need. The goal of everything we’re doing is to save lives and to

connect people to treatment and recovery as soon as possible.

J. Thornthwaite: Thank you to the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin for her

comments.

The other aspect of addictions and mental health is prevention and

early intervention. While millions are being poured into addressing the

opioid crisis now, I worry that we’ll forget about youth struggling in

schools with unidentified or untreated mental illness, which eventually

may lead to substance use.

The Foundry, a one-stop-shop initiative, is a great first step

that improves access to mental health services for youth and their

families. But we also need to be getting to kids earlier. That means in

the schools. Teachers are often the best at identifying if a child has

mental health needs, and there should be immediate supports in place for

those needs when they are identified. Certainly, recent research that’s

come out has definitely given credence to more supports in the schools

that actually work.

The North Vancouver school district has already reached out to

government with a proposal to coordinate services between the Foundry in

North Vancouver and the school district. We need to ensure that the

children and the youth who present at schools get the help they need

immediately and that connections for services can happen where they are

— in the schools.

Mountainside Secondary in North Vancouver is already on the right

track in integrating mental health services in their school. We need to

do more in all of B.C.’s schools to offer timely help when students are

identified as struggling and to provide appropriate services as soon as

possible — within weeks, not months. We need to listen to the successes

of schools like Mountainside Secondary and copy their successes in all

school districts provincewide.

We know what works and what doesn’t. Government needs to continue

to make mental health, addictions and recovery a government priority and

work together to give people hope and opportunity for their lives and

their families.

ARTISTIC EXPRESSION AS

A QUALITY OF

LEADERSHIP

J. Routledge: Today I rise to talk about creative expression as a quality of

leadership, as an important political skill.

Now, I don’t want anyone jumping to the conclusion that I intend

to spend my time justifying the stereotype that politicians make things

up. I know that, at the very least, you may be wondering why I would

choose a topic that must seem frivolous in the face of the so many

overwhelming crises we grapple with in this House every day — like

surgical wait-lists, homelessness, wildfires that consumed much of our

province last summer, the unprecedented number of drug-related deaths

and so many young British Columbians who have simply given up believing

they will ever have a good job or own a home.

It is because so many British Columbians seem to have lowered

their expectations and have accepted the inevitability of poverty within

the midst of plenty, of catastrophic weather, of daily stress and

insecurity that I want to talk about creativity and politics.

I ask: how can we hope to build a better world if we are incapable

of imagining what a better world will look like? How can we fix the

social ills that stalk our families and communities if we can’t even

imagine what it feels like to sleep in a doorway, to be in so much

physical or psychic pain that we’ll gamble our lives on the temporary

release of a street drug or to feel the indignity of lying in our own

filth, waiting for an overworked care aide to come and tend to our

needs?

[10:35 a.m.]

Sadly, the work of imagining, interpreting our experiences and

expressing our feelings had long been relegated to the artists and

poets. John Lennon’s Imagine had us all singing about a world

without war or hunger. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech

inspired the civil rights movement. Just last Thursday, on the steps of

this Legislature, the Butterflies in Spirit dancers invited us to feel

some of their loss and grief.

It’s an unfortunate feature of the modern age that creativity has

become disconnected from the serious business of making money, passing

laws, curing disease and inventing new technology. This separation of

art from science isn’t new. It’s part of the binary thinking that has

been embedded in our predominant world view for at least 300 years —

science, art; reason, passion; logical, irrational; strong, weak;

serious, frivolous; male, female. I don’t think I need to explain which

column is deemed to have more value in our society.

There are many ways up-and-down binary values are signalled to us.

For example, we’re all familiar with the term “starving artist.” But a

starving scientist? That just doesn’t make sense. I needed science and

math credits to get into university, and I was in an arts program. But

high school art? That’s an elective.

In short, our society has come to overvalue rationality and

undervalue creativity. It begs these questions: does society produce

politicians with underdeveloped imaginations? If politicians could think

and act more imaginatively, would we be able to come up with more

effective solutions to the problems that challenge the people we

represented? Might we even avoid playing a role in creating those

problems in the first place? I believe the answer is yes. Our ability to

reason is of course useful, because it arranges our ideas, but

imagination is also an important mode of mental action because it

creates new ideas.

I have another question for us to consider: if creativity is an

essential political skill, one that helps us think outside the box and

feel empathy for those affected by our decisions, is it something we can

and should develop within ourselves as politicians? Again, my answer is

yes.

Now, I’d like to go on and talk about some of the ways I think we

can develop our sense of creativity, but I’d like to hear from the

member opposite about his thoughts about this as well.

S. Gibson: Thanks to the member for Burnaby North for bringing up this rather

intriguing topic this morning — one of the more interesting topics that

we’ve been engaged in here lately in our Legislature.

I would agree that there is an aesthetic side to leadership.

There’s a dimension which we don’t always consider, and as was noted by

the member, I think it’s important that we discuss that a little bit

this morning. I think, too, about leadership in its purest form.

Leadership should motivate, and it should inspire.

I had the privilege of teaching university students for many

years. I had a business course, and I’d ask the students: “How many of

you work for a manager?” They all had part-time jobs. They all put their

hand up. I’d ask them: “How many of you work for a leader?” Nobody put

their hand up. They said: “Well, Simon, what’s the difference?” Well, a

manager implements, but a leader inspires. I think that’s a bit about

what we’ve been hearing this morning from the member

opposite.

[10:40 a.m.]

I go running in the mornings around here to get ready for my day,

and I run around these streets of Victoria. When I come past this

building, I realize that the leadership that inspired this building to

be constructed had a deep aesthetic sense. Look, even in this room here,

at the design, the beauty of the architecture.

Now, this building will come down at some point. It’s not

permanent. It will come down, like all buildings will eventually. But

for now, it’s something we enjoy, we savour. The leadership that got

this building up and designed, all the stained glass and the

architecture…. It’s worth remembering that somebody designed it so many

years ago.

I think we’re inspired by the beauty of this place. Artistic

expression is found everywhere we look, and even if you’re not that

interested in art, you are motivated by it. If you go to a movie that

inspires you — the values of it — it keeps you going for a few

weeks.

My mother was an artist, a painter. She did oil and watercolour.

She passed away since I was elected to the Legislature. I was always

inspired by her paintings. Many of them are up in our house. I have a

little bit of that artistic sense. I do cartooning, and I have submitted

24 cartoons to New Yorker magazine. They’ve all been rejected,

so I’ve decided now to switch to the New Yorker cartoon

contest. Every week I submit, and one day I’m going to make it. You’ll

hear about that in the Legislature. I’ll be making that

announcement.

Seriously, though, my daughter now has done art for two children’s

books. She was inspired by her grandmother.

In politics, we tend to look at the facts, the numbers and that

side of life. But what will be our legacy when we step aside and turn

over our seat to someone else? It probably will in part be the aesthetic

side of what we’ve done here.

We envisage a better world. We imagine it. I don’t know what I was

thinking when I first got elected 37 years ago to the Abbotsford

council. I didn’t imagine what would happen, and here I am, allowed to

serve the people of my community in the Legislature.

Herman Melville said this: “It’s better to fail in originality

than to succeed in imitation.” I believe each of us around this room has

a special sense of our purpose here. We represent our constituents,

whether it’s from the far north, as my colleague here, from the Cariboo,

from the Chilcotins. Wherever it is, we all bring that sense of

caring.

I’m thankful for this topic. It’s an interesting one. I wasn’t

quite sure what I was going to expect here, so I had to tailor my

message a little bit in reply. But a good topic. Thank you to the member

for Burnaby North for bringing it forward, and thank you, hon. Speaker,

for allowing me to speak to it.

J. Routledge: Thank you to the member opposite for his very thoughtful,

inspiring and motivational words about this topic.

I stated earlier that I thought politicians can and should

develop, should hone, our capacity to be creative. But how? Many of us

who have chosen the rational, practical path in life are pretty

self-conscious about being creative. We say things like: “Oh, I don’t

have an artistic bone in my body” or “I couldn’t carry a tune in a

bucket.”

Let me ask you this. When you were two years old, were you told to

give up trying to walk, because you just weren’t very good at it, or to

forget eating, because you had so much trouble finding your mouth with

your spoon, or to stop trying to have a conversation, because no one

could understand what you were saying? Of course not. Because doing

those things was considered essential life skills.

Somewhere along the line, many of us got the idea that we couldn’t

sing or couldn’t draw or couldn’t dance or couldn’t tell a story, and we

gave up trying because none of those things were considered

essential.

A few years ago I started painting. I guess it was a hobby, a

pastime. I wasn’t really very good at it. But the process of trying to

capture an image, the process of trying to communicate a moment that had

meaning to me and to do it in such a way that someone looking at my

painting could see that meaning…. Well, it changed my relationship with

the world around me. I started seeing details and connections I hadn’t

seen before.

I suspect everyone in this chamber has a hobby, a pastime, a way

they express their creativity. We call it recreation because it creates

us again and again.

[10:45 a.m.]

Almost 200 years ago, the poet Shelley declared that “poets are

the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Two hundred years later we

can put a rocket into space or blow up this planet, but we still haven’t

figured out how to end world poverty. Perhaps it’s time to reunite art

and science before it’s too late.

ADDRESSING FAMILY

PHYSICIAN

SHORTAGES

L. Throness: I rise in the House today to speak to a growing problem, and

that’s the shortage of family doctors in B.C. I was surprised last

October to find from the Minister of Health, during the estimates

process, that my city of Chilliwack has almost 25 percent, exactly

23,327 people, without a family doctor. The situation is worse in

Agassiz, in my riding, with 26 percent of my residents without a family

doctor.

Provincewide 23 percent of British Columbians don’t have access to

a family physician. I see this as a gathering crisis, and the crunch is

only going to get worse as physicians from the baby boom generation

begin to retire.

I wrote to Fraser Health about their plans to recruit doctors, and

they replied that they don’t do that. It’s the responsibility of the

local divisions of family practice. So I met with the division in

Chilliwack and found that Fraser Health provides no funding for

recruitment. We have local divisions of family practice scrambling to

find money to help attract doctors to our communities, and there’s no

provincial recruitment drive at all. I find that quite

astounding.

I also find it incredible that the Fraser Health Authority alone

has 27,000 employees. It’s a massive organization. Our health system has

an enormous cost — $20 billion a year. But there is a dire shortage of

the most basic level of care — that is, a family doctor to see your kid

when he’s sick.

There are other anomalies across the system. The district of Hope,

next door to Chilliwack, is well served by doctors. In fact, they’re

taking on patients there. Saltspring Island, with 11,000 people, enjoys

15 family doctors.

Why do these types of shortages and imbalances exist, and what can

the government do about it? Well, our health care system is known as a

command-and-control system, where we don’t depend on the forces of

supply and demand, as expressed through market pricing, to allocate

health resources.

Our system reminds me of the old Soviet Union, which would decide

at the beginning of the year how many shoes to produce, and at years’

end, there would be either too many shoes or too few. They would get it

wrong, by definition, because no one can predict the future.

By contrast, a modern market economy functions more efficiently,

because the forces of supply and demand operate on a moment-to-moment

basis, using market prices as signals for change.

I would point out that we don’t have a shortage of dentists in

Chilliwack, because it’s a private system, and the market takes care of

the allocation of labour. This explains why we have waiting lists in our

public-only health care system. When you can pay privately, you can get

your surgery done tomorrow, as in the States. When the public pays, you

have to wait for it. But the people of Canada and of B.C. have

consistently supported a public-only system.

Strangely enough, even though we have a command-and-control system

where we must actively manage every part of health care, we do not take

the same approach with doctors. We train them, and then we set them free

to make their own decisions.

Here I want to affirm our doctors. They’re great people. They’re

working very hard. I had a doctor phone me to tell me that he has 4,500

patients. He’s working 14 hours a day, and he’s burning out. Our doctors

are heroes, but they lack information about the big picture, so they

naturally act in their own best interests, just as we all do.

For example, doctors can work the hours they want, full- or

part-time. They can set up a practice wherever they want or move to or

from a community whenever they want. They can work in a hospital, in an

emergency room or some other clinical setting, or they can specialize,

at will. In short, they can choose not to be a family physician, and

obviously, it’s not the most popular choice.

The problem in the system is that we don’t give direction to

doctors. We do it with nurses, with lab techs, with 27,000 workers in

the Fraser Health Authority. We tell them: “You have to show up at this

hospital at this time and work this shift.” They don’t have a choice.

This is not a sign of disrespect to those employees. This respects the

needs of patients who are ill.

Almost everyone who is paid by the public purse, like myself, like

us in this House, must be in a certain place at a certain time to serve

the public.

The solution is either to introduce market forces into our health

care system or for the system to take steps to allocate physician

resources. I think British Columbians prefer the single-payer

system.

[10:50 a.m.]

Let me explain what the government could do within the confines of

our present system. First, the government can train more doctors, and it

ought to do that, but this is expensive.

I have another solution that wouldn’t cost the government a penny.

The government, or perhaps the College of Physicians and Surgeons, could

simply become more assertive in allocating physician resources and say

to a doctor, “Do you want to move out of Chilliwack? If you want to

practise in B.C., we’d like you to stay in Chilliwack for a couple of

more years,” or say: “We need you to be a family physician for a little

while longer before you become an ear, nose and throat specialist.” We

need to be able to say: “For the first three years after medical school,

we’re asking you to practise in a rural area of our choosing.” We should

be able to say: “We need full-time doctors, not part-time

ones.”

Now, it’s true that younger physicians don’t want the punishing

schedules that doctors kept in the past. I don’t blame them for that.

But I went over the latest blue book and found that roughly a third of

physicians bill less than the average, which means that for whatever

reason, many are working part-time. That’s one contributing factor to a

million people in B.C. without a family doctor. So I’m encouraging the

government or the college to exert a measure of control over the

situation and allocate physician supply. The placement of reasonable,

fairly minor restrictions on doctors would not need to affect current

doctors but future ones.

We would let all med school candidates know that in the future,

there will be parameters around their practice so that the needs of the

community will come before their own, and they would agree to these

parameters as a condition of entering med school. For sure, some

candidates would drop out and say: “I don’t want to be a doctor, then.”

But the competition to get into med school is so fierce that there would

be plenty of others who would be happy to practise under reasonable

guidelines laid out by our system.

We have to answer this basic question: “What comes first — the

health needs of the people of B.C. or the free agency of doctors?” We in

this place are bound to the public interest. The needs of the people of

B.C. must come first. I call upon the government to bring before this

House policy or legislation that will ensure a sufficient, rational and

more equitable distribution of family doctors across every area of this

province and into the future.

I want to close by thanking doctors, by affirming their hard work

and dedication and by appealing to their understanding in this most

important matter.

J. Rice: The previous government’s focus was on GPs. Our view is to turn to

team-based care, where health professionals work together to get

patients the support they need. This includes nurses, nurse

practitioners, pharmacists and other health care providers working in

concert to help people. Our focus is to institute team-based care and to

create urgent care centres.

Urgent care centres would allow people to be treated by nurses. We

would be able to pay and incentivize the whole team, including nurse

practitioners, not just doctors. Nurse practitioners are so

underappreciated, yet they have a high level of training and a broad

scope of practice. They would provide better primary care so as to keep

people out of crowded emergency rooms.

Less than one-third of doctors report having arrangements for

patients after hours. It’s no wonder that in places like Surrey and

Chilliwack or places in rural B.C., even those with a family doctor

don’t have access to care. It tends to push people to the ER because

there is no appropriate service after hours or on weekends. So we are

proposing and working on establishing urgent care centres that will work

with the divisions of family practice to improve access to care,

especially after hours.

For a long time, the previous government failed to reform primary

care. They focused on incentivizing doctors with a fee-for-service

system. Other provinces have changed the structure and organization of

primary care, moving towards team-based models of care and away from

fee-for-service compensation for doctors. Other countries have also

implemented incentive payments for doctors, but unlike B.C., these

models were tied to reporting improved patient outcomes.

The costly incentive implemented under the previous government was

a $315 annual payment made to doctors, on top of regular patient visits,

for providing ongoing care for complex patients, those that have

multiple chronic illnesses. British Columbia now spends more than $50

million a year on this single incentive and another $100 million on

similar extra payments for obstetrics, mental health or management of

individual chronic diseases.

The incentive payments for doctors failed to achieve the stated

goal of improving primary care for patients. For a long time, the

previous government failed to reform primary care. Other jurisdictions

are far ahead, and we have a lot of catching up to do, but we’re going

to leverage on their experiences.

[10:55 a.m.]

The GP for Me program failed, where it was promised in the 2013

election. It was said that by 2015, everyone would have an attachment to

a family doctor or nurse practitioner. But today, still, one in six

British Columbians don’t have access to a family doctor. It’s a

significant problem. But the only way to start resolving these problems

is to start one step at a time, and that’s exactly what we are

doing.

L. Throness: I’d like to thank the member for North Coast for her response. Her

idea of delivering service, like an urgent care centre, is a nice thing.

It may result in better-quality health care. It might result in more

convenience for patients or reduced emergency room visits. All that is

good. But team-based care is virtually irrelevant to doctor supply. It

won’t solve the problem I’ve described. Like so many other so-called

health care reforms over the years, like the internal markets of the

1990s, little will really change.

I fear that the government is using the idea of team-based care to

tinker with fee-for-service payments, and I would oppose that. We need

to give the incentive to physicians to see many patients, and fixed

salaries for doctors would remove that incentive and actually worsen the

shortage, so that’s very important.

We have a human resource allocation problem on our hands, and we

have the capacity to solve it. Right now we have a command-and-control

health system in general but a free-market system for doctors alone. The

two systems do not mesh. They’re not working well together.

If we want to retain a single-payer system in which the government

pays all the bills, we must harmonize the allocation of physician labour

with all the other kinds of labour we have in our health authorities.

This idea might not be welcomed by the physician community at first. But

I would repeat, first, that restrictions would be reasonable, and

second, they would not apply to current doctors, only future

ones.

The government tried to do this years ago by restricting billing

numbers, but this was struck down by the courts. Given the worsening

situation today, that kind of restriction may well be seen as reasonable

by the courts today.

Again, I call on upon the government, or the College of Physicians

and Surgeons, to become more proactive in the allocation of physician

human resources, in the interest of the one million British Columbians

without a family doctor. At the very least, requests could be sent now

to physicians asking them to take on more patients or fewer patients, to

stay longer in one place or move to another, to specialize now or hold

off on specializing for a while — in the hope that moral suasion alone

could change behaviour.

To close, I would once again appeal to physicians to recognize

that there would be broad public benefit and, therefore, broad public

support for a body with an overview of the entire province to become

more assertive with respect to the allocation of physician resources.

This is an urgent matter of the public interest.

Hon. S. Robinson: I call Motion 1.

Deputy Speaker: On Motion 1, we don’t need leave of the House because it’s No. 1.

So I’ll ask Surrey-Guildford to proceed.

Private Members’ Motions

MOTION 1 — AFFORDABLE

POST-SECONDARY

EDUCATION

G. Begg:

[Be it resolved that this House recognize the importance of

affordable post-secondary education that ensures success in a rapidly

growing modern economy.]

It is my great pleasure to rise today to speak about the

importance of recognizing the importance of affordable post-secondary

education that will ensure our success in the rapidly growing modern

economy.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

In order for us to debate this essential issue, it’s important

that we set the proper stage for discussion. Put yourself back in time —

say, 20 years ago. Could you have predicted the success of the web,

tablets and smartphones, privatized space travel, the rise of terrorism

or any of the other large and small changes that have an impact on us

today and how we all live?

Could you imagine that a leader of a small, hermit nation could

boast of his country’s ability to reach the continental United States

with a nuclear-armed missile — and to know that such technology exists?

We are fully in the midst of a technological and educational revolution

that has transformed and will continue to transform our world and all of

its inhabitants.

[11:00 a.m.]

It’s absolutely imperative that we, all of us, come to grip with

the realities that we face in this province and equip all British

Columbians with the important tools of affordable post-secondary

education that ensures their success in our exciting and rapidly growing

economy here and all around the world.

“A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey

player plays where the puck is going to be.” These words were attributed

to the hockey great Wayne Gretzky. I think it is an apt analogy for

where I hope all of us want to position ourselves as we seek to prepare

this province by ensuring our post-secondary educational institutions

groom our students for success.

What kind of future are we facing today? The United States is

still the world’s largest economy, but China is rapidly closing the gap.

The economic growth in China has slowed from double digits to around 7

percent annually. But it’s now so large that it will continue to affect

the world economy much greater than it ever did in the past.

Given the global interconnected challenges of sustainable

development, peaceful and inclusive society-building and climate change

mitigation and adaptation, it’s essential to prioritize knowledge and

skills that are linked to 21st-century livelihoods, conflict resolution

and sustainable development. These skills include critical thinking,

problem-solving and relevant content knowledge like environmental and

climate change education, disaster risk reduction and preparedness,

sustainable consumption and lifestyles, and green technical and

vocational education and training.

We all agree, I hope, that education is the most effective means

that society possesses for confronting the challenges of the future. In

fact, I believe it can be argued that education will shape the world of

tomorrow.

Charles Darwin is often quoted as the author of the famous phrase

about the survival of the fittest that suggests that it is only the

strongest that survive. That’s something that Charles Darwin did not

say. In fact, he said: “It is not the strongest of the species that

survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is

most adaptable to change.”

There should be no doubt that we are now, and for all of the

future will be, in a constant state of change. Indeed, it has been

widely said that the only constant is change. We live in a world that is

changing at a rate that is much greater than at any time in our history.

If we are to be prepared for our inevitable future, our post-secondary

educations must open the doors and provide the tools to prepare us for

that future.

Progress has and will increasingly depend upon the products of

educated minds — upon research, invention, innovation and adaptation. Of

course, educated minds and instincts apply not only in our laboratories

and research institutes but in every walk of life. I hope that this

House now recognizes the importance of affordable post-secondary

education that ensures success in a rapidly growing economy.

S. Cadieux: Thank you to the member for Surrey-Guildford for his commentary. I

think we would all agree that the world is in a constant state of change

and that, certainly, one of the things we can count on is that change —

and, of course, taxes.

The member has raised this issue of the need for and the

importance of affordable post-secondary education in a rapidly growing

modern economy. I wonder why the word “affordable” was there.

[11:05 a.m.]

The member didn’t talk at all about the cost of post-secondary

education or the cost of providing that wonderful and rapidly changing

education for the world as it grows and changes and as technology

becomes more and more a part of our lives. As that technology changes at

such a rapid pace, ever-increasing, the cost for the education system of

providing and keeping up with that change is also ever-increasing. That

means, of course, that that cost falls to someone, be it the students or

the system. When it falls to the system, of course, that means it falls

to taxpayers.

I will certainly agree with the member that post-secondary

education is ever so important, ever more important in our economy

today. As a member earlier spoke about the challenges in our society

today of growing income inequality and of poverty, the reality is that a

good job is still the best way out of poverty. And to get a good job,

one needs a good education. That is ever more true today with technology

jobs now outpacing those of labour, with the days of family-supporting

jobs on the green chain gone and more and more service jobs at

low-paying wages replacing those.

We are challenged for individuals without skills and without

higher education to be able to support their families. So I think the

importance of post-secondary education can’t be understated for both our

students and our future as a province. By 2025, almost eight in ten job

openings will require post-secondary education.

Post-secondary education ensures that students and young people

today and older people who may be retraining are equipped for those jobs

of the future and to take advantage of those opportunities. People who

are trained contribute to a skilled labour force, and their hard work

will help to ensure that our economy remains strong and

growing.

I think everyone knows that numerous studies have shown that

British Columbians with an undergraduate degree will earn more in their

lifetime — between $800,000 and $1 million more — meaning that that

investment in one’s education is highly valuable and highly profitable.

Students are recognizing it. There are now more than 200,000 full-time

students in this province, more than 50,000 more than in 2001. That’s

all the more reason that British Columbia and the government need to

continue to invest in our post-secondary system.

I’m proud that our government invested more than $3.3 billion in

capital projects over our time in government and had committed to

another billion in the three years going forward. I’m sure this

government will be continuing to invest in that because those

investments in capital and infrastructure are also required for that

post-secondary system to exist. We were investing in innovation with the

open textbook program, which helped nearly 34,000 students save almost

$3.9 million in the last five years alone. These kinds of advances are

things that I would hope will continue under this government.

While we talk a lot about the cost of post-secondary education,

it’s important to get the facts on the record as well. On average, B.C.

students pay about a third of the real cost of their education, and the

taxpayers pay the rest. In 2016-17, British Columbia students paid the

fourth lowest undergraduate tuition fees in all of Canada. In Budget

2017, last February, our government had committed to reducing the

interest rate on student loans by 2.5 percent, a promise I’m glad the

government today continued to follow through with. The value of

post-secondary education can’t be understated.

M. Elmore: I’m very pleased to speak to the motion moved by the member for

Surrey-Guildford: “Be it resolved that this House recognize the

importance of affordable post-secondary education that ensures success

in a rapidly growing modern economy.”

[11:10 a.m.]

Like my colleagues before, talking about the increased need for

folks to have some type of post-secondary education training, be it

continuing adult education, skilled trade apprenticeships, college

diploma or a university degree…. It’s anticipated that in the next ten

years, 78 percent of job openings will require this type of

education.

Where are we now in British Columbia? We had a report from the

Conference Board of Canada that determined that the skills gap in

British Columbia, to the current date, has cost our economy $7.9 billion

and has cost our government $600 million in tax revenue annually. That’s

a gap in terms of the ability to have skilled workers to meet the needs

in our province. We know that the B.C. Tech Association has said that

there are 30,000 tech jobs that can’t be filled with B.C. workers

because we aren’t training enough here at home. That’s where we are

now.

I think we have to appreciate where we’ve come from, how we got to

this point. It’s characterized by the priorities of the previous Liberal

government over 16 years. They made the priorities to have subsidies to

the top 2 percent in tax cuts to millionaires and to increase fees —

record high tuition and record high student debt for our

students.

What’s the reality? We know that tuition fees doubled since 2001.

Tuition fees have not only doubled, but if you go to post-graduate — so

either your master’s or to pursue your PhD — that has tripled. That’s

the reality for students in B.C. As well, there are new tuition fees for

apprenticeships and adults who want to complete their high school

education.

In 2002, grants were eliminated for first-year students. In 2004,

the grant program was eliminated entirely. The B.C. loan reduction

program for high-needs students was discontinued in 2008. And we know

that the average student debt is the highest in Canada. That’s the

in our education system under the previous decisions by the B.C. Liberal

government over 16 years.

In addition to that, we know that besides record high tuition fees

and the record high student debt, B.C. had the highest student loan

interest rate in Canada — prime plus 2.5 percent. The former Minister of

Advanced Education, now the Leader of the Official Opposition, actually

directed universities to increase mandatory fees on students, in

addition, to get around the 2 percent tuition cap. This was really the

record in terms of how students in our province saw increasing fees — to

pay to go into record debt — and also in terms of making it more

difficult for students to get the skills that they need. That’s the

reality.

Our government has made it a priority to address affordability for

British Columbians. What have we done? We have reduced the student

interest rate, reduced the 2.5 percent, and we are moving towards

reducing interest on student loans.

We have eliminated fees for folks who want to complete their adult

really atrocious. As well, we are looking at supporting students and

increasing the number of tech seats at B.C. colleges and universities,

waiving tuition for former youth in care — right? — in terms of ensuring

that they have opportunities.

We are taking steps, as well, to invest in British Columbians, to

address affordability, to ensure British Columbians have opportunities

and that they can afford to upgrade their skills to be successful. We’re

investing in people, ensuring that public education is affordable so

that folks have opportunities. Not only do they benefit, but that is the

way forward.

That’s the priority of our government. We have heard that loud and

clear. We are taking a different direction. We are investing in folks.

We’re investing in services to ensure that individuals have

opportunities here in British Columbia for affordable education to

strengthen our economy.

M. Morris: Just listening to the previous member speaking, a lot of the

things that she announced were announced under the government that we

had before the election. It’s a continuation of a lot of the good things

that we were doing.

[11:15 a.m.]

Something the member omitted to talk about was the $1,000 grant

that they had promised during the election campaign to give every

university graduate — a $1,000 grant. If you look at the roughly 62,000

graduates that graduate every year, that would have cost the province

approximately $250 million over four years — a pretty significant amount

of money that they omitted, unless we’re going to hear some news coming

up in their budget speech. It’s, again, another campaign promise that

they omitted to follow through on.

The original motion was talking about looking forward into the

future and the advanced education opportunities that are coming at us.

This whole entire world is…. The technology sector is really pushing

forward, moving forward in leaps and bounds.

When I look around my district — and I look at the resource sector

as an example — and the impact that advanced education has had on the

resource sector….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

M. Morris: You go to Mount Milligan, which is one of the newest mines that

opened up under the previous government, a copper mine in the interior

of the province up near my riding. To walk into the control room of that

particular mine is just a mass of large screens. The technicians that

sit at those controls can monitor everything right down to the

temperature of individual bearings on a shaft somewhere in the complex.

It’s just amazing that they can look at those kinds of things and

rectify any problems before they surface into something

major.

The sawmills that we have in the riding and across the province

here…. British Columbia leads the way in the world with technology

around the sawmilling part of it. Years ago we would have a sawmill that

would — for lack of a better term, we’ll say — put out 100,000 board

feet with about 30 to 40 people working on the floor looking after all

the different aspects of the operations.

Today we have a mill that doubles that output and that employs

probably in the neighbourhood of six or seven people on the floor at any

given time because of the computer technology that’s involved in running

that organization and the automated systems and the technology that they

have running that.

We have a trucking company in Prince George that was experiencing

a significant number of injuries from their truck drivers, who would

have to crawl up the side of a chip truck and cover the load with tarps.

They had articulating points with B-train vehicles — so two articulating

points on it — and they were having extreme difficulty, particularly in

the wintertime on icy roads. So this company sat down and had a look at

it and developed a truck with a single articulating point and a system

that didn’t require the drivers to crawl up on that and tarp the loads

down. But that all started with engineers and engineering

technologists.

We’ve just had a number of those seats granted in Prince George.

It was kind of interesting, the value that the current government puts

on this. Nobody from government showed up at the announcement from UNBC

and CNC when they announced roughly 100 seats for civil engineering and

an increase in the number of environmental engineering seats and

technology seats at CNC. This is a significant thing for Prince George

and for the Interior — training people in the north, for the north, to

keep them in the north.

We learned that through the northern medical program, which the

B.C. Liberals had initiated back in the early 2000s. We’ve trained a

number of doctors now, and I recognize many of them that grew up in

Prince George, went to high school in Prince George, started university

in Prince George and went through the northern medical program and are

now practising family medicine in the Prince George region.

If we can do the same thing with technologists, with engineers,

with physiotherapists — to try and attract more physiotherapists and

speech therapists, occupational therapists — for the north and for the

interior of British Columbia, then that’s when we see advanced education

working, which will benefit all the citizens of British Columbia, not

just a few that are down in the more populated areas.

An advanced education system…. We have a number of advanced

education facilities throughout British Columbia that are underutilized,

and I think it’s time, perhaps, that they were all looked at.

L. Krog: I am entirely indebted to the member for Prince George–Mackenzie

for pointing out the difference between this government and that

government. He’s still showing up for the photo ops, which he would have

done previously, for the good work that’s being done by this government

in its announcements in Prince George.

[11:20 a.m.]

I just want to thank him for fulfilling a role that they fulfilled

for 16 years of photo ops, while this government, in six months,

actually does the heavy lifting. We are proud of that record, achieved

so quickly, early in the mandate.

Earlier we heard the member for Surrey South. I’m always

appreciative of what she has to say. She talked about the cost of

post-secondary education. The cost….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members.

L. Krog: Well, we get it that education is expensive. But surely she and

other members opposite would have seen that wonderful BCTF bumper

sticker for years that said: “If you think education is expensive, try

ignorance.”

How is Canada going to compete in the global economy if we are

fighting over who pays for the education of its citizens — the

technologist that the member for Prince George–Mackenzie talked about,

the people who give us the economic advantage to fight in a globally

competitive world? It’s up to the community as a whole.

We have always recognized, on this side of the House, that we do

collectively what we cannot do individually. And when we do it

collectively and we do it well, we build a better, more prosperous and

more equitable society. That’s what people on this side of the House

want to do, and that is why we are standing up for this motion today to

recognize the importance of not just post-secondary education but

affordable post-secondary education. We understand that the success of

our economy in a global world is going to be entirely dependent upon our

skill sets.

To rely continuously on the extraction of resources is a dead end,

eventually. If any of the members opposite have read the history of this

province, there are communities where 5,000 and 10,000 people once

lived, where there were opera houses and theatres, communities that have

disappeared entirely because the mine petered out or the forest got

logged away or the fish don’t swim there anymore and get caught and

processed.

If we are to build a successful economy, it will be based on our

education system. It’s why this government is pursuing, so hard,

increases in post-secondary education in order to ensure that our young

people have a future.

Star Wars is all in the news again. Another episode in

the big theatre. Let me talk for a moment about a distant galaxy far,

far away, in a time a long time ago when young people like the member

for Nanaimo, speaking now in this Legislature, knew that the only way up

and out of a small community was post-secondary education, when he had

access to good, union-paying jobs to pay for tuition, when he had access

to post-secondary education that was cheap — tuition was cheap relative

to the cost of everything else — and when opportunities abounded in this

province.

I would have thought the members would remember their political

ancestry. It was under the Socreds, for heaven’s sake. They believed in

high union wages. They believed in unions and construction agreements

for major projects. They believed in low tuition, because Wacky Bennett

saw the future. Dave Barrett saw the future. But it seems they have lost

their way. They over there now have lost their way. This morning,

they’re complaining about the cost of post-secondary

education.

We are on the side of history. We want to move forward. We don’t

want to be living in the past. We want to be there for the future. As

the member for Surrey-Guildford so eloquently put it, quoting Wayne

Gretzky, we want to go where the puck’s going to be. We know the puck

isn’t going to be where it is today. That puck is moving faster and

faster than it has throughout history. We know the rate of technological

change is incredible. You only have to read a few of the modern authors

to understand that.

I say with great pride — with a government that managed, after its

term in 2013, according to the BMO survey, to end up with student debt

per capita in British Columbia at $8,600, a third higher than the

Canadian average and $4,200 higher than second place Atlantic Canada —

we want to be on the right side of this argument.

We want to be on the side of students and the future, our children

and our grandchildren. We have everything to be proud of. Let them sit

for a few more years in opposition till they can understand what the

simple old BCTF bumper sticker said. As I quoted earlier: “If you think

education is expensive, try ignorance.” We on this side of the House

will go for education any day.

G. Kyllo: It’s truly an honour to rise and speak to today’s motion. I think

that all members present can agree that the value of having an

accessible, high-quality education cannot be understated.

[11:25 a.m.]

A good teacher can open your mind to new ways of thinking, teach

new skills and provide opportunities, which is why it’s important that

we are actively attracting and keeping talented professors while

simultaneously making sure that students who choose to pursue

post-secondary education are able to do so without excessive financial

hardship.

They say that the most sincere form of flattery is imitation, as

we’ve seen with the members opposite — with the reduction of the

interest rate on student loans by 2½ percent and the additional

engineering seats. Those were all part of the B.C. Liberal platform, so

it’s good to see that the NDP is actually following through with some of

the initiatives that we had undertaken.

When it comes to the use of public tax dollars, I believe that

government should be using funds to promote and create institutions that

train the next generation for the demands of tomorrow. Members on this

side of the House have created a legacy of investing in forward-thinking

post-secondary programs and institutions.

Under the watch of the B.C. Liberals, we made record contributions

to post-secondary institutions, which were used to help create

institutions like TRU, UBCO and three new medical schools. Between 2001

and 2017, 32,000 new seats, including 2,500 graduate student spaces,

were added to institutions throughout the province to improve access to

college and university programs.

Let’s not forget the Industry Training Authority. Not all of the

education is in colleges and universities. We have a lot of education in

the trades training and apprenticeship programs. They actually provide

great educational opportunities for young British Columbians, and older

British Columbians, that are looking to take their place and earn their

Red Seal certification for trades.

Now, in spite of the new direction, B.C. has some of the

highest-performing post-secondary institutions in the world. These

institutions deliver world-class instruction while keeping tuition fees

lower than in most other provinces in Canada.

I know that some are of the mind or the habit of taking things a

step further and insisting that post-secondary education become a

completely free service. However, many fail to realize that students in

B.C. are already only paying one-third of the actual cost, with

two-thirds of the cost being borne by taxpayers.

When we have a look at the opportunities for students to

participate in post-secondary education, we also have to focus on the

career or trades training that actually happens in high

school.

I know for myself…. I’ve got four daughters. Actually, when two of

my daughters went to post-secondary, they spent the first year trying to

figure out what they wanted to do. If we have a look at a way to maybe

provide some more robust career counselling, we can provide an

opportunity for students to have a better understanding of what trade or

what career they want to pursue and reduce the amount of time that

they’re spending in post-secondary. That alone would save a significant

amount of dollars.

What we do know is that under a tuition-free program, problems can

arise when students choose to drop classes that have already been paid

for by tax dollars. That money is then lost when classes are dropped

and, obviously, cannot be recovered, leaving British Columbians with the

full bill and, again, wasted tax dollars being spent.

Now, in our current system, schools are able to control their

tuition rates and redirect enrolment dollars back into programs. This,

in turn, raises the profile of certain programs, attracts better talent

and allows universities to retain valuable professors.

I wholeheartedly believe in the importance of maintaining an

affordable, flexible post-secondary education system. However, we must

be prudent when it comes to making widespread systematic

changes.

R. Singh: It is my pleasure today to speak in favour of this

motion.

The community that I come from, Surrey, as we all know, is the

fastest-growing community in B.C. Every year we get so many newcomers.

In fact, every month we get so many newcomers coming to this community.

The reason they are coming — the reason they make Surrey or B.C. their

home — is that they want a better life not just for themselves but a

better life for their children.

They come here. They work so hard. We have seen, in recent years,

how difficult life has become for the average working family. Most of

the constituents in my riding are working two or three jobs. I’ve heard

from so many of them that even after working two or three jobs, it has

become so difficult for them to have a decent living.

[11:30 a.m.]

One dream that they have is that they want to send their kids to

post-secondary education. Many of these families are struggling. They

were looking upon this beautiful British Columbia, and then they were

looking at the government to do something for them. But we know what, in

the last 16 years, the government has done. They were just working for

the 2 percent most wealthy people in this province, while they were

ignoring the average working families.

As my colleagues have already mentioned, tuitions have doubled in

the last 16 years. The spaces have been reduced, and I can say this for

Surrey, like most of the students and youth living in Surrey. They have

to go outside Surrey to get post-secondary education. They are spending

so much money in post-secondary education. The tuition has doubled, and

tripled in some instances. But they have to go out, and all that money

that they are spending, getting out of their communities and going out

for the post-secondary education, is a double burden on the

families.

As a mother myself, I had my first experience of what these

families are facing. My son just started post-secondary education. I

would say that I’m still one of those fortunate people. We are a

two-income family. I thought that I would be able to afford it, but it

came as a big surprise to me how much money it cost to send a child to

post-secondary education. Just one semester is costing more than $6,000

or $7,000, and this is just the tuition fees I’m talking about. It is

not the residence or the lodging or anything; it is just the tuition

fees.

I think about the families that are struggling — single mothers

and newcomers to this country — how they are struggling every day and

what a big challenge for them it is to make this dream of sending their

kids to get a proper education so that they can get good jobs, how

difficult it is for those families.

I’m really happy that our government is working for these

families. Our government knows what the real issues are. They are

investing in the programs that will help not just families but these

youth to get the proper education and be successful in the future. I’m

really proud that this government is making getting an education more

affordable by reducing and eventually eliminating interest on student

loans. We have also eliminated fees for adult basic education and ESL

courses and have waived tuition for former children in care. We are also

improving services by investing in 2,900 additional tech

spaces.

This government realizes what the future jobs are going to be in

what sector. That’s why we are putting the resources…. We are putting in

more tech spaces. I’m very happy that more than 500 of these tech spaces

are in Surrey colleges and universities. We are also creating good jobs

in the tech sector by partnering with the private sector and other

levels of government to create good programs.

J. Thornthwaite: It’s an honour to rise today and speak to the motion. I think all

of this House agrees that an affordable post-secondary education is

integral to ensuring success in today’s economy.

A post-secondary education offers a return on investment, whether

it is a diploma, trade or degree. British Columbians with an

undergraduate post-secondary degree can expect to earn an additional

$827,000 over their lifetime. But I think a component that is missing is

quality education. That is really unfortunate, because British Columbia

has some of the finest post-secondary institutions in Canada and the

world.

During our tenure in government, B.C. universities rose to the top

of the Maclean’s university rankings, most recently in 2017,

with first place in two categories. UBC is ranked third in the medical

doctoral category, SFU is ranked first, and UVic is ranked third in the

comprehensive category. UNBC is ranked first in the primarily

undergraduate category.

Under our government, we oversaw the creation of three medical

schools that didn’t exist previously. TRU and UBC Okanagan were created

under our government.

[11:35 a.m.]

We made record investments in post-secondary education. From the

Alberta border to the west coast of Vancouver Island, we have

universities that are building and growing the ranks of the highly

educated workforce of tomorrow. This is why, when we were in government,

we focused on helping our post-secondary institutions be the best that

they could be. We kept tuition the fourth lowest in Canada — $839 less

than the Canadian average. Tuition in B.C. is lower than in Alberta,

Ontario, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New

Brunswick.

I know that the members opposite support our record on

post-secondary, since the only Advanced Education announcements in the

throne speech were from the B.C. Liberal budget in February. The new

engineering seats at TRU and UNBC, the cutting of student loans by 2.5

percent — all reannouncements from our budget. While keeping tuition

among the lowest in Canada, we also made sure that students had the best

institutions possible in which to learn.

I would like to pay tribute to one of those institutions in my

community, as they reach a milestone — Capilano University. Capilano

University is named after Chief Joe Capilano, an important leader of the

Squamish Nation of the Coast Salish people, and 2018 is Capilano

University’s 50th anniversary. For half a century, the university has

maintained an international reputation for providing the highest-quality

education.

Today over 8,000 students attend Capilano University. There are

over 1,000 international students and nearly 400 Aboriginal students.

They have 99 programs, which include 12 bachelor degrees, 28 diplomas

and eight post-graduate credentials, although they award bachelor

degrees, associate degrees, post-bachelor degrees, advanced diplomas,

certificates, and statements of completion. A recent survey by the

provincial government found that 93 percent of Cap U graduates were

satisfied with their education, which is provided by over 900 faculty

and support staff.

Capilano offered its first bachelor degree, a collaborative degree

in music therapy, with the B.C. Open University in 1990. A second music

degree, in jazz studies, was offered in 1992, and a business

administration degree was offered in 1993. Capilano has grown, expanded

and become one of our province’s largest post-secondary institutions.

North Vancouver is proud of our university, and anyone from Cap U can be

proud of their time there. My son and my daughter would also

agree.

One final point. In the wake of the world that is being rocked by

the Me Too movement, it is especially important to point this out. It

has always been a priority for me. I think that students should also

have access to a safe education.

That is why, in cooperation with the leader of the Green Party, we

introduced the Sexual Violence and Misconduct Policy Act in 2016. The

act requires public post-secondary institutions to have policies that

address sexual misconduct and set out procedures on complaint reporting

and institutional response. Thanks to our cooperative action,

institutions now have a legal responsibility to develop and maintain

policies that would address sexual violence involving students enrolled

at university, because nobody should be afraid while they’re at

school.

R. Kahlon: Again, I’ll start off by just reading out the motion.

“Be it resolved that this House recognize the importance of

affordable post-secondary education that ensures success in a rapidly

growing modern economy.” I think that no one would disagree with that,

in notion. I think what we disagree on is what’s happened and where

things should be going.

I was listening to the Leader of the Official Opposition’s speech

the other day, his response to the throne speech. One of the things that

stuck out…. I went and found this quote. He said: “We only need to think

about that 20-year-old student out there who’s wondering about their

future. I have three of them living in my house. They wonder where

they’re going in life…. They have that sense of opportunity. They’ll get

the skills and the training they need, work hard and be successful…in

British Columbia.”

It jumped out at me. I started reflecting on that and thinking to

myself: “Well, he’s the Leader of the Official Opposition. He’s

privileged to be in this building. He lives in the wealthiest

neighbourhood in this province. His home is worth probably the most from

everyone in this House, so his kids feel that they’re going to get that

opportunity.” It helps when your parents are well off and you’re going

to get those opportunities.

[11:40 a.m.]

My son, who is seven years old…. When he goes to university, he’ll

have certain privileges. He’ll have some confidence that he’s got those

supports that he needs to go to university. I’m hopeful, as are most

people in this Legislature. I’m glad they feel that way, because his

children and my children will have some certain privileges. That’s not

the reality for so many people in this province.

Debts. Most people that are coming out of university are not

actually having those feelings that things are going to be great. I have

so many friends and I coach so many young people who don’t have that

sense of hope. They’re coming out of university, and they’re seeing

record levels of debt. They’re seeing a housing crunch where they’re

looking at the housing market and saying: “How will I ever own a home?

How will I ever get a job that pays me enough to not only have a family

but also pay off my debts?”

This is what most people who are coming out of the university

system or the post-secondary education system are thinking. So I reflect

on the conversation here, and I think to myself: “Is that what we want

in our society — a society where people who have privilege and who have

money have access to post-secondary education and whose children can

have those advances in life and those who don’t have that, those who

don’t have parents and don’t have wealth, just don’t see hope in our

society?”

I don’t think that anyone in this chamber wants that. But this is

what we have, so we need to start taking action to address that. B.C.

students’ debt is one of the highest in the entire country. Some might

dispute the BMO study that was done — the survey that was done across

the country. Some might say: “Well, you know what? It didn’t capture the

data appropriately.”

I know the opposition may have their own data to throw out there,

but the reality was that the B.C. stats that we’ve been using only

capture the B.C. debt. It doesn’t capture the 40 percent, the federal

debt. That’s just debt that people are facing. We can say: “This is our

problem, and that’s their problem.” But that’s not the reality for

people.

The tuition has doubled. Within the first four years of the B.C.

Liberals taking on the reins of this province, they doubled the tuition.

After that, they said: “Oh, well, you know what? We’re going to put a 2

percent raise now. We’re only going to let it go up 2 percent, but

colleges and universities should increase fees.”

It’s nice to have that 2 percent, to show that we’re not going to

increase the rates and that we’re holding that line for people. But when

you tell them, “Go ahead and raise the rates,” what does that do? We’ve

got schools that are charging $800, $1,000, $1,200 in fees, essentially

to cover up for the lack of funds that universities don’t have because

the student rates are not going up.

Anyways, I can go on for days about the challenges. But where do

we go from here is, I guess, the question. I’m grateful that the

Minister of Advanced Education announced that we will be dropping the

interest rate to prime and eliminating 2.5 percent. I heard the folks in

the opposition say: “Oh, guess what. We were going to do that.” I heard

the same thing about MSP. We lowered it by 50 percent and said: “Oh,

we’re going to do that, too.” Well, guess what.

Interjections.

R. Kahlon: No, no. I’ll say it to the member opposite, who says: “Yeah, we

were going to do all these things.”

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member.

R. Kahlon: Actions. Actions, not words.

M. Stilwell: Thank you to the member opposite for his enlightening data that

obviously doesn’t correspond with the data that I have in front of me.

So we can have a little bit of a discussion there.

I would like to, of course, thank the member for Surrey-Guildford

this morning for even bringing forward the motion. Of the importance of

post-secondary education in a modern economy, I think there’s no doubt,

and I think everyone in this House agrees that, you know, there is

importance there, and that young people who are about to enter that job

market for the first time recognize their right to education and the

importance of it and the major difference that it will make in the rest

of their lives.

In fact, this morning, when I was driving my son to school, he was

talking about his future. He’s in grade 11, and he’s really excited to

be planning for grade 12 and graduation and what it looks like for him.

We talked about going to VIU right in our own community and being able

to go to school right in our home community.

I think one of the hallmarks of the previous B.C. Liberal

government was the expansion of post-secondary institutions beyond the

south Island and the Lower Mainland and making sure that we could best

prepare people for that modern economy if the students have education

opportunities in their own communities.

[11:45 a.m.]

For many, that means that they forgo the expense of relocating to

a place far away from home and that they risk losing many of the

supports that are necessary for them to be successful in that learning

environment. That involved us creating 32,000 new student seats and

seven new university campuses since 2001. It involved the transformation

of many community colleges to degree-granting institutions.

Vancouver Island University is one of those examples. It’s one of

the best examples. Formerly known as Malaspina College, it originally

had campuses in Nanaimo, Duncan and Powell River. Now it has a campus in

Parksville-Qualicum, and in 2008, it changed to become Vancouver Island

University, offering unique, core programs for people right at home in

our community.

The motto of VIU is: “Enjoy the journey. Love where you learn.” I

think it’s rather appropriate because VIU offers academic programs that

work in concert with our local economy.

We actually just started…. They actually have a strong focus with

First Nations as well, and I think it’s incredible what the president,

Ralph Nilson, has done there to engage the Aboriginal community. It

includes a highly specialized program, such as the Aboriginal shellfish

aquaculture program, designed to specifically meet the needs of

Aboriginal communities.

One of the core values of VIU is to build those relationships with

VIU. Through its community promotion for Aboriginal communities, their

students learn culturally relevant skills that allow them to work with

and support specific health care needs within their own Indigenous

communities. I can’t speak enough about how much VIU has done to build

the valuable experience for the students inside and outside the

classroom.

I think I just want to spend a few minutes to go over some of the

facts I didn’t agree with that the other member said.

According to the OECD, education is completely free in Germany,

but only 30 percent get degrees, versus in the U.S. where, arguably,

costs are higher and more expensive for students to get a degree, where

45 percent of students between 25 and 34 actually get their

post-secondary education.

If you look at places like Sweden, where university is absolutely

free — yup, totally free; I see you nodding your head over there —

students actually still end up with a lot more debt than the average. In

fact, according to the most recent B.C. student outcome survey, less

than one-third of graduates in the public post-secondary sector made use

of government student loans.

In fact, did you know that 70 percent of students do not actually

go into debt? Hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, bursaries and

scholarships go unaccounted for every year because people aren’t even

applying for those opportunities. There are lots of opportunities in

B.C. We promote post-secondary education. We know the value of it, and

we will continue to grow it as best we can.

R. Leonard: I’d like to thank the member for Surrey-Guildford for bringing

forward this resolution. It’s an opportunity to speak about opening

doors and new opportunities in British Columbia.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Like members previous, I’d also like to talk about where we’ve

come from. I have personal experience, because my kids were in

post-secondary between 2001 and 2013. My first-born’s tuition

astoundingly doubled in the time that she attended her undergrad, and by

the time she enrolled in her master’s program, grad tuition had risen by

184 percent.

The loss of any grants for low-income students has crippled so

many bright citizens’ futures. One of my daughter’s friends, Amanda,

didn’t make it to the finish line because of the stress of studies and

living under the burden of climbing debt in an unaffordable

city.

My son and his friends entered university in 2008, as the

recession hit. Summer jobs were hard to come by. One of his friends set

up a plan to graduate in ten years, taking only a few courses at a time

so he would not rack up a huge debt. It also meant his earning capacity

was depressed for twice as long as a full-time student.

[11:50 a.m.]

We do know that post-secondary students in British Columbia have

the highest debt load in Canada. Members across may quote different

statistics and try to paint a rosier picture, and we have to recognize

that student debt is more than just provincial debt. It’s across the

board, as was mentioned by another member. What’s worse is that we have

students, young adults like Amanda, who don’t have enough supports to

stay in school.

After incredible hikes in tuition, the previous government tried

to make it look like it cared by instituting a 2 percent cap, but this

was quickly drowned out by the increases in ancillary fees. As

Shakespeare has said, a rose by any other name smells as

sweet.

That was then, and this is now. In the 2017 budget consultations

last year under the Liberal government, there was a call for increased

funding for science, technology, engineering and mathematics — STEM — to

respond to the huge market demand. It was unheeded, as this past fall

the Finance and Government Services committee once again heard the same

call throughout B.C.

The skills gap has been ignored for far too long, resulting in

lost opportunities in B.C. for companies and British Columbians alike.

The Conference Board of Canada states that our economy has missed out on

$7.9 billion worth of activity, which would have also brought in $600

million in tax revenue annually. It’s estimated that the unfilled demand

will result in a shortage of 30,000 skilled B.C. workers by

The proof is in the pudding. The opportunities languished under 16

years of successive Liberal governments. In contrast, today’s government

has been quick to respond. Already, 2,900 spaces have been funded in 13

colleges, institutes and universities throughout British Columbia, along

with funding to provide access to high-speed Internet across

B.C.

This whole package will support and drive innovation and create

opportunities unseen before. It not only helps the students with more

affordable living while in school; it also paves the way for prosperity

in communities throughout B.C.

We’ve heard about Prince George, which now can provide a full

engineering degree at UNBC. That’s 70 grads per year.

College of New Caledonia has 25 engineering technologists that

will be graduating each year by 2022. The college recognized they needed

to fill a talent gap for technologist jobs in the north, and now local

employers can benefit from homegrown talent.

Vancouver Island’s numbers are increasing by 165 graduates — as

early as 2020, 40 of them readying for up to 10,700 tech-related jobs on

the Island over the next ten years.

The story continues in many other communities that will see STEM

grads in the fast-growing tech sector. As our Parliamentary Secretary

for Technology said, the tech industry will hire as many people as we

can train. The more we invest in people, the more companies will invest

in B.C.

I’m proud to be part of this open-eyed government that is focused

on the people of British Columbia.

R. Leonard moved adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. B. Ralston moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: This House stands adjourned until 1:30 this afternoon.

The House adjourned at 11:53 a.m.

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